Chapter Eleven
I WAS DREAMING A BEAUTIFUL dream. I lay in my cave, warmed by a stoked fire that heated me to such an extent that a dewy sweat covered my skin.
I kicked off my furs. My dark warrior came to me and lay with me in our quiet haven.
He lifted my shift, cooling my skin deliciously.
He eased my legs apart so he could kneel between them.
His mouth was kissing the skin of my stomach.
He lifted my shift farther, over the swell of my breasts, which he kissed and nuzzled until they were aching and heavy.
He placed his hot mouth over the tip of one breast, and the vibrant pulls sent quickening channels to the core of my body, which grew slick and honeyed and wanting.
I arched to him, and he took my other nipple, using the wetness of his mouth on the first to swirl sensation, teasing in pinching tugs.
I was writhing and moaning, wanting more.
I was pleading with him. I needed him to ease the scorching emptiness, to stroke my rising tide.
I felt him touch my entrance with his heavy shaft, gliding its very tip against me.
This lightest touch was the fulfillment of every desire I had ever known.
With its subtle persuasion, this touch fed a spiraling burn throughout my being, igniting my body into a thousand suns, blinding me with sensation as it raged lusciously through my clenching core.
But then the touch was withdrawn, and I was left floundering and irate from the removal of such intense ecstasy. My anger awoke me, and I opened my eyes.
We weren’t in our cave but in Wilkie’s chambers.
He was not a dream lover, but a real one.
I reached for him, and my hands found the thick silk of his hair.
His hands were forcing my legs wider. And his mouth was on me, caressing my lingering rapture, releasing it anew with his greedy attentions.
The rippling waves were not as intense this time, but long and lush and brimming with molten, starry pleasure.
I lay on my back as he continued his tender kisses, and his fingers were everywhere, lightly learning my every curve and contour.
I pulled, ever so slightly, on his hair. He looked up at me. His eyes glimmered with mischief, a sight which relieved me greatly. Gone was his angst and his turmoil, for now.
“My Roses wakes,” he said.
He crawled up my body and lay on top of me, holding his weight, but still lying heavily against me. I was very aware of his bold, immense hardness, pressing along my near-naked body.
“You pleasure me, warrior.”
His dark eyes were smug and simmering with his own heat. “You are the sweetest fruit.”
“And what of your own pleasure?”
“You are my pleasure.”
But I wasn’t convinced. The dream touch of his body barely inside me ignited me with a new awareness. I wanted more. “You’re holding back,” I said, and I was surprised to feel that I was mildly incensed by this.
He smiled at my light anger. “For now.”
I suppose I knew why he would not take me fully, as I knew by now exactly what it was that I wanted him to do.
It was an activity, after all, for a marriage bed.
But our own circumstances, it seemed to me, were unusual.
What we had already done were activities, too, that were reserved for a marriage bed.
And every one of them the most sublime experiences of my life, in equal measure.
I didn’t know if Wilkie would marry me—he had mentioned his intention to do so, but fleetingly, and had never repeated it—or if he would even be allowed to, if he wished it.
His duty might steer him, by necessity, to one of the heiresses who fought for his hand. Those were rivers yet to cross.
Here and now, I knew what I wanted.
I had already resolved not to live without him. It mattered not whether he owned me now, or later. In my heart, I was his already.
I wanted to give myself to him. I wanted him to take me and fill me.
I wanted to feel him inside me, deeply. The thought, to be sure, was intimidating.
The size of him. I wasn’t sure how we would fit together.
But I knew enough about the pleasure he was able to unrelentingly give, and I wanted more of it. I wanted more of him.
I began to move a little, inching my way higher, as I lay underneath him.
I arched my hips toward him, until I could feel his hardness pressing against the skin of my thigh.
The promise of him there, so close, was stunningly alluring.
My burn was so fierce for him I thought I might spasm again from the mere possibility.
“Roses.” His deep voice sounded stern, questioning.
I moved farther, seeking, positioning. But Wilkie, as though reading my thoughts, flinched away from me, rolling off of me so suddenly and violently, he half fell from the bed.
He grabbed a fur and wrapped it around his waist. Then he walked over to the fireplace.
He gripped the wooden edge of the hearth with his fingers.
The sight of those fingers and their brutal strength aroused me beyond belief, and his body, lit by the fire, was hard and sculpted.
His chest heaved slightly, and his breathing was uneven.
I worried that I had hurt him or angered him. He tugged at his hair with one hand, and I sat up, concerned by his rash behavior.
