Chapter 30
Thirty
He woke in a dark room, and she was there by his side, asleep. On her stomach, he thought. He could see only a dim outline of her form with the scant light coming from the embers of the fire.
She was not touching him except for one small hand over his left chest, grasping his shirt, exactly where she had pressed her hand when he had walked into her cottage in Dunburn.
He moved a little, and she woke immediately. She pulled herself to him, and her mouth sought his. Even as she kissed him, she was tugging at her nightdress. She broke the kiss and knelt at his side, pulling the nightdress all the way up, over her head.
She leaned over to kiss him again, and he knew what he felt grazing the shirt over his chest were her naked breasts.
He put a hand up and touched her back. She stopped kissing him and held still, kneeling, as his fingers brushed against the warm, velvet skin overlying her shoulder blade.
He allowed himself to stroke his hand down her back, and, as he did so, she exhaled slowly.
And then the bone and muscle of her back ended, and he felt the fleshy roundness of her buttock under his hand.
A new, beautiful, lush territory she was offering him.
“I don’t want to die,” she whispered.
“Nae,” he said.
“I don’t want to die without having you.”
His hand, as if it had a mind of its own, was now moving from the cheek of her buttock to her hip bone and then following the curve of her waist upward, upward, seeking and not stopping until the hand was filled with the softness of her breast. Surely, a naked breast constituted new territory, as well.
“Yer nae going to die, Arabella,” he murmured.
“Yes, I am, and so are you.”
His thumb also seemed to be acting independently, and it swept over the front of her breast, brushing her nipple. She inhaled sharply even as the nipple drew to a hard point under his thumb.
“I’m going to undress you, Alasdair.”
She pulled at his shirt, and he half sat up so she could raise the shirt over his head.
Her face came against his chest, and she kissed him there, and her bare breasts were rubbing the skin of his abdomen.
Small, skillful fingers were at his waist, and she tugged on his trousers, and he lifted his pelvis off the bed, and she slid the trousers all the way off him, down his legs.
He could feel his member spring away from his body as soon as it was released from his clothing—hard, throbbing, aching for release already.
He was unable to move. Frozen.
She lay down on her back next to him, very near, but not touching him.
“You know,” she said softly, “people have been coupling for a very long time.”
“Aye.”
“Since Adam and Eve.”
“Aye.”
“It should be entirely natural what happens next.”
“Aye.”
“I want you to be my Adam.”
She must have lifted and spread her legs as she spoke because something nudged his cock. The side of her thigh, he thought.
Then, in the darkness, he did what he had imagined doing so many times.
He turned and got on top of her, finding her face with his hands so he could plunder her mouth with his tongue and lips.
His knees landed on the mattress between her already-spread thighs, and he was pushing her into the bed with the weight of his upper body, even as his erect cock blindly stabbed between her legs.
He felt her legs around his waist and one of her hands clutching his flank and the other hand on his shaft, and she was pulling him towards what must be her introitus.
He could feel wetness and warmth on the head of his cock.
“Yes,” she whispered.
He plunged in without a thought of anything but his pure, aching need to bury himself inside her.
He had conquered a whole kingdom with a single thrust.
It was a miracle he did not spend himself immediately.
Her walls grabbed at his member, enclosing him in her heat.
He thrust once, twice, three, four times.
And, on his fifth thrust, he knew he was about to lose control and pulled out of her entirely and felt himself pulse with the most agonizing pleasure, spilling onto the bedsheet.
Her small arms were around him, pulling his body close to hers, and she was kissing his chest, the part of his body her mouth could reach.
He was panting and coated in sweat, even though he had been awake no more than two minutes.
His darling Arabella was dotting his chest with kisses. He bent his head and kissed her face and tasted salt. She was crying.
“Did I hurt ye?”
“No,” she said.
“I’m sor—”
She strained upwards under his weight and pulled his head down and managed to reach his mouth and cover it with hers so he could not apologize as he intended.
He wanted to say he was sorry for so much.
Sorry for not knowing what to do. Sorry for being so quick.
Sorry for not tending to her body and understanding her needs.
Sorry for wanting to beat Morpeth. And, most of all, sorry for not coming to her long ago and making sure she knew he wanted her to be Mrs. Alasdair Andrews.
