Ronan's Bride (8 page)

His tautness was as palpable as his heat, no matter how unhurried his kisses, how gentle. Sefare felt him shift both his hands above her head, herself having risen on her toes. Though thus far only mouths touching, when he dared close the space and wet clothing and skin met her own, they were both trembling.

She heard the harshness of his breathing, felt the hammering thud of his heart through his leather shirt. His warmth from the solid muscle she could feel beneath the covering of shirt and trousers. It was almost overwhelming, adding to the opening of her senses.

He widened his hands and was going down further. His tender lips scored her chin and when she arched her neck, he laved there. Breath fanning her skin, her own heard in the tight space, she listened to the leather on his palms dragging on the stonewall… and felt him descending.

Her faint gasp and dig of her fingers into the stone was due to his touch upon her nipple through the wet, sheer, linen. For too intense a moment, he merely licked at both, which were so tight and burning, she could only pant at the sensations. Ronan went further still, and her hands lifted, futile not knowing where to hold.

Having his face near her waist, she felt his hands tugging the tunic from the breeches. Little by little, he inched it up, sliding it upwards until her stomach and ribs, her breasts, were exposed.

Teeth deep in her lip, Sefare was caught up in the storm around them and the erotic heat of his touch. She felt his lips, his warm tongue touch her skin just below her navel, and some hint of the mask, before his kissing inched across the exposed skin. Stomach quivering, her hands landed atop his head, feeling the silken thickness of his hair between the latches of his mask.

He breathed sizzling, skimming silken kisses over her stomach, unhurried to each side of her waist, before going up her ribs, over them. When he reached her breast, she was as a leaf in the wind, her moan breaking the breathy silence. His lips surrounded the shallow mound, taking it into his sultry mouth, the whole of them, before pulling back and clamping sensually at the tip to suckle.

Her fingers went down, somewhere into the nape of his collar and splayed there, while he gave each a turn. That it was only his mouth touching her, somehow stole away any fears of the intimacy, and its ribbon of exquisite pleasure drew tighter, more velvety by the second.

Ronan kissed downward again. Sefare froze the moment he pressed his face at the ties of her breeches. His scorching breathing penetrated them, as if he inhaled her scent. He nuzzled there, making her aware of the moisture gathering in her sex, of ripples, and contractions, sensitizing it.

Sefare whimpered. His hand eased from the wall beside her hip. Ronan leaned back enough to place it over the material at her mons. A large hand, warm and firm, which he could cover the whole area with and still slide his thumb between her legs, pressing enough to send shock waves through her.

“Mmmm.” Her moan and half cry came with an unconscious arch of her hips toward him. His breathing unsteady, and sharp, too. Ronan merely tugged a few loops on the ties, and found enough space to brush his fingers in her curls there, before fitting a finger between the lips, and sliding back in the moisture.

Gazing down, able to see only shadowed outlines, Sefare felt the pound of her heart behind her ribs as he withdrew it. Ah, God’s Mercy…The contrast of roughness and gentleness raking sensitive nerves. In the dark, moisture gleamed along his finger. His head lowered to taste from it, as if drawing honey from a comb and eating it from his hand. He pressed his lips to the skin between ties, kissed her there and licked, before easing his finger again in a stroking glide, the pad coming to her entry and upward, an inch inside the slick opening.

“Jesu!” she grit, half prayer, half whisper, and it ended on a groan when he withdrew and tasted her again.

Sefare did not know what to do. She wanted more, hungered as never before, and still she did not want to speak it aloud. She wanted to moan and scream as he went back to easing between the lips, touching that spot in the process, and then letting the tip enter her.

In the end, blindly she reached down, her trembling fingers covering his as he withdrew. Sucking in a breath, she slid it down into the pocket. Head back and neck arched, eyes closed, she guided it to rub high over the plump nerves, then back, where she ached, at the moment of entry, allowing him to touch deeper, going from one to the other, chaffing, softly, impaling but deep. Her breathing escalated, her body tightened.

