Elise (28 page)

Then Colin was right beside her, hauling her into his arms and rolling so she was atop his entire length, making the wooden screen creak with the added weight. He was still chuckling, too, and atop his chest, that was an interesting ride.

Then he sobered. Green-flecked brown eyes held her enthralled as he blew a kiss at her. Elise gasped. That got her a hearty grin.

“Nae man has ever been here?” he asked, his finger running up her spine, where there wasn’t anything beneath the dress, save a chemise. Elise’s eyes were huge. She shook her head. That got her a larger grin.

“And here? Nae man has ever been here?”

He was sliding his hand over her collar and resting his fingers beneath the back of her dress, while his thumb continued a rubdown of its own at the base of her jaw.

She shook her head again.

“Sweet Jesu’.’

His whispered words came with an accompanying groan from the wooden panel they were still perched atop, as he lunged slightly with his lower body against hers. She watched his eyes slit, his lips part, and then he was pursing them slightly to blow out, and then suck in, air.
Now, that’s intriguing
, she thought.

“How about here?”

He was moving her higher along him; the wood was creaking in protest, but she ignored it. Colin was nuzzling his lips along her chin, and then down her neck; Elise arched her head up to allow him access.

“Nae man has ever been here, either? And here? And here?”

“Just you,” she answered, and then she swallowed; the action moved the lump in her throat against his tongue.

“Your maid has put too much cloth in my way, Elise.”

He murmured it against the base of her throat, where the little blue ribbon bow sat.

“Too much?”

“Aye, and she was verra smart to do so.”

Elise brought her head down. He moved her again, sliding her the span he needed in order to place his chin against hers, his nose to hers, and his lips right against hers.

“She ... was?” Elise panted the question.

“Oh, aye. A man denied for as long as I have been is a forthright man, an impatient man, an ardent, anxious, eager man. All of which would be a terrible mistake right now.”

“It would?” Elise stammered the word.

“Oh, aye. But na’ to worry, lass.”

Worry?
she wondered. He didn’t allow her the time away from him for such a dense thought, as his lips pressed fully against hers, defined the shape and texture of them, and then tasted fully what she had to give.

Elise moaned. The screen creaked worse. Colin’s breath mingled with her own, and his tongue touched hers. Elise jumped, and large hands brought her right back to stay perched right where she was, atop him. His mouth moved; he started talking to her lips, moving his against hers. The resultant twinge in her core pulsated right into an answering one in him. She felt it, and then experienced it as he felt it.

“Elise, darling, you’re a goddess come to life. A vision. I thought it when I first clapped eyes on you. I think it now.”

“You thought—?”

“Na’ thought. I knew. You were the most beauteous woman on earth. Not were. Are. Doona’ move. Na’ yet.”

Elise lifted her head and brought him into focus. There was a dazed-looking expression on his features. His eyes were half-closed, and they were sparking green fire at her.

“Verra well. Disobey. Move. Doona’ say I dinna’ warn you.”

He didn’t give her any time! Her gasp barely made sound as his hands moved from her back to grip her head and hold her in place. Then his tongue started marauding, pillaging and plundering, and making such a riot of sensation spark through every nerve in her body that Elise was writhing and moaning, sliding and clinging. Her knees slit, and then she was riding, roving and bucking, and listening to her own body’s desires; she wasn’t stopping until Colin moved his hands to grip her hips and bring everything to a standstill.

“Na’ so fast, lass.”

The words were mumbled indistinctly against her lips, and Elise would have hit him if she could have freed her hands enough to make the movement.

“But, Colin—”

“But naught. This here is to be our wedding night, and I’ll see it treated as such. Did your maid include wine?”

Elise lifted her head, looked with out-of-focus eyes at where he was, and frowned. “Wine?” she asked.

“Aye, wine.”

“What for?”

