Highland Healer (22 page)

At any other time, his voice captivated her with its deep resonance. But his wordless sounds of passion were intoxicating. They stole her breath, stopped her heart, and drove her mad with longing. That she could bring a man of such strength, wisdom, and goodness to moaning out his need for her gave her a sense of power beyond anything she’d ever known before. He was hers, and she was his. Nothing had ever felt more right to her, more real.

Toran released her to step out of his boots. His gaze pinned her as he reached for her. She could only stare at the man her hands now knew, broad and strong, and hungry for her touch. So she reached out to him and he breathed her name.

His eyes were dark and fierce as he pulled her hands away. He bent to unlace her clothes, finally pulling the layers from her as quickly as he could.

Cool air caressed her skin, and Toran’s gaze roamed freely over her body, a license no man had been allowed ’til now. Suddenly shy, she thought to cover herself just as he lifted her effortlessly and laid her gently on her bed.

Even when his touch left her skin, Aileana was aware of him. She knew she would be able to find him on the darkest night in the deepest forest. But when they did touch, her heart beat with his, and his hot blood seemed to course through her veins. His hunger for her was a living thing. She missed that knowing as he leaned over her from where he stood by the bed, so she reached for him.

“Are ye certain, lass?” Toran asked, his voice deep, his brogue thick with his need. “As much as I want this, I willna, if ye dinna want it, too. It’s too important.”

Was she certain? How could he doubt it? She’d never wanted like this, never needed, not like this.

“What have ye done to me?” she asked, her voice a soft reply to his harsh demand. Some called her a witch, but this man had bewitched her in truth. She answered for him, before he could speak. “You’ve made me need you more than I need breath. Aye, I’m sure, Toran…Laird Lathan…”

“Laird Lathan, is it?” Toran asked, and his quick grin betrayed his relief at her answer as he knelt over her, straddling her slim thighs with his strong ones. He pulled his shirt over his head, revealing his need to her.

The time for shyness had passed. “Aye, laird. If you’ll have me,” she replied, reflecting his grin for one brief second before he bent down to her.

“Oh, I’ll have ye,” Toran promised, leaning in to kiss her throat, her breasts, her belly. “As long and as often as ye like.” His kisses moved lower, while his hands stroked her hips, her thighs, her breasts, anywhere in his long reach. Aileana reveled in the strange yet wonderful sensations running through her from all the places that Toran touched. In answer, she raked her fingers through his long dark hair, stroked his shoulders and upper back, reaching for him, desperate to touch him, too.

She tensed as his fingers caressed her molten center and tested the barrier of her innocence that he found there.

“Ah, lass,” he murmured, “we’ll take this slow.”

His mouth followed his fingers. Embarrassed, Aileana tried to pull him back up, but he would not be deterred. She gasped at the dizzying spiral of sensation his touch produced as he kissed her thighs then traced upward with his tongue. The clenching need in her core turned sharp, almost painful. Sliding his hands under her hips, he lifted and opened her completely to his teasing mouth. “So sweet, ye are,” he whispered, his hot breath adding to the delicate torture. “Like honey.”

With each stroke of Toran’s tongue, Aileana surrendered to the sensations he produced in her. Her body tensed, arcing up, twisting, while in her core, a wanting the likes of which she’d only heard about from love-sick village girls wove a tighter and tighter spiral. Behind her closed eyes, she saw streaks of light, much like the ones she’d once seen in the dark of a late summer’s predawn sky. She felt herself spinning ever upward to meet those falling stars.

What was this rapture? Her heart beat furiously, but her breath caught with each groan Toran gifted to her. How could something as simple as his touch, the heat of his mouth, the sound of his voice drive her to madness?

Finally, when she could no longer sense the earth beneath her and Toran’s touch became more than she could bear, she exploded across her starry sky.

When she could breathe again, she opened her eyes to Toran’s satisfied smile. His hands rested on her thighs, his fingers warm where they played on her skin. He stroked up her belly to her breasts, paused to kiss each tightly puckered tip, then moved up to drop gentle kisses on her mouth. He wrapped her legs around his waist, then covered her, taking his weight on his arms. His hardness rested where his tongue had worked such magic. “There’s more?” she asked softly against his mouth, though she knew full well what was to come.

