Fourteen
Yes, Constance wanted to cry out. This was what she’d hoped for. Her very soul opened to him.
Gordon stood, bringing her up with him. His arms slid around her waist. She grabbed hold of his shirt, not wanting to give him the opportunity to escape. Not now, not ever.
His kiss was hungry, almost angry. It was as if he had denied himself for too long. He held nothing back, and she was his oh-so-willing accomplice.
“Constance, we shouldn’t—” he began, but she shut him up with another kiss.
No more arguments. She knew what she wanted. From the moment she’d met this man, he had reshaped her life. He was what was important. He was what she valued.
The ferocity of his kiss robbed her of breath. Her knees no longer held her weight. She leaned into him for support, and when he swung her up in his arms, she offered no complaint.
Gordon moved back into the sheltering darkness of the pines. He laid her on the soft, thick bed of needles, stretching his long body along hers, his tartan a blanket beneath them. Constance didn’t care what he did as long as he kept kissing her.
A wet nose sniffed close to them. Tad. Gordon lifted his head. “Go hunt,” he ordered the dog, who quickly obeyed.
Gordon returned to her. “Now where were we?” He found his place by kissing her neck.
His fingers tugged at the lacings of her brown dress, deftly loosening what she had so hastily tightened. The bodice opened.
Gordon’s lips followed the line of her jaw, lingering at a sensitive point where her head and neck met. Her body seemed to open to him with a will of its own.
Her breasts were full and tight, as if anxious for his touch. He brushed the nipples with his thumb and she wanted to sing with joy.
This was what she’d yearned for. This man.
She offered resistance when he settled his weight upon her. At some point he’d unfastened his breeches. He was aroused, his body hard and firm. Pride filled her that she did this to him. He wanted her.
“You are so beautiful,” Gordon whispered against her ear.
“So are you,” she answered.
He laughed, the sound joyful and mirroring her own heart. His mouth covered hers. No, it plundered hers. He’d pushed her dress up. Her petticoats were damp but she didn’t feel the cold. His heat kept her warm.
Gordon’s hand touched her intimately.
Muscles deep within her clenched and Constance gasped at the pleasure. She’d wrapped her arms around him, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt, not ever wanting to let him go.
She was not naive. She understood what happened between a man and a woman. As his hardness pushed its way inside her, she braced for the pain. There was a momentary tightness, as sharp as a needle’s prick.
He held himself back, waiting for her to grow accustomed to the size and shape of him.
“I’ve hurt you,” he said, his voice tense, as if it took all his power to hold back. “It becomes better,” he promised, and lifting her hips with his hand, began moving inside her.
He was right.
Constance buried her face in his golden hair. His movements were slow at first, as if he was still being careful. She didn’t want him to do that. She wanted him to take her, to make her completely his.
She dug her heels in, curving her body to meet his, and Gordon let go. His thrusts went deeper with an increasing pace. His lips were by her ear and he kept repeating her name as if she alone drove him.
Constance vowed she’d never, never, ever let him stop. They were going to spend the rest of their days just like this—
Suddenly, she felt as if she’d been struck by a bolt of lightning. For a glorious moment all her senses were centered on him. Her blood sang—and she couldn’t move, couldn’t think.
Her legs wrapped around his, bringing him as deep as she could, and still it wasn’t enough.
He thrust, once, twice, and then completion.
She could feel the life force leaving him. It filled her, a molten bonding of two souls.
Ever so slowly, the tension left his body. His weight felt good on her. She hugged her arms around his neck, cradling his head close. Smiling. She stroked his hair, drinking in the warm masculine scent of him mingled with the fragrance of pine needles.
“That wasn’t just a coupling,” she whispered. “It was a miracle. A complete and wondrous miracle.”
He lifted his head to look down at her. “We will pay for it—” he started.
Constance kissed the end of his nose to keep him quiet. “Whatever the price, it’s worth it.”
A fierce pride filled his face. “Aye, it’s worth it,” he agreed, and made love to her again.
Constance’s legs could barely hold her by the time he’d finished loving her. So Gordon carried her back to the tent, where Tad waited, his tail wagging.
Gordon helped Constance undress, hanging her wet petticoats on the chair. She put on her dancing gown as a night dress and helped him pull off his boots…which led to his breeches…and his shirt…then her dancing gown—and they were making love again.
