Knight Everlasting (14 page)

Read Knight Everlasting Online

Authors: Jackie Ivie

BOOK: Knight Everlasting
8.66Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Juliana fingered the fraying hem, lost for a moment on that thought. And then she cursed beneath her breath. It was exactly as she'd feared and avoided all day! And he was due any moment.
She moved to arranging the dress to cover her legs, tucking it beneath her toes, and then pulling it out again as that outlined and framed her legs too easily. So she twisted and turned, rearranging again, until she had everything on her lower body covered by the drape of fabric, covering any hint of shaky legs, quivering thighs, and tensed buttocks atop the rigid frame of his trunk. And even that felt sensuous!
Juliana gritted her teeth and moved on. She wished the shift had sleeves. That might hide some of the gooseflesh roaming over her arms, and the resultant tightening of her nipples. That sensation was added to by the power of her increasing breaths, making everything pointed and longing . . . yearning and begging and annoying her until she groaned the disgust through her locked jaw.
Juliana looked over at where she'd tossed the plaid, studied it sightlessly for a moment; debated which was worse; decided. It was warm in the tent enclosure, even with the ripped opening flapping about in the wind, and getting hotter with every passing moment. A sheen of moisture was already making her skin gleam. She didn't dare make it worse by adding the wool. All that aside, the blanket was damp and scratchy, and if she awaited him with it draped about her, it might alert him to her trouble the moment he saw it. And trouble it was. Her nipples were putting darts in the fabric with how tight and hard they were, as well as demonstrating how quickly she took each breath.
Perhaps if she hunched her shoulders, it wouldn't be so noticeable.
Juliana tried that, pulling the material out at the same time, and then smoothing the pinched portions where her fingers had just been. She gave another repressed groan. Everything she did kept adding to her discomfort and distress . . . and giving all of it away. Juliana straightened back up, making the little chest groan with the movement. There was nothing for it. She'd just have to keep his eyes off her bosom. Or something.
That was when she started fiddling with where to put her hands. The first effort of folding her arms across her felt awkward due to how low the trunk was. It probably looked exactly like what it was, too: defense. She pushed a bit of curl behind her ear, where it had escaped her braid. The action trailed a finger across her cheek. Juliana caught a breath as a wellspring of want and warmth and moisture almost instantly erupted right at her core, jolting her atop the trunk, and plaguing her with more accursed wantonness she'd have to somehow stifle and ignore. Or hide.
Then her eyes went wide. Juliana brought both hands in front of her face and watched them shake. She tightened her arms, sent the command, but nothing changed. She was shaking. Visibly.
How was she to hide
that
from him?
Then Aidan was there, standing at the tent opening, blocking the elements with his bulk and looking at her. Juliana slowly lowered her hands to her knees, and pressed her fingers into them, willing any response away.
She watched as he parted the rip, and bent his head to get through it, although she had to crane her neck to do it. Dark eyes held hers, making the breathless sensation even worse, and then he cocked that one eyebrow and earned a lurch of her entire body that had nothing melodic or graceful or hidden about it.
His lips shifted slightly into a pout at the same time he lowered his chin, favoring her with an unending look that was causing ripples all over her, tormenting and teasing and frightening with their intensity.
He started moving, pulling skeans from his belt until he had a handful of thin blades. She saw it at the edge of her vision. He didn't see it at all, since he wasn't releasing her gaze. And then he spoke.
“You have one chance to refuse me. One.”
Juliana's eyes went huge. Her throat stopped up. Her heart moved to join it with a hurtful thud. And everything else on her body went totally alert and aware and watchful. She couldn't have pushed words through her throat if she'd wanted to.
The pursed look to his mouth changed to a smile, showing a shine of teeth, looking predatory, before he blinked slowly, and then he nodded. Juliana nearly fell off the trunk with the surge her lower legs did. All of her preparations were useless, unwarranted, and stupid besides. Nothing would have protected and hidden what she felt and what she wanted.
Aidan turned back toward the tent opening. Juliana leaned to one side to watch, and had to accept the appreciation of just how sharp these Highlanders were. She watched as Aidan took each skean, one after the other, and wove them into the material, first slicing across, and then putting another blade vertically atop the other, locking and sealing fabric with the two conjoined knives.
He'd run out of skeans before he reached the bottom and pulled more from the back of his belt as he went to one knee, securing and sealing clear to the earthen floor. She'd already noted how loose he wore his plaid, and that made it easier for the strip of it about his shoulder to slip down to an elbow, and that just made it impossible not to watch his back ripple and shift with every movement.
