The Laird’s Vow #9
“Don’t you like it?”
“I like it fine.”
“Then why?”
“Because it’s stretching my control to its limits, that’s why.”
“Your control?” There was almost a purr to the way she said it.
“Aye, touch me again and I might not be able to keep my promise to you. And I don’t break my word.”
“I see.”
The only sound in the room then was the crackling of the fire and Cameron’s own heavy breathing.
He tried to concentrate on pure thoughts, but the scent of her skin, of roses and warm, aroused woman teased his nostrils.
Coals shifted in the fireplace and all he could think of was the way she would look clad in nothing but firelight.
He gritted his teeth willing his rampant body to obedience.
“What if I want you to?”
His stomach lurched. Did she just say what he thought she’d said?
Her hands moved at his hips, there was the click of buckles and he felt his kilt begin to slide away. He turned around to face her. “What the hell?”
“I … I’ve changed my mind.” In one movement she pulled her nightgown over her head and knelt there, naked, her heart in her eyes.
With a groan he pulled her to him. He lavished her with kisses, loving every inch of her skin with hands and mouth and body. She was warm satin, fragrant as petals and her hair flowed over her like the silky dark water of the peaty burn.
She shuddered and gasped and pressed herself against him, wrapping her long silky legs around him, plastering him with hot, slightly clumsy kisses that drove him purely wild.
He’d planned to wait, to take it slow and gentle but she was wild and eager and impatient and so greedy for him he couldn’t hold himself back.
As he entered her she cried out, arching and shuddered, clutching him with hard little fingers, her thighs trembling and closing around him as her body accepted him deep inside. Welcoming him.
Ancient rhythms pounded through him and he shattered then, and at the spiralling edge of his awareness felt her shattering with him.
Eight
Cameron woke first in the morning. Usually after a night of love-making he sprang out of bed, raring to meet the day. Now he lay quietly, listening to the soft sound of her breathing, examining the unaccustomed feelings that lay heavy and full in his chest.
He was married. He had a wife. This was how he’d wake every morning for the rest of his life. He felt … He tasted the feelings floating inside him … Happy. Humbled. Awed.
Yesterday he’d sworn a mad, rash vow and performed the most reckless act of a somewhat reckless life. It could have been the biggest mistake of his life.
He glanced at the girl curled up against him, her silky chestnut hair spilling over her shoulder, half hiding her face.
Instead she was the biggest gift.
He lay there, breathing her in, the scent of her; roses and woman. His woman, his bride.
Her eyes fluttered open and she smiled sleepily. “Cameron,” she breathed, and he couldn’t help it, he had to kiss her, and then, well, he couldn’t help himself again. He had no self-restraint, and apparently, neither had she.
Afterwards they lay entwined, their breathing slowing, skin to skin, gazing into each other’s eyes.
After a while she gave a shivery sigh. “That was the loveliest way to wake up.” She stretched and gave him a rueful smile. “I suppose this means the courtship is over.”
And she looked at him with that damned look in her eyes that shattered him every time.
Cameron took a deep breath and began, “My love is like a red, red rose that’s sweetly sprung in June, my love is like—” He broke off. She had tears in her eyes.
“What is it?” he said. “What’s the matter?”
“Rabbie Burns,” she whispered. “You’re quoting Rabbie Burns to me on my wedding morning.” Great crystal tears glittered on her lashes. What the hell had he done wrong?
“You said you liked poetry.”
“You said you didn’t.”
“Aye, well, I promised you a courtship. And you do smell like a rose, and so I thought …” He swallowed. “They fit. The words I mean. They all fit. All the words.” He scanned her face anxiously. Didn’t she see what he was trying to tell her?
Her mouth quivered. “Cameron Fraser, I know we’ve only known each other for a day and a night, and you’ll probably think it’s foolish of me, and premature, but I think I’m falling in love with you.”
She loved him. He wanted to shout it from the battlements. His chest felt full and heavy. He cupped her cheeks with his hands and kissed her. “It’s neither foolish nor premature, Jeannie Macleay Fraser, but a proper thing in a bride.”
“And you?” She gave him that look and waited. Och he was gone, he was truly gone.
“Perhaps I’ll one day come to rue the day I plucked a wee bog sprite from the mud and married her, but I doubt it. Right now I think it’s the cleverest thing I’ve done in all my life.”
She tried to frown. “A bog sprite?”
Cameron grinned and kissed her. “Aye but this wee bog sprite smells like a rose.” He kissed her again. “My bonnie lass.” And again. “My red, red rose.” And then because she might not have understood what the poem meant, “My love.”