Rose of the Mists (23 page)

The Gaelic inflection rippled through her, and pain was not what Meghan felt. But how to explain the vibrant sweetness spreading through her? She reached up and laid a hand on either side of his face. “Ye’ve shaved!”

Revelin smiled; she could feel the bowing of his cheeks against her hands. “Aye. Do you mind?”

Meghan shook her head. “Ye’re so lovely to look at it makes a body ache,” she whispered shyly.

“Ah, Meghan.” Revelin sighed and lowered his head until his lips rested lightly upon her forehead.

Her skin was like cool fire. He turned his head, letting his lips roam the flower-petal softness of her brow and cheeks. He had not meant to touch her, only to save her from the lust of the Scotsman. But she was so sweet, so soft, and the rapid thread of her pulse under his lips was not to be resisted. Just a kiss, he told himself. He would be content with a single kiss.

The shock of his mouth on hers lasted only a moment. His breath was hot, his mouth a furnace upon her tender skin, and then her mouth blossomed under his, offering heat for heat, kiss for kiss, pleasure for pleasure.

The darkness wrapped them in its intimacy as he cupped her shoulders and drew her lightly against him. Meghan clasped her arms about his neck and closed her eyes, giving up the world beyond his tall, strong body. Whatever it was he wanted of her, she wanted him to have it.

She was sweet, so sweet, Revelin thought as his kiss deepened and the velvet rough tip of his tongue moved to teach her another pleasure. She was warm and softly delicious, her trembling mouth more enticing than any lips he had ever kissed. He felt he could devour her, inhale her until her every essence became part of him. Just a little more, he told himself, just a little more. Then he would stop.

Meghan sighed, the wine in her veins distilling under the heat of Revelin’s kisses into a richer, more potent brew. She was filling with the heady infusion, becoming like a berry that had basked in the sun until its pulp swelled with sugary sweetness. What was happening? What was this ripeness near bursting within her?

Her movements were unconscious, born of instinct and the guilty pleasure she had derived from watching the May Day dancers. She pressed herself along his long muscular length, her hips swaying lightly into his groin. She heard his breath catch, and his hands stilled their gentle roaming of her from neck to waist.

Revelin raised his head, arching his neck until he gazed up
at the star-dusted sky. A deep shivering began within him, riding the muscles of his stomach from ribs to groin and back. This was madness, this touching, this longing that tightened and tautened him, urging him on to the brink of forbidden desire. He must stop. Now. No more. Not even a kiss.

The touch of fingertips against the front of his doublet did not seem real. Even as the fastenings gave way before her shy touch he could not believe it was happening. He was dreaming; he wanted this so badly he had gone mad.

The night air against his bare chest did not surprise him. Of course, he had imagined this…and much more. It was a guilty pleasure he had kept locked in his dreams from the first night Meghan had shared his camp. For it could not be.

When her light, spidery fingertips brushed his naked belly, he shut his eyes; when her fingers found the shape of his maleness swollen and engorged within his hose, a groan of pure agony escaped him.

“It does grow!” he heard her whisper in awed tones, and he began to shake with silent laughter. Lord! She was a witch! No wonder peasants feared her! He should fear her himself, for he knew then he would not stop, would not be satisfied with just a little more.

His hands slipped down her back, molding the shapely arch of her spine beneath the fine cotton of her gown until he reached the top of her swelling hips. His fingers fanned out, questing the soft curves of her buttocks as he scooped her up and held her hard against the throbbing in his loins.

For a moment neither of them moved. Suddenly he was afraid for her. He could have her and he knew it, but he did not want to be her seducer.

“Meghan!” he murmured in a thickened brogue. “Meghan, you should run away. I should nae touch you, but, darling, I want this so!”

Meghan could not catch her breath. She was all sensation of touch and sound and smell. “Ye smell of the woods,” she
answered, brushing her cheek against his smoothly muscled chest. “Ye make me burn like there’s coals in me middle, Revelin.”

