Bannockburn Binding (Beloved Bloody Time) (5 page)

Rob’s hand plunged into her loosened hair. “Now I know why your gaze has been bewitching me.”

Her heart, which had been subsiding, lurched again. This time, though, it stumbled for an entirely different emotion. “I have been bewitching you?”

“You know you have, lass. You have knowledge in your eyes and your heart that a maiden shouldn’t. As a maid, you are hard enough to resist. ‘tis that knowledge which makes you irresistible. It causes a man’s mind to wander where it shouldn’t when he looks at you.”

Rob wasn’t lying. That was the problem. She had spent two days watching him, wondering what it would be like to have him straining over her, his body working hard against her, his mouth on her nipples… He had sensed where her mind had been and more.

His lips were mere inches from hers. Tally could feel the heat of his body warming her own, so close did they lie together.

Tally sighed. “Rob…”

His lips touched hers. “I can see ye still have a lot to learn about me. Let’s change that.” His hand in her hair pressed her head toward him with a power that gave no room for argument or struggle. Yet his mouth was gentle, intended to avoid startling her. To woo her.

“You would take another man’s woman?” she breathed into his mouth.

“Ye said there was no formal acknowledgement, lass.” Rob’s voice was low. A deep, dark rumble that made something flip and turn in her belly, as his lips brushed her cheek. “Ye’re mine until he pays to have ye back.”

“What if I don’t want you?” she countered, pressing her hand against his big shoulder.

“Then it’s a liar I call ye, too.”

“Too?”

His lips grazed her cheek, high up by her eye. His breath fanned across her skin, bathing her in warmth. She felt the gossamer touch of his mouth against her temple. Then the warm, soft thrust of his tongue in her ear, probing delicately.

Her moan was ripped from deep inside her, as his touch sparked a firestorm of reactions in her. Warm flooded her, a heat she had not truly felt for centuries, if at all.

“Liar, I name ye,” Rob whispered by her ear. “Sweet torment, too.”

“You think you are the only one being tormented?” Tally breathed.

Rob lifted his head in order to look her in the eye. Shock was painted on his face, along with dawning wonder and understanding. “You…crave…this? Me?”

Tally tried to find simple words to explain her need, in a way that wouldn’t paint her as a harlot or worse in Rob’s medieval views. Twenty-third century human biology lessons might set up a time tremor.

Instead, Tally simply curled her thigh over his and her arm around as much of his back as she could reach. She kissed him, pressing her lips against his and thrusting her tongue into his mouth.

He rolled onto his back, bringing her with him. Because her thigh was already bent over his, it had the effect of spreading her legs across him and bringing her pelvis into direct contact with his.

Rob’s cock was a beating, hard ridge of flesh between them, shielded only by plaid, brocade and a thin chemise.

Tally gasped at the direct, unmistakable sign of his arousal. Her body tingled and her hips thrust, gently driving her mound against him.

“Ye gods,” Rob muttered thickly. His big hand curled over her ass, gripping possessively. His chest was rising and falling faster than normal. “Ye likely to drive a man to madness.”

“Myself, too,” Tally breathed. She lifted herself up, pressing against his chest. “You’ve let loose the wanton in me, Robert MacKenzie.”

His hands gripped her thighs as she straddled his hips, the thumbs stroking through the layers of her gown. “Show me.” His voice was a low command, rich with suppressed arousal. Just the sound of it made Tally shiver with anticipation.

She pulled her two braids over each shoulder and untied the leather bindings around each. She dropped the leather cords onto Rob’s chest and saw him breathe in as they brushed his flesh where it was revealed by the opening of his shirt. Tally untangled the braids and worked her hair loose, running her fingers through it, until it hung down her back in regulated waves formed by the braiding. She brushed locks away from her face to look at Rob once more.

He was watching her every move with a predator’s endless, unblinking attention to detail, absorbing it all.

