Knight In My Bed (34 page)

A thousand times more bewitching.

She clung to his shoulders, her need blossoming, her supple body pressing into his with ever greater urgency. His blood fired and he kissed her harder, thrust his tongue against hers in long bold sweeps.

She matched his sliding rhythm, her ardor pleasing him greatly as she tangled her tongue with his in a languid dance that mingled not just their mouths, but their breath, their hearts, their souls.

He crushed her against him, the intimacy of the kiss, its rough fierceness, softening his heart, rendering him wholly hers, while her eagerness to match his passion hardened him elsewhere.

And she finally noticed.

At last.

Drawing back, her eyes widened with a startled look of gold-cast perplexity. She stiffened, but only for a moment. Her soft, kiss-tender lips formed a sweet little "o," then curved into a hesitant, knowing smile.

She made a small breathy sound, and he caught it, enveloping her soft whimper with his own moan of pleasure, pulling her tight, capturing her sigh before it could fully form.

She melted against him. A haven of warm suppleness, her smooth-lined, pliant body molded to his. Again and again, he kissed her, consumed by a thunderous passion unlike any he'd ever known.

A shining and triumphant need only she could quench. A craving. He deepened each new kiss, plied her lips with a knight’s mastery. Harder and increasingly demanding, until he recognized the fire raging inside him.

Until he recognized her.

Truly saw her at last.

Pulling her so close against him their hearts could surely beat as one, Donall lost himself in the glory of the one woman destined to set his strong-passioned MacLean heart aflame.

With ease, she ignited the famed love fires MacLean males were purported to harbor for their ladies. A supposed
 
unquenchable inferno, the flames which Donall thought he'd been spared. Now he knew the folly of his doubt. He simply hadn't met his woman.

Until now.

And the knowledge almost brought him to his knees.

He gentled his kiss until it was naught but a light whisper of sweetness moving softly over her lips, a tender rain of achingly sweet kisses, delicate as down. Drawing back at last, he nuzzled her neck, lightly kissed the pulse beating at the base of her throat.

Only when she doubted she could remain standing did he finally lift his dark head. The heat simmering in his eyes undid the last tenuous threads of her modesty. "The blush of rose?" she asked, knowing instinctively what he needed.

Wanting it, too.

He captured her face between his hands, the compelling look in his dark eyes demanding the truth. "Are you aware of what will happen after you do this for me?"

Isolde nodded.

Aye, she knew.

And ached for him to take her in that final way.

Ached badly.

He leaned forward, dragged his mouth across hers, sealing her lips with the feel, the taste of him. Making her his, and his alone. "Then so be it," he said, his eyes turning dark as peat.

His gaze steady on hers, he skimmed his hands along her shoulders and down her arms. But this time, rather than reveling in her hair flowing wild and free over his hands, he smoothed her tresses off her shoulders, careful not to leave one strand shielding her near-bared breasts from view.

"You are more beautiful than I can describe," he told her, his voice cracking, so strong raged his desire.

She blushed prettily, and he would've sworn she thrust her breasts forward a bit. As if she, too, ached for his touch, burned for the pleasure he was about to give her.

Teach her to give herself
.

His manhood bucked and pulled at the thought.

"The paint," he breathed, the words heavy with his ardor.

His enjoyment of their game.

A game more arousing if played with words.

"Open the jar of paint, Isolde," he said, and she did.

She watched him watch her, a hot, liquid-y feeling twirling deep within that part of her. "And now, Sir Knight?" she whispered, "will you tell me what to do?"

Donall drew a deep breath. "You are eager to continue our talking game?"

Her nod of acquiescence near undid him.

"Then let us begin." He rested his hands on her shoulders. "Your breasts are lush and perfect," he said, opening this new round, a more elevated version of the game than what he'd taught her earlier.

This time he meant to do what he spoke of, not simply regale her with what he wanted to do.

He peered at her. So closely his stare would soon burn a hole in Evelina's borrowed under-gown. "Full and ripe, eager for my touch, they strain against the cloth of your camise," he said, massaging her shoulders as he spoke, his own blood thickening with every uttered syllable.

She hung on his words, watching him with a rapt expression, her eagerness so apparent he could all but taste it.

He smoothed his hands up the column of her throat, toyed with the lobes of her ears, the soft skin just beneath. “Their peaks, your nipples, are a beautiful dusky rose. They are tightened, hard little buds, thrusting toward me through the fine, sheer fabric of your camise. They've peaked because they ache to be caressed."

His wordy magic wove a wondrous enchantment 'round her, so titillating was it to hear him speak thus.

She burned for him.

"I ache for your touch," she breathed, the admittance shooting straight to his groin, lengthening him to a painful degree.

He trailed his fingertips across the top halves of her breasts -- the bared flesh swelling above the edge of the low-cut camise. Unbridled longing spiraled through her. She sighed, aching to rip apart the camise front and fully expose herself to the heat of his gaze.

"And I ache for you, sweet Isolde," he said, gently kneading her upper arms, the magic he worked on her, pushing her past all maidenly decorum.

"Then take me," the wanton in her pleaded. "Take me now."

"And lose ... this?" His slow smile returned, and its impact was devastating. "Nay, my love, to be a knight's steely maid, you must learn restraint, to endure. Even when you believe doing so will push you to the brink of madness."

Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, and he swiftly leaned forward, catching it with his teeth. He flicked his own tongue over the tip of hers, then suckled briefly on her full lower lip before releasing her.

"You see, Isolde, when the anticipation is keen and sharp, the later release is powerful enough to move the stars, and that is what I would give you. Nothing less." He looked at her. Deep and fully. "I want to move the stars for you.”

