Chapter 33
Thirty-Three
They crossed the border back into Scotland at three in the afternoon and stopped at the first village with an inn. Alasdair insisted there must be an inn. He did not want to get back into the carriage with Arabella after marrying her. He wanted a bed.
The name of the village was Morebattle. Arabella told Alasdair she was surprised they were not in Gretna Green, but he explained it was actually the closest place in Scotland from where the carriage had turned around.
It was not a place well known for elopements and ceremonies conducted in a Toll House.
There was no large trade built around a demand for hasty weddings.
But the innkeeper was willing to perform the ceremony.
Then Alasdair regretted Ewen MacEwen had been left behind in England.
Paterson was only one witness, and they needed another.
Alasdair found an only slightly inebriated Mr. MacDonald who was willing to sign as a witness if Alasdair lanced an abscess on his scalp.
Alasdair agreed, on the condition that the drainage of the abscess occur after the wedding.
He rather thought Mr. MacDonald might forget his duties if the lancing happened before the ceremony.
He also thought it would be better if his witness were not bleeding from a head wound when he told Arabella he would love and care for her forever.
The perfunctory but blessedly legal ceremony over, Alasdair lanced the abscess in the yard of the inn, where the late-afternoon light was best. He felt he did a rather neat job of it, considering his desire to finish as quickly as possible.
His amorous, beautiful wife was waiting for him, after all.
But when Alasdair went back into the inn, he was told Arabella had been granted leave to use the only bathtub in the small coaching inn and she was still waiting for her hot water.
Alasdair supposed he should not be selfish and deprive Arabella of her wedding toilette since there had been no church, no dress, no ring, no breakfast, and no family present to join in their celebration. She deserved a thousand hot baths.
While he was waiting for her in their bedchamber, he added more coals to the fire.
He wanted the room warm for what would happen next.
He washed his hands thoroughly and took off his tailcoat.
He sat in a chair and removed his boots and his stockings.
It didn’t seem right to take off more than that without her there.
Suddenly, he felt quite shy. As well as impatient. Which made no sense. Hadn’t he coupled with her many times over?
But now she was his wife.
She came into the room and closed the door and leaned against it, her hands behind her back. She was dressed, but her skin was flushed and her hair was down around her shoulders, the tendrils curling more tightly than ever from the humidity of her bath.
“I am yours, Alasdair,” she said.
“Aye.” He could scarce believe it. Arabella Lovelock was Mrs. Alasdair Andrews. He stood from the chair, aching for her.
Arabella took a step towards him and bent over to take off her own little boots and stockings. Then she straightened and reached around behind her back and unfastened something. She crossed her arms in front of her breasts and raised her dress up.
“I have learned,” she said with her head muffled in the dress, “only to have dresses I can remove myself. I had no lady’s maid in Dunburn, so we will not have that expense going forward, Alasdair.”
The dress was laid aside, and she untied her front lacing stays and loosened the laces and pulled the stays down over her hips and her petticoat, and stepped out of them.
“Stop,” he said, his voice strangling. She stood there, in only her chemise and petticoat.
“Do you want me to stay dressed, Alasdair?” she whispered.
“Nae,” he said. He closed the distance between them in two steps. “Nae, I want to undress the rest of ye.”
He untied the drawstring of her petticoat and let it fall to the floor. He drew her chemise over her head.
He stepped back.
She was before him, naked. For him, she was everything feminine and nubile. Her round breasts. Her small waist that flared to her generous bottom and curved hips and soft thighs. Her cleft covered in golden maidenhair. Her round calves and tiny ankles.
He burned, he throbbed, he was consumed by a wave of passion so strong he was tempted to take her on the floor of the room.
“Arabella,” he said. “Ye are beautiful.”
“Hold me, Alasdair.” Her voice was husky.
He reached for her even as she stepped up to him so their bodies collided with an unintended force, and his cock, already so hard from looking at her body, was pinned between them, and he knew she could feel how much he wanted her.
His hands quickly found the cheeks of her bottom and seized them, and his lips sought hers, and he ravished her mouth with his tongue even as he was desperate to be inside her in other ways.
She untucked his shirt from the back, undid his cravat, did anything she could to undress him while still keeping her body pressed against his.
