CHAPTER THIRTEEN #2
She kissed him again, on his throat, and swept her hand down to his navel. She wasn’t trying to tease him, but in that instant, she felt a shocking urgency.
He cried out, turning away from her onto his belly. Brie went still, and then the pleasure blinded her.
He was climaxing.
Her own body went wild. It was as if she were having her own release—almost. Instinctively she held him from behind, gasping against her own pleasure, her cheek against his back while he convulsed.
He was spinning wildly, euphorically, and she was with him.
Then the spinning slowed and he began to float—she began to float.
As he went still, she simply held him, loving him so much her chest hurt.
But her body was on fire, throbbing terribly, and she had about five hundred layers of clothes on, which did not help matters.
Trembling, she became aware of the moment he was coherent. His embarrassment flooded her with its warmth, but only for an instant, because suddenly he shielded his emotions from her.
She bit her lip, flushing. She was the virgin and he had pretty much acted like one. Then, as the disbelief faded, she began to smile. It would be funny if his neediness weren’t so tragic. And he was very macho. He wasn’t going to be amused at all.
“’Tis nay amusin’.” His tone was rough. He rolled over to face her and she glimpsed a still massive erection as he sat up. Desire surged forth. He blocked it partly, but it didn’t matter. Her entire body tightened, heated, hollowed. “I am sorry,” he said, his face set in hard lines.
“It’s okay.” She reached for his cheek but he pulled away. He was blushing.
“’Tis nay okay.” His stare was direct, even though his cheeks were red. “Yer touch unmans me.”
It sure does, she thought, and she smiled. It was sinking in. She was thrilled.
“Yer pleased to have taken a boy to yer virginal bed?” he asked softly. But suddenly he seized her belt.
“Very!” she cried, undaunted. And she froze, realizing what he meant to do.
Suddenly he was tugging on her belt. She tensed as he stripped it away fiercely, tossing her plaid aside, as well. “Ye wear too many clothes,” he murmured, pulling her sweatshirt off.
Brie lay absolutely still, incapable of speech.
He gripped the tunic and ripped it abruptly from her body.
Brie felt faint, urgency consuming her as he hooked his hands beneath her bra straps, his expression hard. It crossed her very befuddled mind to ask him not to rip it off, but too late: the straps snapped and her bra vanished. He pressed her shoulders down with one hand, eyes blazing.
There was no point in breathing now. Brie thought she might die soon.
A smile flickered in his hot eyes as he straddled her, his knees were now pushing her jean-clad legs wide.
Brie was whirling in a thick quicksand of desire. She thought she said his name, but she didn’t recognize her own voice.
He seemed even more impossibly aroused. He tugged on the snap of her jeans and slid his hand into them, his large palm cupping her beneath her panties. She closed her eyes and gasped, flooded with pleasure and desire, vibrating with the need to soar and peak. But he was very still.
Brie somehow looked up at him.
His expression was strained, his entire body was quivering. His chest rose and fell wildly and sweat dripped off his brow.
He wanted her, she thought, the love surging hard against her chest. “Let me feel it.”
“Aye,” he said, low and rough. “Aye, I want ye, Brianna.” His desire erupted and Brie cried out, shocked by his urgency, his hunger.
And then he yanked her boots off, and then her jeans and underwear followed.
His desire was pulsating so frantically in her that she raised up, and he caught her face in his hands and kissed her while pushing huge and hot and hard against her soaking flesh.
His muscular body shuddered uncontrollably.
Brie lifted her leg to wrap it instinctively around his hips, kissing him back. He caught her calf to help her. She began to spin as he lifted her other leg. She clawed his back, wanting to scream with the growing urgency, the shocking need, and then she felt him push inside, and she went still.
He slowly filled her. She gasped, shocked by the sensation of their union. She quivered around him, loving him so much it hurt. The pressure he was exerting grew and grew.
He whispered her name.
Brie’s eyes flew open. She looked up into his intent, fierce stare, and he smiled at her.
She knew what that smile cost him and her heart leapt in joy.
And watching her, he thrust carefully, deeply, exercising a vast control.
Brie gasped against a brief, slight pain, and then she was full as never before.