Her arousal nudged a fraction higher. Tally reached for the stays on the side of her gown. Knowing that Rob was observing her every tiny move made it that much more exciting. She tugged the stays, letting them unravel and the gown loosen around her. The wide neck slid from her shoulders.

Rob exhaled heavily in reaction.

Her heart thundering, Tally sought for the hem of the gown—a kirtle, she reminded herself. She gathered the hem in both hands and slowly lifted it up the length of her body, then up over her head. She tossed the kirtle across the tent, toward where her discarded veil and shoes lay.

This time, Tally could
feel
Rob’s body tense. He rested his hands back on her thighs, over the fragile linen of her chemise.

“Natalie—”

“Tally,” she corrected.

“Tally?” he repeated, puzzled.

“Where I come from, Rob, my friends—those that know me best, they call me Tally. I would have you call me that, too.”

He sat up. It was a single flex of muscles that only a very strong man could manage. Tally abruptly found herself straddling Rob’s lap, his arm around her back, his hand in her hair and his blue eyes very close to hers.

“Is Tally what your Christian calls you?” Rob asked, his voice low.

“When he isn’t angry with me, yes.”

Rob gave a half-laugh, like it was pulled from him without his permission. “And when he’s angry?” he asked.

“Natália.”

“Natália,” Rob repeated slowly, letting it roll across his tongue. He looked into her eyes. “That is yer true name, no? ‘Natalie’ is just a rendering to make it sound English.”

Tally hesitated, but she simply couldn’t lie. “Yes,” she whispered, her heart almost hurting. The
danger
in what she was doing could not be underestimated.

Rob lifted his hand. His dirk was in it. “Ye’ve layers upon layers…Tally. I’ve a feeling I could dig until Doomsday and still not uncover them all. But this one at least, I can remove.” He slipped the dirk under the top of her chemise, between her breasts, and tugged. The dirk was sharp and the linen parted with a soft shredding sound as he ran the blade down the length of her body.

He flipped the knife over to the chest where it buried itself point first in the lid, then he ripped the rest of her chemise apart with his hands.

Tally let the sleeves slide off her arms. The linen pooled around her hips, leaving her naked except for her hose and garters, and spread across Rob’s thighs. Her nipples were marbled and erect.

“Such perfection…” Rob murmured. He circled her waist with his hands, but they didn’t linger there. His fingers stroked and his thumbs caressed, as he explored her body, his gaze following his hands.

Tally caught at his shoulders as her balance became uncertain beneath the assault of Rob’s hands and the steadily mounting excitement he was building in her. Her breath shortened and she squirmed and writhed as his fingers found sensitive spots and tender locations.

Finally he cupped her breasts. Tally let her head roll back, groaning at the exquisite pleasure his hands generated. “Ah, Rob, please….” she breathed.

“Please?” he questioned. His voice was thick, too.

“Stop teasing me.”

“I only take my own pleasure,” he replied, “like any man would.”

Tally made herself look him in the eye, even though she felt drunk with arousal. “Liar,” she croaked.

In answer, he leaned forward an inch or two and took the tip of her breast into his mouth.

Tally clutched at his head as the sparks of pleasure shot through her, straight to her clit and to every extremity in her body, as Rob’s teeth closed around her nipple and his tongue swept across the tip. The delightful tugging and suction simply increased her frantic desire for more and made her aware of her empty and throbbing vagina.

She reached for the frayed edge of Rob’s kilt, her patience exhausted.

Rob grabbed her wrist in an iron grip. He lifted his head from her breast, his gaze locking with hers.

“I’ll do that,” he said quietly.

“I only…” She bit her lip, confused.

“Ye not my serving wench, Tally. I’ll not have ye acting like one. Ye understand?” He kissed her lips softly. “No matter what happens in here, I know ye to be a lady and ye’ll stay one with me.” He lifted her from his lap and placed her on her knees beside him.

Then he raised himself to his knees and stripped the shirt from his body. He dropped it to one side, close by the boots he had discarded earlier that evening, keeping his gaze on Tally.

