His Heart's Home (23 page)

“Thank your ma for us, will you, Molly?”

“But Duncan-” Ciaran started to speak, but she was silenced by the hot, lusty look in her husband’s eyes.  She realized they had never had the luxury of a whole night alone together before.

“I’ll just go and put the horses in the stable,” he said, still staring at her hungrily.

Ciaran nodded, suddenly feeling shaky and weak at the knees.  The thought of being alone with Duncan for so long was really rather thrilling. She wondered what he would do to her. She wondered how he would make it different?  She wondered about it for so long she was staring into empty space.  Duncan had gone to tend to the horses.

“Here, let me help,” Ciaran said, clearing her throat and gathering herself together.  She walked over to where Molly was fixing a simple supper, but the young girl shook her head.

“Oh no, Mrs. MacRae, it’s my job, you go and sit yourself down.  I’ll be out of your way soon, but if you leave the dishes until the morning I’ll do those when I start work tomorrow,” she nodded with a smile.

Sit down?  Leave the dishes?
  Ciaran had never heard such things in her life.  Surely
she
couldn’t?  Not
her? 
But it did seem that maybe Mrs. MacRae could.

It was all a little bit too
lazy
for Ciaran to get her head around, and so she laid the table for two while Molly dished up the meal.  She thanked the girl, who smiled politely and called her ‘Mrs. MacRae’ again, and told her she could head off now. 

Duncan was just coming in as Molly was going out.  He thanked her too, and asked her to pass his thanks on to her mother
as well.

“Oh, and tell the children ‘goodnight’ from me?” Ciaran called, biting her lip.  She hoped the
y would be okay without her.

“I will, Mrs. MacRae, don’t worry,” Molly promised, and then she was off, and Ciaran and Duncan were left all alone.

“Well,” said Ciaran shyly.  “I suppose we should eat?”

“I suppose so,” Duncan chuckled.

Molly had put all the food on the table, so there was nothing left for Ciaran and Duncan to do other than sit down and say grace.  They tucked in silently, neither of them speaking for a few minutes.

“It was good of Molly to prepare supper for us,” Ciaran said quietly, although she was paying more attention to
her husband than she was the food. 

She rarely got the chance to sit and study him slowly like this
, there was always cleaning, cooking, washing, mending,
something
to do instead.  She took it for granted sometimes, but he was
such
a remarkably handsome man.

“It’s what she’s paid to do,” Duncan chuckled.  “And besides, you’re a far better cook anyway,” he added, winking.

Ciaran blushed.  She wasn’t feeling very hungry to be honest, but Duncan didn’t seem to want to hurry to the
next
part of their wedding day.  She watched him clear his plate, and listened to him talk of the plans he had for their land.  She moved to clear the dishes away once Duncan had finished, but he caught hold of her wrist and shook his head.

“I don’t want you to have to do any work today,” he told her with a grin.

“You want me to have double tomorrow?” Ciaran giggled.  She had stood up, and Duncan was still sitting down.  He pulled her to him, so she was standing between his knees.  He reached out and touched her stomach with his hand.

“You have Molly to help you now,” he murmured, gently stroking the swollen skin where his child lay.  “I want you to take it easy,” he said softly, leaning forward and kissing Ciaran’s belly through the folds of her dress.  “In fact,” he continued, eyes flashing rather wickedly as he glanced up and looked at Ciaran’s face.  “You should probably go and lie down now.”

“Duncan-” Ciaran puffed.  She felt lightheaded, and he had hardly even touched her yet. But his gentle concern for her, even when it was traced with his own desires, was still so novel it was intoxicating.

He stood up, towering over her little body and drawing her into his arms.  “You’re my wife,” he whispered, sounding faintly awed.  Ciaran nodded her head dreamily and sank against his chest.  “I want to make love to you,” he purred, whispering the words so they dripped into her ear like honey.

“Please?” Ciaran whispered, tilting her head up towards his face. 