For one moment she lay utterly still, stunned.
She wished to engrave that moment in her memory forever.
He also lay still, and as they looked at each other, she knew he was as surprised as she was.
Yet somehow, their union was so terribly familiar, like déjà vu.
“Brianna,” he whispered again. And she felt him memorizing the feeling of their union, not just of their bodies but the depth of their passion, their caring and connection, their love.
His gaze flickered. He made a harsh sound and began moving inside her, urgently—all control gone. Brie clung and let him take her where he wished. She heard him now, aye, high above the world, and the frenzy began. She shattered and sobbed, insane with the indescribable rapture. He cried her name.
Brie wasn’t sure how long he swept her through the stars in passion and ecstasy, but it seemed to go on forever—she wanted it to go on forever.
She would love him forever, no matter what happened to them.
She wept with love and rapture. His mouth moved over her face, her hair.
She stroked his hard shoulders. He kissed her softer ones.
His rhythm slowed and was even more excruciating. They wept together, this time.
HE OPENED HIS EYES, saw the tent ceiling above and sat bolt upright. He had fallen asleep.
Only for a moment, but it hadn’t happened in sixty-six years.
He stared down at the woman snuggled against his side, stunned to see her there. Shock turned to horror.
What had he done?
He slid from the bed, throwing on his leine and stepping into his boots, refusing to look at her.
He recalled every moment of their time together now.
He took his brat and stepped outside into the dark dawn, and then he began to run toward the ridge, past what was left of his camp.
Royce and Malcolm stood by a fire near their tent and they turned to stare at him.
He didn’t care. He ran up the ridge, pounding hard, away from her.
He had not been making love to her. It was impossible.
Deamhanain did not make love.
On the top of the ridge he paused, panting. His mind raced. He saw Brianna as she had been dying on the plain after Moray’s attack. He had been terrified she would die, and he had found his healing powers.
He recalled her finding him in the wood. He had crawled back to her in agony, across miles, so he could die in her arms. He had been so relieved just to look at her again. There had been so much comfort when she had held him.
Last night he had been frantic to soar with her into the light, away from the darkness. He hadn’t lusted for power, not once. There had only been a stunning desire. He had sobbed in rapture and relief. There had been joy. There had been delight.
No! Aidan went still. The wind whipped him, blowing fiercely, indicating that snow was imminent, and he wanted to be chilled thoroughly, so there would be no feeling and never joy.
He could not forget his son!
He could not do this—he could not give her what she wanted. What was happening to him?
Deamhanain did not care about anything other than power, destruction and death.
They did not care about anyone except themselves and they did not heal.
They did not have friends or lovers; they had objects and victims, whom they used and destroyed.
They did not know the meaning of joy. They only knew the meaning of pain, cruelty and death.
He turned and stared down the ridge at his black tent as the gray sky shifted, but didn’t lighten. The first snowflakes fell.
There had been so much joy.
In that moment, he knew he had made a colossal mistake, one that threatened his entire existence and his very life.
He breathed hard.
He hated the gods for taking Ian, and he would never forgive them.
He would never return to Iona and the Brotherhood.
He was the son of a deamhan. He didn’t want or need her love or her friendship.
She could touch him a thousand times—no, a million—and they could fuck again, but he was filled with evil.
He needed power, not pleasure, not love and not joy.
He only wanted revenge for Ian.
He must never forget that.
His temples pounded in pain. His heart hurt him.
He had spent sixty-six years in a self-imposed exile.
Taking whores and courtesans to bed did not count, as he had not allowed them their humanity.
Passing his servants in the hall did not count, as they lived in terror of him.
His mercenaries and the villagers also feared him and avoided him.
He had lived alone for a reason—it was his vengeance against the gods—and it had kept him inhuman and ruthless.
Yet somehow, in the past few very short days, after long, endless decades of isolation, he had rescued her, healed her and taken her to bed as if he had come to have a concern for her, as if they were lovers, as if they were friends.
But that concern was now over. He would never touch her again, much less bed her. There would be no more long looks and smiles. Last night had been an exception, and it would never happen again. She was his bridge to Ian. That was all.