A Dangerous Love (33 page)

“Then now, honey love,” he told her as his mouth met hers in a torrid kiss.

To her surprise Adair almost swooned as his strong arms wrapped about her and his lips teased at hers. She was awash in the sensations that were overwhelming her. Her lips softened against his, letting his tongue gain entry into her mouth. Andrew had never kissed her like this. There was a fierceness in the laird’s kisses. Andrew had always been gentle with her, as if she would shatter if he were not. But Conal Bruce, while not rough, was hardly gentle. He demanded, and, to her surprise, Adair found herself giving in to those unspoken demands.

He took her face between his two hands and kissed her closed eyelids, her forehead, her cheeks. “This is different for me,” he said, sounding surprised. “It is not like it is with Agnes Carr. With Agnes I want to hurry my satisfaction. With you I want to take my time, honey love, because I don’t think I want it to ever end.” He caught up one of her hands and pressed a hot kiss on the palm. Then he led her to his bed.

Adair had to admit she found herself a bit confused.

With Andrew the lovemaking had been tender, yet she had never felt the emotions inside of her that she now felt building. “It is not the same with every woman?” 
she asked him softly as he laid her down upon her back.

“Nay, ’tis not,” he told her, smiling. “Nor, I am told, is it the same with every man. Or so says Agnes Carr, who has known more than her share of the lads.” The laird kissed Adair’s lips lightly.

“Oh.” So with each man it was different, or it was supposed to be. Andrew had promised her pleasure after their wedding night, but Adair had never really felt any. She had lied to him, of course, and told him she had, because the fault was surely hers and not his.

Perhaps if she had been able to give him a child it would have been different. She had not found his hus
bandly attentions unpleasant, but she had felt nothing like he obviously felt as he labored and groaned over her body. And each time when he had finished he would kiss her, roll over, and sleep while Adair lay in the darkness and wondered why there was no pleasure.

She had been afraid to ask him.

Now suddenly this rough Scotsman was touching her body with his big hands, and Adair was being assailed by feelings such as she had never before known. His mouth pressed into the hollow of her throat, and the sound he made sounded very much like a beast growling. He licked the graceful column of her neck with a wet, hot tongue, and Adair felt a quivering beginning deep within her. The greedy mouth closed over a nipple, suckling hard, while his fingers kneaded her other breast.

She whimpered with a growing need she didn’t even understand. The burning tongue began a slow exploration of her torso, and her breath came in short, quick bursts as his tongue pushed into the cavity of her navel.

The softness of her skin, the faint fragrance rising from her warm body set his senses awhirl with his growing desire. Her plump mons was pink and devoid of hair. The faintly shadowed slit dividing it excited him.

He ran his tongue along it, dipping between the flesh to taste her rising juices. He moved himself so he might part the two halves, and there nestled amid the moist-ness was her love bud. He began a delicate exploration of it with the pointed tip of his tongue.

Adair cried out with her surprise. Andrew had never done that, and yet she didn’t want the laird to cease his actions, which were exciting her more than she had ever before been excited. “Oh, yes!” she heard herself say, and she blushed.

He lifted his dark head. “It pleases you, my honey love?”

“Yes!”
she managed to gasp as her head began to spin.

For a little while longer he flicked his tongue over 
and around the sensitive nub, but then, his own need rising, he stopped, kissing her mouth to still her protest as he mounted her body beneath him and drove himself into the hot moisture of her sheath. She was tight at first, but then her body yielded to his manhood.

Adair caught her breath sharply as she felt his entry.

He was bigger than Andrew had been, and she was surprised at how easily she took him in. He stopped when he was fully sheathed, and she could sense him looking down into her face.

“Open your eyes, Adair,” he growled. “I want to see the pleasure rising in your beautiful violet eyes, my honey love.”

“Nay,” she half whispered. “I have never known the pleasure men speak of, my lord. If I disappoint you, you will surely send me back to Douglas. I would kill myself first!” All thought of Stanton had suddenly fled from her mind.

“Your husband gave no pleasure? Was he cruel?” the laird wanted to know.