And be caught looking when he'd finished, took a deep breath that expanded all that back muscle, before swiveling in place on one knee, putting him at her eye level. Juliana sat atop the trunk absorbing the impact of his gaze and reacting with little pulses of movement that took all her breaths away, while a high ringing hit both ears. Juliana shifted her glance away, endured the shivers that coursed all over her, and focused instead on the middle of the cross-piece of knives he'd designed.
“I'll na' allow . . . tears,” he informed her, putting a gap of silence before the last word.
Tears?
They were the farthest thing from her. All of her felt primed and readied and it kept ratcheting higher and coiling further, until the fingers on her knees clenched tightly with it. She opened her mouth to tell him, but nothing came out.
“You had your chance, lass.”
His voice had dropped to a whisper, but that didn't lessen the forceful, intimidating, and threatening tone behind it. Nothing did. Especially his stance. Aidan had gone to both knees, raised to the full height he could, and punctuated it with both hands draped on his hips. The tartan wrapped about him had slid lower, wrapped haphazardly about his lower belly and groin. He was pushing that portion toward her, too, making certain she couldn't mistake him. Juliana gasped when she saw, and he knew all of it. The certainty was in the roped tendons of his belly, the heaving mass of his chest muscles, and the lowered jaw. He waited until she moved her gaze all the way up to his eyes.
“I'm na' one for words,” he told her.
She snorted, giggling slightly. That sent a release to all the tensions running rampant through her, before they just started up again, wrapping and coiling tighter and tighter.
“And I'm na' a small size.”
Juliana heaved, grabbed her knees for stability, and endured the rush of quiver that ran her back.
“Due to your maiden-wall, it pained. Afore.”
Her eyes went wider, her throat closed off with the lump harboring there, and she still tried to gulp around it.
“You're to speak if pain happens. Not cry. Speak. You ken?”
He'd tilted his head slightly and was giving her such an aggressive, arrogant, and antagonistic look that everything responded. Instantly. Juliana felt the rush of heat through her lower belly, the thrill of weakness that hit the back of her legs, and total hardening of both breasts, shoving her nipples into the underdress weave with a rawness that felt erotic and delightfully sinful. She nodded. Her throat was useless.
“I'll na' hurt a woman when I take her. You. When I take you.”
His voice had lowered along with his chin, while his eyes remained affixed to hers. That look put the lower curve of his amber-shaded eyes in silhouette against the whites. Juliana had never seen anything as primitive, hungry, and enticing. Eliciting a response so dark and earthy and unbelievable, her lips opened to pant for each breath.
“You ken that, too?”
He'd raised the one eyebrow, and if he didn't do something, in a moment Juliana was going to be screaming with the overpowering rawness emanating all about him, permeating the tent, her tissues, the very air. She was near to tearing the restriction of her underdress from her skin. She nodded again. Rapidly.
“Then . . . get off that trunk and come here.”
Chapter 12
She'd done what he asked. Without question or hesitation. And without one show of woman-tears. Aidan hid the massive rush of satisfaction deep, shoving it into his depths to keep company with the ache and want and lust and desire he was dedicated to controlling this time. She was upright on her knees, facing him from the length of an arm away, and breathing her sweet smell all over him.
“Aidan?” The soft words kissed his chest.
“Aye?” He licked his lips. Pulsed in place. Licked them again.
“You—you're . . . going to . . . take me?” The slight hesitation on the words was heightened by the rise of color through her cheeks and the way she ducked her chin, unable to meet his eye.
“Oh. Aye,” he returned.
His eyebrow went up as he watched her twist her fingers together, looking altogether nervous and flustered. He staunched the desire to smile before she saw it.
“I may even manage it more than once,” he informed her.
She pulled in a gasp. He heard it and saw it, as her breasts rose under that dress. And that was too much impact. Aidan transferred his view to the tent weave behind her for a moment, put both hands to fists at his sides as he pulled in on muscles throughout his frame, and breathed slowly and rhythmically. And had the surge of lust tamped down. For the moment.
He moved his gaze back to her. And waited. Counted heartbeats. Worked at it. He was determined this time. He didn't care how much his body fought it. He was giving pleasure. Not pain.
“What . . . should I do?” she asked in such a light voice he had to cock his head to hear it.
“Na' much more,” he admitted.
That had her moving her head too rapidly to avoid catching the blue-green, endless, bottomless gaze of hers. Aidan wasn't prepared and had to narrow his eyes slightly and tighten his belly even more. That made the lust noticeable as his hips pushed inward and forward, without any permission from him . . . as if daring a look from her. So he could react to it. Doing exactly what he wanted to avoid.
