Chapter 17
Bedded
Cormac did not set her down at the top of the stairs.
He carried her down the corridor, shouldered the door open, and kicked it closed behind them.
The room was warm, candles burning, the bed turned back.
The celebration below was a distant rumble that had nothing to do with the two of them anymore.
He set Una on her feet.
Cormac wanted it all. He had known it since the moment she had walked down those stairs toward him in her wedding gown: that fierce, almost feral certainty that she was his and he intended to make sure she knew it.
He wanted to make love to her until she had no doubt of it.
Wanted to plant his seed so deep inside her that it took root, wanted to see her belly round with his bairns and raise them alongside her.
Cormac felt possessive in a way he had no words for and did not try to find any.
He kissed her then.
***
CORMAC TURNED UNA AROUND gently and undid her laces.
With each layer he kissed her neck, slow and deliberate, learning the curve of her shoulder, the soft skin beneath her ear, until the kirtle and the stays fell away and she stood shivering in her shift with his mouth still moving against her nape.
He turned her back to face him.
Then he stepped away and undressed before her.
Cormac watched her eyes rake over him as he shed his shirt: the widening of them, the slight catch of her breath as her gaze traveled down his chest and stomach. He slowly removed the plaid. His hardened length sprang free and her lips parted in a sharp, audible gasp.
Their eyes met.
"Are ye nervous?" he asked.
She swallowed. "Ask me again in a moment."
He stepped closer and pulled her shift over her head, then put his mouth on hers before she could say another word.
***
CORMAC KISSED HIS NEW wife deeply and walked her back to the bed and laid her down, and then his mouth was on her throat, her collarbone, moving lower.
He took her nipple between his lips and sucked hard as Una cried out, her back arching clean off the mattress.
He pulled at it with his lips and tongue, slow and relentless, then moved to the other breast and lavished it with the same attention, harder, until Una was fisting both hands in his hair and moaning openly.
Cormac gave her more. He moved his body lower, kissing down her stomach, and she felt his shoulders nudge her thighs apart.
She tensed.
"Cormac, what are ye doing?"
He took a moment to appreciate the neatly trimmed patch above her quim before his mouth devoured her.
One long, hot, wet stroke of his tongue and Una's eyes flew wide open in shock. Then his tongue circled her nub, slow and deliberate, right there, and her eyes slammed shut and her hands flew to the sheets and clutched them in white-knuckled fists.
"Oh—" The sound came out of her involuntarily. "Oh blast!"
Cormac worked her with his mouth and did not stop, his tongue licking and circling that small peak with the same focused thoroughness he gave to everything, and Una's shock dissolved rapidly.
Her hips rolled against his face. She was loud about it, helplessly, shamefully loud, and he groaned against her in response and the vibration of it sent her higher.
She shattered. She came with her head thrown back and her hands in his hair this time instead of the sheets, pulling him closer, his name on her lips.
Cormac gentled her through it, soft strokes, letting her feel every last wave of it, then slid two fingers inside her while his tongue resumed its slow circling and she sobbed with it.
"Cormac... I can’t... I'm going to—"
Una came again, clenching around his fingers, and was still trembling when she pulled at his shoulders.
"Now," she said. "Please." It was a plea for something she was not sure about.
***
CORMAC SLOWLY MOVED over her, one forearm braced beside her head, his weight on his knees. He looked at her face, flushed, lips swollen, eyes dark and wanting, and felt the last of his control slip.
"Tell me if ye want me to stop," he said.
"No, dinnae stop," she said.
He reached between them and nudged the head of his hardened length against her entrance. She was slick and hot and he clenched his jaw against the urge to drive forward. Cormac pressed in slowly, an inch at a time, watching her face.
Her brow furrowed. Her breath came faster. "Ye're too big—" She stopped. "Ye're... oh—"
"Breathe," he rasped.
Una breathed. He pushed deeper and felt it, the slight barrier, and stilled, eyes locked on hers.
"Hold on to me," Cormac said.
Her arms went around his waist. Then he surged forward.
Una gasped at the intrusion and her nails dug into his back, and he locked every muscle and held absolutely still, buried deep inside her all the way to the hilt, watching her face.
"All right?" he asked roughly.