“I must,” he panted, moving his mouth off hers, “get ye on the bed.”
But she was past listening and wilder than she had ever been with him before.
She pushed herself away and undid his fall.
She pulled his trousers down, brushing her breasts against his cock as she did so.
He congratulated himself on his wisdom in taking off his boots before she had returned to the room.
He kicked off the trousers around his ankles, and she undid his waistcoat, and he pulled off his shirt.
Now they were touching skin against skin everywhere.
She wrapped her hand around his cock and straddled his thigh, rubbing herself there, moaning, and he could feel her heat, her wetness.
He groaned and picked her up and finally got her on the bed where he wanted her.
She lay on top of the counterpane but sat up part of the way, resting on her elbows. “Come to me, Alasdair. I want you.”
He stood by the bed and looked at her as her chest heaved with deep breaths. Her face was flushed, her breasts creamy white except for the small, pink peaks, her knees up and bent and slightly apart so he could see the glisten of her folds in amongst her golden maidenhair.
“Aye.”
But he did not join her in the bed as she clearly expected.
“I want to pleasure ye,” he said.
“You will.” She lay back and held out her arms.
“Nae. I want to pleasure ye and only ye. Ye have made me spend once in a carriage. Ye have made yerself spend once in front of me. I have spent in the sheets seventeen times after being inside ye. I have made ye climax with either my hand or with my cock seventeen times.”
She laughed. “I didn’t know you were counting!”
“It seems to me the points stand at nineteen to seventeen with ye leading, and ’tis my turn to make someone spend. And since I feel I have lived most of my life making myself spend, I would rather it be ye. I want to kiss ye.”
“Then come and kiss me.”
His cock twitched.
“Nae. I want to kiss ye where ye spend.”
Arabella sat up.
“You do?”
“Aye.”
“How do you know about this, Alasdair?”
“Remember how I told ye I wouldnae talk but would listen?”
“Yes.”
“I may have been a virgin up until four days ago, but sailors are prone to boasting loudly about their experiences with their wives and . . . other women.”
He could see she was thinking, and he suspected she was not completely opposed to the idea.
“Afterwards, can I kiss you where you spend, too?”
“We’ll see,” was all Alasdair would say, barely able to allow himself to think of Arabella’s mouth on his member.
He pulled her to the edge of the mattress so her legs dangled down, and he leaned over her and suckled briefly at each one of her nipples.
She sank her fingers into his hair as he trailed a line of kisses from her breasts down her abdomen to her navel and then her thatch of maidenhair.
She released his head, and he knelt on the floor by the edge of the bed and put her small legs over his shoulders. He could feel her thighs quiver.
“You don’t have to do this, Alasdair,” she whispered towards the ceiling.
“Dinnae ye want me to? Because I want to, Arabella. I very much want to.”
“I don’t know.”
“Ye must promise to tell me if ye don’t like it. I might do it wrong. But I want to do this to ye, very much.”
She lifted her head and looked at him. “I’m sure I’ll like anything you do, Alasdair.”
He turned his head and kissed one of her thighs.
She put her head back on the mattress.
He turned his head the other way and kissed the other inner thigh. Her skin here was so soft, so warm, so sweet. So delicate. And the smell of her arousal was getting stronger.
He slowly kissed up her legs, alternating between the right and the left thigh. There was no hurry. Had she not just promised to be in his bed forever?
But he had not counted on his wife. She was squirming, and were those mews he heard from her? She was eager.
With his kissing his way up her thighs, he had reached her flower.
She was open, wet, aroused. He kissed her softly on her outer petals.
The mews from Arabella now turned into full-throated groans.
He used his tongue on her inner petals, lightly lapping at her dew, tasting her.
He was not surprised to find she was sweet here, too, but there was also a tang, a saltiness, and a musk that made him want to bury his face in her, to coat his nose and cheeks and lips with her.
He made his tongue soft and felt all of her folds. He found her entrance and used his tongue to probe at it.
She made a sound that was close to a strangled scream.
He raised his head. “Did I hurt ye?” he said.
“Noooooo,” she gasped, “I am just in such a state!”
“Should I keep going?”
“I should think so, mo leannan. Definitely.” She reached down and laced the fingers of her right hand with his left.