Chapter 29
CHAPTER 29
“Yes.”
Keira was almost wild with want. When he had lifted her over his shoulder, she had been incensed and angry at being so treated, but feeling how aroused he was had driven her to the brink with need.
She wanted him, and he wanted her. Everything else faded into the background; she just wanted to feel and let her troubles drain away.
“I told ye to lie back.”
She complied, leaning against the wide boulder behind her and looking up at him as his fingers smoothed over her waist, his eyes taking in the curves of her body greedily.
“Untie yer dress,” he growled, and she quivered at the authority in his voice. “Now.”
Her shaking hands came up to untie the lace at the front that crisscrossed over her chest. She was glad she had worn Fenella’s old dress now.
As her fingers touched the lace, his palm smoothed over her calf, moving slowly upward to her inner thigh.
Her hands fell away as she arched upward, begging for him to touch her with her body, bowing into him as his fingers flirted with the crease at the top of her thigh.
“I told ye to untie yer dress,” he growled, and she moaned as his fingers fluttered over her wet heat, the tip of one pushing inside her, teasing her. “Or will ye insist on bein’ punished again for nae followin’ me direction?”
She groaned, unable to think or do anything besides feel, and with a frustrated snarl, Noah’s hands came up and ripped at the lace at her breast, the fabric splitting open and falling away, exposing her entirely as she arched upward.
His fingers pushed into her body at the same instant, even as he leaned over her and took her nipple in his mouth, sucking against the tight peak and making her cry out wildly, her fingers burying in his hair.
“I cannae—” she gasped, her legs falling open as he lifted his head, his eyes blazing at her as he moved to her neck, his tongue sparking waves of pleasure through her body as he bit and licked at her flesh.
“Stop movin’,” he said gruffly, and she froze, staring into his eyes as he raised himself above her, “I want ye completely still,” he stated as he pulled his hand free from her, only to return with two fingers this time and pushing them into her without hesitation.
She jolted with the indecent pleasure of it, but as she did so, he stopped moving, giving her a warning glare. She froze, looking up at him in confusion.
“Ye will stay still,” he murmured. “Ye will be utterly still, and ye’ll take yer pleasure from me. If ye move, I stop. Is that clear?”
She had never felt such an intense need to obey in her life. She was coming apart, just as he had promised she would, her bare breasts rising and falling as he pleasured her into a frenzy.
“Tell me ye’ll do what I say, Keira. Tell me ye are at me mercy.”
“I’ll obey,” she breathed and was rewarded as he circled his fingers inside her. She forced her body not to move, only closing her eyes at the pleasure of it.
“Say me name.”
“Noah,” she whispered.
“Who is in command of ye?”
“Ye are.”
She screamed as he shoved his fingers deep inside her at those words. Keira was panting heavily, but otherwise, she did not move, her legs utterly still as he pumped his fingers into her over and over again.
She wanted to writhe, scream, and bend to him. She wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and cling to him. But she was paralyzed, desperate to submit and keep the flame of desire between them burning for as long as possible.
His mouth locked onto her breast again, and she couldn’t help but cry out as the intensity built to an unbearable level. He sucked on it as his fingers crooked inside of her, circling in a wicked spiral as she shivered.
“Please,” she begged.
He ignored her, his mouth moving to the other peak, licking at the site and then coming up to look at her. Their gazes locked, before he covered her lips with his own and pushed his tongue against hers, groaning in ecstasy as his hard length rutted into her.
She wrenched her mouth free, knowing that she was reaching that spiraling, beautiful peak as though she might fall over a waterfall, the pleasure cascading through her and tumbling down into oblivion.
“Please,” she gasped. “Noah, let me touch ye,” she said desperately, and he finally pulled away, his hand slowly pulling free from her body.
He pulled himself to his feet, and his hand extended, pulling her up to stand with him.
“Touch me,” the note of power in his tone was unmistakable.
He gripped her wrist and placed her hand over the front of his trews. He untied them and waited, almost as though he were giving her time to adjust or giving her permission to refuse.
She would not refuse. She wanted to pleasure him as he pleasured her. Her body was still unsatisfied and throbbing with heat, which almost made the experience better as she pushed her hands inside his trews.
She took hold of him, watching as his eyes closed as she began to stroke him to climax.
“Ye are a wicked woman,” he said, his hand cupping her neck as she continued stroking him. “And ye are all mine.”
His mouth covered hers again, and he kissed her with renewed urgency as she shuddered against him.
They were crushed together, her hand working over his flesh. It took only a moment for his tongue to push against hers as a soul-deep groan was wrenched from him. She felt his length pulse in her hand, and he found his release, his head falling back, his face turned up to the canopy above them.
“What ye do to me,” he muttered.