‘To slow this down. ’Tis going to be an experience we’ll remember all our lives, Elise. I’ll na’ take you quickly. I’ve waited too long. You may na’ understand, but you will.”

“But I doona’ want to slow it down,” Elise responded.

“What do you want?”

“I doona’ know!”

That got her another grin. The privy screen groaned ominously. Both of them looked sideways. He turned back first, and that placed his nose against her cheek.

“I ken what you want, lass. And I’m the man to give it to you. Trust me. You’ll na’ be unsatisfied, but it’s na’ something to rush.”

“Colin—”

The sound of splitting wood stopped her. Colin was already moving and on his feet on the opposite side, with Elise clasped to his side. She watched as the dowels split, separating the wood where she and Colin had just been, before falling open to let the water basin show through.

“You ... move fast,” she stammered.

His eyebrows went up and down several times. “You already saw that, lass. You watched me at the MacKennah camp. Now... where were we? Ah, yes. Wine. I doona’ see any wine. I look about and I still doona’ see any.”

Elise looked with him. The fire was still going, the vase of flowers was still sitting on the table. The bed ...

She gasped and put her face against Colin’s shoulder. He chuckled as he felt it, then he was running a hand up her back, and then he was lifting her into his arms.

“My thoughts exactly. Despite everything I try.” He sighed heavily, and she went with it.

“Is it that bad?” Elise asked.

“Oh, nae, lass. It’s that good. Your maid should have stocked wine to assist me with it.”

“With what?”

He was at the bed. She hadn’t even felt him move.

“Things.”

“Things?” Elise asked.

“Aye, things. Desire. Lust. Passion. Those kinds of things.”

He placed her on the bed, but he was right beside her. Then he was pulling her close, rolling to put her atop him again, filling her ears with his words, before capturing her lips to supply her senses with the feel, taste, and scent of him.

He didn’t have her hands trapped this time, and Elise needed no further encouragement than that. His doublet was just as tight as she’d suspected it would be, and despite trying, there didn’t seem any pathway to burrow beneath it from the sides. She eased her hands around his waist, bringing them close together right at his belt line, and when she got near the front of him, he lunged, putting such strength and power against her palm that it frightened her.

“Oh, Jesu’! This is na’ working!”

Then Colin was off the bed, standing with his back to her. Elise was the one giving chase.

“Colin?” she asked, wrapping her arms about what she could reach of him.

“I’ve a bit of a problem, lass. I’ve had it some time.”

Her brow wrinkled. “Problem?” she asked.

“Aye, and it’s dire, it is.”

“What is it?” Elise held her breath.

“Love.”

She frowned. “Love is a problem?”

“When it’s as much as I feel for you, it is. Trust me.” He grimaced.

Elise was glowing. She might as well be floating. Her ears heard every word, and her mind repeated them to her heart.

“You ... love me?” she asked.

“Desperately. Even when I thought ... what I thought of you.”

“You did?”

“Aye, I’m a-feared it’s expansive, too. I’d not known that of it. Someone should have warned me.”

“Of what?”

“How different it all is when one is in love, as I am with you. Only you. I’m beginning to understand why it was you. It makes everything a hundred times more poignant and a thousand times more intense. I only hope I have the strength to do right by you.”

“I doona’ understand any of this,” Elise replied.

Another grimace, and then she was off the ground and in a hug of unimaginable strength and care.

“I ken that. It’s what makes this so different. So special. So perfect. I’ll na’ ruin it with clumsiness, haste, and ineptitude. It’s just so ... it’s tough, lass. Just holding you like this, right now, is making everything on my body betray me, and hate me, and curse at me. I’m trying everything I know to keep it tempered and held at bay until I can na’ longer hold it.”

“What?”

“Things. I just described them to you. Were na’ you listening?”

She nodded.

“You ever try whiskey?”

She nodded again.

“Good, we’ll try that. There’s a dram or two in my sporran. Doona’ you dare!”

