Read Highland Surrender Online
Authors: Dawn Halliday
Highland Surrender (33 page)
He pressed his lips to her head. “I want to bring you pleasure. I want to love you—touch you—like no one ever has. I want to see your eyes glaze over in agony. I want you to beg for more.”
She tried not to squirm, but his words wended their way through her body and buzzed between her legs, infusing her with a sweet ache.
“Is that what you want?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said breathily.
“But when I give you all that, I will also take. I will demand.”
She shuddered.
“Will you give yourself to me?” he asked in his quiet, lilting brogue.
Her heart thundered in her ears. “Yes.”
“Look at me. Tell me.”
Pulling back slightly, she looked up at him. “I offer myself to you, Robert MacLean. I am yours.” Her legs wobbled, and if he hadn’t held her up, she would have dropped to her knees and bowed her head to his feet, such was the intensity of her desire to be his.
“Get undressed and go to the bed. Lie on your back and wait for me.”
Nodding, she pulled away from him and began to remove her shift. He walked behind her toward his workbench, but she focused on her task, quickly stripping her clothes away and crawling onto the bed, then rolling over to her back.
He turned to her, carrying something black in his hand. As he approached, she stared at it. “That’s what I saw when I came here last night.”
“Aye.” Dark and possessive, his eyes grazed her bare body.
“What . . . what is it?”
“It’s a gift.”
“But we weren’t . . . We hadn’t . . .”
“I thought of you while I was making it.”
He held it up for her perusal. It was a strip of birch about a foot long, painted with black lacquer, with several thin bands of leather equally long strapped to its end. He held the end of the birch stick in one hand and brushed the leather bands over his other hand.
Biting her lower lip, she reached for it, but he held it out of reach. “It is for me to hold. It is for you to enjoy.”
“What is it?” she whispered.
“It is a flogger.”
Her breath caught, and uncertainty infused her voice. “Will you . . . will you flog me with it?”
She waited with bated breath for his response. Her heartbeat quickened, pounded through her. Not with fear, she realized in some surprise. With excitement.
Rob wouldn’t hurt her. Despite his warnings about his own dark desires, he wouldn’t push her farther than she could go. She trusted him implicitly. Her skin ached for his touch. The touch of his finely wrought strips of leather.
She stretched her body languidly over the blankets, flirting with him. Inviting him. Basking in the fleeting smile that crossed his lips.
“Maybe,” he said noncommittally.
She wanted to order him to flick it over her belly. The leather strands looked so soft, so supple—how would it feel? But if she did so, he would more likely put it away than cede to her demand. So she kept her lips pursed, her gaze focused hungrily on it.
He swiped the leather tails over his palm again. “Do you crave the touch of it on your skin, Elizabeth?”
“Yes.” Her voice was a ragged whisper.
His gaze lingered on her breasts. They felt full and sensitive, and her nipples had hardened into tight beads.
That vulnerability washed over his face once more, only to be replaced in a blink by the hardness again. She would give her eyeteeth to know what he was thinking.
“Be still. No matter what I do to you, I want you to lie still. No movement unless I tell you to move. If you move without my direction, we will stop, and you will go back to your bed.”
She nodded her agreement.
He lowered himself on the edge of the bed, watching her. For long moments, he didn’t touch her, just gazed at her, every inch of her, until all the nerves in her body ached to squirm under the intensity of his scrutiny.
But she had to obey him. She must obey him. She gritted her teeth and held still.
After what seemed like aeons of torture, he raised the flogger. It hovered over her, the tails of leather dangling just above her skin, then descended, lightly stroking over her raised nipples. She released a harsh breath as tingles spread through her.
“So bonny,” he murmured, his voice harsh, nearly broken. He focused on the movements of the leather bands as they traveled down her stomach.
She stared at him. She’d never seen anyone so devastatingly powerful, so potently attractive.
The flogger hovered at the triangle of hair above her thighs. He tugged her legs open and the bands stroked the sensitive tissue between. Then he drew back and brought the flogger down in a gentle smack. She cried out, not from pain but from the white-hot sensation that barreled through her.
“Oh,” she whimpered. “Lord.”
“Look at me, Elizabeth.”
He gazed at her, again assessing her reaction. Seemingly satisfied, he moved his attention down her body. The leather strands lightly smacked her again.
This time she kept her lips closed, but she couldn’t stop the strangled groan that emerged from her throat.
“Turn over.” Yet she didn’t have to move, because he did the work for her, lifting her and then flipping her body. He arranged her on her stomach, arms at her sides, thighs pressed together.
“Good.” He moved her hair aside and bent over her, his sleeves brushing her back as he thoroughly kissed her neck until she trembled beneath him. “You’re doing well. Do you wish to move?”
“Y-y-yes,” she murmured, then tried to clarify. “My body wants to move. My mind wants to obey you.”
“You may move in a while. For now, be still.”
“Yes, Rob,” she murmured, amazed by the meekness in her own voice.
She was in heaven. Truly. She wasn’t fighting for control; she wasn’t pretending to be what everyone expected her to be. She had openly ceded power to a man she trusted. To a man who made her weak-kneed and wet between the legs. To a man who cared for her.
And he did care for her; of that she had no doubt. It wasn’t only that momentary break in his armor; it was in his gentleness in the midst of hardness. His desire to give her pleasure by taking the power from her. By being the responsible party.
She was tired of being untouched. She was tired of being responsible. So tired.