She kissed him as his heart rate slowed and returned to normal.
He settled on his side next to her, and she pulled herself up so her head was even with his.
He could feel her breath on his lips in the dark.
One of her hands was resting on the hair on his chest, and the other hand was in the hair on his head.
Both of his hands were on her waist, but he was thinking very seriously about moving them upwards to rest on her breasts.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I’m sor—”
Again she stopped his mouth with hers.
When the kiss was over, he said, “Thank ye.”
She fell back, supine on the mattress. “Now I can die.”
He chased her body with his, pressing into her side, pulling her into him, putting one of his legs over hers.
“I’d rather ye didnae.”
“Well, what is left for me?” One of her soft hands cupped his unshaven jaw. “I’ve had Alasdair Andrews.”
“Well, maybe ye can have him again.”
The room was very silent. Was she holding her breath in the dark?
A whisper from her. “Is that a promise?”
“In fact, if ye let me light a candle, I think ye could have me again very shortly.”
“A candle?”
“So I can see ye.”
He heard a sigh, and her body pulled away from his and lifted up off the mattress, and he could hear her touching something beside the bed. The unmistakable sound of a tinderbox and and a candle was lit and he could see her mane of hair in silhouette before she lay back.
Lying there in the candlelight, she looked like she was made of molten gold. Her beautiful breasts with their rosy areolas and nipples. Her perfectly smooth abdomen except for the divot of her umbilicus. Her triangle of golden maidenhair at the top of her thighs.
He took her in, almost feeling he could not dare to caress her as he had in the dark. And, as his eyes feasted, he could feel his tumescence returning as he had known it would once he saw her body.
“Touch me, Alasdair,” she whispered.
“I’m sor—”
This time she lunged, cutting off the candlelight with the shadow of her body and her head as she kissed him. And, as she put her tongue in his mouth, she took one of his hands and put it on her breast.
When she broke the kiss and lay back again, he discovered the divine pleasure of using his mouth on her other breast. The skin so soft, the flesh so taut, the tip of the breast so responsive to his stimulation, tightening and becoming a nub as he lapped at it.
And the groans that came from her as he suckled were aphrodisiacal, heating his simmering blood into a boil.
He didn’t need the candle, he realized, to be ready again. All he needed was her arousal. Although now that the candle was lit, he did not want it snuffed. He wanted to see her.
She was moving on the mattress in an almost fretful way, her legs apart, her pelvis thrusting upwards.
He took his hand from her breast and moved it down to her mound.
He first felt her curling maidenhair. Then he dared to place a finger in her cleft.
Warm, wet, so soft and silky. She groaned more loudly.
But what would give her pleasure here? He suddenly felt he was rather a second-rate Adam. But his Eve would help him.
He released her nipple from his mouth.
“Arabella,” he said. “I dinnae ken what to do.”
“Do you want me to show you?” Her voice was graveled in a way he had not heard before.
“Aye.”
“I get my fingers damp,” she said. She put her hand down to her thatch of maidenhair, and he moved his own hand out of the way.
“Wait,” he said. He leaned over her and got the candle and repositioned himself so he was below her on the bed and close to her beautiful sex. He could see and smell the evidence of her desire. The glistening of her wetness, the odor of her sweet musk.
She took her hand away and started to close her legs.
“Please dinnae stop,” he said.
“I didn’t expect you to be so near,” she whispered but kept her legs open.
He smiled. “I am a doctor.”
“Yes,” she said and smiled.
“And yer flower is, like ye, beautiful.”
“My flower,” she breathed.
“Ye have petals,” he said and reached out and very lightly touched her swollen labia.
She shuddered. “Yes, and this is my bud.” She touched what he would have called her glans clitoris.
“Aye.”
His eyes were on her hand as she dipped her middle finger into her introitus and withdrew it, coated in dew.
“It is my bud that gives me pleasure.” She touched it now with her middle finger.
“There are other places where I can press and rub and it makes me wet, but if I am to spend,” she increased the speed of her finger’s movements, “this is the place where I must touch myself.”
“Please dinnae stop.”
“I . . . won’t.”
He wanted to touch her, but he also wanted to see what she did to make herself spend, so he gripped her tiny ankle and watched.
Her breathing became more and more ragged. He lifted his eyes from her flower to her face and found her eyes on him.