Ronan soon took over, so that her hand left his, to rise and grasp his wet shirt at the shoulder.

Sefare knew in some distant way that he watched her, read her, and was attending to every movement and sound, every vibration—also aware of the honey flowing thicker.

Her climax came, blinding and white, engulfing, and shuddering with almost painful intensity. Sefare had went toward him, both hands clutching the leather shirt, her sounds of drowning, pleasure and surrender, half words, half cries.

A hiss of thick rain still curtained out the world when Sefare fell back against the wall again. Dazed and heavy with the climax, she allowed him with pleasure, to tug the trousers, over her hips and buttocks, down enough so that he, on his knees, lifted her and by the thighs spread her legs—to lave the moisture of her climax. He was gentle, at the same time sensual, and obvious in his suckling, in trusting his tongue in her, to consume every drop.

A last kiss, just over that still sensitive spot between the lips, then he eased her down, and repaired her breeches.

Too amazed and having too much to process, she was aware when he leaned into her, his embrace tentative, and that his body was a band of steely hungers. He breathed rigid.

She did not know how much time passed before he finally spoke in a husked voice, “The entry door is but a few feet. We should be not much more drowned by trying for it.”

“Aye,” she answered, feeling him pull back, before he found her hand and they dashed out into a much colder rain.

At the entry of the hall behind the kitchens, he loosed her hand. When she passed through the arch, into the open kitchens, Ronan turned and went back the other way.

Sefare hurried through, smiling at the teasing and clucking of servants upon seeing her wet clothing and hair.

A hearth fire roared, herbs overhead wafting down scents of basil, thyme, rosemary, lavender, amid the wood and aroma of bread and meat. She passed the slab tables and blocks, tubs, and servants busy at their work. She turned in a passageway, narrowly constructed, that led to the floor above the great hall.

Having seen her drowned condition, the servants were quickly behind, entering the solar and getting her hot bath prepared.

“My Thanks, Mag.” She nodded to the girl in warm wool kerchief and apron. When the fire was laid, the door closed. Sefare stepped into the water. During her bathing, she heard the boy Daykin next-door speaking, and knew Ronan was in his chamber. A bath also, being prepared.

The castle did not heat much from the fires, and the rains were battering at the shutters, seeping through drafts with scent and chill. She lay with her head on the rim of the brass tub after soaping and rinsing head to toe. Sefare wondered that she had not realized Ronan was a man who had never made love to a woman. Considering his past and scars, she should have.

One would not know it from his kisses, nor his touch—and she had knowledge that men who were experienced—could or would not—pleasure a woman half as much. It was too, a mixture of the storm, the unknowns between them, and the fact she was as timid in intimacy as he. Nevertheless, she had trusted him without thinking of his skills or lack of experience, or his scars. She had trusted him enough to have nothing enter her mind but letting him pleasure her more.

She sat up in the tub and sleeked her hair back, rising and looking down as rose glycerin scented water sloshed off her milky skin. She had always seemed boyish compared to most women, and had oft been told that by the women who sewed her gowns. Certainly, the Count’s sisters had poked fun at her shallow breasts and slim hips.

His mother oft snarled before the whole table, that him wedding a scrawny woman was why no heir was produced. Sefare knew the Count had two dozen bastard children, which were but slaves on his lands. She thought there were no heirs from her belly because God had some mercy, and answered at least one of her fervent prayers. The Di Matteo’s were an incestuous bunch, forcing weddings between first cousins and half siblings. She shuddered. That life was over, past, hopefully.

Sefare stepped out and dried, wrapping the linen around her, before sinking to the thick fur before the fire. The curls around her head dried. She detected scrapping and sounds next door. A servant brought her warmed wine, fruits, bread, cheeses, and then left. Seated, as she was, the tray beside her, she ate until she finished it, and was half through with the wine, when the door dividing the solar eased, open.

