Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
TORION
I'd only meant for it to be a kiss.
In spite of my promise to Brigid that I'd be needing her every night and every morning, I'd spent the past three days visiting the many crofters, arranging the repairs of roofs and fences, new irrigation, and the exchange of animals.
I'd returned to the keep each night weary, hungry, filthy, and found my omega waiting with a hot bath and a cold meal, my eyes barely keeping open as she reported her own progress around the keep.
And then, witch that she was, she'd offered to massage my shoulders and oil my wings, working her sorcery to lull me asleep with those perfectly magical hands.
She wasn't sleeping in my bed. I thought I'd made it clear it was where I wanted her, but I'd also made it clear it was her choice. And she was choosing to return to her own modest room each night. Out of my reach in the morning. Out of my sight throughout the day.
So when she'd appeared in the stables with three hand pies and a jug of ale for my midday meal, I had a mind to remind her what she was missing by not letting me wake her.
Just a kiss. A good kiss, but only enough to tease her.
I groaned into her mouth, arms wrapped tight around her back, trying to pull her into me as she rocked over my lap, grinding herself down over my covered cock.
She panted into my mouth, her breath sweet and fresh, herbs and honey.
I licked against her tongue for more of the flavor, bucking my own hips up.
I was too close. She felt too good, her skirts hiked up as she straddled me, the heat of her thighs bleeding through the wool of my kilt.
"The-the others?" Brigid gasped, pulling from the kiss, her head tossed back to reveal her throat to my greedy nibbling.
If the other men who'd been working in the stables had any sense of what was good for them, they'd stay out of the stables until they saw Brigid and me emerge. They'd left on the signal of my slight head jerk. I thought Brigid would appreciate the privacy, even if it was just a kiss.
It was never going to be just a kiss.
No, now that I'd had a taste of my omega, I would likely never be able to settle for something so chaste and simple. She was too rich, too sweet, too heady, like mead made from heather honey.
"They won't interrupt us," I rasped, and then licked a line up the side of her throat to tease at the lobe of her ear.
The sound of her whine made my balls grow heavy and ready.
"Bellfry's ballocks, witch, you've got me sprung tight," I hissed.
Brigid moaned and covered my mouth with hers before I could suggest that she let me lick her, touch her.
Her hands were in my hair, holding me close, her hips working with such a sincere urgency over mine it made me wild.
I wanted to lift her from my lap, toss her down into the hay, and mount her roughly, fill her lithe, hungry body with my length and send us both over the edge.
And yet…having her use me this way, squirming and whimpering and kissing until we lost our breath? There was nothing like it.
It went right to my head. And then right to my cock.
"Brigid, love, let me—" I tried, too aware of my own release near at hand, fighting it with every little nudge of her hips, the way the warmth and dampness of her arousal was soaking through fabric to kiss against my stiff length.
It was a mistake to pull away from the kiss. It gave my little witch an opportunity to work her magic.
I grunted as her fingers tightened in my hair. Her eyes were dark and her lips swollen, marked red from the stubble I hadn't shaved this morning.
"I can feel your cock twitching, Torion," Brigid said, her voice low and ragged. "Are you going to come for me?"
And like an untried youth, with her eyes glaring down at me and her body churning not for her relief, but mine, I did just that, a loud, broken sound escaping me at the shock of it.
Brigid's stern expression fractured with a whine, and she swallowed the sounds I made with a deep kiss, moving unevenly, frantically even, meeting the rough thrust of my hips with her own unsteady grind.
Hot release coated my cock, and no doubt the inside of my kilt, but I didn't care about the mess.
Not when I had this enchanted creature in my arms. I turned us roughly to the side, cradling Brigid in one arm as she landed in the loose hay, shoving up her skirts with the other, exposing her swollen, wet sex, almost pulsing with need.
Brigid arched and twisted as I pressed two fingers inside of her core, her eyes wide and unseeing, the tight channel clasping on my digits, soaked and dripping down to my wrist.
"Oh, Torion, I—"
"You'll make too much noise if I kiss your cunny now, omega," I growled, grinning as Brigid shuddered and started to fuck herself on my fingers.
"But I expect to have you rinsing my tongue tonight.
No scurrying away to that other bed. Swear it," I said, pressing my thumb on her clit but holding still, not rubbing.
"Torion," she whined, almost near to tears, the pretty creature.
You have all the power over me, I wanted to tell her, but I waited, imagining the soft clench of her on my fingers was around my cock instead. It would be, soon enough. For now, I would relish the pleasure of watching this woman fall apart at my touch.
"Go on," I coaxed, circling her clit once, her eyelids sinking closed with a groan.
"Oh, I swear it. I swear. I—ah! Torion, yes, I—"
I swallowed her cries with another kiss, leaning over her as I stroked her fluttering cunt through release, Brigid's arms flung around my shoulders to hold me close, her teeth biting roughly on my bottom lip as she strangled the sound of her own pleasure.
"That's it, love," I whispered as she settled, shaking through the aftershocks, blinking drowsily up at me, her long braid mussed and cheeks flushed red. "There now. That's better, hm?"
Her gaze skittered away as she tucked her face into my shoulder. She got so shy in the aftermath, body tensing as if to run and then softening again as the relief of a release soaked in.
I kissed her brow, feeling her stiffen and then relax, her sigh rushing down my throat.
"Are you hard again?" she asked, one of her arms dropping from my back to reach between us.
