Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Aidan gazed across the Great Hall at his bride, who was speaking with Maisie and Isabella and a few other women by the fire. Food and drink continued to be carried in. There seemed to be no end to the Mackintosh hospitality.
The wedding service had been conducted efficiently and with appropriate seriousness. But this celebratory reception had already seen more toasts than a royal dinner. Indeed, sobriety for most of the folk gathered in the Great Hall was already a thing of the distant past.
And now Sebastian had cornered Aidan, with Cinaed, Searc, Blair, the priest, and a number of Mackintosh men forming a closed circle around them.
“As your younger brother and best man,” he began, “In deference to our local man of the cloth, I’ve taken it upon myself to gather the wisdom of the ages regarding the conjugal aspect of your marital life.”
Everyone boisterously raised a glass to the topic. By the devil, Aidan thought. This was going to be painful.
“To begin.” Sebastian drew a sheet of paper from his coat. “After you’ve been married for three days—and there will be no intimacy before then, Highland traditions notwithstanding—there are a number of conditions that must be met every time before the act takes place.”
“And you know all of this how?” Aidan challenged.
“I’ve been studying.” Sebastian shook the page at his brother. “I’ve drawn up a list from theological tomes dealing with the subject.”
“You’ve been studying marriage and sex. You.”
“If you’d prefer, I have a wide range of damning tales about you, my dear brother. I’d be quite happy to have a nice long talk with Morrigan.” He turned to the priest. “It’s not too late for an annulment. Is it?”
“Go on. Continue with your inanity,” Aidan suggested. “And keep your poisonous tales away from my bride’s unsuspecting ears.”
A toast to the bride’s ears was followed by the pouring of another round of drinks.
Sebastian drew a deep breath and continued.
“Under pain of the fiery pit, brother, you cannot have sex on any feast day. You cannot have sex on any fast day. You cannot have sex during Whitsun week. Nor during Advent. And I know that you certainly wouldn’t dream of having sex at any time during Lent. ”
Sebastian paused to glance at his paper, and Aidan saw Morrigan eyeing them inquisitively. He made a gesture of wanting to strangle his brother. She smiled and shook her head. If she only knew.
“It is, of course, also a sin to have sex during Easter week. And you will not be having sex on Wednesdays, nor on Fridays, nor on Saturdays or Sundays. What day is today?”
“It’s Wednesday,” Searc barked.
“Very sorry, brother. Also, you cannot have sex at any time during daylight hours. You cannot have sex unless you’re fully clothed.
And, for heaven’s sake, try to remember that you cannot have sex in church.
” Sebastian paused and bowed to the priest, who was staring wide-eyed.
“And did I mention that the purpose of sex is to have a child?”
The men around Aidan all concurred heartily.
Sebastian placed the paper in Aidan’s hand and addressed him again.
“Once all these conditions are met, you may proceed, but the giants of theology are clear on the subject that no strange positions will be employed. The church is very clear on that. The natural order must be observed; males on top. And you may only perform the act once. But that may be the most she might expect, in any case.”
Rowdy laughter ensued.
“And now, do I get a chance to present my argument?” Aidan asked.
“I don’t really believe any rebuttal is possible, considering the high authority I have drawn from for my treatise. But as you please.”
“Then have a seat and listen.”
Sebastian pulled up a chair and began to sit. Before he succeeded, however, Aidan kicked the chair from under him, sending his brother sprawling. Laughter echoed to the rafters.
“There’s you natural order and your high authority too!” Aidan scoffed. Striding across the hall, he took Morrigan’s hand, and the two of them ran from the hall.
Morrigan and Aidan were married, truly and finally, and she felt almost giddy with excitement at what was ahead of them. Isabella had told them an apartment had been prepared for the newlyweds above the Great Hall.
As they started up the stairs, she asked if Sebastian had provided anything of value.
“I don’t give a damn if it is a Wednesday,” Aidan replied cryptically.
“What is significant about Wednesdays?”
“You don’t want to know.” He stopped in the corridor at the top of the stairs and pulled her against his body, kissing her lips. “I plan to make love to you seven days a week, day and night. Everywhere and anytime we get the opportunity. Does that suit you?”
