Highlander Unmasked (40 page)

When he reached out to touch her, his finger grazing the curve of her breast, Meg thought she might fall to the ground. Her legs had turned to jelly. It wasn’t enough. Couldn’t he see that he was torturing her? Her body shuddered with need.

“Your breasts are magnificent.” He reached under to cup her, weighing their fullness in his hands. Her ivory flesh flowed over his tanned fingers. “So large and round, yet your nipples are so small and pink. I’ll never forget how sweet you taste.”

She closed her eyes, allowing the heat to wallow through her as his words dragged her down into the dark blanket of bliss. Bliss that wrapped around her, drowning out everything but the pleasure.

With a wicked grin, Alex leaned down and flicked his tongue across her hard tip. “Ummm. I’m not sure that’s enough.” He buried his face between her breasts, allowing his jaw to scrape against her sensitive skin. He blew across each nipple, his warm breath fueling the fire.

His tongue swirled over her nipple, and she trembled with anticipation. She writhed in sweet agony, arching her back against his teasing mouth.

“Alex!” she moaned.

“Tell me what you want.”

She wanted the agony to end. For a woman rarely at a loss for words, she could only manage to choke out an insufficient, “You.”

It was enough.

At last his mouth enveloped her breast. Her fingers dug in his back as he sucked, pulling her harder and harder toward release.

Alex mustered restraint that he did not know he had. God, she was perfect. Melting against him, so soft and pliant. So honest in her passion. He couldn’t believe the good fortune that had brought Meg to him. He was done fighting fate. Meg in his arms, surrounding him, was meant to be. Honor had a place, but it wasn’t between them.

She was shaking with need. He knew he was torturing her, but he didn’t care. When she’d touched him earlier, teased him, the blinding haze of incomparable desire descended over him again. His blood pumped through his body, and the pressure building in his groin was nearly unimaginable. He wanted to thrust himself deep inside her, diving into that warm heat, and succumb to the all-consuming need for her that threatened to steal his soul.

One thing held him back. He loved her, and he had to show her how much. Over and over. With every minute etched in his memory.

His tongue swirled around her nipple as he sucked. Reveling in the sweet honey taste of her skin. His mouth trailed down her stomach as his hands sculpted her curves, from the swell of her lush breasts to her tiny waist and narrow hips. He’d forgotten how small she was, how precious and delicate. His hands seemed so large and rough in comparison.

His mouth dropped lower. She sucked in her breath.

He knelt before her, his hands cradling her small round bottom. She was so smooth and soft, so sweetly hot. He slid his tongue along the satiny skin of her inner thigh, teasing. She trembled and made a tiny sound. Her delicate feminine scent flooded his senses, filling him with a fierce craving.

Perhaps she’d guessed what he was about to do.

“Alex, what—”

He cut off her question with a small flick of his tongue, tasting her, savoring the sweet essence of her pleasure. A more potent aphrodisiac he could not imagine. She was so soft and achingly wet for him. He was rock hard, his cock straining against his stomach.

She froze, undoubtedly shocked, and made a sound of protest.

“It’s all right, Meg. Trust me. I want to taste every inch of you.”

His tongue flicked her again, probing gently against her delicate skin. The shock of his intimate kiss soon waned. He teased her until she trembled. He pulled back, and she made another sound of protest, this one different. “Do you still want me to stop?” He kissed her softly again. “Tell me, Meg.”

Her hips pressed toward his mouth. He breathed softly against her. “Tell me.”

“God, no.”

He entered her with his tongue and felt her shudder of absolute surrender. She made a sound so low and sweet, filled with such satisfaction, that his chest squeezed at the pleasure he was giving her. He wanted to hold on to this moment, to prolong the ecstasy, to make the night last forever.

Her body tensed, and he knew how close she was to shattering. His mouth covered her, sucking, devouring, taking her hard and deep. She cried out, arching her back and pressing her hips against his mouth.

God, she was sweet.

Her release came hard and fast. She muffled her scream with her hand as her body pulsed against him

But he wasn’t done. Not when he’d been waiting so long to have her. He was unrelenting, needing to stake his claim to her in some primal way. Sobs of pleasure racked her body as he forced her to a second orgasm hard on the heels of her first.

She’d never looked more beautiful. Naked, with her chestnut curls tumbling down her bare shoulders and her ivory skin gloriously rosy with passion. Her red lips were parted and slightly swollen from his kisses. Her eyes were heavy from the exertion of her release, the soft green still fuzzy with desire. Eyes that stripped him to the core.

“I never dreamed…”

Alex quirked his brow, trying not to smile. “It pleased you?”

She shot him a sharp look. “From your expression, you know very well that it did. You look altogether too pleased with yourself.” Her pretense of seriousness faded under a saucy grin. “But I suppose it is well deserved.”

He brushed aside an errant curl that had tangled in her lashes, grinning. “Your pleasure is mine.”

She returned his smile, but then a curious spark appeared in her eyes. Her gaze traveled over his face, down his body, and lingered appraisingly on his erection. Heat drenched him. Just the weight of her eyes on him made him hot and hard as a damn rock.

What was she thinking with that naughty little glint in her eye?

The smile slid from his face. He knew how quickly her mind worked. His pulse hitched and then broke out in a full race when a slow, sensual grin played across her lips.

“Now it’s my turn,” she said. “I wonder if I can make you beg?”

His whole body tensed, not daring to hope.

She lifted his
leine
over his head. The admiration that flooded her gaze would normally make him hot, but he was already on fire, consumed by the sensual promise of her words. Her hands splayed across his chest, running over the ridges of his muscles, on a fiery path to his stomach. Her fingers traced the taut bands, but she didn’t tarry long. He noticed the slight shake to her hands as she unbuckled the leather belt that secured his plaid, but it was nothing to how he was shaking inside.

