Chapter 14 #3
She shivered in the cool air of the cabin as he spread the front of her gown, exposing her fully.
He kissed across her collarbones, then down the valley between her breasts, pausing to nip lightly at the inner curve.
She hoped that it bruised. She would like, for once, to have a mark on her that spoke of pleasure rather than pain.
“I didnae want to like ye, ye ken,” he went on. Nobody had ever struggled to resist her before. They’d all managed to loathe her quite easily. “But ye are so brave, so clever. So strong. And so bloody beautiful that I find myself lost in ye.”
There was a fading bruise on her ribs, and he paused to press a featherlight kiss there. Kenna sucked in a gasp. She could not manage to do much more than breathe. She feared that anything else would make her wake up from what could only be the most wonderful dream of her life.
“But it turns out that I dinnae mind getting lost in ye,” he said, continuing his kisses down, down until he was no longer on the bed, but kneeling beside it.
He put his hands on her knees and spread them gently, a position that should have made her feel vulnerable but instead made her feel like she was a queen upon a throne.
“Because the chance to have a taste of ye… drives me mad.”
“Taste?” she managed before every word was lost in the sensation of his mouth between her legs.
She had never known—never thought. She couldn’t even seem to get her own disbelief straight inside her own head, too consumed by the onslaught of pleasure.
He applied himself to delighting her with the persistence of a man used to hard work and the relish of a man who loved the work he’d been given.
Every slick, warm caress of his tongue shot sparks through her body and drew tight the sensation low in her belly.
Just when she thought that she couldn’t take it any longer, that this was the kind of thing that might kill a person, he slipped two fingers inside her, crooking them in such a way that the pleasure outside connected to the pleasure inside like a bolt of lightning, and she was entirely gone.
She tried clamping a hand over her mouth to muffle her cries, but her body was too slow to react to anything besides Arran’s ministrations. The best she managed was a careless forearm thrown over her face as she panted through the shocking waves of pleasure that quaked her from her center outward.
She had never felt that, not even in her own fumbling explorations in the bath.
That was…
Arran looked properly bloody pleased with himself as he came up to lie on the bed beside her.
“Christ, ye are so beautiful like this,” he purred. “All flushed with the pleasure, breaking for me.”
“Goodness,” she finally managed. She knew there was more to be had, and she intended to have it. As Arran stroked her hair tenderly back from her face, she grabbed him by the neck and yanked him down to kiss her again.
“We dinnae have to,” Arran murmured into her mouth as her hands began searching for the fastening to his plaid.
She shook her head, then pulled back just enough to look at him.
“I want to,” she told him, holding his gaze firmly lest he doubt her conviction. “I want ye, Arran.”
He nodded and kissed her again, not wasting a moment of their time together.
“Ye are the greatest gift I’ve ever been given,” he told her as he shucked his clothing so that their skin could press entirely against skin.
Kenna tried to memorize the warm press of him so that she could carry it with her always, even when she went back to her own cruel reality.
“I willnae squander it, nor disrespect it. I will care for ye as long as I am able, as well as I am able.”
If his words made a sob catch in her throat, she never had to admit it, because he swallowed it down with his kiss.
“Arran,” she said, and it was both praise and plea. He reached a hand between them and guided himself inside her, their groans of satisfaction a symphony.
“Oh, god, lass,” he said through gritted teeth, as though the feeling was almost too good to bear. “I dinnae ken how I am meant to survive ye.”
“I dinnae ken how I am meant to survive without ye,” she returned, wishing she hadn’t laid herself so bare. It was a far deeper revelation than removing her clothing.
Before she could think too much about the words she’d let slip, however, he began to move inside her, and her senses were overwhelmed entirely.
They became one being, with no words between them, no space between them. They were all soft exhalations and grasping hands, slick sliding movement and, oh, God, another cresting mountain of pleasure that Kenna knew would destroy her when she reached the summit.
She was not wrong. When the climax came, it was an onslaught.
“Arran,” she cried, her head thrown back as the wracking overtook her.
He bent down to press his mouth to her exposed throat, not his lips but his teeth, holding but not hurting. Strangely, the proximity to his ability to do harm made her feel safe, not afraid.
When he followed her over the edge, he released the bite, instead pressing his face fully into the curve of her throat, as if he could dive even deeper inside her.
She held onto him tight. Maybe he needed this moment nearly as much as she did.
When their breathing slowed, she kept that tight grip on him because she could think of nothing worse than him moving his weight from atop her. She would hold on until her arms gave out.
She knew she couldn’t keep him forever. She knew that. But she would keep him as long as she could. It was a small bit of control, but it was all that she possessed.
“Thank you,” she said into his sweat-damp hair. She prayed he wouldn’t ask what she meant.
“Always,” he told her, just as softly. It was the loveliest lie she’d ever heard.