Morrigan laughed. “Shall we start in our library down here?”
Maybe it was because the two of them had shared so many passionate moments in that room. Or maybe she simply wanted their first time together to be somewhere other than in a bed. She wanted no hint of her past casting a pall over their happiness.
“As my lady wishes.”
Hand in hand, they hurried into the library and locked the door. It was dark, but a full moon bathed the room in a blue light.
“I wanted to kiss you and make love to you from the first moment I came in here and found you standing on that ladder.”
He leaned toward her. All she could see were his lips as they brushed against hers.
“And I wanted you to make love to me every time you kissed me, touched me, and teased me, but held back, reminding me that we had to get married first.”
Aidan’s mouth took possession of hers. And as he pulled her tighter into his embrace, she felt herself melting, her lips parting, yielding to his, her body molding to him.
Morrigan rose up on her tiptoes as she returned his kiss. She felt, rather than heard, his groan of approval as her body pressed against him.
What they were doing and where they were doing it was wild and sweet. Her senses were so alive, so ready for his next touch. She welcomed his kisses, thrillingly aware of her own exhilaration and the rising need within her.
His hands roamed over her body. He caressed her breasts, her back, the curve of her buttocks. When he pressed her back against the door, the feel of his erection elicited a gasp from her. She felt no fear, but a sense of wonder rippled through her.
“I want you so much, Morrigan,” he murmured against her lips. “But you must stop me if I’m going too fast.”
“And I want you.”
Her body arched against him as he pushed a thigh between hers. She gasped at the sweet pressure. He pulled up her skirts, and she held her breath as his hand sought her beneath it. Morrigan gasped when his fingers found her sex. Her body tensed.
“I won’t hurt you.” His voice was a breath in her ear. “You can let go, my love.”
Let go. Let go of fears. Let go of nightmares.
Letting go of a lifetime of uncertainties.
She focused on his touch. His palm was cupping her mound and his fingers slipped into her folds.
A maddening pressure was building within her as he continued stroking her.
This was unlike anything she’d ever known.
She realized her breaths were becoming shorter.
She wanted more. Her mind screamed for more.
Every part of her body cried out to be touched.
An insatiable need was rising, pulsing through her.
Her hands were around him, drawing him tightly against him.
In the midst of this frenzy, she felt his hips press even more intimately against her.
There was a shifting of her weight in his arms.
“Don’t stop.” She kissed his throat. “Give me more.”
“There is no stopping,” he laughed, his voice husky. “I’m too far gone for that.”
He suddenly swept her up in his arms. She smiled as he carried her effortlessly to the desk.
With a sweep of his hand, everything went flying to the floor. But neither one of them cared as he lowered her onto it.
He paused. “I can still take you to our bed.”
“Here. Now.”
He pushed her skirts up, and she shuddered as he slid his hands along her thighs and over her hips. Stepping forward, he pressed himself between her knees.
She’d never imagined this would be the way. All the nightmarish memories of a night long ago were gone. As Aidan pressed his hard body ever closer, she welcomed the change in him, too. He was losing control.
“Wrap your legs around me.”
She did what he told her as he opened the front of his breeches.
The moment was coming, and she held her breath.
But when he touched her so gently with his fingertips, parting the folds and then probing and stroking her, she lost any lingering shred of hesitation.
She rode his fingers, pressing herself against his palm, welcoming the pressure of his thumb.
Her release was sudden and explosive, and she muffled her cries against his shoulder.
When he entered her, waves of pleasure continued to roll through her.
She felt him deep within her. Slowly at first, and then with gathering speed, he began to move.
Morrigan’s brain began to take flight once again.
To have him fit so perfectly inside her.
To feel his breaths so warm on her neck, in her ear.
To hear his heart drumming so solidly in his chest. He was driving them both to near madness.
Ever higher they rose, and she found herself matching the driving beat of his body with her own, until once again, as ecstasy obliterated all thought within her, she felt his straining body go rigid, and she knew, somehow, that they were soaring into the same sky.
Moments later, he placed his forehead against her cheek and softly kissed her. She felt wonderful. Amazing. Gathering her husband closer into her embrace, she also felt whole. New. Strong. And happy.