Chapter Twenty #3
“I would never have burnt you, Roses,” he said, raising my face to his, “and I would not have cast you away. You’re my angel, lass.
That is what you are. ’Tis what you always were and always will be.
I love you. To utter madness. Have I not proven that to you, in every way that I know how?
Say it to me. Say ‘my warrior loves me to utter madness.’”
I sniffled. “My warrior loves me.”
“Nay, Roses. My warrior loves me to utter madness.” He paused, wiping my tears.
“It pains me to think that you’ve carried this with you all these years of your life, along with all your other burdens.
No longer, lass. You are free, to live your life as you were meant to.
I’m here with you, always, to make sure that happens.
You’re not alone anymore. There are two of us now. ”
I beheld him, my warrior, and my heart felt as if it would break open with love for him.
“Before we return to Kinloch,” he said, “you will promise me, right here and right now, that you will never, ever leave me again. Say it.”
“I promise with my whole heart that I will never, ever leave you again.”
“Are there any more secrets you’d like to share?” he asked insistently. “Because I demand to know about each and every one of them right this instant.”
I was gently pulling him back to the edge of the river, mindful of his wounds and his treatment. We had drifted slightly downstream so would need to climb up a small bank to get back up onto the shore. “No more secrets, warrior. That was the only one. I swear it.”
“Good. Because if you ever break this promise, I shall have to punish you.”
“What will you do to me?”
“Oh, I’ll think of something very—” He stopped as I was making a move to climb up the bank. I felt Wilkie’s hands on my backside, which was, as I was positioned, partially exposed to him. He made a noise that landed somewhere between a sigh of surrender and an animal growl.
The ferocity of his pain and his anger lingered in him, and I was shocked at the way his hands were spreading me, revealing me to him.
I felt his mouth on me. I felt the probing insistence of his tongue delving into my most intimate places, pushing into me, then pulling softly with the skill of his mouth.
Then he rose over me. I felt his hands widening my stance and the hard pressure of him against my backside.
“Warrior, we should return—”
“Nay. Not yet.”
There was a desperation to his touch, like the near-death experience had given rise to his baser vulnerabilities.
Wilkie rubbed his shaft along my sensitive petals, dipping hotly into me, then removing his touch altogether.
I tried to turn to him, but he held me in place, climbing onto me so his body was leaning heavily over mine, covering me.
Again, slowly, he entered me, then withdrew, and the emptiness at the withdrawal was disconcerting, stealing pleasure and heat from my aching flesh.
I had never thought of such a position, but I was crazed for more of his teasing, gliding promises.
He touched me, using his fingers to open me to him, to moisten the delicate center of sensation.
“I’ll have you this way,” he whispered into my ear. “I have to have you. Now. Let me, lass.”
Again the touch was withdrawn. He was testing me, gauging my acceptance.
I made a small sound of frustration and tilted my hips back to him, offering myself in a wanton invitation for more.
I was wild with relief when his touch returned, playing me, until I was rocking ever closer to receive him.
I felt him position himself, deliciously stretching me as he slid farther.
Then he buried himself in a driving, powerful thrust. I burst instantly from the pressure that filled me so exquisitely and so completely.
He lifted my hips higher, and his hand stole to the exact place I needed it.
The deep, forceful possession worked in time to the melting stroke of his fingers as he rode me gently, over and over.
My bliss, which had begun at his very first drive, enveloped me in a profound haze of rapture.
The pleasure was so acute I had to writhe against him, squirming against his big, relentless body, just to bear the excesses.
He clamped his hands to my hips and thrust deeper into me than he’d ever been, then held.
I could feel a shudder roll through him, then the lustrous beat of his own upheaval spooling richly into me.
In his impassioned climax, his groans were pain-edged, almost as if he were stopping himself from crying.
I, too, had fresh tears in my eyes from the intensity of this, and of us.
My core rippled along with him, perfectly in time, as though my body sought to draw every drop of his essence into my very soul.
With his weight leaned heavily over me, Wilkie’s hand coasted up my back, pushing aside the mass of my hair to kiss my skin. He kissed my mark, and the feeling of his lips on that secret, always-forbidden place, was stunning.
“How will I ever survive you, Roses?” he whispered close to my ear. “I just don’t know how I will bear all the pleasure of you.”
From a far-off distance, I heard our names being called. Wilkie’s bath, to be sure, had taken longer than expected. I didn’t respond at first; I was floating on the radiating effects of his loving.
But I was aware that he needed his treatment sooner rather than later. I helped him dress, and I dressed myself and collected the small candle that still burned. We returned up the path to the camp.
“He’d better be extremely clean,” scolded Ismay.
She had already prepared the scene. A blanket was laid out close to the fire, and a number of bottles and jars were lined up near her bag.
And Laird Mackenzie and Kade were on hand, as well as Fergus.
This worried me. Would Wilkie be so pained that he’d need three men to hold him down?
I hoped Fergus’s appointment was merely as a guard, and not as one of Ismay’s assistants.
“Roses, you sit there,” Ismay instructed, pointing to a fur that had been placed some distance away from Wilkie’s treatment area, as though she was wary that I might be more of a hindrance than a help to her.
I was mildly irked by this, after all the times I’d helped her tend to others, albeit for more minor wounds than Wilkie’s. I moved the blanket closer and sat.