The Highlander's Touch (28 page)

She responded eagerly, fiercely, molding her mouth to his.

“Slowly first.” He drew back slightly. With excruciating gentleness he brushed his lips against her, once, twice, a dozen times. She parted her lips against his gentle friction, signifying her desire for more. He laughed softly and ran the tip of his tongue in a playful circle over her lips. He teased until she was moving frantically, trying to catch his tongue with hers.

“Place your hands above your head, lass, and if you have a problem keeping them there I will be happy to use fabric to secure them,” he murmured.

“What? Do you want to tie me up?” she exclaimed, mildly shocked. She felt his lips curve in a smile against hers; he was amused by her reaction.

“I would not be adverse to the idea.” His laughter was husky, darkly erotic. “But for now, I merely wish you to restrain your hands from my body. You need give nothing, do nothing; I assure you, I’ll be taking my pleasure in the giving.”

Lie back and let me pleasure you
, he was saying.
Have I died and gone to heaven?
she wondered.
And he prefers to do this?
Her fantasy lovers had always been dominant and demanding illusions who exhausted themselves in bed, giving their woman pleasure. Obediently, she raised her hands above her head. The movement lifted her breasts, and he caught one roughly with his mouth.

Then she was burning, her nipples were on fire. He nipped and tongued, licked and tugged until her breasts felt swollen and hot. He raised them together and dragged his
tongue down the soft crevice, then he separated them and kissed each nipple. He nipped her stomach and kissed her hips—the very sensitive part where her leg met her upper body, only inches from the soft hair between her thighs. The skin was thinner there, more delicate. He pressed hot kisses to the tiny mole inside her thigh, dragged his velvety tongue over it, and she arched against him, instinctively guiding him closer to her center.

His tongue flicked out to taste her and her hands flew down to cradle his head between her legs as she arched against him. He tasted her with long, smooth strokes against the sensitive nub, alternately fast, then languid, then fast again. “Oh, God!” She embraced the pleasure. She soared, spiraled, shuddered, and when she fell he was there to catch her, with promise in his eyes.

He slipped a finger inside her and she contracted helplessly around it. She realized that there was an entirely different sensation she’d not yet experienced. She’d heard that orgasms could be very different when a man was inside a woman, as opposed to an orgasm from external sensation. She could feel just the hint, the promise of the fullness it would offer.

“Tight. Too tight, lass. You need to be more relaxed, and I know of only one way to accomplish that.” His lips burned against her skin as he kissed her mole, tongued it, then stroked his velvety kisses down to her ankles, her toes, and back up with delicious slowness. And when he returned, he lowered his head and ensured that she was completely relaxed by sending her over the edge again.

Two fingers.

The fullness!

Three. “Relax, lass. I doona wish to hurt you overmuch. I am—”

“I know,” she panted. “You are. I saw you.” She was awed and a little afraid.

His hands were magic, her body eased open, only to contract swiftly when he removed his fingers.
The ache, oh, the unbearable ache
.

“Please,” she groaned.

He raised himself above her and positioned himself between her legs. But he didn’t enter—nay, he took her lips with his and kissed her: light and teasing, kissed her deeply, kissed her so hard that his teeth bumped against hers, which she’d always thought might seem clumsy but it wasn’t, it made her nearly wild beneath him. She arched her lower body, pressing against that hot male part of him, and he pressed back against her, hard.

“In me,” she cried.

He laughed against her lips. “Impatient lass.”

“Yes I am. In me.”

“Aye aye, mistress,” he whispered.

He gave it to her slowly. The first inch was a most unusual sensation and she doubted she could take him. The second inch promised pain. The third and fourth
were
painful, but the seventh and eighth promised heaven. Lisa closed her eyes and devoted her full attention to the hard man inside her. She had never felt such a pressure, such a completing sensation in her life. She could have stayed like that forever.

And then he rocked slowly within her. “Squeeze me,” he whispered.

“What?”

“With your muscles.” When she stared at him blankly, he tickled her suddenly, causing her to laugh. The muscles inside her contracted and she understood.

“Squeeze like that, you mean?”

He went completely still inside her. “Squeeze.”

It was the most incredible sensation. She could use her woman’s muscles to contract on him and release, and every time she contracted around him it sent her perilously close to the edge. He lay motionless atop her, letting her feel him, grow used to him, develop an insatiable hunger for the pleasure of him buried within her.

“Does it arouse you?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” she murmured.

He withdrew slowly, savoring every sweet contraction of her muscles, then filled her to the mouth of her womb.

