Once a Rake (Drake's Rakes) (31 page)

Her skin was just as soft as he’d hoped, her curves just as delicious, her breasts even more luscious. He explored her like a foreign land, his hands big enough to cup her breasts, to sweep over her bottom and span her belly. Her breasts were taut and hot, silk against his fingers, exotic to his tongue. He went from one to the other, teasing, touching, circling, suckling until she whimpered, her back bowed off the floor, her hands tangled in his hair, her eyes wide and glassy. He did his own tormenting, parting that delicious curling hair with his fingers and exploring a truly foreign land. She was hot and wet and swollen, and he sated himself on her. He plunged his finger deep as he teased her with the rough pad of his thumb, pinching, stroking, seducing her to madness.

He could have been happy to stay there forever, just feasting on her like a banquet, but his own body was clamoring for release. His own heart, truly lost, demanded union.

“Are you sure?” he managed to ask, even as he spread her thighs and settled between them.

“Don’t ask…silly questions,” she gasped, and brought her hands around to grasp his buttocks and pull.

He happily cooperated. Bending down to take her mouth, his tongue plunging deep, he settled himself right against her slick opening, taunting her, torturing himself. And then, surrendering, he drove into her, and the world was lost.

She arched against him, taking him deep. Her hands scrabbled at his shoulders. She met him thrust for thrust with a fury that matched his own, their bodies slamming into each other, his cock drenching in her juices as he plunged in again and again. Harder, faster, driving deep because he couldn’t stop, he couldn’t hold himself back. He took her the way a starving man would consume his first meal, greedily, in great gulps. And she did the same, her high, thin cries swallowed in his kisses.

They rode the maelstrom together, sweat-sheened and gasping, bodies fused, hearts ready to explode until with his last desperate thrusts, Ian felt her body seize against him, squeezing him until he wanted to scream, until she screamed into his mouth, until she ignited his own orgasm and he pumped himself dry into her, into the core of her, the heart of her, the hot, sweet center of her. Until he could feel his very life pouring into her, and hers accepting and cushioning his. Until he collapsed, spent and satiated and smiling into her arms.

Sarah wasn’t sure Vicar Tregallan would have approved the prayer she was uttering. Was it a sin to thank the Lord for illicit sex? She had no idea, but she thanked him anyway. She thanked him for Ian Ferguson, who seemed to have as vast a passion for her as she had for him. Who accepted a girl’s word and ravaged her like a berserker.

She smiled into the sleek muscle of his chest. A berserker. Yes, she thought, the word was indeed appropriate. She could easily see him in battle, swinging a claymore over his head, roaring out a challenge as he ran. Kilted, of course, with the plaid swinging at his knees and his shirt open to bare a hint of that magnificent chest. She could see him returning to her, battered and weary, and taking her exactly as he just had, overwhelming her with sensation and sweetness.

She sighed, snuggling more closely beneath his arm. More than anything in her life, she wished she could stay right here, safely tucked away in a world only she and Ian inhabited. A world of comfort and safety and acceptance.

Acceptance. Her smile turned sour. Ah well, that was one dream too many. She would stick to the dreams she could believe.

“Ian?”

He didn’t stop playing with her hair. “What,
mo gràdh
?”

“Make love to me again.”

This time he paused for a moment. “Are you sure, after that, you want to?”

“After what?”

He gave a small wave of his hand. “I wasn’t…patient. It’s not fair.”

“You were a berserker. I find I like that in a man.”

She evidently stunned him so much that he sat up, bringing her with him. “Berserker? Just what do you know about berserkers?”

“What your sisters taught me. They said you reminded them of one.”

His face looked a bit thunderous. “I remind them of a man who lays waste to villages and ravages maidens?”

She felt a giggle bubbling up inside her chest, and it was so unfamiliar she almost stopped right there just to enjoy it. “Well, I cannot speak for the villages, but as one of the maidens—well, an ex-maiden, anyway—I think you ravage quite well.”

