Pleasured (25 page)

23

T
he kiss was hot, damp,
desperate. Damon thrust his hands into her hair, holding her still as he consumed her mouth. Meg’s arms went around his neck; she offered herself up to him even as she took all he had to give. Finally he pulled his mouth away, breath shuddering out, and changed the angle of his mouth to kiss her once again.

Meg pressed her body into his, reveling in the hard grind of bone and muscle against her softness. She was suddenly trembling with need. She wanted him in her, around her, in every way imaginable. When he tore his mouth from hers again, burying his face in her neck, his breath rasping and his body like fire, Meg dug her fingers into his shoulders, unable to say anything but “Please . . . please . . .”

The words were fuel to the fire in him. Damon hooked his hands into the wide neck of her nightgown, yanking the garment down and off her shoulders. Two buttons went flying off into the night, and there was a distinct ripping sound, but neither of them cared. He shoved the gown down, and
it dropped around her ankles. Damon smoothed his hand down her back and over her shapely buttocks, digging his fingers into the fleshy mounds and pressing her against the hard line straining at his breeches.

Excitement bubbled out of Meg in a breathy little laugh. She threw her arms tightly around his neck, springing up from her toes, and he lifted her as she wrapped her legs around his waist. Meg buried her lips against his neck, kissing her way up to take his ear in her mouth. He let out an inarticulate noise, his arms like iron around her.

“You’ll have us both off this balcony.” He chuffed out a low laugh.

“I don’t care,” she said boldly, and nibbled at his earlobe. “Do you?”

“No. God, no.” He turned his head to take her lips again, walking with her back to his door. Neither of them seemed to mind—or even notice—that they lurched against the doorframe as they passed through.

Tumbling onto the bed, they rolled across it, locked in a kiss. Meg tugged at his shirt, and he reared up, sweeping it off over his head and tossing it across the room. She turned, pushing his shoulders, and he went with her movement, letting her press him onto the bed on his back. Meg straddled his legs, unfastening the buttons of his breeches, and worked her hands inside the trousers and down over the curve of his buttocks, shoving the garment down and off so that he was freed, hard and pulsing.

She sucked in her breath and reached out, running a finger lightly down the side of the engorged staff. He jerked, releasing a low moan, and grabbed her arms, flipping her back onto the bed beneath him. He kissed her face, her
throat, her breasts, his mouth and hands greedy upon her flesh, and Meg responded, driven to whimpers of pleasure as he made her his own. The soft noises seemed to spur him to even greater passion, and when she sank her fingers into his shoulders, moving her hips against him in mindless hunger, Damon parted her legs and sank into her.

Meg rose to meet him, shifting to take him even deeper inside her and gliding her hands down the muscles of his back to dig her fingernails into the rounded flesh of his buttocks. He groaned and moved within her, driving them upward with long, desperate strokes. Meg wrapped her legs around him, urging him on, everything within her straining to reach that moment, that instant of perfect pleasure.

Then, at last, it crested within her, shaking her to her core, and she felt the passion take him, too, as he lost himself within her, his arms engulfing her, mouth pressed against her shoulder to stifle his cry of release.

Damon collapsed, and she cradled him, reveling in the weight of his long, hard body. Meg turned her head and kissed his arm, her hands stroking tenderly over his back. She felt consumed, used . . .
owned
in a way that was stunningly pleasurable. She, Meg Munro, who had always prided herself on being her own woman, now belonged to him in a way that was as much possession as being possessed. In that instant and forever, she knew, Damon was hers, and whatever else lay before them, that would never change.

He mumbled something into her skin, an apology for his weight, she sensed, and he rolled over, wrapping his arms around her and cuddling her to him. Meg nestled her head into the crook of his shoulder, finding again how naturally it fit there. They lay for a long time, dreamily touching, ca
ressing, as if their hands were unable to stay away from the other. He pressed his lips against her hair.

“Did I hurt you?” he murmured. “I did not mean to. But I could not . . . I could not stop.” He propped himself on his elbow, gazing down at her, and he ran a finger along the line of her collarbone and shoulder, to where his mouth had clamped upon her as his climax raged through him. A red spot was forming there, and he caressed it. “I marked you. I’m sorry.” He looked into her face, and Meg saw as much satisfaction there as regret.

“You don’t mean that,” she said, laying her hand against his cheek and gliding her thumb across his full, kiss-reddened lips.

“I am sorry if I hurt you.” A smugly male smile curved his lips. “But I confess I don’t mind marking you as mine. I’d like to let every man in the world know you belong to me.”

“So I belong to you, too.” She frowned at him, but a teasing note was in her voice. “Just like the beach and the standing stones and the—”

He laughed and stopped her mouth with his. “No, not like those things at all, for they have no choice in the matter. You, on the other hand . . .” He caressed her cheek and neck, brushed back her hair. “You have given yourself to me, and that is infinitely more precious.”

“And you to me.”

“Aye,” he said, giving his word a mock Scots intonation. “And me to you.”

“That’s all to the good, then.” Meg grinned up at him. “And to think I wondered if you did not want me.” She smoothed a hand down his chest.

He stared at her. “Sweet heaven, how could you pos
sibly think that?” He leaned down, resting his arm on the other side of her so that he hovered over her. He pressed his mouth to the soft top of her breast. “I have wanted you”—his lips traveled over her breasts and stomach, marking each word with a kiss as he said—“every minute. Every day. From the moment I saw you.” He circled her navel with his tongue, then slid back up her body. “Each breath I took.” He indulged in another long, searching kiss. “Each time I looked at you.” He traced her nipple with his tongue. “Whenever I heard your voice.” He turned his attention to the other nipple. “I have wanted you so much I thought I’d die of it.”

