Chapter 31 #2
Perhaps realizing that the risk was too great, he suddenly withdrew his touch and his hard length, and came around to the front of her. There, he sank to his knees and promptly buried his head between her thighs, scooping her leg onto the broad shelf of his shoulder.
“Oh… Oh, God… Yes… Yes!” she cried out, forgetting her frustration entirely as his tongue worked its magic on her bud and his fingers glided through her sodden folds to find her bereft entrance.
It might not have been his manhood, but she didn’t have any reason to complain as he eased his fingers inside her, filling her up.
With his tongue and his fingers working in perfect harmony, she soon felt herself rising toward that peak of absolute euphoria, the rush that she had been chasing ever since she lost at Vingt-et-Un.
And then, he just stopped.
She gasped in pure exasperation, staring down at him. His eyes glinted with mischief.
“Will ye ever say ye’ll leave again?” he asked, a faint smirk on his lips.
“No,” she panted, shaking her head, desperate for him to continue. “No, I swear it.”
His smirk widened. “Good.”
With that, he resumed where he had left off, her body responding with almost aggressive pleasure, intensified by that fleeting pause.
When she finally reached her peak, it was unlike anything that had come before.
The power of it made her buck and cry out, her whole body trembling, each muscle tightening, her head swimming, her eyes squeezing shut as her neck arched.
She gripped his hair, unable to catch her breath as that mighty wave roared through her veins with the force of a wondrous maelstrom, taking control of her entirely.
“Yes, Gordon… Oh… Oh, Gordon!” she all but screamed, fearful that the knee of her standing leg might buckle and she would simply collapse onto the floor.
But he held her tightly, his tongue slowing, his touch easing, coaxing her through the surges.
This was what she would be missing if she returned to England. And yes, she wanted more. She wanted everything, but she reasoned in her bliss that she could live with this much. It was powerful enough to be enough.
Soon, her euphoria began to ebb, the potency fading, though smaller waves of pleasure continued to crash and shiver through her senses.
Gordon carefully withdrew his fingers and tasted her one last time, before turning his head to kiss her trembling inner thighs.
He rose to his feet and untucked her skirts, letting them fall back to the floor as he pulled her in and kissed her slowly and longingly on the mouth.
She kissed him back, still dazed, still feeling the residual pulses and sparks of her conclusion, a smile on her face.
With a smile of his own, he pulled back and gently tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear.
“Beautiful. The most beautiful lass I’ve ever seen,” he murmured, moving back to stand behind her and staring at her in the mirror.
“Ye’ll be the most beautiful bride, and I promise, lass, I’ll make ye as happy as I can. ”
His arms locked around her, and she held them, gripping his forearms. But as the warmth of her release ebbed, a few doubts crept back in.
“Before tomorrow, I must know the terms,” she said, swallowing thickly.
He frowned. “It’s a marriage, nae an arrangement.”
“It is all the same thing,” she protested mildly, taking a breath. “Before tomorrow, I must know… do you want me here? Do you truly, hand on your heart, want me as your wife?”
His expression softened, and he put his hand on her heart instead. “I do, Sunshine. I’d hoped that would be obvious to ye, but if ye need to hear it, then… aye.”
“But you… do not want to make love to me, have a wedding night, or give me a family?” She used the term that he had used when he had spoken of his friend. To make love. It seemed rather poetic.
He sighed and held her closer. “We already are a family, lass. Aye, it’s nae traditional, but that’s what we are. Ye, me, the bairn. That bloody fox cub.”
Agnes let out a faint chuckle.
“I’ll raise Lizzy as if she’s me own. She’ll want for nothin’, lass,” he continued. “But nay, I cannae risk havin’ bairns of me own.”
“Is that what Katherine would want for you?” she asked, thinking of her mother and what she would make of her father’s destructive grief.
Gordon’s expression darkened, and she feared she had gone too far.
“I’ll never ken what she would want for me, Sunshine, but she’d have adored ye.
Ye’d have been firm friends,” he replied sadly.
“I didnae make that vow to make me life difficult or because of some vengeance or spite. I made it so that no one would end up bound to a monster like me. But I’ve tried to stay away, and I cannae help but want to keep ye for meself.
I suppose that means they ought to add ‘selfish bastard’ to me entry in that almanac of yers. ”
She could tell that he was trying to make her feel better, more reassured, but there was still a distance that defied the closeness of their embrace.
“You are no monster,” she told him. “But… couldn’t you break the other half of your vow and be selfish there too?” There was no hiding the hope in her voice.
He hugged her tighter. “Nay, lass. That vow wasnae made against beastliness, but against sufferin’.
I willnae risk feelin’ pain like that again.
Because if I had a bairn with ye and anythin’ were to happen, I’d burn Scotland to the ground.
All of it. I’m riskin’ enough by acceptin’ Lizzy as me own. ”
It wasn’t the answer she wanted, and it did not make it any better that she completely understood his perspective.
If anything were to happen to Lizzy, she too would fly into a madness she could not even begin to imagine.
Why, at the time of Christine’s death, she had almost throttled Edwin.
Might have squeezed the life out of him if he had not been a good deal stronger than her and had shoved her away.
She turned in Gordon’s arms and rose on her tiptoes to press a quick peck to his lips. “You should leave, and I should retire to bed,” she said. “I cannot look ghoulish tomorrow.”
After stealing another kiss, Gordon finally released her and stepped away. “I’ll see ye at the altar, Sunshine.”
“I will be the one wearing this dress,” she said, managing a smile.
He nodded, a quiet chuckle rumbling in his chest. “Aye, and I fear it will be very distracting.”
With that, he left, closing the door behind him.