Chapter Twelve #2
Truth be told, she was melting.
He appeared thoroughly at ease, both in his near nakedness and with her perusal of him.
Indeed, the slight jerking of a muscle in his jaw proved the only outward sign that he found any part of the proceedings not wholly to his liking.
Not that she could have stopped looking at him even if she’d wanted to—which she didn’t.
So she continued to study him, her most private place tingling and throbbing when her gaze lit and lingered on his chest.
Ne’er had she seen a more fetching one.
A light dusting of red-gold hairs spread across his chest muscles and down the center of his hard-slabbed abdomen to vanish beneath the rolled waistband of his braies—and oooh did she ache to explore those wee fine hairs.
They glistened like spun gold in the firelight. And just thinking about touching them, mayhap rubbing her cheek against them to test their friction against the smoothness of her own skin, made her heart pound and intensified the hot-beating pulse drumming so fiercely between her thighs.
Aye, everything about him inflamed her—and he had nary a need to be examined for proof of his virility.
The most tantalizing allure poured off him, his masculinity so pure and strong, anyone who’d dare question it would surely put themselves at risk of being struck down by the wrath of some furious Celtic god.
Nay, his manhood stood without doubt.
In especial, there, beneath the thin linen of his braies where the heavy bulge of his sex was clearly defined.
Blessedly, not standing, but imposing all the same.
The power of its potency came to her in great, bone-melting waves and overlaid the whole of the room with a musky-dark masculine aura of power.
Power, and barely contained . . . desire.
Her desire.
Her sudden and indescribable need to see more—to see all of him.
“I’m a-thinking it’s time to test the lad’s mettle,” an older clansman declared, stepping forward.
Tossing back his mane of coarse, steel-gray hair, he fixed a piercing stare on Amicia even as he reached for the waistband of Magnus’s braies. “Ha, Magnus! Let the lassie see—”
“My wife can see all she desires and more,” Magnus said, seizing the graybeard’s wrist before the man’s stretching fingers could get anywhere near the rolled waistband. “But I shall do the disrobing myself.”
From the corner of his eye, Magnus caught Colin slip from Janet’s side to snatch Magnus’s plaid from where it lay, rumpled and discarded on the bed.
And bless the knave’s well-loved hide, he also shrugged off his own plaid, holding both at the ready as he came forward to stand slightly to the left and behind Magnus.
Far enough away not to interfere with clan tradition, but close enough to lend Magnus and his bride a much-appreciated act of true and knightly comradeship.
Settling his own hands upon the top band of his braies, Magnus slanted his friend a sidelong look of deep-felt gratitude, then turned back to his wife.
She’d been over-bold throughout the wedding feast, her daring and charm pleasing him beyond measure—but he knew her to be virtuous, could almost scent the tremulous edge of a maiden’s anxiety skimming along just beneath her brave veneer of daring.
Forcing himself to harness his own thrumming tension, he let out a long breath.
“You have naught to dread—not from me or the traditions that shape this evening. We will soon be alone,” he promised her, voicing the reassurance he hoped would settle the jittery pulse fluttering so rapidly at the hollow of her throat.
“See you, this night”—he paused to glance round the circle of his staring kinsmen—“this night we shall forge a few traditions of our own.”
Some men arched brows at that, or exchanged nervous glances. Others pulled at their beards or flicked at invisible specks of lint on their plaids.
No one looked pleased.
Donald MacKinnon gave a loud harrumph. “Clan Fingon tradition is best kept, son. Have you not yet seen what happens when fools dare to tweak and prod?”
Magnus curled his fingers more deeply around his waistband’s rolled edge, cast a quick, lowering glance at the thin cloth yet shielding his maleness. “Is this not bowing to tradition?”
“I dinna see you strutting bare-bottomed before her yet!” a bold-faced clansman called from the shadows near the hearth.
“Damn me for a plaguey pest, but the only full-naked MacKinnon I see about is yon sleeping mongrel,” he finished, jerking a thumb at old Boiny, the great shaggy bulk of him curled as ever before the hearthstone.
A flurry of bawdy comment and encouragement stirred at once, especially from those deepest in their cups, but a raised hand from Magnus and quick-flashed warning quelled their ribaldry.