“Nay, never! Andrew was gentle and kind. I pretended for him because I could not bear for him to know,” she confessed.

“Ah, my honey love, I have already given you a little pleasure adoring your little love bud. Your juices began to flow, which eased my passage within you. Trust me, and I will give you real pleasure,” Conal Bruce promised her.

“I am afraid,” Adair said.

He laughed. “Nay, not you. You’re a lass who does not know fear, Adair Radcliffe. You are anxious, but afraid?

Nay! Now open your eyes and trust me.”

Slowly she opened her eyes, and his own locked upon her as he began to move slowly at first, and then with in-creasing rapidity within her. Unbidden she wrapped her legs about his torso. It seemed as if her body was suddenly acutely attuned to his. She sensed the length and thickness of him. She savored the heaviness of his seed 
sac as it slapped against her bottom. And then suddenly something was happening to her. Adair felt as if she were about to burst into flames with the heat that suffused both her body and mind. Her head spun, and then the wave overtook her. She cried out as the intense pleasure rose up to take control of her body and soul.

She heard him groan. His body stiffened, and then through the sweet haze surrounding her she felt his juices filling her. And somewhere in their passion her eyes had closed once again.

For some minutes only the sound of exhausted 
breathing could be heard within the bedchamber. His weight on her was heavy, but she was so worn with their exertions that she could not move. Finally he rolled off of her, but then he gathered her back into his arms so that she lay atop him. Her heart-shaped face was pressed into the curve between his shoulder and his neck. He felt the soft puffs of her breath on his skin. He did not have to ask. He knew that she had felt her first real pleasure in the arms of a man. And Conal Bruce had to admit to himself that he had felt the kind of pleasure with Adair that he had never before known in the arms of any woman. “I’ll not be sending you back to Willie Douglas,” he told her softly. “From this day forward I am the only man you will ever know, my sweet honey love. And you’ll not sleep in the kitchens any longer, Adair. You will sleep in my bed, because you belong in it—and to me.”

“You have had your way with me,” she replied, her voice shaking slightly. “Let me go now, my lord.”

“Nay,” he said. “You are mine.”

“Nay,” she told him. “Your silver cannot buy my heart. Only I can give you that.”

“I don’t want your heart,” he told her cruelly. “I want all of your body, and my silver has bought me that, Adair. You are mine. I will never let you go!”

“I am just a body to you then?” she cried. Well, what else had she expected? Adair asked herself. Love? She 
had seen little of that between a man and a woman in her lifetime. Of all those she had known, only Richard of Gloucester had had a deep and abiding love for his wife, Anne. There had been no others, and she was a fool, she decided, to bring love into the picture. She was the laird’s new mistress now. Naught else. He had made her the whore she had sworn never to be.

“Aye,” he agreed. “But that body pleases me as no other ever has. And you cannot deny that what you felt in my arms you have never felt with another. Now go to sleep, my honey love. When my strength has been restored with a bit of rest I will want to taste your sweet charms again. This night is not yet ended.” And, reaching out, he drew the coverlet up over them.

Adair bit her lip. She would not weep. She would not!

W
hen Adair awoke after the long night she was lying on her belly, and the laird’s arm was over her. Slowly she turned over. There was the faintest light showing through a narrow crack in the shutters. She had to get up and go to the kitchens. Elsbeth would already be preparing the morning meal. Gingerly Adair attempted to escape the arm confining her, but it suddenly tightened.

“Where are you going?” he growled at her.

“It is almost dawn,” Adair told him. “I have to get to the kitchens, my lord.”

“Not yet,” he said. “I want more!” And he was atop her.

“Is your lust not yet quenched?” Adair demanded to know. “Three times we coupled in the night. I hardly had a moment’s rest satisfying your needs. I must get to the kitchens. Do you imagine Elsbeth can do what she does all alone?”
Dear heaven!
She could feel his manroot already hard with his cravings.

“Elsbeth has the others. I have you,” he said, his knee pushing her thighs apart. “I would rather have you for my breakfast than a trencher of porridge, my honey love.”

“I must go,” Adair insisted. “I have my duties to perform.”