It was the first time she had called him by name, and the peculiar lilt of her womanly voice gave the syllables the power of a lover’s caress.

Suddenly there were two bodies sharing a single, insistent need. Her hands plucked awkwardly at the lacing that held his hose closed over his hips, while Revelin impatiently gathered her full skirts with his hands, raising the hem until only the cool forest air caressed her naked thighs. Then his hose opened under her fingers and she caught him, heavy and erect, in her trembling hands.

Revelin clasped her to him, his hands curving under her naked hips to lift her completely off the ground. With a deep sensuous chuckle he said, “Nae more words, lass. We shall nae need them.”

He carried her to a mossy place beneath a tree. Using his body as a cushion against the hard ground, he pulled her over him until they lay breast to breast. Once more he raised her skirts, his hands stroking the backs of her thighs; the fine silk teased his fingertips. The motion slowed as he reached the top of her thighs and his fingers curled down between her legs, pulling them slightly apart. As one hand rose over the globe of a buttock, the other gently worked its path inward until he touched the center of her feminine flesh.

He expected her to gasp, and lifted his head to catch the surprised shape of her mouth with his in a heavy, drugging kiss.

Meghan gasped repeatedly against his mouth, half-sobs of unbearable delight. He had found a place of pleasure she had not known existed, and it was too much. Her tender, overripe flesh seemed about to burst. She was oozing like a ripe berry. She felt it against her thighs as his fingers worked in and out.

Through the heavy veiling of sensual pleasure Revelin heard
her wondrous cries. She was so sweet, a sweet and innocent wanton whose honeyed delights were for him alone. After he’d stripped her of her gown, he buried his face in the deep cleft between her breasts and breathed deeply of her scent. In that moment he knew it was a smell he would never forget or ever get enough of.

Meghan cried out when he caught the tip of one breast in his lips. Too many sensations were happening all at once. His touch was everywhere, inside and out, on her breasts, her thighs, her belly. And then she was beneath him, his hot hard flesh blanketing her cool trembling body. She thought she would be crushed as his weight sank into her, but she was not. There was a strength in her she had not guessed. His weight became a comfort, a shield, a bearer of indescribable joy. When his hand brushed her thighs she parted them willingly, offering her body up to any whim of his desire.

The moment when it came held no disappointment. The violence done to her body lasted no longer than it took her to realize it. Then his hands and lips were smoothing, gentling away the pain, begging forgiveness, promising a return of sweet pleasure. The slow, heavy hammering of her heart matched the rhythm of his hips as he moved on her, surely, steadily, powerfully.

The pleasure came back and with it a redoubling of the drumlike tension in her lower belly. He was there, Revelin moved there inside her, stroking and stroking until it became too much and the tension burst into shuddering ripples of pleasure.

Her cry of joy was little more than an expulsion of breath into Revelin’s mouth, and he tasted her passion with grateful delight until the surge of his own body overcame him and he, too, burst with the ripened promise of life.

*

Revelin kept watch while Meghan slept in his lap. She was curled against him, her head on his shoulder and her legs under
her gown tucked up against his thigh. In the distance the bonfires continued to burn while music drifted through the night. Yet he was barely aware of the passage of time or even of the cold that chased ripples across his exposed skin. He was recalling the last minutes in rapt amazement.

Ye’ve a great heart in ye, Revelin, me lad. But ye dinna think on the consequences!

His grandfather’s words came clearly to mind and Revelin’s mouth twisted wryly. That was true. He had little patience with carefully measured plans. If he had been a little more calculating this night, he would not have succumbed so easily to his desire for conquest. There were a dozen young women in camp he could have eased himself with. Turlough had offered to find him a woman for the night.

