The Bride (17 page)

Alec massaged her breasts, cupping the undersides with loving care. His thumbs rubbed her distended nipples. His ragged sigh told her how much he liked touching her so intimately. Jamie was honest enough with herself to admit she liked the chaos his touch evoked.

When his mouth replaced his hand on her breast, when he took the nipple inside and began to suckle, she thought she would go out of her mind. The sensation was so overwhelming that she squeezed her eyes shut and let the wonderful feelings wash over her. She arched against him with need and her legs moved impatiently against his.

Alec took a deep breath to try to calm his need and braced himself on his elbows so he could look down into her face.

She felt the change in him immediately. Jamie opened her eyes and looked into his. She reached up to stroke his jaw. His whiskers tickled her fingers, but she didn't smile. Alec was the most frighteningly appealing man she'd ever encountered. The moonlight hadn't softened his features. He looked hard… and determined.

"Have you decided to stop, then?" she whispered.

"Do you want me to?" he asked.

She didn't know how to answer him. Yes, she told herself, of course she wanted him to stop. A bride should have a proper wedding bed, shouldn't she? "Not yet."

She hadn't realized she'd said that until he smiled at her. "You confuse me, Alec. I don't know my own thoughts when you're touching me like this. Maybe we should stop…"

"Not yet." Sweat dotted his forehead. His jaw was clenched, his breathing labored.

He didn't have any intention of stopping. Her eyes widened when that realization hit her. Alec must have read her mind… and her fear, for he suddenly pushed her legs apart with his thigh. The action was rough, demanding.

While he held her stare, his right hand moved down between them, low on her stomach. His fingers slid into the junction of her thighs. Jamie reached down and tried to pull his hand away. "No, Alec. You mustn't."

He wouldn't be deterred. His fingers stroked the tender folds. When he felt the wetness there, he almost lost his control. "You're hot for me, Jamie," he whispered. "God, you're so sweet, so soft…"

His finger slowly penetrated her, then stretched up inside. "You're so tight."

Her mind wanted him to stop but her body didn't have any reservations at all. She raised her hips to keep him inside her when he started to pull away.

"Now are you going to stop?" she asked in a voice that betrayed her.

"Not yet," Alec repeated, smiling over the confusion he heard in her voice. He took hold of her hand, then pressed it against his hardness. Her reaction was instantaneous. Her whole body shivered and bucked against him. "Hold me," he instructed. "Like this." He forced her fingers to close around his shaft, then thrust his fingers inside her again to rid her of her fear.

He pulled her hand away when he couldn't stand the sweet torture any longer. His mouth branded hers and his tongue thrust deep inside to the back of her throat. Jamie was soon as wild, as out of control as Alec was. He knew just where to touch, how much pressure to exert, how to make her melt in his arms.

He became rougher in his quest. "We aren't going to stop, are we, Alec?"

"Nay, love, we aren't."

He withdrew his fingers, then thrust them demandingly into her tight sheath again.

She cried out in pain. "Don't do that, Alec. It hurts."

"Hush, love," he whispered. "I'll make it easier for you."

She didn't understand what he was telling her. His mouth claimed hers for another long, hot kiss then and she decided he really was going to stop when his hand moved away from her most private place.

Alec kissed a slow trail down her neck, her chest, her stomach. When he moved lower, into the soft triangle of black curls shielding her virginity, she cried out again and tried to push him away from her.

He wouldn't be deterred, though. The taste of her was intoxicating. His tongue teased the sensitive nub of flesh, then pressed high into the soft, slick opening.

She became lost to the splendor he forced on her. She clung to him now, demanding more. The muscles in her thighs tensed against him in anticipation. She welcomed the rush of blazing ecstasy consuming her.

As soon as Alec felt the first tremors of release, he moved. He spread her thighs wide and eased into her. He paused when he reached her maidenhood, then drove forward with one powerful surge.

Jamie cried out in pain. Alec immediately stilled his movements. He was fully embedded inside her now, his possession complete. He tried to hold on to his discipline, wanting to give her time to adjust to his invasion. "Don't move just yet," he ordered, his voice a grating sound against her ear. "God, Jamie. You're so tight."

She couldn't have moved if she'd wanted to. His weight held her in place. He cupped her face, then slowly licked the salty tears from her flushed cheeks. Her eyes were dark blue with passion, her rosy lips swollen from his demanding kisses.

"Does it still hurt, Jamie?"

He sounded as though he'd just run a great distance uphill. But the worry was there, too, in his tone of voice and his intense expression. Jamie nodded, then whispered, "It will pass, this pain, won't it, Alec? Am I supposed to be this tight?"

"Oh, yes," Alec groaned.

When he started to move, to begin the ritual as old as time itself, Jamie thought he was finished. She wrapped her legs around his thighs to keep him deep inside her. "Don't stop, Alec. Not yet."

"Not yet," he promised.

Neither one of them was capable of speaking again. Alec did withdraw from her, then thrust deep inside once more. She raised her hips to meet him halfway. She wanted all of him to squeeze tight. Passion, like wildfire, raged between them. Alec buried his face against her neck as he slammed into her again and again.

He wanted to be gentle.

She wouldn't let him.

She didn't know her nails dug into his shoulderblades. Alec didn't mind. When the climax was almost upon her, when she thought she was surely going to die from the incredible pressure building inside her, she clung to her husband and cried out his name.

"Come with me, love," Alec whispered. "Come with me. Now."

She didn't know where Alec was taking her, only knew she was safe in his arms. She gave herself over to the blissful surrender and found that surrender was also fulfillment.