She saw his reluctant grin and knew she would get her wish. “You find this all amusing?” he asked.

She gave him a bright smile. “Why, yes. I believe I do.”

“Well . . .” He lifted a hand and cupped her face in his palm. “We do have to wait out the rain, lass. Don’t we?”

She shivered with desire. “We do.”

Turning, she kissed his callused thumb. She caught the scent of herself on him, and found it immeasurably exciting. She wanted that thumb to reclaim that sensitive territory, tormenting it ’til she screamed. She wanted it against the delicate skin of her breast, the inside of her thigh, the back of her knee.

Stupid, she thought with a gasp of laughter. Why waste your time thinking about what you want him to do? Make sure he does.

Rising up on her knees, she lifted her own hands to his bearded face. It was so dear to her, that face. She could feast forever on those startling eyes, the strong line of his jaw and that once-broken nose. But it was the little things that truly captured her. The scruff of his auburn beard and the way his hair curled at the base of his neck. The nicks in his skin that betrayed his past. The fan of laugh lines that spread from the corners of his eyes. The mad twinkle in his eyes and the freckles that didn’t belong on a berserker.

And there, high on his left arm, a tattoo. She stopped, surprised by it. Amazed that she’d forgotten. A thistle wrapped around the shaft of a knife. The
sgian dubh.
A perfect symbol for Ian, who was both fearsome and gentle. Sentimental and strong.

Smiling to herself, she ran her finger along the blue lines. “Rather barbaric,” she said, feeling giddy, “don’t you think?”

“I thought so,” he answered, his eyes the color of hottest fire, “’til I met you. Ah, lass, ye’re gonna be the death of me.”

She smiled against his mouth. “Ah, but can you think of a better way to die?”

He laughed as he swept her into his arms, tilting her head back. For the longest moment watching. Just watching as she watched back, memorizing the angles and planes of him for when he was gone.

She wanted to kiss every inch of him. He evidently had the same idea, because before she could move, he was kissing her eyes and nibbling on her ears and sliding his tongue along her throat until she could barely even kneel. She cocked her head as far to the side as she could to give him better access. She ran her own hands up his chest and delighted all over again in the soft curl of the fine gold-red hair there. The damp skin and solid muscles that bunched and eased as he stroked her.

It was a slower lovemaking this time, thoughtful, gentle. He didn’t devour, he worshiped, with his hands and mouth and breath. His touch, butterfly soft, was surprisingly gentle. He touched her the way a child might a dreamed-of gift, as if it had been so longed for he couldn’t quite trust that it was real.

And as he pleasured her, he welcomed her touch with a wondering smile. Sarah found that she loved touching him. There was something almost symphonic about the way his body was put together, art and music and balance. Broad, hard shoulders, soft throat, iron hard chest, and a belly that rippled with her touch. Warm, sleek, only a few battle scars shy of perfect. He had the thighs of a horseman and the arms of an athlete. She loved the different textures of him, the whimsy and purpose of him.

She didn’t know how to contain the feelings she was setting loose. Joy, hunger, grief, all roiling around so violently they stole her breath. Desire she was beginning to understand. But what did one do with anticipation? She had never had anything to anticipate in her life.

But even as she reveled in his touch, his scent and security, she knew she had made a mistake asking him to love her again. It only tore harder at her heart. A woman made love to stake claim. She swept her fingers across his belly, along his hip, down his thigh, all the way to the bare soles of his feet and back up to proclaim ownership. He was
hers
to enjoy. To pleasure. To cherish. Every bone and sinew, every vulnerable place inside thighs and behind knees and the little hollow of the throat belonged to her and no one else. She staked her claim, just as surely as every other woman before her had claimed her man. She left a bit of herself with him, even though another woman would finally claim him. Because when that next woman ran her hands down Ian’s thighs, she would pass through a faint trace of Sarah, who had come before. She wouldn’t understand that Sarah had poured every part of her into that touch. Promise and passion and pride. Tears and laughter and the sighs of wonderment. But Sarah would. Because Sarah would remember.