How easily he had been led by his own jealousy and lust. Perhaps Turlough’s mention of Meghan as a bonny lass who had drawn the eye of more than one clansman had determined his action. He had defended her honor and reminded the chieftain that he was Meghan’s guardian and would kill any man who dishonored her. Turlough had smiled tolerantly and offered the opinion that Colin MacDonald was a worthy adversary.

Revelin sighed and tenderly kissed Meghan’s brow. How amused Turlough would be if he could see them now. When the conversation had turned to England and the traitorous topic of open rebellion by the Irish, he had not been able to concentrate as well as he would have liked. Later, when he had found Meghan dancing with Colin, he forgot that he had come back to the festivities to tell Robin and the others they were free to leave with the dawn. He had even forgotten the lie that had come to mind to cover the reason for their release. He had forgotten “Black Tom’s” urgent need for the information now in his possession. He had even forgotten Alison.

Meghan stretched in his arms with a kittenlike yawn before she settled down again. Revelin stroked her hair. Even now, with his carefully laid plans in a shambles, just touching her
stirred him deeply. If not for the fear that they would be discovered, he would have made love to her again. He wanted her again, wanted to feel the fierce sweetness of her ecstasy.

Instead he felt the first pangs of guilt. He had betrayed Alison. Though they had never made love and were not officially engaged, they had an understanding that they would be when he returned to England.

And there was Meghan’s virtue. The sane, rational part of his mind flayed him for the seduction. But the sane part had never ruled his tender emotions. She had been as eager as he. Despite himself, a smile rose to his lips. He had pleased her. There was no pretense in Meghan. And she had pleased him, more than pleased him. In giving herself she had left a little of herself behind. He felt it now, warm and sweet in his heart.

“What is your secret, Meghan?” he whispered against her hair, though he knew she slept and would not answer. “Who are you?”

*

John Reade leaned back against the trunk in a shadowy recess of an alder tree and contemplated the scene before him. When Butler and the girl had sneaked away he had followed, hoping to make his escape with them. He had not expected to be followed himself.

He clasped his thick palms together and squeezed, feeling the power of his hands. It had not been easy to strangle the O’Neill warrior barehanded. God’s death! He had thought the man would never cease thrashing about. Even when blood erupted from his nose and mouth, the man had continued to struggle. Reade had sweated every moment in expectation of discovery. But no one had heard them.

Reade grinned as his eye caught the movement of his prey. His dalliance with the soldier had lost him a goodly part of the entertainment taking place on the lake bank…but not all. He had thought them escaping, but they had merely run away to take their pleasure of each other.

Reade licked his lips. The girl had been lovely to watch, her body like a white flame against the darkness of the night. She had fed his unquenchable fire without knowing it. Her muffled love cries had built a pulsing tugging in his own loins, which he had finally relieved in envy onto the ground while watching Revelin pump his seed into her unresisting warmth.

“Next time,” he whispered to himself. Next time she would pleasure
him.
He could already imagine his own satisfaction echoed in Revelin’s moan of fulfillment.

He grinned as he watched Revelin rise now and lift the sleeping girl into his arms. He had underestimated young Butler. The lad had pleasured the girl before reaching his own climax. It was a talent often lacking in a young buck, yet one a smart man used to his advantage. Yet, Butler did not impress him as a man who would indulge the weaknesses of others for his own gain. Only a man subject to sentimentality would sit on the cold ground this past hour while the girl slept instead of leaving her for the warmth of the bonfire. Butler’s weakness was the girl. Perhaps he had fallen in love with her. It was something for Reade to remember and use when the moment presented itself.

When the pair disappeared along the lake bank, Reade did not follow. They were not escaping and he had had enough of playing the Peeping Tom. There was work to be done. Someone in this cursed place must speak English, someone who could be bribed to tell him what had been arranged between Butler and that sot Turlough. The corners of Reade’s mouth lifted. “Flora!”

*

“Where the devil have you been?” Robin grabbed Revelin’s sleeve as he was about to pass by with Ualter trotting patiently at his heels.