With a growl, his hands gripped her waist and he lifted her up, flipping their positions until her back was pushed up against the thick trunk of a tree.
He sank to his knees, pushing her skirts out of the way completely. She thought that he might use his fingers to send her wild again, but instead, he buried his head between her legs. She felt the soft lapping of his tongue against her most intimate flesh.
“Oh god,” she gasped as she felt his tongue pushing inside her, and her pleasure returned full force.
Her hips punched forward as her hands came to rest in his hair, and she found herself writhing into him over and over. Her back was pressed against the tree as her leg came up to hook over his shoulder.
Finally, after the pleasure built so much that she could barely breathe with it, she fell over the waterfall’s edge, plunging down into the depths of need and desire she had never known existed.
Noah watched Keira righting her clothing as he allowed his body to come down from the heights that she had induced within him.
He was overwhelmed by what they had shared and unnerved by his inner need for her. He still did not feel sated—it seemed to him that he would never be sated when it came to this woman. She lit something in his flesh, and he could not escape it.
She was kneeling down to wash her face in the pool's clear waters and as she stood back up, glancing over at him, her cheeks were still beautifully flushed.
He did not wish to break the quiet calm between them, but knew that they had to talk about what they would be to one another. He almost feared the answer.
“Have ye reconsidered?” he asked slowly, watching her walk back around the edge of the pool. She looked like a fairy princess, reflected in the rippling surface.
“Reconsidered?”
“The marriage.”
“Have ye ?” she replied.
“I’ll nae reconsider, lass. This is for yer own safety. If we wed ye will be protected.”
“Ye keep sayin’ that. Ye keep tellin’ me that ye’ll protect me, but ye also said we must live separate lives. What exactly is it that ye’re protectin’ me from?” Her eyes were not angry now, she seemed confused and hurt as she waited for his reply.
Noah looked at the quiet forest all about them.
The world seemed simple here. He could forget his dark past in this place. It was so calm and peaceful.
He turned back to her, guilt and fear warring within him at the thought of telling her the truth.
He thought of the empty space above his fireplace, his mother’s empty chair, and the many decisions he had made in his life because of what his father had done.
It was that thought that made his resolve return once more.
“I’m dangerous for ye,” he confessed finally. “Me faither was a monster, and me maither paid the price. I willnae risk the same happenin’ to ye.”
Keira frowned, approaching him with gentle steps.
“Yer faither?” she asked. “What did he do?”
“Ye dinnae need to ken the details, just ken that he was a cruel man and dinnae deserve me maither’s love.”
Her expression was sorrowful as she took that in, her eyes focused on a point far in the distance.
“Ye are askin’ me to agree to a life of solitude because of somethin’ ye willnae even tell me about. How do ye expect me to understand when I ken nothin’ of yer past?”
Noah closed his eyes. “I dinnae wish to burden ye lass.”
“But ye’ll burden me with a farce of a marriage I cannae understand?”
Noah rubbed a hand over his own forehead and looked back at her, feeling his teeth grind together as the horrible memories resurfaced.
“He killed me maither because she loved another man,” he stated. Keira’s hand went to her mouth, her eyes wide with shock. “He destroyed me family because he couldnae overcome his own possessive rage.”
Noah’s voice was raw. He felt vulnerable, undone somehow, as though he had revealed too much, and yet wanted to tell her everything he could about his life. He wanted her to know him when no other had—and that truly scared him.
It took a moment before Keira said anything, watching him with that assessing gaze he had grown to know so well.
“Ye consider yerself a monster because of who he was, but ye are nothin’ like that, Noah. Ye are kind and?—”
“Ye are a healer,” he said flatly. “Ye understand that madness can run in families do ye nae?”
“Well, yes, but?—”
“Well, that is what I believe. There are things about me…” Things ye have brought out of me. “Things I feel sometimes that are just like me faither, whatever ye may believe. Me sister will inherit everythin’ from me, along with her children. Any link to me faither will die with me. A marriage of convenience, lass. That’s all I can give. It is nae just the priest I am protectin’ ye from…it’s meself too.”
He looked about them at their little haven of solitude and sighed.
“I shouldnae have touched ye like that, not with how things are between us. Once we are married, ye can be free to be yerself without me burdens and me past weighing on ye. Ye will come to see that it is all for the best. The further apart we are, the safer ye will be.”
There was a long silence. Keira’s expression was half sad and half defiant. It looked as though she had a great deal to say on the matter, but as she looked at him, he fixed her with a hard stare, and she seemed to decide against it.
“Well then…” she said quietly, her fists clenching at her sides. “Thank ye for teachin’ me to fight, me laird .”
And with that cold farewell, she walked away from him into the shadows of the trees.