“Lassie,” Ian murmured, going still. “Are those tears?”

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “Beauty always makes me weep.” Beauty and loss.

She felt a rumble of laughter in his chest. “Och, lassie, ye’re needin’ to get your eyes checked.”

“No I don’t,” she whispered, and bent to taste the ridge along his sternum. “I am discovering it by feel.”

She had no time for sadness, she decided. Loss would come tomorrow. Today she would savor every second. This time she was the one to lay him down.

“And just what do ye think ye’re doin’ the noo?”

“You shouldn’t have to do all the work,” she said, and climbed up on top of him.

His hips were so wide, she could barely straddle him, but she managed, sweeping her hair forward so it cascaded over his chest and belly and brushed the quivering end of his penis. His groan was harsh. It grew harsher when she took him in her hand.

“I am glad I already know we can fit,” she murmured with a saucy grin, “or I would not be quite so sanguine about welcoming you.”

His smile was strained. “There’s gonna be no fittin’ if you don’t get on with it. Much more of this and I’ll embarrass myself like a wee lad.”

She laughed, delight sparkling in her. “Ian,” she said, bending to drop a quick kiss on his mouth. “There is nothing wee about you at all.”

His answering smile was smug, and she laughed harder. Humming, she watched as she slid a finger up his shaft. With her other hand, she cupped his balls, making him jerk and sweat break out on his chest. She shouldn’t enjoy this so much, she was sure. But she did. She adored the amazing conundrum of how something could be so soft and yet so hard. She relished the fact that she was the one doing this to him. She was the one causing that look of exquisite pain on his face. She was the one who would ease it. It was a new experience, play. A new color she had never seen on her palette.

Ian had run out of patience. Sarah wished to play a while longer. Ian forestalled that by simply lifting her up and holding her over him in the air.

“Make up your mind, lass, or you’ll never get down.”

She chuckled. “Ah, well. The rest of my explorations will have to wait ’til later.”

And positioning herself on him, she slid all the way down.

Oh, sweet lord, she had made a mistake. She was going to split in two. He was too big after all. She would never survive this tearing fullness.

And then he moved. Just a little, lifting his hips and then setting them down. And the fullness sparked a delicious heat inside her.

“Oh . . .”

She laid her hands on his chest and leaned over to kiss him. He took hold of her breasts, tormenting them with his cunning fingers as he rocked back and forth, back and forth, until she got the hang of it and began to move on her own. Up. Down. Up down, just a bit, then a bit more, then all the way, hard, squeezing a gasp out of him. She focused on the rhythm, on the sharp threads of pleasure that were unwinding from that friction and spreading throughout her.

“Open your eyes,” he commanded, setting his hand on her hips.

She hadn’t realized she’d closed them. She was too consumed by what was happening in her body, in the scent of sex and warm male and hay, the soft syncopated sighs and hums as they both courted the pleasure. She opened her eyes and looked down to see Ian’s gaze on her, bright blue, just that, and it tightened her body. Just his hands driving her on, his cock driving into her, the beads of sweat that were beginning to slide down her back in the cold barn. The scratch of the blanket against her knees and the throb of her pulse in her ears.

An urgency was building in her, painful and sweet and sharp, pouring out from her core, spinning, tightening, harshening, until she couldn’t stay still with it, she had to move, she had to open her mouth and gasp for air, her gaze still impaled on his, her body impaled on his, on and on and on until she had to scream, until she wanted to beat him with her hands to make it stop, except he was holding her to him and watching her, watching the madness build in her eyes.

“I…can’t . . .” she gasped, batting at him.

“You can,” he assured her, smiling. That quickly she tumbled over that smile and shattered, and suddenly like the hiss and bang of fireworks, she exploded into sound and colors and the smell of summer. Fracturing her, showers of light setting off in every muscle and bone in her body until she screamed with it.