Gazing over her shoulder, she could see that the chamber behind Ronan was only lit by amber firelight. He leaned a shoulder against the facing, his mask on, his tunic a soft gray, breeches and boots equally supple.

His wet hair was tied at the nape. A strand caught at the shoulder, telling her it was only confined there, and not braided. He appeared as large and powerfully built as ever, she skimmed visually up him, before meeting his gaze, which was also viewing her body, wrapped only in linen.

She brushed her thumb over the rim of the gold cup, waiting to see what he would do or say—wondering—that he even faced her so soon afterwards.

In the end, Ronan merely walked to her and sat on his haunches before her, his gaze taking in her face, shoulders, bare limbs and feet, before he gently reached for the tucked end of the linen and peeled it back.

She widened her arms, silently observing him as it unraveled and fell to a pool at her hips, leaving the upper flair of hips, slimmer waist and torso, bare.

Eyes moving up to meet hers, he murmured low, “Turn around.”

Drawing in a breath, Sefare hesitated in exposing those marks to him again. However, eventually she set down the cup, and got to her knees, turning her back on him, having tucked the linen low on her hips.

His fingertips touched her. She flinched only because of where they touched, tracing lines and welts, going from her shoulder blades to the top of her spine.

“Lie down.”

She swallowed and lay belly down on the fur, her face buried in her arms. Ronan crouched over her, his mouth and tongue soon moving over her skin from shoulders down, laving and tracing, and kissing each old wound as well as unharmed skin. Sefare felt tears seeping. She put it down to the climax rather than that such wounds could hurt her anymore. Her heart trembled when he touched his own scarred fingers—much more cruelly scarred—to her skin again, and soothed it.

The mask, supple suede, brushed her flesh. He kissed the base of her spine. His hair slid round, brushing feather light down her side, cool and silky.

Ronan sat back. Before she could move, his hands held each heel lightly, then caressed up her legs, the calf, bend, the back of her thigh—ending under the linen, just below her buttock. Each time, each soothing and stirring trip.

He rasped, “Tell me if I touch too firm, or frighten you.”

She could only nod, because such uncertainty in such an intimidating man was amazing. His thumbs would turn in at the top of her thigh, brushing light between her legs. She did not know herself to be sensitive there, nor many of the places he seemed to arouse her by touching. He kissed her legs too, lightly and supple, but working his way up to the firm mounds of her backside.

Eventually she raised enough to rest her chin on her fists, wiping away any trace of tears. Watching their shadows, seeing him as a large and dark one, his thick hair over his shoulder, and seeing a man, only the man, she felt just that, in his touch and kiss.

Ronan turned his head a moment. The beauty of his profile, an outline one would not note, because in light the mask distracted from it, struck her. Brow wrinkled with some sympathetic pain, she thought that were he unscarred, Ronan would put other males to shame with his appearance.

“Do you remove it in the presence of your friend, the Celt?”

He did not ask what. But sat back, no longer touching her. “Nay. Only pagan.”

“Because you look much the same.”

“In scars or—”

She corrected his assumption, “Save for eyes and height, you look much like him.”

He sat all the way back, his hands resting somewhere near her feet. However, she was aware he stared at the same shadow she did.

“He has our mother’s eyes.”

“That is what Illara said,” she mused. “I have father’s hair and eyes, but my mother was even smaller than me.” She laughed softly. “I came only to father’s waist though.”

“And the Count…”

“Aye, he was a huge man. But it wasn’t his size that was menacing.” She chewed her lip, and then murmured, “When he came near me, touched me, I would shut out everything, even his image. I would take myself back to the days of happiness. It worked… until he was finished with me, gone. Then it seemed akin to dreaming one’s self in a heavenly gown, clean, sweet smelling, surrounded by sun—awaking in rags, dirty and soiled. Everything, no matter how rich, was a rotting cell.”