Chapter Seven #4
It seemed to be affecting him, too, if the darkening of his eyes and the flushing along his cheeks was any indication. His lips had parted again and they looked wet and slick. Tempting.
Was this what he’d thought of when he tied her gown earlier? To touch her like this? To see her like this? She felt the same. It made her feel as though she wanted to touch his lips again, to feel some of that soft slickness he had yet to give her.
‘Kiss me,’ she said.
His eyes flashed to hers, stayed there as he unwounded the pooled fabric and wrapped it along one breast and then the other.
‘Still talking,’ he said, but she saw his gaze dip from her eyes to her lips and back again. Felt the brief stuttering drag of the ribbon along her skin as if he couldn’t quite keep control because of her request before he found it again.
Around and around, in some pattern only he could see. She didn’t want to watch what the ribbon was doing to her body, she wanted to watch him.
She could, however, feel the effects of that ribbon.
The goosepimples ever increasing, the tightening of her breasts as if she had laces binding her entire torso and then binding her again.
Her nipples taut to a near unbearable level.
The chill of the room almost accosting in comparison to the ribbon that was warmed her, but not in all the places she ached for it to.
He seemed to want it to touch her elsewhere as well for he wound most of the length around his left fist, giving himself more leverage to wield the soft fabric. Then he touched the tip of the dangling fabric against one nipple before he unwound the fabric to let it drip and slide along her breast.
Then he gathered it again to repeat it on the left breast. Then again...and again until the soft silk tip became almost sharp against her sensitive nipple, the warm glide almost soothing as it slid along the sides of her breasts.
Though she wanted to close her eyes at the sensation, she watched him. His gaze was narrowed and riveted to what he was doing. His lips had parted that much more and she gasped when she saw that hint of his tongue touching his lips.
Brown eyes returned to hers. Not so brown now, darker, so dark and within those depths, something was going on that she suspected was happening with her as well.
She didn’t need to see her body to know her skin flushed like his, her eyes had darkened, her lips had parted to take in needed air. She felt it.
The only difference between them was that he remained nearly immobile and she couldn’t remain still at all. The next touch to her breast and her back arched into it. Another glide of the thin silken strip and her hips rose as well.
He detected the changes in her body, her restlessness, her eagerness for another caress, and yet he didn’t lower his eyes from hers. ‘Is this better, Ailsa?’ he whispered, his voice raspy. ‘Is the lace better free like this? Loose from your gown?’
A flip to the ribbon and he dragged the band along her sides and up again. Down to where her hips undulated and then further along her outer thigh. Up again to encircle her other hip then along her inner thigh.
Closer to where he knelt so the ribbon now touched him, too. His breaths quickened, increasing the golden expanse of his chest. His skin gleamed and an almost unholy light entered his eyes.
‘Turn over,’ he demanded.
She was a midwife, a healer, she knew about the human form, but she knew nothing of this. Of how her own body simply did as he asked before she could think why or how she could do it with him between her legs.
She was clumsy with it. There was no way to manoeuvre otherwise than to draw her legs in and turn before lying flat once more.
The sound he made didn’t make her movements seem clumsy or too hurried. A rough groan choked off, a harsh swallowing. She knew then, that he’d seen everything. The cradle of her hips as they tilted towards him, the curve of her behind. How wet she was.
She lay there and waited for the ribbon, knew it was coming, but he held it aloft too long.
He was doing something else now. He was gazing at her.
Why she felt more vulnerable than when she had first stood naked before him, she didn’t know.
Maybe because she couldn’t see him or know why her back would be so interesting.
‘Women have backs, too,’ she said, trying to recall their earlier conversation.
‘Not like this,’ he said.
His words heated her more and she lost more control of her thoughts, more control of what was happening between them. ‘You remember the others, then.’
‘There was never one like you. There couldn’t be.’
When he lowered the ribbon to her skin, it was different this time.
Different because that slight stuttering he made with the silk before was now almost constant.
He, too, was losing control as he brushed the ribbon along the back of her arms, between her shoulder blades and along her spine.
Brushed it along her until he pooled the ribbon in the small of her back, then wound it around and around until she felt as if he wound the silk between her legs, low down, and much, much deeper.
‘Lift your hips,’ he said.
He’d claimed that she spoke bluntly, but he bludgeoned her with his rough rasped words. Her body instantly responded, knees drawing in, elbows pressing into the mattress more, giving her leverage enough to tilt her hips up and back.
Into the calloused grasp of his hand against her right hip. The shock of the sudden contact making her gasp. Pant. The ribbon was warm, but his hand was hot, searing her.
Another clenched sound from him. From her.
And then... And then a brushing of something just at her centre.
Too firm to be the silk. Too slender to be his thigh.
She guessed that he had somehow released his breeches and he was there, there to finally press forward into the ache that her body had become.
She arched her hips to give him more access and felt the scrape of his breeches against her inner thigh.
He was still clothed. Once she registered how he touched her with one lone calloused finger, she understood the intimacy of his touch.
Sliding around her outer lips and circling in.
Sliding around and circling in. Like the pooling of the ribbon.
It was too much. ‘Rory.’
He hummed a reply that wasn’t a reply. This wasn’t how it was done with her body tightening to some unimaginable degree.
With her knees almost digging into the mattress and her hands gripping the quilt.
He needed to be undressed, she needed to face him.
They were meant to join their bodies and bind their marriage.
But his finger that had drummed along the surface of her skin now curved along her wetness, winding her body like the silk of a ribbon. Coiling everything inside her tighter and tighter.
‘We have to stop now. Please.’
‘Ailsa, let it go. You must let go before I... I’m here. This...this is what was meant to be.’
‘Rory—’
His hand gripped more firmly against her hip, grounding her. Centring her. Another finger added and he pressed more firmly.
She couldn’t catch her breath. Her hips wouldn’t stop their own movement that mimicked his fingers. But her hips weren’t as gliding and insistent, they trembled and juddered until she felt something else.
The ribbon. He’d wound the ribbon around his hand. It was there, too at her centre. Just as insistent and demanding. Soft. Silk surrounding the bluntness of his hand that pressed and rubbed against her until it was all too much.
‘Rory!’