“Aye, lass, much more. There may be a wee pain at first, but that will be gone in a moment, and then ye’ll feel pleasure again.”

“Aye,” she answered, uncertain despite her healers’ knowledge. Knowing and doing were two very different things. Then his shaft breached her entrance, filling her, stretching her, intruding little by little as her body accepted his invasion. He was silky, then hot, then unrelenting as her moisture flowed over him and he suddenly thrust into her.

A quick, sharp stinging shocked tears from her eyes. But Toran’s soothing murmurs and gentle kisses helped her forget it. He filled her completely and she gripped him tightly as she fought to relax, to breathe, to allow herself to know this man in a way she’d known no other. She’d wanted him since she first saw him, and he’d wanted her, too. Oh, how he wanted her. The evidence burned deep within her body. After a few deep breaths, she managed a nod, then took his face in her hands. His look of surprise amused her. She gave him a small smile as she stroked his cheek and ran her fingertips over his lips, then tangled her fingers in his hair and pulled his mouth down to hers. Slowly, gently, he began stroking in and out, letting her become accustomed to his size and pace. The fire rekindled deep in her middle as his passion rose, and hers climbed along with his. His heart pounded in time with the powerful rythym of his loins. His need for her burned in his kiss, and she gave herself over to him completely.

He was struggling to be gentle with her, but Aileana soon decided that was a battle he was about to lose. Full of a sense of power like nothing she’d ever known before, she arced up to meet his thrusts, demanding more. He groaned her name into her mouth as he tensed. Suddenly he began kissing her wildly, devouring her breath as if he had no other. His fingers gripped her shoulders, then his hands slid under her head and lifted her mouth closer to his as he rocked their bodies in his ardent rhythm. She slid her hands down his broad back to grip his buttocks where they clenched and relaxed with each stroke, pulling his hardness deeper into her core. She wanted him, all of him. As her nails bit into his flesh, his climax took him, and he pushed even deeper, crying out her name as he leapt over the edge. The power of his release shocked her into another of her own, and they soared, breathing one breath, hearts beating as one, together.

****

Aileana awoke with the dawn the next morning. For a moment, she didn’t know where she was and expected to open her eyes to the interior of her sleeping tent. But the softness of the bed beneath her and the warmth of the deep covers quickly brought her back to the present. Toran…her eyes flew open and she looked over her shoulder. No, not just the warmth of deep covers, but the warmth of a very large man sprawled at her back.

Toran! He wasn’t supposed to be here. Senga would box his ears, if she could reach them. Or perhaps not. Aileana smiled. She had slept soundly the night through, and had not even been aware that Toran had remained in her bed. Surely Senga could not complain about the comfort his presence gave her.

She yawned and stretched, then turned to curl against Toran’s massive chest, resting her head on his shoulder. She draped her arm across his belly, intending to let sleep take her again, but found that she could not resist exploring the warmth of his skin under her palm. Her fingers trailed upward, sliding into the silky hair on his chest. When they brushed across his nipple, she found a tiny, hard bud. Under it, the beat of his heart, at first slow and lazy, begin to increase in pace. He was awake.

“What will Senga say when she finds out where you spent the night?” Aileana asked softly, still brushing her fingers across Toran’s chest.

“Perhaps she’ll no’ discover it,” came the lazy rumble beneath her ear. “If we do no’ tell her, who will?”

“Elspie has a habit of coming in without more than a quick knock on the door,” Aileana warned him.

“Ach, Elspie will never tell on me.”

Aileana propped her head up on one hand and continued to trace lazy spirals on Toran’s chest with the other while she eyed him. His eyes were still closed, but his smirk was almost more than she could bear and she grinned back at him even though she knew he wouldn’t see her.

“Elspie tells on everybody. She’s the worst gossip in the Aerie.”

“So, then,” Toran said, opening his eyes as he grasped her wandering hand and urged it lower, “what if we give her something more interesting to talk about?”

As her hand skimmed over his belly to his hip, Aileana discovered that Toran was naked. “Do you always sleep this way?” she asked as he released her hand and lifted his to stroke the side of her face and neck.

“At home, aye. Away from the Aerie, the ground’s too cold and hard to sleep like this.”