He helped her as she pulled off his trews and boots, leaving him every bit as naked as she, and then stilled, waiting for her reaction. Waiting as her gaze settled lower….

Her eyes widened. “My.” She looked at him hesitantly and then bit her lip. “This might be more difficult than I realized. You’re a large man, aren’t you?” She blushed. “I mean, all over.”

He managed to nod.
Yes, damn it. And getting excru

ciatingly larger by the minute.

She reached out to touch him, circling him with her hand, her soft, delicate fingers pumping him slow and easy as he’d taught her.

She was killing him. Sweat gathered on his brow as he tried to think of anything but spilling his seed in her hand. Only the promise of an even darker torture held him at bay.

He groaned and his stomach clenched, but he did not make a move to stop her innocent exploration.

With one finger, she traced a delicate path up the long length of his staff from root to tip, rolling her thumb over the head and sliding a small bead of liquid through her fingers, as sensual a movement as the most accomplished jade—but infinitely more enticing by its innocence.

Holding his gaze, she lowered herself until she was kneeling before him. It was the single most erotic moment of his life. Only inches separated her mouth from the heavy head of his cock. Just the thought of her tiny red lips stretched around him, taking him deep into the warm recesses of her mouth, filled him with nearly incomprehensible heat. Her hand reached out to cup him, and his bollocks tightened in her hand. He was on fire, every inch of him a sensitive trigger to the touch.

“Meg—” His voice cracked with what was supposed to sound like a warning. If she wanted to make him beg, she was succeeding. She was torturing him. Paying him back every bit for the teasing he’d given her. This woman could bring him to his knees.

She positioned her mouth inches away from him and parted her soft, moist lips. Her hands moved behind to hold his buttocks. “I wonder…”

His eyes sparked black with passion, and his jaw clenched tight. The vein at his neck twitched.
Damn her.
She’d turned him into a quivering mess. She was well aware of how badly he wanted her to take him in her delectable little mouth.

“I wonder,” she continued, “if you taste as good as you look.”

“Oh God, Meg…,” he said with a guttural moan.

He beaded again, and her wicked tongue flicked out to taste him. “Mmm,” she murmured.

His legs nearly buckled.

She laughed wickedly and traced a path with her tongue that her finger had forged up the long length of him.

He swore and groaned, running his hands through the soft silk of her hair, silently begging. Finally, she gave it to him. Her tongue swirled around the top of him, and slowly she closed her mouth over him.

Alex lost the power to think. He’d died and gone to heaven.

Her mouth drew him in, deeper and deeper. Milking him long and hard, stroking him with her mouth and tongue. He wanted to come so badly, he fought the overwhelming urge to thrust and explode deep in her mouth.

With a small groan, he tore her mouth from him. He’d had enough of this exquisite torture. Breathing hard, he framed her face with his hands and lowered himself to his knees to face her. She looked like a debauched angel. His chest tightened with emotion, and a wave of incomparable tenderness swept over him. He’d never felt so close to anyone in his life.

Slowly, he lowered her onto the waiting plaid. After settling his hips between her lean legs, he eased her open with his fingers, stroking her body from its own sated slumber of exhaustion until her hips rocked against him again.

Tiny whimpers sounded from between her parted lips. Her head tossed back and forth, a look of wild abandon transforming her features. She was close. And so was he. She began to moan, loudly this time, and he covered her mound with his hand, putting even more pressure against the surging violence of her release. He cupped her as she writhed in pleasure against his hand. Right before she crested, he plunged deep inside her, filling her to the hilt in one smooth movement.

Tight, unbelievable heat surrounded him.

He closed his eyes and thrust, urging her sensitive, tingling flesh to crest again. Sweat born of forced control gathered on his chest and brow as he tried to be careful, she was so small.

“I won’t break,” she whispered, reading his mind. “Don’t hold back. I want all of you, Alex.”

Damn her, she didn’t know what she was asking.
But her luminous green eyes saw right through him, forcing him to reveal every dark, tortured part of him. The place no one had ever seen before. Something in him broke. He was out of control, raw, exposed. All that was left was his primal need for her. The all-consuming fire that raged inside him that only she could douse.

So he gave it to her, driving in hard and deep. Grinding and thrusting with all the savage emotion that she’d wrung out of him. He gave her everything. Everything but the promise of a future. And she met his dark strokes with a plunder of her own, holding his gaze, raking his soul of its secrets.

She knew just what she meant to him.

He felt the pressure building, knowing that he could not hold on much longer. He looked deep into her eyes, silently seeking…acceptance. Something almost sacred passed between them. A reflection of a love so pure, it dissolved the last shadow between them.

A wave of unbelievable euphoria crashed over him as he came, the sheer force causing him to let out a deep roar. Her own cries met his own. Again and again his body clenched with release, shooting his seed deep inside her as they crashed together in a perfect storm.

Meg thought she must have died. She couldn’t move if her life depended on it. Never had she felt so completely drained and yet so completely fulfilled at the same time.

Alex collapsed next to her. She managed to curl up next to him and rest her head on his chest, listening to the fierce pounding of his heart. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tight into the curve of his body.

Neither of them spoke. Words seemed wholly inadequate.

Never could she have believed that her body was capable of expending so much energy and experiencing so much ecstasy. Four times he’d driven her to paradise. She didn’t think she could handle that again.

The horror of the thought stopped her heart. There might never be another time. He’d warned her, but she’d never expected…this. What had just happened between them was cataclysmic, but it hadn’t changed the fact that she would leave on the morrow.

She closed her eyes and concentrated on the powerful beat of his heart. She wanted to savor this moment, make it last forever.

Tomorrow would come soon enough.

Chapter 23