Duncan stroked her cheek with the back of one hand and placed the other on the small of her back.  She wanted
him
- she
did
- he could see it in her eyes.  There was no more powerful aphrodisiac in the world.

“Please make love to you?” he smiled, dotting his lips against her forehead.  He planted a line of little kisses down her nose.  “Is that what you want?” he whispered, moving his fingers over her back in teasing little circles. 

Ciaran eased herself even closer.  “You know it is!” she mewed, clutching at his shoulders.  She stood on tiptoes and pressed her mouth against his lips, instigating a sweet, searing kiss.  “Take me to bed, Duncan,” she puffed, sliding her hands up and down his back.

“I love it when you tell me what to do,” he chuckled huskily, sweeping her off the floor and into his arms. 

Ciaran gave a little shriek of delight and clung to her husband.  Duncan carried her effortlessly into their bedroom and lay her down on the bed.  She fell back on the mattress and beckoned him to join her with her eyes.  She looked so soft and inviting.  It was going to take every ounce of self-control that Duncan possessed not to just ravish her on the spot.

“Come here?” she pouted, reaching out to him with her hands when she felt he had been apart from her for too long.  “I want you to touch me,” she confessed, blushing.

Duncan grinned.  He planted his hands on her waist, dragging one up to her breast and the other down to her hip.  He gently cupped and fondled her breast, tweaking her nipple through the fabric of her dress, while the hand he had rested on her hip pinned Ciaran to the bed.

“I want you to touch me too,” he whispered, leaning and nibbling at her neck.

Ciaran’s fingers were less patient than Duncan’s, and in a matter of seconds she had tugged his shirt off over his head, and proceeded to rake her nails over the hard muscles of his chest and abdomen.  Duncan growled and captured her mouth, kissing her into submission, kissing her until he felt the bite of her nails on his back.

“Are you trying to rush me?” he whispered in chastisement, and slowly,
so
slowly, eased open the front of her dress.  He lowered his head and drew her into his mouth, sucking her through her thin shift.

“Duncan!” she cried, arching beneath him.  He coaxed her into a sitting position, so he could strip the dress away
to her waist, but his mouth never once stopped working its magic.  “Duncan!” Ciaran whimpered his name again.  One of her hands shamelessly reached for him.  She touched him through his trousers and found him just as she wanted him.

Duncan grunted and lifted his head.  Ciaran kept touching him, tracing
him until he roughly captured her hands.

“I’m going to make this last all night,” he growled in warning.  “You’re never going to forget tonight, so just lie there and enjoy it.”

“But,” Ciaran puffed, “I want you to enjoy it too!”

Duncan chuckled thickly.  “Believe me, I’m enjoying myself,” he murmured lustily, raking his gaze heavily over his wife’s exquisite body.  “You really don’t need to worry about that,” he promised, stripping away Ciaran’s shift so she was completely naked before him.  He made a low, appreciative sound in the back of his throat and pushed her back down onto to the mattress, palming her breasts and capturing her mouth as he did so.

Ciaran whimpered and writhed, clutching at her husband to try and urge him closer.  Little bursts of pleasure shot through her body wherever his fingers grazed her skin, but it wasn’t
enough
.  She lifted her hips to grind against him, opened her legs to twist around him, and hoped she might inspire Duncan to lose control.

“Minx,” he growled, nipping sharply at her skin. 

Ciaran gasped, and Duncan moved against her, bucking into the intimate cradle she had created for him.  It felt good, and a little bit wicked.  Ciaran could feel Duncan’s body beneath his clothes, rubbing against her where it could serve no purpose other than to arouse her wanton desires.

“Please?” she panted, fumbling with Duncan’s belt.  “Undress?” she begged.  She wanted to feel him
, to
see
him.  Duncan had taught her what it was to appreciate a man’s body, and now she couldn’t get enough of him.  He inspired a hunger inside her so great that it seemed impossible to ever completely sate.