“I do have some familiarity with sleeping on the ground. This bed is much better.”

“Ah, so ye approve of the bed, do ye? What of the man ye find within in?”

“I approve of him, as well.”

“In bed or without?”

“I suppose I must approve both, because I’d rather not do without.”

“Lass!” Toran’s laugh was loud and Aileana took her hand from his hip and put it over his mouth.

“Ssshhh! Someone will hear you!” He lifted her hand away and kissed her fingertips, her palm, and her wrist.

“Let them. We lack the ceremony, but are we no’ married, Aileana? Since the moment I claimed ye?”

That gave her pause. “Is that what ye meant, back there in Angus’s camp? Are we married?”

“Aye, we are. Ye told me that ye loved me, and that this is where ye wished to be. I told ye that I wished for ye to remain here with me. I offered a betrothal, if ye’ll recall, when ye were ready. But I neglected to tell ye the most important thing before our passions overtook us yesterday. I love ye, too, Aileana. I never want to lose ye again. I want ye beside me, always.”

The look on Aileana’s face was a joy to behold.

“Then I suppose we are, my laird. Married. A ceremony would be nice, but the churching can wait.”

“We’ll do what ye wish, lass.” Toran’s satisfied smile teased her. “But for now, do ye ken where I’d like yer hand to be fasted at this moment?”

“I believe I do,” Aileana answered with a wicked grin and began to trail her fingers down his throat.

“Farther than that, lass.”

Aileana moved her fingers onto his chest and filled them with the soft, dark hair she found there. Then she tugged.

“Ach, lass, no’ there, and no’ like that.” Toran leaned over and kissed her on the mouth, then whispered against her ear, “Lower.”

Aileana trailed her fingertips down his belly, following the line of hair that led even lower. She circled the indentation she found midway, and scratched lightly at the skin below it. Toran groaned.

“Ye’re getting nearer,” he moaned as his thumb trailed over her mouth.

Finally her questing fingers found the hard heat of his shaft. “Hmmm,” she murmured as she gripped him.

With an oath, he collapsed back onto the pillows.

“Have I found it then, this place you’d like my hand to be fasted?”

“Lass, ye ken ye have. Come, let me love ye. ’Tis what we both want. What we both need. God, I thought I’d lost ye when ye ran from me.”

Aileana smiled and leaned down to Toran’s lips. She stopped just shy of touching his mouth. “I do love you, Toran. And I’m sorry I ran from you. I should have known you didn’t mean those things you said.”

“Ach, lass,” he murmured just before his mouth took hers. He lifted her onto his body, trapping her hand between them. She shifted her grip on him and heard him groan in response. His groans deepened every time she shifted her hand around him, stroking and feeling him grow even larger in her grip.

“Ye’re driving me mad, woman,” he declared and Aileana reveled in the power of it. Then he sat up, lifting her with him so that she let go of his manhood. He moved her legs to each side, so that she knelt on the bed over him.

Suddenly shy as he gazed at her, she crossed her arms over her breasts. Gently, he uncrossed them and placed her hands on his shoulders. Then he slid his hands down her sides as he bent to suckle at her nipples. Fierce fire ran from them straight to that place between her thighs, and liquid heat bathed it just as his fingers strayed between her legs to touch her…there. Aileana thought the pleasure could not get more intense, but it did as he stroked and explored every fold, then inserted one finger, then two, then three. Aileana arched in ecstacy as Toran’s fingers filled her and his thumb circled over her bright nub. Finally, the sizzle of sensation became too much and she came apart in his hands. He held her until the trembling abated, then lowered her hips until she was poised over his rock-hard shaft.

“Gently, Aileana. Slowly and gently. Let yerself take me into yer body. It will be as before, but ye’ll control the pace. The depth. The pleasure.”

There was that need again. The emptiness that cried out for Toran to fill it. She smiled as he nudged at her entrance and reveled in the sensation of his slick heat filling her as she settled onto him. A shiver ran through her as she tightened around him and sank a little lower, taking more of him in. She let her head fall back as he groaned, reveling in the throb of his pulse in her body. Only he could make her feel this ecstasy. With small movements, she slid lower onto him until she’d taken all of him inside her. “Oh, Toran, this is wonderful.” She sighed.