Tally’s gaze lingered over the dips and mounds of Rob’s chest and abdomen, the rounded caps of his shoulders and the flex and stretch of his arm muscles. Here and there were scars from old wounds and the healing of them—scars from stitching. She wrapped her arms around herself as her gaze fell to the big, worn buckle of the belt holding his kilt in place.

Rob eased the buckle undone. “Ye watch me like a beggar watches a feast being laid upon a table.”

“When it truly is a feast being spread, not mere crumbs, should it not be properly appreciated?” Tally replied.

Rob’s mouth turned up at the corners as he dropped the belt upon his discarded shirt. “It should be unseemly for a woman to think that way, but from your lips, it sounds….”

“I meant it as a compliment,” Tally interjected. “Praise,” she amended, as Rob frowned.

He unwound the kilt and dropped it onto the pile of clothes next to him.

Tally caught her breath.

His cock was stiffly erect, dark with blood and large. Generous, as they said in this age. It was beating with the throb of his heart.

“D’ye have praise for me now?” he asked softly.

“Oh, yes,” she murmured. She reached out a hand for him, but she was too far away.

Rob rose to his feet long enough to lift her once more, his hands around her waist. “There’s no more time for play.” His voice was rough. Hurried. He put her on her back on the furs and himself next to her. “You’ve driven me too far, too fast, this time.” His hand swooped along her flank, from breast to knee, before lifting her leg and separating her thighs.

Tally opened herself up, letting Rob settle between her thighs. She could barely contain her impatience to have him inside her. Her whole body quivered with anticipation.

“I canna wait, Tally,” Rob breathed, resting over her.

“Don’t,” she told him, reaching for him. She curled her leg over his hip. “Don’t wait at all.”

Nevertheless, he tried to ease into her, to decrease her discomfort, his eyes closing with the effort to constrain himself and not slam into her with all the power he could muster.

The feel of his cock separating her tissues, filling the aching void of her pussy, was heavenly. Tally quivered and clenched around his shaft, her orgasm already starting to build deep inside her.

Finally, Rob’s pelvis nudged her clit, creating a flare of pleasure, as he filled her completely.

He kissed her, hard and long, leaving her breathless.

“Again,” she gasped. “Faster.”

Rob chuckled. “Wanton.”

“Yes,” Tally agreed.

He pulled out of her, almost all the way, then slid back in, making her groan in pleasure. “Again,” she begged.

“It will finish me,” he warned.

“And me,” she replied. “I’m so close…”

Rob exhaled sharply. “Sweet lord,” he breathed. He shut his eyes for a moment. He rose over her, lifting himself onto his arms, fully extended and began to thrust into her in heavy strokes, using the full power of his body to drive himself deep and hard.

Tally curled her legs around his hips and gripped the furs, writhing as she spiralled up in the climb toward a mind-blowing climax. She could feel the power of it gathering inside her. Then it hit.

Tally reached for Rob as her senses seemed to dim under the onslaught of the orgasm. She felt his shoulders under her hands as her body locked, her breathing stopped, perhaps even her heart-beat halted.

The peak pulsed for what seemed like eons, before it ebbed and passed, letting her muscles relax and her body go limp.

Rob thrust once more, a hard push deep inside her. His cock spasmed and his pelvis quivered against her as he came with a groan that sounded like it was pulled from the roots.

He remained still, propped over her, sweat shining at his temples, his chest heaving. “I didn’t know a woman could do that…like a man.”

“It’s called climaxing.” Tally hesitated. “All women can climax. Just like men.” She tried to read his face, but he was keeping his expression carefully neutral. “You find it…distasteful?”

Rob swallowed, staring down at her. “No,” he said at last. His voice was rough again. Tally realized that his cock was still inside her and that it was as hard and large as if he had never come. “No, I don’t find it distasteful at all,” he added. “Especially the sounds ye made as ye…climaxed.” He drew another short breath. “Ye screamed, Tally, near enough.”