“She, and you, my kinsmen, shall judge me now . . . and forever after hold your clacking tongues unless you wish them cut from your mouths.”
To prove his willingness, Magnus shoved down his linen underhose and kicked them aside to stand fully naked in the center of the room.
Not taking his gaze off his wife, and praying he’d not harden—not yet anyway—he spread his legs just enough so that his shaft and ballocks could dangle fully exposed, hanging free to the curious stares of any who cared to examine him.
“Further,” he began, hooking his arms behind his neck so the muscles of his upper body, too, could be better displayed and inspected, “a man’s ability to take his ease can be observed in the swelling and lengthening of his shaft.
That’s a feat I hereby deem best accomplished and tested when looking upon the nakedness of his own good lady wife and not, as MacKinnon custom has e’er demanded, by having some sloe-eyed kitchen lass pinch his hardness and poke at his testicles! ”
Again silence answered him.
Silence, and slack-jawed stares.
His clansmen surely knew he’d make short shrift of them if they dared let more than a perfunctory glance light where men’s eyes had no business lingering. They knew, too, they’d best not allow more than a rapid flicker of a quick-eyed gaze touch his lady’s vulnerability.
By comparison, her gaze was all over him.
She’d lowered her lashes, but the smoldering burn in their rich-brown depths shone through all the same. And the longer she stared at him, especially like that, the more difficult it would be for him to remain at ease.
An aching tightness already coiling through his groin, he cleared his throat and spoke the words he hoped would bring a swift end to the spectacle.
“Lass, bare yourself so we may be done with this buffoonery,” he ground out, the words coming more gruff than he’d intended.
Before I am undone.
A distinct and pressing possibility with surge after surge of welling heat sweeping across his loins.
“Take off the gown,” he said, his voice tight. “You can undress yourself, can you not?”
She slid a look at Dagda. “But your traditions. I would not breach them. Isn’t Dagda supposed to undr—”
“A pox on tradition!” Magnus closed the distance between them in three swift strides, his nakedness forgotten.
“Did you not hear me?” He forced himself to keep the heat from his voice, trailed a finger along the high, smooth curve of her cheekbone, then down and across the fullness of her sweet lips, noting their slight tremble beneath his touch.
“This night we make the traditions. Now, this moment, you and I are Coldstone’s legends—naught else.”
Touching her own finger to her lips as if she still felt his touch there, she nodded. “With surety, I can remove my gown,” she said, her voice surprisingly firm. “I shall do so with pleasure.”
“With all speed—if you will, lassie,” an ale-addled clansman bade her, the loon clearly having noted the slight twitching of Magnus’s semi-aroused shaft.
“’Tis for the best—unless you wish his ballocks to run blue!” another cried, and slapped his thigh.
Magnus grimaced.
He’d not only forgotten his nakedness, he’d forgotten to school it!
Much to the hooting glee of his kinsmen.
“Aye, from the looks of him, he canna wait much longer,” a bald-headed kinsman agreed, the observation and the ensuing guffaws from others confirming indeed that the long-nosed bastards were sneaking glances where they shouldn’t.
“Shall I help you, lady?” Janet pushed her way through the throng, her face discreetly averted from Magnus’s nakedness, the flush on her cheeks as red and glowing as Amicia’s own.
“Nay, ’tis good, but . . . I thank you,” Amicia said, even as she lifted her hands to unfasten the side lacings of her gown.
She must’ve loosened them earlier, for a few quick jerks with nimble fingers were all that was needed for the bodice to fall open.
With serene determination, she eased her arms from the gown’s sleeves and pushed down the wide-gaping bodice until her breasts were fully exposed, her nipples already drawing tight in the cold night air—or mayhap with the searing heat of her husband’s gaze.
His, and every other lecherous blackguard crowding the chamber.
His jaw set so tight his teeth hurt, Magnus made a quick flicking gesture at the gown, still bunched in charming disarray about her waist.
“Have done,” he jerked, the words a choked rasp. “Now.”
“Och, aye, to be sure and I will,” Amicia gave back, her boldness firing his blood.
Her dark gaze locked on his, she thrust her hands into the folds of deep blue linen until she found and unclasped the gold-embroidered girdle fastened low on her hips.