The last was abrupt and said because she was reaching for it. The part of him that he was keeping from her was alive and moving again. Elise was fascinated.

“Stop that, lass.”

“But—”

“My sporran. Whiskey. We’ll try that. It had best work.”

He was shuddering through his own words. Elise watched as he uncorked and drank until there couldn’t be anything left. Then he was holding it out to her. She slipped her fingers along his, to reach the flask, and watched another shudder run his frame.

The answering gooseflesh went up her own arm.

Colin lowered his head and growled. And then there was no stopping him.

Chapter 28

“Divest yourself of your clothing, Elise.”

Colin was pulling his jabot loose enough he could shove it to his temple, where it made a lacy, headband affair. He twisted it around.

“Now?” she asked.

“Right now. Without delay. Now.”

She watched as his cuffs met the same end, although he got them over his hands, ripping material in the process. She couldn’t take her eyes from the sight.

“Here. I’ll assist.”

He reached out, with a motion almost too quick to observe, and tugged loose one end of the ribbon bow at her neckline. He didn’t let it go. He pulled her toward him with it. When she was within embrace distance of his arms, he bent his head and touched her cheek with his breath.

“Now. Finish.”

There were buttons on his doublet, and his fingers were slipping them easily in front of her eyes. Elise’s gasp, when he had it open and was yanking the material apart, showing the fine, cambric shirt he wore beneath, was loud and harsh and held a keen of sound to it.

“Elise?”

His breath brushed the stray hairs at her forehead. She looked up.
Severe
. His face wasn’t granite-carved or stony. It was severe, though.

“Your virginity is near an end, and if you doona’ assist me with it, so is that gown. Now divest yourself of it. Now.”

The shirt parted in front of her eyes next, and then her entire vision was filled with tanned flesh, rippled muscle, and a slight line of hair. She reached for him, spread her palms wide to him, and cupped her hands around every bit of his chest she could reach.

The snort he gave made more breath rush over her head. Elise didn’t care. His fingers pulled the laces from the front of her gown, and then separated it. She was defining how the strength beneath the skin moved, tensed, pulled, and flexed as he did so.

“Colin?” she whispered.

“Aye.” Her answer was in a gruff tone, as if he wasn’t paying attention. She knew it was because he had her dress undone and was moving up the opening to her shoulders to push open the material.

“You’re beautiful. I mean—handsome. You’re verra handsome. Manly. Immense. Beautiful.”

He snorted again. Then he had his hands wrapped over her shoulders; using them as handholds, he had her in his embrace.

Satin-clothed skin touched warm, heated flesh. Elise slid her own nipples against him, enjoying the caressive pressure of the ropes of muscle at his abdomen, and from there she was moving up, smashing every bit of her against the strength of him.

She had her arms looped above his shoulders; then she was climbing, pulling herself up, and then latching her legs about that torso. Colin’s groan filled the chambers of her mouth as she slammed it to his, using the motions he’d taught her.

It was delicious. Almost as much as the sparks that seemed to be flying from where her most feminine area was turning into the consistency of a gelatin-like sensation where she was pressing against him.

“Elise. Elise.”

She ignored him to launch herself up higher on him, wrapping her arms about his neck and imprinting her ownership on everywhere she could reach, taste, and touch.

“Yes, Colin! Oh yes!”

Elise’s cry filled the room, reaching the ceiling as something expanded within her, and that was just the beginning of it. Colin pulled his mouth from hers, with a savagery she’d not known felt so wondrous, in order to lap at the satin covering her breast. Then he was pulling the entire mass of it into his mouth and making her scream at how that felt.

Pipes started playing, haunting and loud, and filled with power and thunder, anger and strength.

Colin moved to her other breast, and he was yanking her dress from her body with four powerful pulls of his fists. Elise knew it because she felt them. Then he was moving and she was screaming again.

Moving. Screaming.