I pulled my hand free of her and caught her wrist before she could find me as stiff as ever. I wasn't sure I ever really stopped being hard when Brigid and I were touching. I'd taken Ned's advice to show her how much I wanted her, but that admission felt a little too great.
"I'll be all right. Until tonight," I said, just to remind her of her promise.
She blushed, eyes fixed to my chin. "I wasn't trying to avoid any…morning advances. It just seemed silly to stay while you slept."
Malcolm didn't sleep with her, I'd bet. I shoved the thought away, brushing a slow, grazing kiss over her forehead, ignoring the triumph as she cuddled into me.
"It's not silly when I like to feel you next to me. Do I snore?" I asked, sitting back and pulling her up to join me.
She smiled, and something in the picture of her—straw in her hair, pleasure coloring her features, and the gentle, fond expression—struck me hard in the chest. "No. Sometimes you purr. But I like that sound," she admitted, looking down at her own lap.
She snored. I wouldn't tell her. I wasn't that stupid. And it was just a little sound, a low and quiet chuff and drone, like a cat dozing in the sun. I wanted to hear it again.
"I…I like this too," she murmured, fiddling the leather ties at my collar.
I didn't regret the turn my "simple kiss" had taken this afternoon, but I wanted us entirely undressed at the next possible opportunity. "Cuddling?" I asked.
She blushed and frowned at the same time, opening her mouth for a moment and then closing it and shaking her head. "Never mind."
I tightened my arms around her waist. "Oh, no, you don't. Tell me, or I'll guess."
"There are men waiting for me to leave so they can get back to work," she huffed, pressing at my shoulders and not gaining an inch of ground. "What a bully you are."
"You like rutting like a couple of youths in an empty stable stall?" I tried.
She looked away from me and hummed, shrugging. "Something like that. Go on, let me go."
"You like making me gush inside my own kilt and make a mess of myself?" I continued.
She laughed at that. "I do, as a matter of fact. There. You have it."
I sighed and released her, watching her smooth her skirts down over her hips, waiting until she'd turned her back to me to pick another piece of straw from her braid without her realizing.
She paused at the door of the stall and glanced back at me over her shoulder. "I missed…lust. And I like feeling it with you, Torion Feargus."
Her words nailed me to the spot until long after she'd left the stable, the rise of male voices approaching stirring me from my stupor. She had not said she liked me exactly. Just that she liked lusting after me.
I grinned like an idiot all the same.
"And what is your intention for the summer drought?"
"You've certainly neglected to see to my broken dam long enough."
"Let's discuss a real issue. How do you expect to keep our omegas from being smuggled out of the territory?"
I blinked and took a slow breath, eyeing the betas surrounding me each in turn, until their squawking settled into an expectant silence.
"Gentlemen, the drought comes every year.
We are no less prepared now. Campbell, your dam is being seen to—a fact you would've been aware of if you ever looked to the west end of your estate.
" I paused as Mitchell Sterling tried to cover his laugh with a cough.
"And as for the omegas…I intend to do my best to ensure that their home, these hills, is a safe and comfortable place to live for them. So they might choose to stay."
The men in front of me, the men who'd cornered me on my way into the keep, when I was still covered in dust and dirt and no doubt less savory substances, shifted warily at the vague claim.
Francis Keane cleared his throat, two unruly gray eyebrows rising. "You've already denied them the greatest honor of presenting themselves to you for the selection ceremony."
"And denied the people of the Hills the celebration of wishing you and your chosen omega well," another chimed in.
I frowned as the men all seemed to sharpen their stares. "You're concerned about the lack of selection ceremony?" I asked, searching the open hall of the keep for someone with sense. Preferably Brigid.
"There are some…disputes that might be settled at the event," Mitchell hedged carefully.
"I see." I did not entirely see.
"And of course, you might discover another young maid to…strike your interest," Keane said slowly, gaze too fixed to miss my jerk of surprise. "Not to say you aren't certain of the Barr woman—"
"Grant," I snarled, before settling myself, "And now, Feargus."
"But a mark of spite against a man like Malcolm Barr will only get you so far. You need an heir and—"
I took a breath before I might suddenly release fire on these men, raising a hand to pause the insulting ramble. "If you all think that the Hills are in need of a ceremony, then we'll have one. At soonest convenience."
Only Mitchell had the sense to look wary.
"If you'll excuse me," I said, barely managing the polite response as I turned away from the group, charging forward toward the stairs.
A flash of copper above me caught my eye—Brigid, pulling back into the shadows, a fleeting glance of her face tangled with worry sending me leaping up the steps two at a time.
Still, I didn't catch up with her until I reached my bedroom door. She gasped as I wrapped an arm around her waist and dragged her inside with me.
"What are you going to do?" she whispered.
I shut the door and then pinned her against it. "What I'm not going to do is go back on our bargain," I said.
"I didn't think that," she said, too fast, her little sharp chin lifting in defiance. She softened in my hold, and I settled contentedly against her, my purr thrumming out as her hands came to stroke over my chest and shoulders. "But you have an idea."
Only the start of one, I admitted to myself. "I bet you hate surprises."
"I do," she said firmly, glaring at me.
My hands slid down over her hips, her ass, down to cup the back of her legs. "Too bad."
She screeched as I lifted her up and spun us, hauling us in a stumbling march toward the beginning of the nest she'd built us. I smiled as she broke into laughter, then set about striving for her moans.