It seemed they couldn’t leave each other alone. And each experience was better than the last.
Drifting asleep in his arms, their naked bodies entwined, Constance murmured, “I don’t know how we can ever stop doing this.”
He laughed, the sound throaty and masculine. “I don’t want to stop,” he assured her, and she sighed her agreement.
But just before she drifted to sleep, she whispered the words of her heart, “I love you.”
Was it her imagination, or did he hesitate and then quietly answer, “I love you, too?”
Gordon held the sleeping Constance in his arms. He told himself he should consider the problems this night’s work had created.
He couldn’t.
It was all too precious to him right now. Tomorrow, he’d worry.
Tonight, he just wanted to hold her, to pretend they had no fears.
What had she said earlier—about their making love being like a miracle?
It was. The anger that had driven him for so long, that had been renewed by Laird MacKenna’s betrayal, that led him to kidnap her was evaporating.
Slowly, steadily, Constance Cameron was changing him.
Her courage, her willingness to make the best of her circumstances, to embrace love, chipped away at the hardness surrounding his heart.
He didn’t want to die the author of a rebellion. He longed for peace in his life, for a wife and children.
That was the reason he’d avoided Constance. He’d feared exactly what had happened this evening.
But now he didn’t regret it.
Gordon pressed a kiss against her temple. “I love you,” he said again, the words stronger than before. They were dangerous words. They could bind her to him, and he’d not do that. He had to protect her. Love demanded no less.
The next morning, Constance woke to Gordon making love to her. He’d entered her with her sleepy consent and once again took her to the very peak of pleasure.
Lying together afterward, Constance caught the scent of the cook fires. Everyone would be up and about by this hour—and wondering where they were.
She pulled the tartan up to her nose and slid down next to him. Laughing, he drew her back up. “You’re afraid to face them,” he accused.
Constance nodded. “I don’t know what they’ll think.”
“They believe we already are lovers,” Gordon told her.
“Not everyone. Fiona asked yesterday.” She told him of the conversation she’d had with his sister. “Now I shall have to confess differently.”
Gordon kissed her shoulder. “Let’s not say anything. It’s none of their affair.”
For a second she was tempted to ask the questions crowding her mind, then decided against it. What was between them was too new for close examination. It needed time to settle. She believed all would work out as it should. He loved her. She loved him.
Was anything else important?
They dressed quickly. Constance’s petticoats had dried. They smelled of the night air and the crystal clear lake.
Before leaving the tent, Constance shyly held back. Gordon reached for her hand. He lifted the flap to allow her to go first.
Most of the clan appeared to be gathered around the cook fires. At the first sight of Constance and Gordon, conversations died down. Heads turned. Necks craned.
Constance had taken great care with her hair, but for the first time she wondered if she looked as lovingly used as she felt. Her body ached in places she’d not known it could ache before. Could they tell by looking at her?
Tad came trotting over to greet them, as eager to please as always. He’d been at Fiona’s side. Gordon scratched the dog’s head, taking the opportunity to place his possessive arm around Constance’s waist. “Courage,” he whispered, and she realized he was as self-conscious as she herself.
And then someone started clapping, and another person joined in, and then another and another until the clearing rang with applause.
Even Fiona clapped. She came to her brother’s side, gave him a kiss on the cheek, and offered Constance a hug.
“’Tis a good thing,” Emma Reivers said. She wiped her hands on her apron. “’Tis time you handfasted a woman, Gordon. A strong, strapping man like you has needs, and as you can see, we all like Constance. She’s a good one. You don’t want her to escape. Many a lad here would take her in a wink.”
At the word “escape,” several people burst out laughing. One who didn’t was Thomas. From the corner of her eye, Constance saw him standing apart from the others in much the same way Fiona once had.
He caught her glance and turned away with a scowl.
She didn’t care. Right now she didn’t think she’d ever been happier. These people included her as one of their own. She felt more a part of them than she’d felt anywhere, including her life in the Ohio Valley.
“Handfast?” she asked Gordon.
“It’s the old ways,” he explained. “If there is no man of the church available, a couple can pledge their troth in front of the clan and then their hands would be tied together. They had one year to either marry or part.”
“And we have the rope for you,” Old Rae Reivers shouted, holding up a lead rope like the one Gordon had used to tie them together days ago. Everyone laughed.
But Gordon didn’t take it further.