“I’ll not use you,” he said, staring into the fire. “I worship you.”
“Worship me now. However it pleases you. I am yours.”
His head flicked moodily in my direction. He didn’t answer me.
“Come back to me,” I said.
He remained frozen in place.
“I won’t touch you,” I promised. “I’ll heed your every command.”
Our heavy gaze connected. I was still secretly rippling from his touch.
“I want you to, warrior,” I whispered. “Please.”
“I cannot, lass. Not yet.”
“You cannot.” I remembered our first meeting, by the cave, and I mimicked his words now. “Why is this?”
“You’re too pure.”
His high-handedness irked me. I felt my brow furrow. “I’m not too pure.”
“You are. You’re exquisite. And innocent. I’ll not use you, Roses.” His voice was low when he continued, and I could hear there the note that I feared: the slightest hint of pain. And uncertainty. “I want to take you as my wife. Only then.”
I stared at him, and I could see him read the questions in my eyes. Was it true? Could it happen as he described it? And if we were to be wed, what was the point in waiting for a wedding night? And why, then, was his voice inflected with hesitation?
A thousand questions swirled around us. But there was one utter certainty that outshone any of the buzzing difficulties: even if I was never to marry Wilkie, it didn’t change how I felt.
I wanted him regardless. I wanted anything of him he would give.
The blaze of that insight was almost more unsettling to me than any other.
I turned away from him, lying on my back and staring at the ceiling, frustrated and upset.
He returned to the bed and lay next to me.
He grasped my jaw with his hand and faced me to him.
“I will marry you, Roses. You’re too beautiful to escape me.
My heart can’t bear a single moment apart from you.
Your body is sacred to me now, and I’ll worship you fully only when we are joined by wedlock.
” He leaned closer, brushing his lips to mine in a slow, succulent sweep.
“Until then, I will adore you every minute of the day. I will please you and soothe you every hour of the night. Will you marry me, Roses? Will you become my wife?”
It still seemed unfathomable that he was within my grasp, that I could keep my warrior as my own.
I had a strong feeling it wouldn’t be as easy as he seemed to believe it might be.
But now that I’d detected the less intimidating layers of Laird Mackenzie’s personality, I dared to hope it could one day be a possibility.
And I didn’t want to sulk or waste precious moments of his loving. If Wilkie continued to give me the kind of pleasure he had so far given me for a thousand days and nights, and nothing more, it would be enough.
I returned his light kiss, holding my lips to his very softly. “Aye, warrior. I’ll marry you. And I’ll hold you every minute of the day and night, from this day, and every day.”
He smiled against my lips. “Roses said aye to me. My beloved is my betrothed.”
“I’ve never said anything but aye to you.”
He laughed softly and stared deeply into my eyes. “My body burns for you, lass. And my heart breaks for you. When I thought you’d been taken from me—” His eyes blazed with such fury, I touched his lips.
“I wasn’t taken. I’m here with you.”
He absorbed this, and his eyes slowly calmed. He was silent for a long moment, contemplating me, then he said, “Tell me. What would you choose to do?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Stay with you.”
“Aye. I mean, after that. You’ll stay here with me.
And you’ll marry me. And I’ll keep you as close to me as I can, when I train and when I work.
But what else would you choose to do, with your time?
You grow restless when I’m not here to give you all my careful attentions. ” The corner of his mouth quirked.
“Oh. I would choose to...” I watched his reaction, wondering if he would allow such a thing. “I would continue to assist Effie, if she wanted me to. But most of all...I would choose to help tend the gardens. The medicine garden. The vegetable gardens. The orchards.”
Wilkie looked at me as though he’d just discovered a new and fascinating treasure: my thrumming excitement.
And it was true; I hadn’t explained to him the extent of my wish, to tend plants and trees and herbs and vines, to spend my days feeling the soil and the grass, and watching the fruits of my labor grow.
“If you want to tend the gardens, lass, then the gardens it is. When you choose to. If you choose to.”
I lay still for a time. Maybe I hadn’t woken up, after all. Maybe all of this, and all of him, was still a hazy beautiful production of my subconscious, hopeful mind.
I held him close to me, not moving, barely breathing.
I didn’t want to upset this perfection. I didn’t want to wake up, or to unbalance with a word or a movement the beauty of this moment.
The fledgling seed of hope and optimism that Wilkie had introduced into my life at our very first encounter took hold in me then, shifting, digging in, imparting a shred of itself into my psyche.
Changing me, as though my very spirit was coiling itself around his, daring to bloom and flower from the sustenance he provided.