The Wayward One (The De Montforte Brothers Book 5) (35 page)

“If ye like, lass.” His smile deepened, and a twinkle came into his eye. “Or, ye could leave my shirt on and unfasten my breeches.”

She darkened with color. She wanted to lie with him, skin to skin, beating heart against beating heart, and she wanted nothing to stand in the way of that—not fine lawn shirts, not breeches, not anything.

“Can you sit up?” she asked, hating to make him move, dreading that same unfocused look he’d got when he’d sat up a few moments past.

“I can,” he said, and she curved her arm around his back, supporting him. She pulled his shirt from the waistband of his breeches and he bent forward so she could pull the garment over his head. He straightened up and for a moment he sat there smiling at her, letting her look her fill of the splendid, inverted triangle of his powerfully-muscled shoulders and chest, the smattering of wiry black hair across his pectorals, his hard, defined abdomen. The little black hairs seemed to gather near his navel, tapering to an arrow that led to the waistband of his breeches and disappeared.

Nerissa’s fingers went to her mouth and above them, her gaze met his. A Greek statue could not have come closer to perfection than Ruaidri O’ Devir did. The back of her throat went dry even as the ache between her legs intensified, and she felt liquid heat down there, reminding her of her own body’s response to this man that she had married.

My husband
, she thought, in a bit of awe.

Mine.

The unfocused look was back in his eyes once more.

“Are you well, Ruaidri?”

“Faint in me head,” he said as casually as he might note the weather, and settled back once more. He smiled up at her, the bulging muscles of his shoulders and upper arms clearly defined against the pillow. “But I’m fine, lass. Ye can’t hurt me.”

She moved up closer to him, arms on either side of his as she twisted to straddle him, and lowered her head. Her lips grazed the bridge of his nose, the smooth expanse of his forehead, the dark eyebrows, the purple bruising beneath the hair at his temple where he must have hit when he fell. She closed her eyes, nuzzling his hair and wishing she could kiss away every bit of pain and suffering that awful day had brought him.

It was a moment before she realized that he was touching her, his fingers brushing her neck, drifting down the base of her throat and to her breasts, hanging loose beneath the shirt. She paused, her lips still in his hair, enjoying the sensation of his touch. How warm were his hands as he plumped the weight of her breast against his palm. How delicious was his thumb, the edge of his nail, as he traced the perimeter of her areole. She shivered with want and longing and gave a little sigh against the damp skin of his temple.

“Oh,” she breathed, biting her lip.

“Ye’re beautiful, lass,” he said, his breath whispering against the side of her neck, and gently pinched her nipple. “Ye’re beautiful, and I’m the luckiest man on earth right now.”

The gentle pinch became a persistent, relentless roll between thumb and forefinger, back and forth, back and forth, until the nipple grew hard and engorged and a fine layer of perspiration broke out along her forehead. She ached to reclaim his lips, but to do so might dislodge his hand, oh, his wonderful, delicious, warm and masterful hand, and she dared not move. Her breathing grew ragged. Her skin grew hot. Her arms began to tremble as she balanced there above him, her weight on her hands on either side of his torso, her hair hanging down over one shoulder to brush and puddle on his chest. Little gasps of delight rose in the back of her throat, becoming a sigh as his hand drifted to her other breast.

“Ruaidri,” she murmured, trying not to squirm. “Ohhhh….”

“Take yer shirt off,
mo grá
. I want to see you.”

She pulled back and did so, tossing the garment aside. She saw his gaze drop to her breasts, saw his eyes darkening with desire. He twisted his hips, perhaps to ease the swelling beneath the drop front of his breeches as he gazed at the high, pert globes and the blushing pink nipples that seemed to harden all the more beneath his appreciative stare.

“Ye haven’t killed me yet, lass,” he said hoarsely, “but I’ve definitely died and gone to heaven.”

She lay back down beside him, facing him, their breaths warm and mingling. She could feel the heat radiating from his body, warming her like a blanket and making her want to burrow into its very source.