The bed had more bounce to it than she’d known, and he met her on the second upward one. It was the mass of his body forcing her down, onto her back, and then he was pulling her away from him by using her braid. The chemise was sliding up, baring one breast, then the other. She watched as Colin appeared to be devouring the sight with his eyes.

“I know, I’ve not... much meat to me,” she teased.

“Shut up,” he replied, hoarsely.

She heard further ripping, and from the corner of her eye, the red, green, and black plaid of his kilt went sailing to land in a puddle on the floor. Elise’s wide eyes watched it. Then she moved them back to the entire male nakedness that was him.

“Colin?”

“Doona’ say ... I dinna’ warn you, Elise.”

Hoarse breathing filled the chamber, joining the pipes and the hum in her ears and in her soul. And Colin was right there with her, filling her eyes and her mind with the glory of it. There was more, too. She knew there was, and she shook with the struggle for it, her body in an agony of want, desire, and lust that was worse than anything he’d described.

“Lass? Me. Look to me. Nae, not there!”

Elise only had a glimpse, and then she was shaking for another reason. Her arms halted the wild caresses of his back, and her limbs turned to absolute water where they were still wrapped about him.

“Colin?”

“Open for me, love. Now.”

Elise had her legs locked about him, and there wasn’t any part of her that wasn’t open and ready and willing and absolutely terrified.

“No. No. Please? Nae.”

It was her head wildly shaking, until he had to put his temple against hers to stop her.
Heavy
. His weight covered hers, and then he had his hands on her thighs and was parting her legs even farther, and then he was splitting her with pain, and blood, and absolute agony.

Time stopped. Nothing moved. Elise lay panting, her body filled with ache, and her eyes swimming in tears that slid out and were replaced by more. She hadn’t even known she was crying. Colin lifted his head, and the movement made more of his weight press down on her.

“Elise? Love?”

“Love?” she whispered.

“Aye.”

He gripped her hips tighter, and then she knew why as he pushed himself farther into her. Elise lifted her head and howled the agony at the ceiling.

“It’ll ease, love. It will. I promise. ’Tis your maiden wall making it so. I promise.”

He accompanied his words with yet another hold to her hips and another shove into her. Elise arched her back on it.

“You dinna’ say there would be pain. Nobody said there would be pain.”

“Elise. Love, look to me.”

He lifted his head to say it, then moved both hands to both sides of her head, where he was smoothing stray hairs over her ears. His words turned into a croon of sound, full of strength, power, and pain.

He pushed himself again. Her eyes flew open.

“Why, Colin, why?”

“I’m na’ fully sheathed yet, lass. ’Tis near insurmountable, this is. I dinna’ know if we’ll manage it fully tonight. I know I can na’ keep it back much longer. Oh, hell.”

He twinged something in the innermost, painful part of her. Elise narrowed her eyes and met his. They weren’t green or brown or anything other than black. Elise clenched her jaw and bared her teeth.

“Then do it.”

“I can na’—”

“Do it!” Elise moved her hands, and now it was her holding his head in place as she glared at him. His hair was wet, and the lace collar he still wore as a headband was wet with it. “Do it, Colin. Finish it. You say it won’t pain further? Prove it. Do it. Now.”

“Now?”

Breath touched her forehead as he lifted himself onto his arms, showing her every inch of sweat-damp flesh and sinew and muscle. Elise slid her hands from his head and molded them about the planes of his body, filling her senses with every bit of it, and then she tightened her legs about him and helped.

“Oh, dearest God.”

Colin rolled onto his side, and then his back, his hands pinioning her buttocks in place against him. The release from his weight was countering the fire-like feeling of their joining, until both sensations melded into one.

Elise sucked in air, let it out. Sucked it in. Let it out. Again. Over. Again. Her hands rubbed along his chest and belly, pushing against the solidness of him, until her palms tingled with it, and the blood in her veins sang with it.

