Chapter 22
Ishouldnae do this. I should stop. I should put her to bed and leave.
There were many things that Gordon could have done, but stopping himself from kissing Agnes was not one of them. He needed her like he needed the air in his lungs, and if he broke away now, he would suffocate.
His rough palms skimmed over the silky smooth contours of her body, exploring the perfect hourglass of her waist, the swell of her hips, the soft and supple flesh of her backside, the give of her thighs, relishing each discovery.
It was everything he had imagined and more. She was temptation and perfection personified, and he was helpless against the pull of her warmth, her vitality, her passion.
Just daenae do anythin’ too stupid, his mind warned, giving up on getting him to pull away.
“I told ye nae to provoke me, Sunshine,” he murmured as he dipped his head and kissed the slender curve of her neck all the way up to her ear. His teeth grazed the soft lobe, his loins pulsating as she cried out, her nails digging into his shoulders.
“I merely… gave you what you… requested,” she panted, her back arching so that her ripe breasts pressed against him.
He laughed darkly against her throat. “Ye kent what ye were doin’, unwrappin’ yerself for me.”
“I have no… idea what you mean,” she said coyly, stirring him up even more.
Grasping beneath the swell of her buttocks, he hoisted her up into his arms. A growl rumbled in his chest as her legs locked around him, bringing her closer to his manhood, testing the limits of what little discipline remained within him.
With his arm wrapped around her and his other hand cradling the back of her neck, he kissed down the column of her throat to the ledge of her collarbone.
Her ragged breaths and the light scratch of her fingernails through his shirt spurred him on, his kiss tracing the valley between her breasts before he dared to seek out a pert pink nipple. Teasing her as she had teased him. Taking his time as she had taken hers.
Indeed, he did not intend to rush a single moment.
Agnes had not known it was possible to feel so much all at once. Her body of simple flesh and blood had been transformed into something else, a vessel of pleasure and wonder and awe and lightning that felt more like it was crafted from the fabric of heaven or woven from magic.
She was no longer confused as to how Gordon’s kiss could make her heart beat faster or how his touch could make her stomach tighten and send shivery pulses throughout her veins, pleasure pooling between her thighs.
It all made complete sense when seen through a lens of magic.
Clearly, he was a sorcerer, and she was only too happy to be under his spell.
But what she relished the most was how he seemed to make the ordinary extraordinary.
His kiss across her skin made it electric; the grip of his arms made her whole being feel armored against all troubles; the touch of his rough palms made her tingle and tremble as if she were attuned to him, while the sound of his impassioned breaths made her feel powerful, even if he was the one in control.
But when his mouth closed over her nipple and gently sucked, it was the first time in her life that she had felt on the verge of exploding.
A ricochet of pure bliss forked through the very center of her, causing her back to arch and her breath to catch. Her hand slid into Gordon’s hair, the fingernails of her other hand sinking into his back.
“Oh! Oh God!” she cried out as he sucked again.
Her hips bucked against him, and for a moment, she felt his hardness between her thighs, brushing over a sensitive spot. She gasped and writhed, eager to feel that sensation again.
As if sensing what she wanted, Gordon whirled around with her in his arms and laid her down on the bed. He held her there for a moment, gazing deeply into her eyes, and as a wily smirk curved his beautiful lips, he began to kiss downward.
He found the nipple he had not yet tended to, the warmth of his mouth making her squirm deliciously, the gentle suck igniting fresh sparks of lightning that shivered down between her thighs.
There, she felt the pulse of whatever his manhood had brushed against…
and longed to explore that unknown source of the most intense pleasure.
Gordon kissed along her ribs and the curve of her waist, his lips trailing across her skin to find the slight rounding of her stomach. From there, he moved to the swell of her hip, his tongue tasting, and onto the trembling flesh of her thigh.
She watched, breathless, as he knelt on the floor and his arms slid beneath her. She was entirely uncertain of what was about to happen, but knew full well that it would be enlightening.
The first stroke of his tongue against that mysterious sensitive spot was like waking up to an entirely new bright world and realizing that she had been asleep for the past twenty-two years.
“Oh, my God! Oh! Yes! Yes!” she cried out, her hands gripping fistfuls of the coverlets.
He teased her for a moment, his tongue moving in slow, tortuous circles that nudged her toward the edge of a wondrous insanity. Echoes of the pleasure of his first stroke rippled through her, but he was denying her the intensity, making her wait.
Is this why they call you the Cruel One?
She bit her lip to stop herself from asking, in case it soured the mood. Nor did she want to know if he had actually earned his nickname by being talented with an abundance of women.
“Yes, my Laird… Yes… Please, my Laird…” she moaned.
