Harlequin Historical May 2014 - Bundle 2 of 2: Unwed and Unrepentant\Return of the Prodigal Gilvry\A Traitor's Touch (16 page)

Dragging his gaze away, he forced himself to concentrate on navigating. The bay the boy had told him about was almost completely encircled by the cliffs with only a narrow opening where the cross-currents made the boat skitter and bump, making Cordelia squeal, laugh, clutch at the sides of the craft. Inside the shelter of the cove, the water was almost still, the pale gold of the sands glittering in the blistering heat. Iain dropped the sail and jumped out, waist-deep in the water, to pull them the final few yards to the shore.

Without waiting for dry land, Cordelia joined him in the shallows. Her hair hung damp on the thin fabric of her dress, making it cling at the shoulders, the neck, drawing attention to the sweet undulations of her breasts. She was still laughing from the exhilaration of their landing, running on to the sand, shaking out her soaking skirts, showing him tantalising glimpses of ankles and calves. He pulled the boat higher on to the sand, though there seemed to be little tide to worry about, and hauled the basket containing their meal from its hiding place. There was a cave, no more than a low opening, but suffice to shade them from the sun, and to stop their food from spoiling. He pushed the basket into the dark, and his discarded clothes. He spread out the rough blanket the boy's mother had given him, at the mouth of the cave.

Cordelia was standing on the sand, gazing out at the water of the bay. Only the smallest slice of sea was visible through the embracing arm of the cliff. They were completely private. Iain was suddenly nervous. The sand was hot against his bare feet as he went to join her. She turned to him, and he saw his own apprehensions reflected on her face. He was about to tell her that they could forget about it, simply enjoy the cove and their lunch, not because he wanted to, but because the fear of failure had cooled his blood. Then she smiled at him, that smouldering smile of hers, and he stopped thinking and took her in his arms, and kissed her.

She tasted of salt. Of sunshine. Of heat. Exotic. Different, yet entirely the same. There was the same sense of knowing, of fitting, of rightness in their kiss, as there had been that first time, in the hotel in Glasgow. As if they were made for this. Only it was heightened, much more heightened, by the waiting, and released from constraint by the distance and the sunshine. Though he was ravenous for her, their kisses had the languorous, almost leisurely pace of the Mediterranean, tasting, relishing, sensual.

He ran his fingers through the thick, damp tresses of her hair. He felt her hands flutter over his back, up the knots of his spine, flatten over the wings of his shoulder-blades. He lifted his head, and she looked at him, wide-eyed, passion-flushed. Her blatant desire for him sent his own desire rocketing. With a low growl he barely recognised, he picked her up and carried into the shade.

‘Like a caveman,' she said, but teasingly, rubbing herself against him as he set her down.

‘I hope I can manage to be a bit more civilised,' he said.

Cordelia smiled, catlike and provocative. ‘I rather hope you can't.'

Her dress was of pale blue. The bodice buttoned up the front. She began to unfasten it, button by button, all the time watching him. The sleeves were long and tight. She had to wriggle to free herself of them, for the sea made them cling to her skin. As who would not, Iain thought, watching, fascinated, his heart pounding. The skirt of her gown fell to the ground. He had no idea how she'd unfastened it. Her hair, already drying in the heat, was the colour of newly varnished wood streaked with ripe wheat.

Her throat and her hands were tanned, but the swell of her breasts above her corset was creamy, untouched by the sun. He ached to touch her, but he was mesmerised by the way she touched herself, by the way she undressed for him, all the time looking at him, watching him, testing him. His chest heaved with the effort of breathing. His erection strained inside his trousers. He watched.

Her corsets also fastened up the front. She pulled at the laces. Her own breathing was fast, shallow. He was fascinated by the quiver of her breasts. Freed of her stays, she stood before him only in her shift and her drawers. He reached for her now, but only to turn her towards the light, to reveal the body beneath her undergarments. The swell of her breasts. The hard nub of her nipples. The indentation of her waist. The feminine roundness of her belly, the flare of her hips. He traced her shape with his fingers. She shuddered, her eyes closing momentarily. There was a stillness in the air, as if time were suspended. Then their eyes met once more, and the thing which had bound them from the start yanked hard, and they moved together of one accord.