Aidan licked his lips again, cursed the fates that had taken all his amulets and charms and everything else he relied on and replaced them with such massive need, he was trembling with it. He rolled his fists inward where they rested on his hips, stretching the sinew on his arms until it burned . . . put a thought to the ache . . . and then rolled them farther. It helped, but not much. Working at controlling this was harder than he'd suspected. His heart was giving him trouble, too, as the beat deepened and got larger and fuller and started deafening him to everything except his breathing. Those were loud. And coming faster.
“Why?”
He thought that was the word she asked, but sound wasn't penetrating the solid thump in his ears. She'd also shimmied closer or the pallet had shortened. But that was wrong. He'd been locked to her eyes the entire time. She couldn't have moved. Aidan shook his head slightly.
“What?”
She had a little smile hovering about her mouth and her eyes had softened . . . as if she recognized his distress, and knew why. She was going to find herself in his arms, and shoved beneath him, while his mouth plied her lips to give her those answers. That dress of hers was going to get the worst of it again, too. He glanced at it and immediately wished he hadn't. Her sweet, tight tips were pushing against the fabric, beckoning a touch, a tongue . . . a taste.
Ah . . . Jesu'!
Aidan cursed silently, closed his eyes, and shook with reining in the complete and total longing his body was suffering. The lass was new to this. Innocent. She didn't realize her power. She couldn't, or she'd not wield it so completely and carelessly.
“Can—can I touch you?”
The breath from her stammered words hit him first; followed by the hearing of them . . . and then came the realization of their content. Aidan's eyes went wide, his breath slammed from him, and the heartbeat in his ears went to a solid hum of sound.
He nodded. And forced down any desire to watch. He kept his eyes on her nose and cheeks, where the feather of her brown lashes flicked with every blink, while waiting with everything tight and the inhaled breath as she reached a hand for him. She was shaking. Her fingers had the same affliction. They were also cold. Aidan sucked in farther at the contact on his belly, thanked his luck she was above his belt level since any touch there and he'd be leaping right onto her and into her . . . and cursed it as well. He flinched and flexed against the plaid atop him in a never-ending torment of tension and ache and repressed need. He was also heating up, putting a glisten to the flesh she was running her fingers across, her motion sending tingling sparks coming off her fingertips and shooting right to his groin.
Despite the hold he had on everything, Aidan nearly groaned, but kept it in check by swallowing it down, pushing it to where the thump of his heart was rapid and harsh and stuttering between beats.
She moved closer, sliding her knees on the pallet until she was just below his chin, putting the bare hint of her breath all over his chest and belly. As if her touch wasn't suff i-cient torture. Her fingers warmed further as she moved them, roving about his belly, first to his right and then back across, and then she had both hands on him, spreading them about his lower belly and leaning in a sinuous full-body move as she did so. She was also rolling her head, leaning it against his throat to make it worse . . . putting her scent right beneath his nose.
Aidan groaned then . . . instinctively. He moved . . . despite the rein he was exerting, lurching with his hips fully and totally right against her palm. Then he had to stay affixed in one stiff position in order to endure the rash of reaction since everything male in him had made certain his tip touched.
“Oh . . . Aidan.”
The whisper filtered through his ears, although he'd already felt her make it by the breath against his skin.
“Lass . . . you are verra close to being seized. And ravished.”
The guttural tone didn't sound like him. He still made it. Her head jerked up from him but not her hands. She had those stilled in place, one at his belt line and the other atop his chest, right at his heart, where she couldn't fail to miss the hard thumping. He tipped his head and watched her move her gaze slowly up his chest, where everything bunched and moved as if desiring a caress, and then she was looking up at him through a lush fringe of lash, and sucking her lower lip into her mouth in that gesture of hers.
And then she let it out, glistening with moisture and smiled. Slyly.
“I am?” she asked, raising her brows, as if it were que stionable.
Aidan moved against his own volition, grabbing for her arms, hauling her against his chest, and finding those lips were just as luscious and sweet and tantalizing as he'd guessed. Her moans weren't making much sound, since he captured each and every one of them, and added a groan punctuated with a push of his groin against her cloth-covered legs. Over and again, until he was crazed with it.
He tilted his head, holding her with his chin in order to wrap one arm around her back, supporting her collapse, while the other slid with perfect precision to her waist . . . around to her hips . . . and then he was going back onto his haunches and pulling her onto his lap at the same time.
It wasn't enough. And everything on him knew it. Her lips were driving him mad, and making it impossible to curb the absolute rage of need and want he suffered. Continually. Endlessly. The same one she'd stoked to an unrestrained level.
Aidan shoved a hand to the garment edge, pulling and yanking on it, and then he was bunching it in front of his hand all the way up her leg. He lost his objective the moment his fingers felt the curve and plump range of her hip . . . and buttocks, and that was where he moved next. He filled his hand with her flesh, the motion lifting and holding her, so he could shove against her . . . squeezing, massaging, manipulating . . . in order to push over and again. And again.