Una breathed through it. Her grip on him loosened by degrees. Then, slowly, she let out a long breath.
"Aye," she said. "Aye. I'm all right."
Cormac felt her surround him, hot and impossibly tight, her channel gripping him, and he nearly lost himself then and there. He gritted his teeth and held on, reminding himself this was her first time and he was going to make sure she remembered it well.
Una lay beneath him and felt overwhelmed with desire.
Cormac was so large she felt split in two, stretched beyond what seemed possible, and there was a sting that made her eyes water.
But as the seconds passed and he stayed still and his thumb stroked her cheek, watching her with that dark, intense gaze, the sting began to recede.
Something deeper moved underneath it, warm and insistent, and her hips made a small involuntary movement upward.
His jaw tightened. "Una!"
"Move," she gasped. "Please. I want ye to move."
***
CORMAC MOVED.
Slowly at first with long and careful strokes that had her mouth falling open, watching her face change as the last edge of pain gave way completely to heat.
He kept his rhythm steady and deep and she felt every inch of him, felt the drag and press of it, and then her hips began to rise to meet him.
"More," she said.
Everything changed then.
Cormac let go of all control and drove into her with strong, powerful thrusts and she took him with a raw, loud moan that echoed off the walls.
He pulled back and thrust again, harder, and Una met him with her hips, her heels digging into the back of his thighs, urging him on.
He set a rhythm that was deep and driving and she matched him stroke for stroke, her fingers raking down his back, her mouth open against his jaw.
He dipped his head and took her nipple in his mouth and suckled while he pounded into her and she cried out, loud and broken and utterly beyond caring, and her whole body shuddered beneath him.
"Ye feel glorious," Cormac gritted out against her breast.
"Dinnae stop," Una gasped. "Dinnae ye dare stop."
He drove deeper. She wailed. The headboard struck the wall repeatedly.
Eventually Cormac reached between them and pressed his thumb against her pearl and kept his rhythm as Una came apart, loudly, clenching around him so tight his vision blurred.
He buried his face in her shoulder and roared into her skin as he followed her over the edge with four hard thrusts before he exploded inside her.
***
THEY LAY STILL. BOTH breathing hard.
After a moment Una said, "Is it always like that?"
Cormac lifted his head from her shoulder and shifted his weight so as not to crush her. He looked at Una's flushed face, her wrecked hair, her thoroughly satisfied expression, and felt his heart skip a beat.
"Aye, but the more we do it," he said, "the better it becomes."
She raised an eyebrow.
"But for what it's worth," he said, "tonight has been the best, bar none."
She studied him for a moment. Then something in her face softened entirely and she let out a long breath, and he understood that she had needed to hear that and he was glad he had said it plainly.
"Good," she replied.
He kissed her then, slow and languid and gentle.
Reluctantly he withdrew, got up, crossed to the washstand, wrung out a warm cloth, and came back and cleaned her gently, then himself, and fetched a dry towel and used that too.
Una watched him do it without speaking. He stoked the fire back up, blew out the guttered candles, and climbed back into bed.
She turned into him immediately, her cheek against his chest, her hand flat on his stomach. He put his arm around her and pulled her close. The day's events took their toll as their bodies relaxed, and wrapped in each other's arms they eventually succumbed to sleep.
***
CORMAC TOOK HER TWICE more during the night.
The second time was slower. He had learned her by then and used the knowledge without mercy, and Una was louder than the first, which he had not thought possible.
He had to kiss her hard to stifle her cries, his mouth swallowing the sounds she made while he moved inside her, and when he felt his own release coming he buried his face in her shoulder and groaned into her skin to muffle it.
The third time was in the small hours, half-asleep and reaching for each other at the same moment, and it was fierce, quick, passionate and they lay afterward in the dark laughing quietly at themselves.
Cormac loved that Una was lusty and unashamed in his bed. He loved that she matched him, met him, gave as good as she got. He had not known how much he had wanted that until he had it.
When he woke properly it was early, the fire burned low, and Una was sleeping across his chest, her head tucked under his chin and one hand curled against him.
He held her tighter, looked at the ceiling for a while, and grinned.
***
UNA WOKE TO SUNLIGHT through the window and the warm solid weight of Cormac wrapped around her back.
She lay still for a moment, taking stock.