His gaze dropped to the black linen of her half-discarded mourning gown. Still bunched around her hips, its abandoned state, gathered in wanton disarray, formed an irresistibly erotic frame for the lush bounty displayed so sweetly above.

It was time.

"Pull down your camise, Isolde."

A sharp stab of pleasure shot into her core.

Her hands began to tremble, almost in time to the aching throb between her thighs. Near swooning for want, she kept
 
her gaze on his and eased her arms out of the
camise's
shoulder straps. The under-gown's bodice dipped a bit when she dropped her arms to her sides, but the silky gauze still clung to the full mounds of her breasts, snagged there by her hardened nipples.

"Is this enough?" She played the game, the slow pulsing at her woman's center almost unbearable now. "Will this ...suffice?"

He shook his head, his dark eyes a rich, liquid brown.

"Pull down the fabric, Isolde," he said, the words a command. "I would see you push down the camise until your breasts are fully exposed for my perusal."

Clenching her thighs together, for she could no longer stand the throbbing ache this word game unleashed in her, she curled her fingers around the top edge of Evelina's under-gown, and tugged it down until nothing stood between her bared skin and the MacLean but the cool night air and the sheer pleasure of standing before him thus displayed.

Touch yourself
.

The words came so soft, so low, she thought she'd imagined them.

“Touch yourself," he said again, more clearly this time. “Do this for me and then I shall do all manner of deliciously wicked things to you," he promised. "And not simply to your breasts”

He nodded to the little pot of vermilion she'd picked up. “Set that down for moment," he said. And she did, unable to resist whatever he would have of her.

His eyes grew heavy with passion. "Lift up your breasts, Isolde. Lift them up, and toward me."

Very slowly, her entire body trembling, she placed her hands beneath her breasts and ... didn't move them at all. She simply stood, holding them, feeling their weight against her palms, too embarrassed to do aught else.

"Show them to me, Isolde: "

A ragged sigh tore from her throat as she did as he bade. He didn't moan or sigh, but his eyes were passion-drugged. Pure lust smoldered in their depths and sprang onto her, igniting similar fires in her own blood.

"Now touch your nipples," he instructed, and the hot pulsing at her core burst into wholly new dimensions. "Toy and play with them, Isolde."

She cried out the moment her fingers grasped the hardened peaks. Her knees buckled beneath her, but he caught her, pulling her tight against his warrior's chest as he leaned back against the table.

Holding her, he pressed a light kiss to her temple. "Can you go on, my love?" He trailed his fingers down her arm, carefully avoiding any contact with her aching breasts, with her nipples.

He sat back, cradling her securely in his strong arms. "Would you crave surcease now, or shall we prolong our pleasure a bit longer?"

She nodded. "More." The word came faint, pleasure-drowsed, but unmistakable.

Donall's smile flashed triumphant. "My fine bold lass,” he said, his heart singing. "Then pull on your nipple Isolde," came his voice, thick with need. "Let me see you play with them -"

Her eyes drifted shut, so intense was the pleasure streaking through her. Her hips began to rock, her thighs instinctively inching apart, the pulsing ache between them begging for relief.

Infinitely gentle, he drew his hand, full-palmed over the plump heat of her woman's flesh, warm through the folds of her gown. He caressed her need with a fleeting touch .., a promise. "Soon, my sweet," he breathed, taking his hand away. "After I've had my fill of watching you toy with your breasts. After I've toyed with them. Now pull on the nipples, Isolde.
Please."

And she did. Hesitant at first, simple touches with the very tips of her fingers. Then light circles, scarcely touching the
ruched
peaks, until, urged on by his words and heated looks, she grew bolder, and began really playing with them.

Rousing herself with each tug, each pull. Watching him watch her do this stimulated her beyond anything she would have believed.

"The cream, Isolde," he said, his voice calling her from the haze of wanton delight. "You are ready, my love."

Still dazed, she felt him take one of her hands and smooth the cold, rose-scented unguent onto her fingers.

“The nipple cream. Use it, Isolde," he urged. "For me."

Another cry pushed up her throat, even as that part of her grew so heavy, she could scarce bear the exquisiteness. A heated, pulsing weight, driving her to the brink of all need.

“Rub the cream on your nipples."

Her right hand, the one he smeared the blush of rose onto, drifted toward her breasts. Almost of its own volition. Moving ever closer, then pausing just above the aching tip of her left breast.

“Do it, my lady." His words drowned her in lust, enslaved her to his mastery, his ardor.

His passion.

“Let me see you put the cream on your nipples, Isolde,"
 
he coaxed her, his voice a caress of warm silk sliding past her ears, bewitching her. "Slow, gentle circles, a pull or two, a good, sound rubbing to work in the color, and then..."

She looked at him. "And then?" she breathed, her voice so thick with need she scarce recognized it as her own.

"Do it, my sweeting: " He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and the lust in his eyes sent her cream-coated fingers straight to her left nipple.

He flashed her a smile to rival the brilliance of the sun. "I am doing it, Sir Knight," she breathed, his smile giving her the boldness she needed to be wanton.

His wanton
.

"And what shall you do, now that I am?" She rubbed and rubbed, her gaze holding his. “What is this `and then . . .' of yours?"

"And then, sweet Isolde," he vowed, leaning forward to kiss her nose, "and then I shall call down the moon and the stars for you."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Call Down The moon and the stars?"

“Every last one of them," Donall vowed, still leaning against the table, still cradling her in his arms. "I swear it to you."