“Will you be a good girl if I do?” Duncan whispered, helping her with the stiff buckle of his belt.

“No!” she cried mischievously and reached for him again.

Duncan shuddered and groaned.  Ciaran had such incredible power over his body
.  Her enthusiastic touch could push him to the brink faster than any other woman he had ever known, not that he wanted such thoughts intruding on his wedding night, so he dutifully pushed them aside.

He captured her hands and kicked off his trousers, before moving to cover her little body with his own much larger one.  He loved the contrasts between them
- Ciaran’s soft, lush femininity compared to the hard masculine planes of his own body.  He hadn’t ever told her, partly for fear of her reaction, but he loved the way he could dominate her too.  She made him feel so virile and powerful.

“You look very serious,” Ciaran whispered, tiptoeing her fingers down his back.

Duncan smiled for her.  “Bedding one’s wife is a very serious business,” he teased, stroking a hand over her slightly swollen stomach.

“It is?” Ciaran squeaked, breath catching in the back of her throat when Duncan slipped
his hand between her thighs.

“Oh yes,” Duncan murmured thickly, eyes glittering with desire, but they also shone with something warm and reassuring
- something Ciaran still didn’t recognize, and yet loved to see.  “It’s a husband’s duty to make sure his wife is completely pleasured.”

“It
is?”
Ciaran giggled, although her laugh ended in a delighted moan when Duncan pressed a couple of fingers into her body.  “No one ever told me that,” she panted, tensing as Duncan teased her.

“Well
this
husband considers it his duty,” he growled, and Ciaran certainly wasn’t going to argue.

Duncan was determined to make sure this marriage,
their
marriage, surpassed Ciaran’s first experience of matrimony in every way she could possibly imagine.

For once in his life he was going to come first
- or he was going to die trying to get there.  Even Ciaran’s hatred of Sean wasn’t enough for Duncan. He needed everything. He needed her love.  He didn’t only want to be a
better
option than her first husband.  He wanted to be the
only
option.  He wanted to know that if Ciaran had her pick of all the men in the world she would choose him.

“Tell me you want me?” he
urged.

“Of course I do!” she gasped, and then sobbed loudly when her body broke for the first time that night. 

Duncan watched her smugly.  He loved making her climax, loved watching her, loved hearing her, loved the simple fact he had brought her to such a peak of ecstasy.  He stared at her shamelessly as she tried to recover her senses.  The scent of her skin was utterly intoxicating.  Duncan hungrily licked his lips and considered his next move.  His body was aching, burning with desire, but, amazingly, he was able to put his wife’s needs before his own… More or less…

..ooOOoo..

The months that followed her wedding to Duncan were the most blissful of Ciaran’s life.  Everything went smoothly. The boys started school, the weather was mild, Ciaran’s pregnancy progressed smoothly, she had help from Molly around the house, and even the other wives slowly warmed to the new Mrs. MacRae. 

It was like Duncan was her good luck charm
.  She truly considered herself blessed to have found him, or rather, that he had found her.

In no time at all, Ciaran was making the preparations for her son’s birth.  She was still positive that she was having a boy, and she was proven right when he came into the world with very little fuss
.  Duncan, it had to be said, was more worried than Ciaran was about the whole thing, young as she was, Ciaran was getting to be an old hand at childbirth. 

She delivered a healthy baby boy late one spring evening.  Duncan had to be almost physically barred from the bedroom during her labor, and he was the first face Ciaran saw after their son had been brought into the world.  He looked
far worse than she did.  He was pale and anxious. Ciaran wished she could draw him into her arms and prove that everything was fine.

“Are you all right?” he croaked, taking her hand gently, while the midwife cleaned the baby.

“I’m fine,” Ciaran smiled.  “A little tired.”  She had been through this before after all, although she had never been through it and then had a doting husband worry and fuss over her. It was rather lovely.  “Have you seen your son?” she asked, beaming with pride.