Chapter 12 #2
The kiss is slow at first. One hand to my jaw, the other to my waist. He comes down to my mouth without rushing, as if he had promised himself to take it one second at a time.
The press of his lips against mine is flush and full and soft, a gentleness that gradually changes, becoming something harder and hungrier, and by the time his tongue sweeps across mine, I’m making a pathetic whimper against his mouth, my knees officially growing weak.
He swallows the sound, and the kiss deepens.
His hand at my jaw slides into my hair. His hand at my waist slides around to the small of my back.
He turns us as he kisses me, slow at first, and then faster, and the next thing I know, my back is against the pale white trunk of a birch on the side of the road, and his body is against mine, and his kiss has become an animal of its own.
“Christ,” he swears into my mouth. “Christ, Iris.”
“Don’t stop,” I plead, suddenly struck by some unreasonable fear that he might think this is a bad idea, because I suppose someone has to.
“I’m not going to stop.”
He kisses me harder as if to reassure me. His hand comes up to my throat, just a little pressure there, just a wee hand necklace right out of the gate. Then his thumb under is my jaw, and he’s tilting my face the way he wants it for the kiss, and I’m letting him.
I think I’ll let this man do absolutely anything to me.
His mouth leaves mine and goes to my throat.
“You wore a skirt.”
“I did.”
“Was that for me?”
“Yes.” I breathe hoarsely. “I thought you’d want me to.”
He laughs against my neck, the sound rough.
“Aye, lass. I want it.”
His hand has come down to my hip. He’s gathering the fabric of the skirt up slowly, an inch at a time, his palm hot through it, the friction warm even through the wool socks where his other hand has dropped to behind my knee.
The bark of the birch is rough through my cardigan, but all I can really feel is his other hand at the back of my neck, his thumb at the soft place behind my ear, the slow steady pressure of his mouth working its way down to my collarbone.
I feel like I’m being devoured on the spot, every single nerve singing up and down my body.
The skirt is up over my hips now, and oh, god. Part of me thinks this is moving too fast, that I’m too revirginized, too sheltered overall, to let him dive right into it. But I want it fast. I want him diving in. I want it all, and I want it now.
He slides his hand up the bare inside of my thigh, knuckles brushing lightly against me where I’m very newly bare.
And sensitive, holy Jesus.
Alasdair pauses, his hand pressing against me. He goes very still; his mouth comes off my throat.
He knows.
He pulls back an inch and looks down at the gathered fabric of the skirt where his hand is exploring under, and then he looks at me.
“You’ve got nothing on under here,” he says gruffly.
He closes his eyes again, breathing out through his nose. His hand has not moved from the inside of my thigh.
“Do you know,” he whispers, “what you have done to me?”
“Show me then,” I say. I’m a huge proponent of show not tell.
And at that, a sound comes out of him from deep inside, something guttural, primal. He kisses me again, harder, nearly bruising, and his hand on my thigh moves up. His fingers find me, and I’m gasping.
“Christ, Iris. You’re so very wet.”
“I walked here thinking about this,” I manage to say through a gasp, the feeling of his cool fingers against my warm, bare flesh close to sending me over the edge already.
“Tell me what else you were thinking about,” he growls.
Of course I will play along. Not to think of Ryan at a time like this, but he was never one to be verbal during sex, and didn’t seem to appreciate it when I was.
“Your hands,” I tell him, the boldness coming through easily.
“Where?”
“Where they are now.”
“Where else?”
“Everywhere,” I breathe.
He groans and kisses me again, his mouth taking mine. His fingers start to explore me, slowly, carefully.
I can’t help the noises escaping me, they’re completely out of my control now.
“Quietly, lass,” he murmurs against the side of my mouth, his lips wet from mine.
“What?” I manage to ask.
“The woods are listening. I’ll undo you and you’ll come quietly, you understand?”
Not really, but I’ll honestly do whatever the hell he wants at this point. That need, that urge to come stems from some lizard-brained part of me, and right now it has total control.
He’s kissing me hard again, his tongue soft but violent—perhaps to devour me, perhaps to keep me quiet—and his hand is moving against me with a ruthless rhythm, dipping in and out of me slowly.
The sound is lewd and surprisingly clear, which makes me want to yell at my vagina for being so loud when he specifically said not to be.
The woods are listening, or something? Who cares!
He works me the way you do with something you know well, something you do all the time.
Obviously, he hasn’t had me before, but now I know he’s had me before in his head a thousand times.
The way his thumb knows where to be, and his fingers know how to angle, and the way he reads my breathing, and how his other hand touches my breast through the long-sleeved shirt, pushing under my bra cups, knowing exactly how I like my nipples to be pinched.
I’m clutching at his sweater with both hands, and the bark of the birch is biting into my shoulder blades through the cardigan, but all I can really feel is his cool fingers on me everywhere.
“You’ll come for me, Iris,” he demands roughly.
“Yes,” I gasp. Almost there.
“You’ll come for me here, against this tree, before we go another step toward my house.”
I make another sound that sounds like a yes.
“And then you’ll walk the rest of the way with me with shaking knees, and you’ll step into my home, and you’ll tell me what else you want.”
God, yes.
“Yes.”
“Say my name.”
“Alasdair,” I moan.
“Aye. Christ, I could listen to you all day.”
And I could have him do this to me all day. All day, every day, forever.
I’m close. I’m closer than close. He’s been at it for what feels like a year but is probably two minutes, and I am moments from letting go entirely. He keeps his skilled hands moving, knowing exactly what they’re doing to me, and puts his forehead against mine, surprising me with the intimacy.
“Look at me when you come, Iris.”
I can’t find the words to refuse. I look at him.
His eyes are that Alasdair blue, swallowed up by the dark pools of his expanding pupils.
“Now.”
It moves through me like a tidal wave, slamming into every crevice and corner from head to toe, obliterating my thoughts.
My hands are locked in the front of his sweater, and my hips are rocking against his hand, wanting more, more, more, even as I’m getting too much.
The rough trunk of the birch is the only thing keeping me up, my eyes on his and his on mine.
There is a moment where I see something in his face, this primal intensity of his eyes that verges on the surreal, the look of a creature being given a thing it has been promised.
And then I close my eyes because I can’t look any longer.
I’m suddenly afraid, so wonderfully, blissfully afraid.
His fingers slow, and he’s breathing hard for once. He kisses the corner of my mouth, and the side of my jaw, and my throat. He waits until I’m somewhat coherent again, my heart steady, and eases his hand out from under my skirt.
I watch him bring his fingers to his own mouth.
He closes his eyes briefly as he sucks on them, and when he reopens them, I’m beyond hypnotized at this point.
“Iris,” he says thickly.
“Uh huh.”
“You walked four miles to be undone by your neighbor. Tell me you will not be ashamed in the morning.”
“I won’t be ashamed,” I tell him.
“Tell me again.”
“I won’t,” I insist, even though the truth is I have no fucking idea what I will feel because part of me, most of me, can’t believe what the hell just happened.
“Aye, lass.”
He kisses me softly, with gratefulness and reverence.
Then he drops down and kneels on the mossy ground.
I can scarcely breathe with the sight of him at my feet like this.