He reached out, his fingers atop her shoulder, and gently traced her curves—the firm muscles of her upper arm, the hollow of her elbow, the deep indentation of her flat, tiny waist, the feminine rise of her hip and the downward sweep toward her knees. He was smiling softly as he drew her with his hand, warming her flesh and setting it on fire, and she finally couldn’t take the sweet torture anymore. Boldly, Nerissa reached out and, finding the button of his drop front breeches, undid it.

He sprang out into her hand, a thick, solid ridge of hard male flesh, warmer than she expected, larger than she could have imagined, but as unyielding and hard as a steel hammer beneath the warm, humid skin. She looked down at him, fascinated. Here was the armament of a man, a warrior, one who made no secret of the fact that he wanted her and wanted her badly.

“May I…touch it?” she asked, looking up into his eyes.

“Have at it, lass.”

She raised herself up on an elbow, gently pushed him down on his back, and with both hands, gripped the sides of his waistband and began to pull the breeches over his hipbones. She froze, remembering his wound, seeing the black thread that marked the stitches, but he only smiled. “Stop yer worryin’, Nerissa. I won’t break.”

Gently, she eased them off. She undid and stepped out of her own. Moments later they lay side by side and naked, he splendid in his masculine perfection, his legs as long, hard-muscled and perfectly formed as the rest of him. His arousal sprang thick and hard from its bed of black hair, his testicles heavy against the sheet of the cot.

“Oh,” she said softly, as she sat there looking. And then she reached out and hesitantly touched him with light, questing fingers.

He groaned, and let his head fall back on the pillow.

She squeezed closer to him. How velvety-soft was the male skin over its own iron-hardness. How lively it was beneath her fingers as she gently tested its rigidity, traced its shape, fingered and stroked the giant ridge of male flesh with increasingly confident fingers. He filled her hand. He was warm and thick and hard. She squeezed him, encouraged by his soft words of love for her, and let her thumb move over the blunt, triangular head. Once, twice, and a third time, this last causing a creamy seed of moisture to ooze from its slit. She looked at it for a long moment and then at her husband, lying there so rigidly still, his hand clenching and unclenching the sheet on which he lay and his eyes all but rolled back in his head.

“Are you in pain, Ruaidri?”

“No, lass.”

“Why do you look as though you are?”

“Because I’m holdin’ back…tryin’ to conserve me strength so that what I have, is yours.” He opened his eyes then and in them was a crystalline desperation, something feral and untamed, and she shivered in recognition of it. “I’m weak, Nerissa. But I’ll be stronger tomorrow, and stronger the day after that, and stronger, still, as each day falls behind the next.”

She touched her thumb to that pearly drop, smearing it across the slit and around the head and causing him to leap in her hand. “What are you saying?”

“That if I were myself, I’d rise up and throw you down to the bed and take you as an eager, driven-mad husband should take his wife, that is, with no quarter and no holdin’ back. I can’t, though. I’m faint, I’m dizzy, I’m weak. But not so weak as I can’t do other things to pleasure ye. Turn around, lass, turn so that ye’re facin’ the other way, and put yer belly here, so that I might kiss it.”

“You want to kiss my belly?”

“I want to kiss yer belly, and yer c—” he paused, rethinking words that he’d been about to say—“lady parts,” he said. “Help me, Nerissa. I’m hungry for ye.”

Somewhat shocked, she drew her feet up, pivoted, and lay back down again until her knees were against his forehead, her own mouth shockingly near his arousal, which, if at all possible, looked even bigger than it had a few minutes ago; it had taken on a veiny, purplish cast, and with increasing boldness, she reached out and resumed exploring it with her fingers.

“Easy there, lass,” he said roughly. “Not yet.”

“Not yet?”

“No. First, this.”

“This” turned out to be the blade of his hand sliding between her knees, parting them, the rough pads of his fingers skating over the soft, downy flesh of her inner thighs until she squirmed and sighed and moaned with the sheer pleasure of the sensation. Between her legs she felt moisture, a desperate craving for his touch, for fulfillment, as he moved toward the warm, liquid center of her.