He swiped the leather strips over her damp neck and then in long strokes down her back, down the crack of her behind. Again she fought to keep from squirming as her arousal roared through her like waves crashing against a rocky shore.
The strips came down, harder this time, over the upper cheeks of her buttocks. She steeled herself, quelling the natural urge to flinch.
He paused as if assessing her reaction, watching to see if she moved. Her behind flared with heat, and his calloused fingers ran over the area, heightening the burn. She groaned, long and low.
And then the flogger came down again, and again, each blow successively stronger, more powerful, until she whimpered with each strike of the leather.
The harsh reality of her life drifted and faded from her mind. She went liquid. Climbed upon a cloud of bliss and floated, each blow lifting her higher. Each touch of leather was a sensuous gift, a ripple of joy, a white-hot golden glow cocooning her.
And then the blows stopped, to be replaced with something else. Rob’s lips, she realized in an agony of pleasure. As if from a distance, she heard a muffled whimpering noise and realized the sound came from her.
He kissed her burning buttocks, soothing every stripe of heat with the soft, gentle caress of his lips. She drifted gently down from the cloud as he lifted her onto her knees.
“You may move now, love,” he murmured. “You did well. Your arse is so pink, so bonny.”
She closed her eyes in absolute pleasure as his words sank through her contented senses. She’d done well. He was proud of her.
On the day they’d met, she’d threatened to whip him, and the look of anger and disappointment in his eyes had shredded her to pieces. And now, that same man who had looked upon her with such disdain wanted her. Craved her. She’d made him proud.
Her throat thickened as his cock probed her entrance, and, still gentle, he pushed in. She was slick and open, ready for him. Her behind burned, but it was a tingling prickle now, not the hot fire it was moments ago. He gripped her hips, thrusting deep, his fingers fanning out over the sensitive area the leather had scored.
Already, her orgasm gathered and built within her, and she wiggled into him, lodging him deeper still. He didn’t linger in gentleness, though. He took her hard, savagely, giving no quarter. She was helpless—blissfully so—under the onslaught.
The orgasm crashed through her, leaving her shaking and weak, but he didn’t pause, didn’t soften, didn’t slow. His thrusts were merciless, deep, hard and fast. He moved one hand from her hips to her shoulder, yanking her tighter, harder against him with each drive into her body. She gripped handfuls of the blankets in her hands and accepted the battering, reveled in it.
Suddenly he gave an agonized groan and pulled out. His hand left her waist, and his knuckles slid over her behind as he stroked himself through his release. Warm strands of his seed landed over the burning slashes on her behind. She pushed herself against him, wanting him to cover her with his seed. Wanting to be marked by him like some primitive animal.
He released himself, and his fingers slid over the warm substance on her lower back, scooping it from her skin. He leaned forward and touched his fingers to her lips. “Take it, Elizabeth. Taste me.”
She opened her lips and sucked his fingers into her mouth, savored his salty, masculine essence, swallowed all of it.
Gently, he pulled away from her and lay beside her. She remained on hands and knees, waiting for his instruction.
He reached up and moved strands of hair out of her face so she could see him. “Lie down and look at me.”
She scooted onto her side and lay face-to-face with him.
She’d just come down from so much pleasure, but his soft, tender expression sucked the breath from her lungs and made tears prick at her eyes. He made her feel . . . whole. Inside and out. Treasured. Desired.
Loved
.
Loved
.
His hand settled heavily, possessively, on her hip. “You please me greatly.”
She bit her lip, suddenly shy. Her cheeks heated. “You . . . please me too.”
“Did you like the flogger?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He gave a thoughtful nod. “I am glad.”
“You didn’t hurt me,” she said.
He smiled, and for once, the expression didn’t flit away. It lingered, fortifying her feeling of contentment.
His fingers tightened over her hip. “You must go.”
The feeling slipped away. Reality slammed back, and pricking tears filled her eyes.
“I don’t want to.”
“I know. I don’t want you to go either. But you must.”
She closed her eyes. “I want to stay here. With you. Forever.” She whispered the last word.
“You cannot.”
“Why?” she demanded.
“Open your eyes, love. Even if you were not within days of marrying someone else . . . Look around you. I don’t possess the means to give you the life to which you are accustomed.”
“I don’t care about that.” Truly, she didn’t. She hated the life she’d been forced to lead. Once, ages ago, she’d been happy and carefree. But those days were hazy, distant. Since her parents’ deaths, since her brother’s death, there had been nothing but stifled suffering. She wanted freedom. Fine clothing and silver spoons were lovely, but they offered only a surface pleasure. The kind of pleasure Rob could offer her was far, far deeper.
“I want to care for you, Elizabeth. I want to protect you.” His lips flattened, and his features tightened. “But I cannot even offer you that much. I am the stable master at Camdonn Castle. It is not enough.”
“Stable master, earl’s brother, pauper or prince. I don’t care.”
“You would. Eventually. You are new to this world. The life of a Highlander is not an easy one, especially in these times.”
“As long as I were with you, I wouldn’t care.”
“You believe that now . . . but in five years, with your back bowed under the weight of your labors? Would you believe it then?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I hate my life. I hate the position I was born into. Despise it. Everything about it.”
He simply gazed at her, his features still hard. Implacable.
“I wish I were a carefree Highland lass,” she murmured. “Like Ceana MacNab, or even Gràinne. They are so . . . free.”
“Neither of those women is carefree.”
“Yet they bear their troubles so well. Far better than I. And they are able to be what they want to be, do what they wish to do. Each of those women, despite her place in society, knows who she is.”
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