Aidan groaned heavily into the caverns of her mouth, where the wizardry of her tongue was flashing onto a thousand places, sending hammers through his skull. Her breath was mingling with his, matching every hard surge of air he made, and then she had her hands against his chest and was pushing.
She was pushing . . . at him. Away.
If he sobbed, that was the sound Aidan made at the manifestation of denial. He yanked his mouth away from hers, lifted his head, and watched the tent weave flex and bow and then turn red with a pressure behind his eyes that pained with each ping of his pulse. He gulped, gritted his teeth, and sent the agony of need through every hiss of breath he made.
“Jesu', lass! Na' now! Christ!”
He was frightened. Of massive lust. Red-hued and vicious. And uncontrollable. Totally. Everything on him shook with the attempt at holding it back. It was a choking presence and then it went shoving all through his chest and belly and loins, propelling his hardness right between her thighs and against the sweet buttocks he was still holding to.
“I . . . need to remove my dress.”
She was tapping at his cheek with a hand, sending a sensation of sharp cuts through the skin with each touch.
“Aidan?”
She had both hands on his chin and was forcing him to look down . . . at her. He blinked the red haze in a pink wash. He'd lost. He couldn't stop. She didn't know. Aidan's eyes pled with her silently as he released her buttocks, moving the hand quickly to his groin, shoving plaid aside and fishing for the opening, and then ignoring it completely, to bunch the material out of the way.
“But . . . my dress!”
She spoke again. Breathlessly. With more words . . . and none of them made sense.
“Forgive—”
The word accompanied his move. Aidan yanked his plaid up and apart, grabbed for her hips, and pulled her atop him, burying himself to the hilt in her moist depths and feeling the trill replicating all over from being sheathed. His groan that accompanied the complete bliss wasn't deep. It sounded exactly like the sob it was.
And it got worse as the rush of emotion ran through him, raising gooseflesh and making everything shudder as he fought it, suppressed it, groveled against the onslaught of it. He wasn't taking her rapidly. He wasn't! He'd promised her pleasure.
Pleasure.
Aidan kept her affixed to him, with such a tight lock on every muscle, he forgot to breathe. Or blink. Or exist. He was afraid to do anything. The pink haze colored everything, going redder with every heartbeat before dimming back to pink. Red. Pink. Red.
“Aidan?”
The goddess in his arms was whispering his name, lifting the bit of hair plastered to his earlobe with the whiff of breath. Bringing him back to what he'd done. Forcing him to accept it. And finish it.
Aidan closed his eyes. Reopened them with a slit just enough he could see and still disguise the self-loathing. He pulled in a huge lung of air that came with an instinctive and unwelcome urge to rock backward from her, and then back in, the entire motion accompanied by the tightness of her embrace.
“Ai . . . dan?”
This time she split his name with a worried tone to it. He rocked again, slower this time, modulating the impulse with the need and recognizing a flash of victory at the control he might be winning back. But there was no help for it. She kept calling him. And he couldn't change it. He was in her woman-place and he was finishing this and he was taking every bit of the experience before he left to castigate himself. Even if she was unwilling. And no matter what she said. He tipped his head down toward her, steeled himself for the look she'd have on her face, and forced the eye contact.
The pink still colored everything, including the slight pout on her lips as she asked him something.
“I—can I remove . . . my dress?” she asked.
“What?” he asked, blinking around the pink as it hit him. She hadn't fought him. She wasn't denying him. She wasn't unwilling, or if she was, it wasn't in her voice. She didn't act unwilling either, with a hand about his neck. And nothing about her rose-tipped cheeks looked it either.
“My . . . dress?”
“Wh-Wh-What dress?” he asked, swallowing around the stutter on the first word.
Christ.
He truly did sound like Arran.
She giggled, and that sent the tumble of motion through her nether regions, rippling down him, and then she sent another one. And another. And a further one.
Aidan gave another huge groan that trembled in time with the shudders running him. He barely caught the instantaneous lurch he was primed, ready, and compelled to do, finding and using a power no man should have to. It was impossible to tighten everything further, but he tried, going into a bow shape that put his head right next to hers.
“Jesu' ! Doona' do that again,” he begged.
Her eyes were wide on his but she must have been obeying, since other than a tighter hold on him, nothing else happened. And then she ducked her head a little and went a further rose shade.

Other books

Something Scandalous by Christie Kelley
02-Shifting Skin by Chris Simms
Divider-in-Chief by Kate Obenshain
My Prince by Anna Martin
Ison of the Isles by Ives Gilman, Carolyn
Neon Mirage by Collins, Max Allan