Chapter Twenty-One #3
From somewhere in the grip of giddy sensation, Helene heard him say her name on a ragged breath.
Before she could muster clarity of mind, his lips covered hers.
She came alive, and like the release of a lock with the turning of a key, her mouth opened to him and welcomed the velvety touch of his tongue.
The kiss deepened and elicited from Helene a whimper of pleasure. His response, a groan, came as did the rumblings of the thunderstorm that had thrown them together in the rock crevice.
When suddenly he broke the kiss, any fear Helene had of him doubting what he’d just started, vanished the moment she opened her eyes to stare into his. The insight she gleaned from eyes flecked with gold and brown was that they mirrored her unsated desires.
Lachlan’s chest rose and fell with quickening breaths, and he looked to be a man who would not deny his needs.
He proved Helene right by possessively taking hold of her shoulders, slanting his lips over hers and kissing her with urgent fervour.
She kissed him back, untutored in the art of seducing a man with her mouth, yet eager to follow his lead when he kissed her deeply, greedily, and with ravenous voracity.
Helene pressed her hands to his chest, and with fingers splayed, she traced the shifting wall of muscle beneath his shirt.
Freeing the buttons, she tugged the shirttails from his breeches, and assisted him in shrugging it off.
Another groan escaped Lachlan when she locked her hands behind his neck and pressed her breasts to his heated skin.
His chest expanded beneath her, after which he raised his head and they drew breath in unison.
Before Helene could exhale, he’d lifted her onto his lap, sitting face-to-face, legs straddling him, her hands latched to his upper arms. She didn’t care or know at what point the blanket and her shirt had slipped from her shoulders.
All she knew and triumphed in was the wonder of being held by Lachlan, his hard thighs beneath her, his formidable body at her fingertips.
She dropped her head back and to the side, giving way to hot kisses across her shoulder, collarbone, and the dip at the base of her throat.
One hand supported her spine, and with the other he cupped her breast. Long fingers traced the pigmented skin surrounding her nipple before taking the hardened bud between thumb and forefinger and using enough pressure to fan the fire of excitement in Helene.
His mouth closed over her nipple, escalating desire with each sensuous glide of his tongue, alternately circling and flicking the taut peak.
His attentions turned to the other breast, first filling his palm with its soft weight, then using his thumb pad in an evocative caress across its hardened peak. Helene drew in a shaky breath, desire rising another notch when he paid homage to that breast as he’d done with the other.
Tangible awareness heightened with the exploration of hands caressing the dip of her waist, the sensitive curve of her hips, the swell of her bottom.
One long finger slid deep into her soft centre.
Her mouth fell open on an aroused sigh and her nails sank into Lachlan’s shoulders.
Her hips rocked slowly of their own volition, the movement primal, instinctive, seeking to satisfy the urgent ache inside her.
His finger slid deeper and then withdrew, the rhythm in keeping with the tilt of her hips moving back and forth.
Mimicking the act of intercourse drove Helene mad. She wanted him, needed him inside her.
Heavy eyelids lifted to study Lachlan. Firelight glanced off the hard-edged planes of his face, the breadth of his shoulders, the muscles in his arms, and the dusting of dark hair on his chest. Leashed desire, yet to be liberated, glowed in dark-amber eyes.
Keen frustration set Helene’s body on fire. ‘Lachlan. I want—’
‘Aye, lass. All in good time.’ His words were a breathy whisper against her throat.
He lifted her off his lap and laid her down gently on her back atop the softness of blanketed bedding.
When he rose to his feet, Helene made a cry of protest, thinking he was going to abandon her, that he’d had a sudden change of heart.
Instead, he divested himself of his boots and remaining clothes.
Helene’s breath hitched. She stared up at him and drank in every inch of his nakedness in the fire’s glow.
He was all beautiful lean, hard muscle. She’d seen him naked from the waist up before, but when her gaze stopped dancing over the contoured muscles of his lower abdomen, his lean hips, and powerful thighs, it came to rest on that part of his anatomy so proudly hard, thick, and erect.