“Your first duty is to me, and you are very ready, I can see,” he murmured in her tangled hair, the tip of his manhood pushing into her. “You are hot and wet, and you want me every bit as much as I want you, even though you will deny it.” He slipped deep into her.

“Don’t you, my honey love?”

“No!” she said stubbornly. How could he know? How could he be so infuriatingly knowing? She could feel him throbbing within her. “No!”

“Aye, you little liar,” he half laughed as he slowly withdrew, and heard her little whimper of protest. “Say you want me, Adair!”

“No!” she insisted. But she did want him. She wanted him deep within her, making her explode with those wonderful sensations he had made her feel thrice last night. “Let me go, you great Scots ape!” Her balled fists beat a tattoo on his chest.

“Enough, woman!” he roared at her. And then he began to move on her, his manroot pushing deep, withdrawing slowly over and over and over until the woman beneath him was sobbing with the pleasure that they were both experiencing.

She was being a little fool, Adair thought. He wanted her. She wanted him. Why was she acting like a silly girl? The fiery intensity was beginning to blaze within her. “Yes, damn you, I want you!” she cried, and then she soared as her crisis overtook her.

Her surrender forced him sooner than he would have wanted. He felt himself being drained by her hungry maw. No woman had ever weakened him like this. He groaned and, barely satisfied, rolled off of her. He could hardly keep his eyes open, and fell back asleep before he knew what was happening to him.

When he began to snore lightly Adair crawled from the tumbled bed. The extra bucket of water, cold now, was still on the ledge by the hearth. She picked the little washrag up and cleansed herself of his juices. She took up her chemise from the chair by the fire. It was dry
 
now, and warm. She donned it, and then pulled her green gown over it. Her footwear was in her bed space.

Adding two small logs to the fire so it would not go out, Adair slipped quietly from the chamber and down the stairs.

Grizel was already in the hall, adding fuel to the hearth and lighting the candles. She nodded as Adair hurried past. In the kitchens Jack was bringing in the wood for the day. Elsbeth already had her kettle of porridge cooking, and Flora was eating her breakfast at the table. Adair went into the little alcove where her bed space was located, and found her shoes. Putting them on, she ran her fingers through her hair until all the tangles were out, and then rebraided the heavy mass into a single thick plait.

“Come and eat,” Elsbeth called to her as Adair reentered the kitchen. She plunked a small bread trencher full of cooked oats before the young woman. “I can see he’s as vigorous a man as he would appear to be.” Then she chuckled.

Adair glared at Elsbeth, but said nothing. She reached for the pitcher of cream, and splashed some onto the hot porridge. Then she began to eat. She was just beginning to realize that she felt sore all over. She had been well used by the laird, and if she were honest with herself she had to admit that after her initial shy-ness she had enjoyed his lusty attentions very much.

But it puzzled her that the bed sport with her dead husband had never been as satisfying. Adair sighed. If she were honest with herself she had to admit her relations with her husband had been downright dull. She had been fond of Andrew. She had even convinced herself that she loved him. He was fair to look upon, kind, and thoughtful of her. But never in all the time they had been married had he once roused her senses to the fever pitch that Conal Bruce did last night. Not once.

Not twice. But four times! She had not realized that a man could perform so lustily and so often in so short a 
period of time. She put her spoon in her mouth and was surprised to find it devoid of oats. She had already scraped the trencher clean.

Seeing her bemusement Elsbeth slapped a thick slice of warm bread dripping with butter and honey before Adair. “You look fair worn,” Elsbeth remarked.

“I did not get a great deal of rest,” Adair admitted wryly as she ate the bread. But then suddenly she jumped up. “Oh, lord! The laird has no clothes to wear!”

“Sit down,” Elsbeth said. “Flora has taken him up his garments. You had best get to work making him some shirts. He has but two. ’Twould be a good task to start today. Grizel and Flora can serve the hall this morning.”

When the laird came down from his chamber Adair was nowhere in sight. The two other serving women were busily bringing the meal to the high board, where his two brothers were already seated. Conal Bruce joined them.

“Now where are those flowers hiding?” Duncan 
Armstrong asked, sniffing loudly.