Then he was moving her; his hands lifted her ever so slightly and let her fall back down. Embrace him. Lift from him, embrace him. The music of pipes floated into the room, coming from the opened window; the smell of new rain accompanied it, and Elise sucked in another breath full of it.

“Colin?” she whispered, opening her eyes.

“Aye.”

He had his eyes closed to slits, and that span of chest was rippling with each movement he was making her do. And he was pursing his lips, as if for an imaginary kiss. Elise had never seen anything like it and wasn’t willing to forget a moment of it.

“Colin?” she asked again.

“Aye?”

The word was said in the same modulated tone, and followed with the same kissing motion.

“I... doona’ understand.”   

One eye opened wider; then the other. The kissing motion was back, too, and she realized why. He was controlling his breathing with each motion he did with her body. He was pulling in a small bit of air, and with the next, he was letting it out.

“What... doona’ you ... understand?”

He spaced the question between two of his motions.

Elise watched him do it and felt a powerful twinge deep within her at the sight. The moment it happened, Colin was in a sitting position, holding her immobile against him, and adding a bit of sound to his breathing.

“Colin?”

“Doona’ do that again, lass. I’m begging you.”

“What? This?”

This time his breathing halted and was followed almost immediately by the lowest groan she’d ever heard. Elise bent forward and put her ear to his chest to hear it better, and that unleashed something so primitive and basic within him, that she had to clasp every limb in order to have any part of it. Colin filled her vision, his mouth holding hers, then her throat, then her breast. Breathing with her, glorying in the passion with her, and sending every secret so far into her past, she’d never find them.

Harsh breathing filled her ears, bagpipes joining it, and then there was the thumping rhythm of rain drumming on the sides of Dugan’s Tower. And there wasn’t any part of her that wasn’t part of the storm outside, crashing, creating, living.

Elise held to Colin, fought with him, cleaved herself to him, danced with him, and when the rapture hit, it was her screams blending with his groans, her body sending the bliss of it back to his, and her soul matching everything of his.

A log fell.

Elise lifted her head from where it still lay, pillowed atop Colin’s chest, rhythmically rising and falling with each of his breaths. She thought he was asleep; the steady cadence of his breathing was a good indication of it. But when she tried to move, a hand snaked out and held her immobile.

“Doona’ move, my love. Na’ yet.”

“Why na’?” she asked, in a whisper.

“I’ve na’ finished memorizing this.”

“You, too?” she asked, laying back down.

He chuckled, and the sound echoed through to her ear. “Oh, aye. Me, too. Me. Forever. Dinna’ you recognize it, yet?”

Elise frowned. “We can na’ sleep like this, Colin.”

“Why na’?”

“It will be cold.”

“I’ll warm you,” he replied.

“You’re beneath me,” she replied.

“I’ll crush you with my weight, otherwise. But I’m willing if you are.”

“Wait.”

Colin’s chuckle answered her as she put her hands on both sides of him to stop any such movement.

“At least, let me shut the window. It will be cold.”

“The window is na’ open, lass.”

Elise lifted her head again. “It has to be,” she whispered. “I heard it.”

“You heard an open window?”

“Nae, I heard pipes. And I heard the storm. Rain. I smelled it.”

“I know you did, lass. As did I. Trust me, the window’s shut and latched. Always has been.”

“But—?”

He was chuckling again and pulling her back onto the security of him. Then he was smoothing a hand down the mass of hair that had once been a perfect braid and ending with the caress on her buttock.

“Colin,” she warned.

“You’ve got perfect meat to you, lass. Perfect.”

“That is na’ what you said.”

“You’ve picked up a delicious brogue, Elise. I rather like it. I do. But then again, I like everything about you. Especially this. Right here.”

He had gripped her derriere and was using the handhold to move her. His chest was flexing with it. Elise rose and fell with it.

“Come eve, I’ll show you how much, too. You’re so much lass. Almost too much, even for me.” He stopped his motions and patted her.