“Oh, Ruaidri,” she breathed, as his fingers slipped between her slick petals and his thumb dragged up and down, over and through her most inner flesh and the damp curls that framed it. Sensation began to gather deep inside her, searing her with its intensity, building in force, and she heard little noises of anguish coming from her own throat. She tried to contain them, biting savagely down on her lower lip, shuddering with each delicious stroke of his fingers. The pleasure-pain built. Her heart hammered wildly in her chest. Desperately, she reached for his organ, thick and swollen and so close to her lips, but he grunted a refusal and caught her hand with a muffled “not yet.” Not yet? And then her thoughts sizzled away as he threw a strong, heavy arm over the rise of her hips and dragged her closer to him, now tipping her onto her back, his heavy black mane dragging over her pelvis as he sought her, now, with a hungry, desperate mouth.

Instinctively, she tried to clamp her legs together, but his hand was there anticipating it. Gently, insistently, he pushed her thighs apart, wider and wider still, until cool air was sweeping against her hot, moist folds and making her tremble and shudder and flush. A moment later, it wasn’t cool air against her; it was his mouth, fully open and hungry for her, his lips sealing her, his tongue working against her folds and the hard, swollen bud of her center, rasping back and forth, circling it, suckling it, until Nerissa, unable to hold back any longer, bucked upward on a helpless cry of abandon. He caught her scream with his fingers, never complaining as she bit down, sobbing, on them, only licking and stroking her with his tongue until her spasms peaked yet again and she convulsed all around him.

He drew back, slowly. She lay flushed and gasping beside him, her hair damp against her cheekbones.

“You…you said you didn’t think you could do this,” she managed. “Oh, my God….”

“I haven’t done it.” He licked his lips, pointedly savoring the taste of her as he gazed into her eyes. “’Tis why I told ye to slow down, lass.”

She sat up, shoving her damp hair off her brow. “I want you to feel like you’ve made me feel, Ruaidri.” She reached out then and stroked him, knowing, instinctively, what he needed. But this time there was no reason to hold back, to save her virginity, to take steps to prevent a baby. This time he was her husband and she wanted to know him to the full extent of the word. “Will you let me?”

“Aye, lass. Ye’re ready now. Good and ready. Don’t hold back.”

He smiled and lay back down, his male organ rising up out of its bed of black hair, swollen and ready for her.

As she was for him.

Still tingling with sensation, Nerissa gently straddled him. She let her knees take her weight and, guided by his hands which had come up to frame and hold her hips, gingerly eased herself down against his shaft. She felt it, thick and hard, pressing there against her slick inner lips, waiting for entry, waiting to push through her maidenhood and make her a wife. She felt it and wanted it, and shifting her weight, reached down to take it in her fingers…to rub its head within her soaking-wet folds until her husband tipped his chin back and gritted his teeth and made a half-primal sound of agony. Her heart was pounding in anticipation.

Ruaidri had opened his eyes and was watching her, his expression one of anguished intensity. “Do it slowly, lass,” he murmured. “’Tis your first time…ye’re tight and firm…’twill hurt.”

“I don’t care.” She leaned down and placing her hands on either side of his head, her thumbs caressing his cheekbones, looked him in the eye. “I don’t care, because I love you, Ruaidri O’ Devir, and none of us are leaving here until you make me a proper woman.”

She raised herself up on her spread knees, placed the swollen, blunted head against her entrance, and biting her lip, began to ease herself down.

“Relax,” he said softly. “Let yer legs go wide and it won’t hurt so much.”

She did, the raw contact of his genitals against hers causing sensation to build within her all over again. She held him steady, his rigid tumescence sliding slowly, into her…deeper into her…oh, it felt alien and yet perfectly natural and there, oh there, was resistance even as she feared her body could never accommodate the sheer width and size of him.

“No turnin’ back,” he said, gazing up at her.

“None wanted, Captain O’ Devir.”

He gripped her outer thighs, and with a hard groan, drove himself up and deeply inside of her.

She cried out, the pain catching her by surprise. He looked up at her, watching her carefully, allowing her to get used to the sensation of his being inside of her, deeply inside of her. For Nerissa, it felt as though he could not rend her asunder any more than he already had, and she felt warm liquid running from her, running onto him, and knew that it was her own maiden’s blood. He let go of her hips and reached out to take her hands, threading his fingers through her own and gazing steadily, intently, up at her as she sat speared and shaking on his arousal.