“Well, we canna have that.” Meg looped her arms around his neck, her eyes gleaming with the sweet, hot hunger pulsing through her. “But are you sure? Are you able—”

“Oh, I am able.” His lips curved up devilishly. “And this time, I intend to take my time about it.”

He did so, his mouth and hands roaming over her in slow, lingering caresses that brought Meg to the smoldering brink of ecstasy again and again, only to edge away to taste her in a different spot or caress her from another angle. He touched and probed and caressed, kissing and tasting seemingly every bit of her skin, until at last the breath was sobbing in her throat, her fingers digging into the sheets beneath her, as she arched up against him.

Then at last he eased into her, inch by inch, filling her with a satisfaction so sweet it was almost painful. With a torturous slowness, he stroked in and out, drawing forth each tiny sensation of pleasure. His heat was all around her, coursing within her, and Meg moved with him, so that they seemed almost one in their desire. Finally, the tide of release poured through her, slow and lush and lingering, and he
groaned, his fingers digging into the bed, as he poured his seed into her.

Arms around each other, still joined, they slid into peace.

Their rooms were a secluded world, set apart from the rest of the house by the private balcony. Meg knew that the servants were aware despite the secrecy of their situation, and she knew that they gossiped, though none dared to be rude to her in Damon’s house. She had seen the maids whispering to each other, then going abruptly silent when Meg appeared. Mrs. Ferguson, who avoided speaking to Meg if at all possible, had a frosty glint in her eyes whenever she looked at Meg. But Meg ignored them all. People had always gossiped about her, she told herself. And she was not going to ruin things by thinking about it.

She knew she should return to her cottage, having no reason to stay now that Lynette was better. She said so one evening to Damon, but he quickly pointed out to her that it was imperative that she remain here: “Lynette needs you.”

“No. She is doing much better. Why, she has been walking all around, up and down the stairs, and she is even coming down to dinner now.”

“I need you,” he told Meg simply.

That, Meg thought, was reason enough to stay. She glided through the days that followed, determined to hold on to her happiness. She spent several hours a day with Lynette, talking or reading, sometimes with Damon and sometimes alone. In the stillroom of the kitchens, she toyed with different recipes for remedies to help rebuild the girl’s
strength and health.

The rest of her time was occupied by Damon. They walked together in the garden and down to the loch. She discovered a number of places about the estate that were secluded enough for an embrace or kiss . . . or more. In the evening, they ate an intimate supper together, their enjoyment of each other’s company no longer constricted by the hunger that ran within them. It was still there, humming in Meg’s blood, easily stirred to life by a look or a touch, but now it was a feeling to be savored, a spicy undertone to every situation, knowing that soon the need building inside her would be satiated.

They talked—on their walks, as they ate, lying in bed at night. Meg could not believe how much they talked. How was it, she wondered, that two people so different could find so many things to say, so much opportunity to laugh?

He described his home and his parents, their devotion to duty and to family . . . as long as it meant not spending too much time at the estate with their young son. He talked about his older brother, who had died when Damon was five.

“Damon! How awful!” Meg turned to him, horror in her eyes. They were lying in his bed, and she snuggled closer to him, offering him the mute comfort of her warmth. “I cannot imagine what I would have done if something had happened to Coll. What happened?”

“He cut his leg one day when we were playing down in the stables. I remember the head groom going white as a sheet and picking Edward up and running with him to the house. Edward was begging the head groom not to tell anyone because we weren’t supposed to play there.”

“Oh, Damon . . .”

“They doctored the leg and bound it up, and everyone thought the cut would heal. It wasn’t really that terrible a cut, for all it seemed to me to bleed gallons. But then his leg began to swell, and there was the most horrid smell, I’ll never forget that.”

“Gangrene.”

He nodded. “They would not let me into his room anymore. And then Father took me into his study one evening, and he told me Edward was gone. I started to cry, and he said I mustn’t. I had to be brave and strong because now
I
was the heir and one day I would be the Earl of Mardoun.”

“I’m so sorry.” Meg wrapped her arms around him, tenderly kissing his cheek.

“It was so long ago I can’t remember all that much about him anymore.” Damon smiled faintly. “We had a miniature wooden boat we used to sail on the pond. Our uncle, my mother’s brother, gave it to Edward. He was an admiral, you see. We used to pretend it was our uncle’s ship.”

“And did you want to be a naval man as well?”

“Oh, no. I was dead set on the hussars. Of course, I could not have joined them, being the heir and all, but I thought it would be grand. I must admit that my desire was based mostly on a portrait in the gallery of a long-dead Lord Rutherford. He was a Cavalier, took arms for the king, and died helping Charles escape. I thought it was terribly heroic. Naturally, the hat and the boots were the real enticement.”

“I can just see you with a great plume in your hat.”

“I’d look quite splendid with a plume, I think.” He cut his eyes toward her, grinning.

Meg laughed and kissed him simply because she felt her heart might swell until it burst when he smiled at her like
that. “I can see you now.” She settled back into his arms, her head on his shoulder. “It must be so nice to have all those relatives, that history, to know all their names.”

“You must have relatives and history. I’ve heard it said the Munro women have been healers here for centuries.”

“Aye, but I don’t know their names past my great-grandmother. You must know each and every ancestor back to William the Conqueror.”

“Not every.” Humor lit his eyes. “I confess I was not that interested.”

“I don’t know my grandfather’s name. Even my mother did not know who he was.”

“That would be a hard thing, not being sure . . .” Damon said carefully.

Meg shook her head. “No, it was not what you are thinking. It was not that her mother had so many men she could not tell which one fathered her bairn. Faye—my grandmother—died bearing my mother, and Faye took her secret to her grave.”