Twelve #3
“Let the kissing begin,” he said. Let the loving begin, for Brenna did love him. She had to have some form of tender regard for him, or she would not take these steps with him.
He’d amused her, though, and that was good. “I’m to do the work?”
“A little guidance to your husband shouldn’t be too much to ask.
” Brenna had been guiding the entire castle for years, navigating past financial difficulties, clan jealousies, Angus’s backward notions, and Highland winters.
Appealing to her sense of responsibility earned Michael a considering look that turned into a shy grin.
Brenna swung a leg over his thighs and straddled him. “Fine, then. Here’s a place to start.”
The place she chose to start was a soft, sweet kiss to Michael’s forehead, a benediction, followed by a teasing brush of Brenna’s lips across his—a warning shot.
Michael tucked his hands under his own backside to stop himself from plunging his fingers into Brenna’s hair, freeing her braid, and using it to tug her down to his chest. Instead, he leaned up to keep his mouth on hers when she would have pulled away.
“More kisses, Husband?” she asked, her mouth so close to his, Michael could feel her words brush over his lips.
“All of your kisses. Everywhere. Kiss me with your mouth, Brenna. With your hands, with your hair.”
He wanted her breasts kissing his bare chest too, but the blasted woman was still in possession of every stitch of her clothing.
She wrapped a hand around the back of his head and proceeded to divest him of every stitch of coherent thought, until Michael’s chest heaved and he had to sit hard on his hands.
“We can do this without removing your clothes,” he whispered to the lavender-scented warmth of his wife’s throat.
“Without—”
Befuddled. A quick peek told him that’s what that particular angle of her eyebrows meant. He’d befuddled her with this kissing.
“Your clothes.” Michael allowed himself one hand to stroke over her midline. “Your blasted clothes, love. I want my hands on you, but if you’re too shy—”
“I’m not shy,” Brenna said, sitting back and getting to work on her bodice buttons. “I’m modest—there’s a difference when a woman has a husband.”
The difference was too subtle for Michael to fathom as one button, then two, then twelve slid through their buttonholes, revealing a corset cover embroidered with vining pink roses.
“You dressed to go into the village with me,” he said, tracing a rose. “May I?”
“You may.”
He allowed himself the use of two hands for the purpose of unlacing her stays, a tedious, seductive process that did not require them to leave the bed, because his Brenna had worn front-lacing undergarments today, as if she’d anticipated the direction their afternoon might take.
Anticipated—or hoped.
“You do beautiful needlework, Brenna Maureen.” He offered the compliment to distract Brenna from his hands, gradually loosening her bindings. “Perhaps you might embroider one of my dress shirts next winter.”
Brenna covered his hands with her own. “That’s loose enough.”
She rose from the bed, wrestling skirts, bedclothes, stays, and probably a load of modesty as well.
Standing beside the bed, she let it all go—every stitch, so the sunbeams from the window illuminated her bare skin, turned her hair to gold and fire, and caught the beautiful turn of her back, waist, and hips.
“I’ve dreamed of you like this,” Michael said, holding up a hand to her. “Longed to see you thus. You gift me, Brenna Maureen, with more than I deserve.”
She put one knee on the bed and leaned over him. “Such blather. Pure husband-talk.” Her hand twitched his kilt aside. “Married-man nattering.” She kissed his chest. “I like it, but mind you limit such nonsense to the bedroom.”
“Brenna, my kilt.”
She was naked, they were to make love, and she was scolding him. If only she’d take off Michael’s damned kilt, his happiness would be complete.
“Aye, it’s a lovely kilt. I’ll make you one out of the hunting plaid, though. It’s a prettier pattern.”
“You’re planning a sewing project, when I want to ravish you.”
Needed to ravish her, and yet, his hands were tucked back under his arse, lest he affix those hands to her breasts, her derriere, and all points in between.
She straddled him, naked as God made her and twice as luscious. “Not ravish, Michael. Love. You want to love me, and I want to love you.”
Likely to silence his assurances that he did love her, Brenna kissed him again, so Michael told her with his mouth, his gusty sighs, and his nose tracing her jaw and ears and collarbones, that he loved her dearly.
“May I use my hands, Brenna?”
“I’ve certainly been using mine,” she said, sitting back.
She cupped his jaw with both of those hands and ran her thumbs over his cheeks, where a midday beard made his skin rough.
“Men have such different textures.” Her palms flowed down, over Michael’s chest, her nails scraping his nipples lightly.
“I feel that,” he rasped. “I feel it right down to my—soul.”
Her smile became that of the enchantress, the siren, the woman in league with passion and wisdom as she did it again, and again.
And again. “Brenna—”
“I said you might use your hands, Michael. On me. If you were of a mind to.”
He had no mind. He had only a throbbing cock and a bone-deep conviction that he’d expire of wanting in the next minute—and be glad of such an end.
“I’ll get even, Brenna Maureen. I’ll get so even—”
He left off trying to form words and instead palmed both of her breasts gently, learning the shape and weight and warmth of them. Brenna watched him, and her breathing changed, became deeper.