He'd known all along where they were going, yet never before had he been so out of control or felt such overwhelming passion. He wanted to show her the stars. He was the experienced one, she the innocent. He knew where to touch, where to stroke, when to push, when to retreat. And yet, when he finally reached his own release, he realized his gentle little bride had taken him far beyond the stars.

She'd taken him to heaven.

She slept like the dead. Morning sun was full upon the meadow when she stretched herself awake. Jamie let out a low groan as soon as she moved. She was horribly tender. Her eyes flew open. The memory of what had happened last night made her cheeks burn with embarrassment.

God help her, she was never going to be able to look him in the eye again. She had behaved like a complete wanton. She did tell him to stop, she reminded herself, but the man was bent on having his way. She was going to stay under his plaid for the rest of the day, she decided, when she admitted she'd also insisted, rather vehemently, that he not stop.

Still, he did seem to like what they were doing. Jamie pushed the blanket away from her face then. She saw Alec immediately. He was standing on the other side of the clearing, between their mounts. The horses, she noticed, had already been saddled in readiness for the day's ride.

Wildfire was acting like a lovesick female. She kept nudging Alec's hand for another pat of affection.

Jamie suddenly wanted a pat of affection, too. She thought she might have pleased him last night. Unfortunately, she'd fallen asleep before he had a chance to tell her so.

She was going to have to bluster through her embarrassment. Since he wasn't paying her any attention, she stood up, unwrapped his plaid, and quickly put her chemise back on. She knew her attire was immodest, but she was determined not to show any shyness in front of him. He would take it as weakness, she guessed.

Alec didn't even glance her way. She gathered her clothes and walked to the pond with as much dignity as her sore thighs would allow. She washed and dressed in a pale blue gown, then braided her hair. Her mood was vastly improved when she walked back to camp. It was a new day, after all, and certainly a new beginning.

Besides, she'd done her duty as his wife. She had let him bed her.

Did she think he was made of iron? Alec asked himself that question as soon as his wife walked away from him.

No other woman had ever enticed him this way. He'd never known such fierce desire before. Bed them and forget them, that had always been his attitude in the past. She was different, though. God help him, she was beginning to matter to him. She wasn't the forgetting kind, either. White-hot desire had claimed him the minute she stood up and faced him. Her hair was in wild, curly disarray. He remembered the silky feel of it when he'd held the strands up for the wind to dry. Jamie had slept through his ministrations. He hadn't been able to quit stroking her skin after he'd made love to her. She'd slept through that, too.

He hadn't slept at all. Her hips had cushioned his hardness. Every time she moved, he wanted to take her again. The only reason he held back was that she wouldn't be able to walk for a week if he did all the things he wanted to do to her. It was too soon for her. She needed time for the soreness to ease. He'd made the decision not to touch her again until they reached his home. And he was already regretting it.

He wasn't made of iron. His innocent little wife didn't understand that yet. She wouldn't have stood there so scantily clad if she'd had any idea of what was going on inside his mind. Perhaps she did know, he considered.

Could she be trying to get him to make love to her again without actually asking him outright? Alec debated that possibility a long minute, then decided she was simply too naive to realize how easily she could arouse him.

He would, of course, enlighten her as soon as they reached his home.

"Alec? Thank you for loaning me your plaid."

He turned at the sound of her voice and found her staring at his boots.

"It's yours to keep, Jamie."

"A wedding present?"

She wouldn't look at him. Though her head was bent, he could still see how red her cheeks were. Her embarrassment was terribly obvious. And vastly amusing. Hell, the woman had been a wildcat in his arms. He had the marks to prove it. Now she acted as if the wrong word might send her into a swoon.

"You may call it such," he announced with a shrug. He took her satchel and turned to secure it on Wildfire's back.

"I've eleven shillings, Alec."

She waited for him to turn back to her. He didn't respond to her announcement. Jamie wasn't deterred. "Do you have a priest in your Highlands?"

That question did get his notice. He half turned to look at her. She immediately lowered her gaze. She was getting a bit more courage back, for she now stared at his chest instead of his boots. "We do have a priest," he answered. "Why do you ask?"

"I want to use one of my shillings to buy you an indulgence," Jamie announced. She tucked the plaid under her arm and folded her hands together.

"A what?"

"An indulgence," Jamie explained. "It's my wedding gift to you."

"I see," he replied, trying not to laugh. He wanted to ask her if she thought his soul was in need of aid, but the seriousness in her tone made him once again consider her tender feelings.

He was going to have to get over this ridiculous affliction, he told himself. Her feelings shouldn't matter to him at all.

"Does that please you?" she asked, hoping for a kind word in reply.

He shrugged his answer.

"I thought it would be an appropriate gift because you accidentally killed a man yesterday. The indulgence will halve your time in purgatory. That's what Father Charles says."

"It wasn't accidental, Jamie, and you killed one man yourself."

"I didn't."

"Aye, you did."

"You needn't sound so cheerful about it," Jamie muttered. "And if I did kill the man, well, he needed killing, so I don't have to buy an indulgence for myself."

"So it's only my soul that concerns you?"

Jamie nodded. He didn't know whether to be insulted or amused. He had to shake his head when he thought about all the coins Father Murdock was going to be collecting in future if his wife continued to buy him an indulgence every time he killed a man. The priest would end up richer than England's king by year's end.

Alec certainly wasn't the appreciative sort, Jamie decided. He still hadn't offered her a word of gratitude. "Do you have a blacksmith as well?"

He nodded, then waited for her next remark. God only knew what was going on inside her mind now. Odd, but he found himself eager to hear what she was thinking. Another affliction, he told himself. He'd have to work on that flaw as well.