Kissing. No longer languorous, but passionate. Tongues touching, entwined and then thrusting, in a carnal echo of what they sought. Iain tugged frantically at his clothes, fumbling and pulling at the fastenings, all the time kissing her, for he could never imagine having enough of her kisses.

He was naked before she, but not long before. Her shift tore, and fell on to the blanket, was kicked backwards into the damp sand of the cave with her drawers, and the kissing paused as they looked, blatantly looked at each other. Her eyes travelled over the length of his body, and he felt his engorged shaft stiffen further in response. Her nipples were dusky pink, puckered. He took one in his mouth, and sucked, drawing a soft moan from her, making her arch her back. He laid her down then, on the blanket, and began to kiss her. Mouth. Throat. Cupping her breasts to trace their shape with his tongue, before licking, then suckling, first one nipple then the other.

She reached for him, arched under him, rubbed the soft curls of her sex against him. He was in an agony of wanting to thrust into her, but he was too in an agony of wanting this to be different, better.
‘Wheesht,'
he said, when she said his name urgently, ‘patience.'

‘I don't feel patient,' Cordelia said, digging her fingers into his buttocks.

‘Tell me,' he said raggedly, ‘tell me then how you feel.'

* * *

Iain was lying over her, his body covering but not quite enveloping hers. His skin was hot. She could feel the tip of his shaft against her thighs.
Tell me,
he said, and it was part tease and part challenge, the way he looked at her. She had never felt so aroused. She shifted, just enough to allow the hard length of him between her thighs. ‘Urgent,' she said, smiling back at him. ‘I feel urgent.'

She felt the rumble of his laughter in his chest, vibrating against her breasts. ‘I doubt you could feel anywhere near as urgent as I do. Have you any idea what that does to me?'

She arched her back, thrusting up under him. ‘Yes.'

Iain swore. Then he kissed her, hard, on the mouth. She kissed him back equally hard. Already, she could feel her climax building, coiling. She clenched tight. ‘Iain.'

His eyes were dark, his pupils large, his cheeks flushed. She felt him readying himself to thrust, and opened her legs to receive him. Then he laughed, though it was a strange, harsh sound, and shook his head. ‘Did I not promise to prove to you that I had some finesse?'

‘Iain, I don't care about finesse. I— Iain!'

He was still between her legs, but no longer touching her. He was still kissing her, but not her mouth. He was kissing her throat again, her breasts again, his tongue, his fingers, teasing her nipples, making her ache, that sweet dull ache that plucked, strained, twisted into a slow, pulsing thrum between her legs.

He kissed her belly. Then he pushed her legs further apart, and entered her, not with his shaft, but with his tongue. She bucked under him and called out in surprise. Then his mouth covered her in the most intimate way, licking into her, over her, and her cry became something more guttural.

His mouth did wonderful things. A new world of kissing. She was vaguely aware of herself moaning, pleading unashamedly for him not to stop, not to stop, when he slowed, waited, started again. She was so tense she thought she might break apart, wanting, not wanting it to end as it built, coiling, coiling, so intense it was on the edge of pleasure, like fingernails on a slate, until she could hold on no more, and he seemed to sense it, and held her, one hand on each of her thighs, licking into her just there, exactly where she needed him, and she came suddenly and so violently that she bucked beneath him, again, and then again and then again, in sharp bursts, which reverberated and ebbed, like consecutive waves, catching each other as they broke and retreated.

She had no idea if she had cried out. She lay panting, spreadeagled, for long seconds or minutes, completely caught up in the shock, the wonder of this most extraordinary experience. She thought she was spent, but when she opened her eyes and saw him kneeling between her, his erection jutting thick and hard, her body began to clamour instantly for another sort of completion.

She smiled at him, that look she knew unravelled him. It was a powerful thing, that smile. He leaned over her and kissed her. She twined her arms around his neck and wrapped her legs around him and, taking him quite unawares, rolled him over on to his back.

He was pressing between her legs once more. This time it was he who arched urgently under her, his expression tight, his desire for completion unbearable. Cordelia kissed his mouth. She moved her hips provocatively. He groaned. ‘How urgent do you feel, Iain?'