She tossed the belt aside and raised her chin, her bared breasts all shadow and light, their curves and swells, the dark-tipped and thrusting peaks, an irresistible invitation.
For a few precious moments, no one stood in the softly-lit chamber but the two of them and the sizzling anticipation snapping between them. A keen sense of deepest intimacy so thick on the cold, rain-tinged air, Magnus would’ve sworn he could have cut it with his dirk.
But his were not the only eyes fastened to the heavy folds of rich blue linen yet shielding his lady’s sweetest charms.
Countless others stared, too. Some in a most annoyingly penetrating manner.
His hands clenching, he tossed a quelling glance at the circle of waiting kinsmen. “Come you, lass, have off with the gown,” he urged his bride. “The whole of it.”
And she complied—her rich brown eyes sparking, the look in them flooding him with sensual heat as she let the gown slide the rest of the way down her naked body to form a billowing pool at her feet.
“Saints a mercy!” a deep voice groaned—one Magnus recognized too late as his own. At once, his shaft swelled and lengthened to full-stretch, and at a speed that astounded him.
Garbed in naught but candle glow and her own MacLean steel, his lady stood full naked in all her glory, the gleaming white opulence of her breasts stealing his breath, the wealth of glossy black curls at the vee of her thighs unmanning him.
Not that anyone would dare call the raging hardness riding hot and proud against his belly . . . man-less.
Swallowing, he tossed a glance at his brothers—Hugh, e’er the sensitive soul, with his back to the proceedings, and Dugan already coming long-strided toward him.
“Say-the-words,” Magnus snarled at Dugan, half-afraid he’d lose his seed any moment—and equally afeared he’d ram his fist into his brother’s nose if the blackguard dared cast a glance at the tangle of raven curls springing at the top of his wife’s shapely thighs!
“The words!” Magnus growled when Dugan’s gaze indeed began to waver.
Flushing bright red, Dugan snapped his attention back to Magnus’s dark-frowning face. “Sir Magnus!” Dugan began, if with a somewhat over-thick voice. “Are you satisfied with the lady’s . . . good health?”
“I am more than satisfied,” Magnus rapped out, his own voice rough. “I am well-content.”
He knew even greater contentment when, the words spoken, Colin moved with all haste to swirl Magnus’s plaid around Amicia’s nakedness.
“And you, Lady Amicia?” Dugan turned to her. “Is Sir Magnus to your . . . pleasure?”
Clutching the plaid tight about her shoulders, she slid the briefest of glances over Magnus’s jutting phallus.
“He is more than pleasing to me. I would want no other,” she said, lifting her gaze, her voice strong, almost defiant.
Then Colin was thrusting his own plaid into Magnus’s hands, thus ending an ordeal Magnus didn’t ever care to repeat. His emotions high, he slung the plaid around his nakedness and opened his mouth to thank Colin, but the other man spoke first.
“I trust you will honor your word?” he wanted to know, not quite able to keep an I-knew-it gleam from twinkling in his dark eyes.
“My word?” Magnus held fast to the borrowed plaid, his fingers having proved too clumsy to knot the fool thing.
Stepping back a bit so the clansmen streaming from the chamber had unhindered access to the door, he shook his head.
“I’ve no idea what you mean, my friend,” he said, truly puzzled.
“The boon,” Colin supplied. He gave an imperceptible nod in Amicia’s direction. “Your promise to bed her—you will keep it?”
At once, memory returned.
And Magnus’s pride—even if its roar held all the ferocity of a newly born wolf cub not yet able to open its eyes or even stand on its feet.
“Well?” Colin persisted.
“Well, indeed,” Magnus answered, letting a decidedly wolfish grin spread across his face. “It would seem you have bested me yet again.”
“How so?” Colin angled his head, waited.
“Simply . . .” Magnus began, planting a firm hand to his friend’s lower back and propelling him toward the door, “. . . that I intend to bed her very, very well—unless I’ve lost the art, that is.”
Colin paused on the threshold, shook his dark head. “And I vow, in the tasting of yon lass’s bounteous charms, you will discover the art, my friend,” he predicted, his face lit with mirth.
Mirth that Magnus did not share.
Not a shred of it.
He only knew he wanted his bride.
And in ways that would shake every heathery hill in the land.