Lachlan MacLanoch was a virile vision of what could only be more potent and powerful than the most stimulating aphrodisiac.
And yet, Helene acknowledged her moment of indecision.
How on earth would or could her body accommodate him?
She tore her gaze away to stare up at him and saw in his eyes he’d understood her concern.
He made no further advance upon her. Helene knew, without question, he gave over to her the power of consent. Commit or abstain.
She parted her legs for him.
In a heartbeat, he dropped to his knees. ‘Trust me, Helene.’
‘With my life.’ She gasped when he lowered and settled his face between her legs and pressed his mouth to her mound.
She tensed in shock with the first lave of his tongue against her soft folds. With the second and successive caresses, sensation struck with more force than a bolt of lightning. Strong, sharp, mind-melting.
Helene threaded her fingers through his hair, torn between pushing him away and experiencing the exquisite pleasure of him having draped her knees over his shoulders and trailing kisses up and down her inner thighs.
Between ragged breaths and her swirling senses, she decided on the latter.
To savour Lachlan’s expertise and experience all he had to give.
To enjoy the set of his mouth once again on her swollen flesh, pleasuring her with intimate kisses and the gentle swirling of his tongue against her sensitive nubbin.
Again and again, he introduced her to new levels of sensation, laving at the entrance to her core, filling her with his tongue, pressing intimate kisses to delicate folds.
He took her quivering body higher, to a fever pitch, and when he drew her back, sensation receding, he’d once again elevate her pleasure with each explicit touch, caress, and kiss.
Abruptly, he changed tack and trailed kisses from one side of her belly to the other, circling her navel with his tongue and sending her senses into a frenzy.
He forged a path between the valley of her breasts, then suckled each peaked nipple.
She twisted and writhed beneath him until his body pressed lightly down upon hers, his hips between her thighs.
He silenced her soft moans with gentle kisses, and she tasted her essence on his lips and tongue.
In that same moment, he rose above her, arms straightened with his hands planted on the bedding either side of her.
He pressed her thighs wide, and she felt the heat of his sex nudge where his tongue had probed.
Lachlan broke the kiss to stare down at her. Their gazes locked. She was wet with wanting, and when he nudged a little harder, Helene felt the intimate intrusion of the rounded head slip inside. She gasped and gripped his forearms.
‘Take a deep, slow breath, mo chridhe.’
She did, the action giving her focus, and when she exhaled and her body relaxed fractionally, he inched further inside her.
Another deep breath, another exhale, and he sank a little deeper.
He withdrew and slowly re-entered her. Helene could feel her body stretch and adjust to receive him, her maidenhead the only barrier.
The repeated manoeuvre cost Lachlan. Helene could see it in his strained features, and she could feel the tension in his body and in the rigid muscles of his forearms. He seemed to battle for control against rushing the act or hurting her, but she knew that with pain comes pleasure.
‘Do it now,’ she whispered.
On the heels of her words came Lachlan’s powerful thrust. He breached her, sheathing himself deep inside.
Sharp pain lanced through Helene and she cried out, eyes clenched.
Her body tensed. Inner muscles locked around his hard length.
Light kisses fell upon her lips as she adjusted to the enthralling feeling of her body joined with Lachlan’s.
He drew back. ‘There’ll be nae more pain now, lass. Only pleasure.’
Helene’s eyes blinked open. He was right. The pain had passed, and in its place she felt his throbbing heat inside her. All tension ebbed from her body. With her gaze trapped in his, Lachlan eased himself slowly from her before sliding home inch by inch. Helene moved and matched the age-old rhythm.
Pleasure bloomed with the urgency building between them.
Helene’s soft moans grew louder, her breathing ragged.
There came a point when she could take no more.
If she could say so, she’d beg for her release.
No sooner did she think it than Lachlan delivered one final thrust to tip her over a precipice, where she flew free.
Her body spasmed in shuddering waves. Intensity of sensation, in all its colours, ran its course. Only when the last tremor abated did she register Lachlan’s guttural groan as he lost himself inside her.