He sensed her intentions before she moved, and grabbed at her bottom, but she wriggled free of him. She kissed his neck. His chest. His nipples. She kissed her way down his rib cage, kneeling between his legs, in a deliberate echo of how he had kissed her. She leaned over him, grazing her nipples over his chest, sending
frissons
of pleasure rippling through her blood to feed the fire between her thighs. Below her, Iain shuddered. His face was rigid with the effort of control. She felt powerful and, despite her climax, intensely aroused.

She licked into his navel. A thin line of soft hair arrowed down from there. She hesitated. She had never once imagined doing such a thing, never mind attempting it. She sat back, taking him in her hand, curling her fingers around his girth. Such satinlike skin, and beneath he was solid. Not like rock or steel, something very different. She stroked him. He jerked. Her touch was reflected in his eyes. She could see him contracting, tightening. She could feel her insides doing the same. And tingling. A warning. Yet she stroked him again.

‘Cordelia.'

Urgent, his voice was. Truly urgent. Yet once again she could not resist. She leant over him, touching the tip of his shaft to the tip of her tongue.

Iain swore. ‘Cordelia. I don't think...'

The muscles in his neck were standing out. She couldn't. She didn't want to. What she wanted was what he wanted. Now. She let him go, slid over him, took him inside her.

He went higher than she expected. He was harder. She was tighter. She was already shivering, clenching, shaking, with her impending climax. His hands were on her waist, bracing her. She lifted herself, and he helped her, almost to the tip, and then down.

He said her name. No one had ever said her name like that. ‘Come with me,' she said, the same command he'd given her. He nodded. Gripping. So thick inside her. She lifted herself, and came down on him harder, thrusting her hips forward, drawing a gasp from him. Again, tilting, so that he was higher inside her, and she came instantly, astonishingly, wildly, crying out her delight, the pulsing of her climax triggering his, his warning cry heeded just in time, as he rolled her from him, shuddering to completion beside her, and she lay, eyes wide, watching what she had done to him, feeling utterly replete.

* * *

Cordelia stretched voluptuously. Her whole body was singing with satisfaction. Beside her, Iain rolled on to his side and propped his head on his hand. ‘Well?' she asked, buoyed up with that heady combination of pleasure and the utter lack of inhibition that seemed to have crept so insidiously over her since leaving England.

Iain ran a finger over the length of her arm, from shoulder to wrist, his knuckles just grazing her breast, making her nipple pucker in response. ‘Well,' he said, ‘it certainly was worth waiting for, if that's what you're asking.'

She tried to stop it, but the smile of contentment seemed to push its way over her entire body. ‘I feel as if I am glowing,' Cordelia said.

‘Sunburn,' Iain said. He ran his finger back up her arm, wrist to shoulder, this time slowing over her breast.

She stared fascinated by her own response to him. The lightest of touches, and it set off a delicious
frisson
inside her. ‘We are in the shade.' Her voice had taken on that breathy quality, yet she had only just...

She reached over, copying his action. Shoulder to wrist, her knuckles grazing his chest. Then back up again, more slowly. His shaft stirred. ‘You are not inclined to wait another year before we repeat the exercise,' she said.

He caught her hand at the wrist. ‘I'm inclined to wait a wee bit longer. Apart from anything else, I'm hungry.'

‘And I'm sandy,' Cordelia said, becoming aware of that fact for the first time. In fact, she seemed to be lying more in sand than on the blanket.

‘You're not the only one.' Iain rolled over and got to his feet, hauling her with him. ‘Come on then, first things first.'

She gazed out longingly at the sparkling blue of the sea. ‘You can't be serious.'

He grinned. ‘What, have you suddenly developed inhibitions, Lady Cordelia?'

She had. It was all very well to lie here naked in the aftermath of making love, but to stride out, wearing only one's skin, into the bright sunlight... She caught Iain's eye, and saw that he had once again read her mind far too accurately. There was only one thing for it. Though her inclination was to cross her arms over her breasts and run, she forced herself to walk, arms firmly at her sides, slowly down the beach, praying that no other curious sightseer or fisherman would choose this moment to pay a visit to the cove. The thought that she would have been utterly oblivious to any number of sightseers and fishermen a few moments earlier, made her blush from her toes to the tips of her ears, and sent her into the water at a rush.