She thought she felt him smile as his talented tongue curved inward, narrowing to a point of pure ecstasy. He flicked his tongue against her, and she cried out, words no longer attainable, soaring on a wave of delicious pleasure.
But he didn’t let the wave settle this time. Instead, he rolled his tongue across that bundle of nerves in a measured stroke, tasting her, stirring her up, while his fingertips slid between her slick folds to find her entrance.
With the next stroke of his tongue, he eased a finger inside her, and the last of her sense and reason abandoned her entirely.
If he had stripped away his clothes and pushed inside her at that moment, she would have locked her legs around him and urged him on, ignoring the risks altogether. Indeed, how could something that felt so good be a danger?
Or was that the danger?
She shrugged away the thought and imagined that what she had felt and briefly seen between his thighs was there instead of his finger. And when he eased another finger inside her, she bucked her hips to feel it even more, while his tongue against her pulsing bud made her writhe and moan.
“Yes,” she panted. “Oh hell… Oh hell, yes…”
It was perhaps the coarsest thing she had ever said, and it felt so good not to be worried about offending anyone or getting scolded by her aunt.
His fingers curled inside her, pulsing against another sensitive spot, while gently thrusting in and out. All the while, his tongue moved to a potent rhythm, conducting an orchestra of bliss that seemed to be rising to a powerful crescendo.
She had no notion of what that crescendo might be, but she was eager to find out as she moved with him, meeting the thrusts of his fingers, letting her body do whatever felt instinctive.
When he curled his tongue and sucked gently, she thought she might burst. It was all too much, and yet she wanted more. She wanted to reach the edge of what a person could feel at once and then leap even further into the unknown.
Just then, that rising crescendo reached its peak.
A feeling unlike anything she had ever experienced seized hold of her. It was all of the smaller sparks and ripples and shivers of pleasure together, bolstered a hundredfold, pummeling through her veins at once. It was a surging wave that she was facing with open arms, ready for its almighty power.
Ecstasy flowed through her, liquid fire that burned in the most wondrous way, lighting her up from the inside out until she felt like a phoenix rising. An entirely new being, emerging from the ashes of who she had thought she was.
“Yes!” she screamed in bliss. “Oh yes… Gordon, yes… Oh, Gordon… Gordon…”
She gripped the blankets, her back arched, her entire body trembling and shaking with the power of her ecstasy. Her breathing was ragged, her eyes squeezed shut, her teeth raking across her lower lip, every part of her under the intense spell of that raw pleasure.
She flew upon that feeling for as long as she could, clinging to every pulse and shiver as the sensation slowly began to ebb. Like all good things, it could not have lasted forever. But now that she knew such a feeling existed, maybe this would not be the only time she felt it.
Maybe this was the start of an extension of their arrangement.
She collapsed into the soft mattress, more relaxed than if she had taken fifty fragrant baths. Her body still tingled, letting her know that she was changed, even if everything else was returning to normal. Her breathing evened out, her heart slowed, her muscles eased, her limbs ceased to tremble.
She gasped as Gordon withdrew his fingers. Slowly, he kissed his way back up, following the same path across her skin until he found her mouth.
There, with a smile, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her softly, sensually. She looped her arms around his neck and held him closer, kissing him back in kind.
It was certainly a better game than cards, and she was not at all sorry that she had lost.
Indeed, she could have stayed like that for a very long time, safe in his embrace, savoring his kiss. So much so that she did not want it to end, despite the fact that she could feel herself getting sleepier and sleepier.
With one last kiss, Gordon pulled back and bent down to retrieve her nightdress from the floor. “Stand up, Sunshine.”
She barely had the strength to, her limbs feeling as if they were made of butter.
With a rumbling sound that might have been a chuckle, Gordon carefully pulled her arms through the sleeves of the nightdress. That done, he buttoned the garment, his fingertips deft and quick despite the large size of his hands.
“Now that I’ve tired ye out,” he said, scooping her up into his arms, “ye’re to go to sleep.”
He carried her back to her side of the bed and tucked her beneath the coverlets.
“I daenae want to hear another peep out of ye,” he added teasingly.
From the soft pillow, she turned her head to look at him and, smiling sleepily, gave a nod. “Only if you stay beside me.”
He sighed. “Very well, but if ye toss and turn again, I cannae be held responsible for what I have to do to get ye to fall asleep.”
“I agree to your terms,” she murmured, momentarily wishing she did not feel so relaxed, so sleepy, for she rather wanted to find out what his other options entailed.
As she felt the bed dip under his weight and sensed his closeness at her side once more, she closed her eyes. This time, there were no racing thoughts, only the pull of a deep, contented slumber.