The night was young, and over the course of it he made a wee bit of progress down his endless list of things he wanted to do with her. Her insatiable curiosity extended into the bedchamber, as he had hoped it would. She was a most willing conspirator throughout the long night of passion-slicked bodies and yielding hearts.

When he rose, bracing his hands wide on the bed to either side of her, threw back his head and lost a part of himself deep within her, he nearly doubled over in agony. His muscles wrenched tightly in his abdomen, his heart pounded alarmingly, and his head felt it might split. In all his life, he had never permitted himself to spill inside a woman, refusing to have children. First because he’d not been ready, then because of what Adam had done to him.

But he’d laid his fears aside, and this time he let go. And at the precise moment he filled her, he felt a bond flare into life between the two of them, as if a channel had been cut between their souls, allowing a bit of her to seep into him, and a bit of him into her. It burned through his body, tunneling to the part of his mind that held magic. It was like a blinding white heat that roared inside him and exploded in a flash of heightened awareness.

It was the most incredible sensation he had ever experienced.

Suddenly he could feel
her
pleasure, could even sense that she felt grateful to him for helping her forget her pain and making her first time such an incredible experience.

Hmm
, he thought, liking this new bond.
He had exceeded her expectations for lovemaking
. His gaze flew to hers and he saw that it had been the same for her. But she didn’t know, because this was her first and only time of physical intimacy, that such an awareness of each other was
not
a normal result of lovemaking. Her eyes were huge and filled with wonder.

He didn’t understand what had transpired in the creation of their strange bond, and he wondered what lasting effects it might have on her. He wondered if perhaps the immortality potion had changed him, so that if he spilled seed into a woman’s body they became linked. There was much he did not understand about himself.

And then he wondered no more, but cradled her in his arms and felt at peace for the first time in centuries.

*   *   *

Afterward, Lisa lay with her cheek pressed to Circenn’s chest, one of his strong arms curled around her waist, wondering at the God who had seen fit to take so much from her, yet give her this incredible man. She’d never known that lovemaking would make her so much more aware of his feelings. It was as if someone had flipped a switch inside her: A dazzling white heat filled her, and suddenly she was able to sense his emotions; even now he was worrying for her, wondering if he’d pleased her. It was a strange awareness, a pressure that he was near, surrounding her;
she’d never before felt so linked to anyone, not even her mother, who’d carried her inside her body.

She vowed to plunge headlong into all the pleasure she could find with Circenn, because one never knew how long anything might last. He could be crushed under a rock while building an addition on his castle; he could be injured in many ways; he might be wounded in battle—oh! It was June, she realized, and the mighty battle at Bannockburn was just weeks away.

He couldn’t go; that was all there was to it. She could not let him go to war. The way her luck ran, she would get a few blissful weeks with him, then he would be killed in battle and there she’d be in the fourteenth century all by herself. Her fingers clenched around his hand.

“I will not die, lass,” he whispered against her hair.

“Can you read minds too, in addition to cursing things?” she asked, startled.

“Nay. But you were feeling it rather loudly. I know what you fear. You fear being abandoned. When your hand tensed on mine I surmised where your fears had gone. That I might die too young, as your father did.” He acted as if their new bond was nothing out of the ordinary. It was easier for her to accept because, being untried, she didn’t know it wasn’t the customary result of tupping.

“But you could die,” she said. “There’s a war going on—”

“Shh.” He drew her close and rolled from his back to his side, so they lay facing each other, their heads sharing a pillow, their noses touching. “I swear to you that I will not die. Do you trust me, lass?”

“Yes. But I don’t understand. How could anyone possibly swear that they won’t die? Even you can’t control that.”

“Trust me. Have no fear for me, Lisa. It would be wasted
fear. Let’s just say my unique abilities include the knowledge of when I will die, and it will not be for a very long time.”

She was silent, and he felt a shiver run through her.

He knew she was hearing more than his words, was feeling his intent behind them. They had a new awareness of each other that transcended words, as if their souls had become entangled. Via that bond, she was comforted, sensing truth in his words, although she didn’t understand the how or why of it. He held her, reveling in their strange tie. He sensed the moment at which she relinquished her fears and relaxed, not merely because she wet her lip and glanced at him provocatively.

And what he felt next needed no words.

A
DAM SIFTED THE GRAINS OF TIME AND DARTED
through them to the isle of Morar. He would relax there for a day or so, ponder the developments, study the potentials, and determine where his gentle nudging might be required. Things were progressing well, and he had no intention of losing what he’d thus far gained. He’d experienced a bit of concern during the time she’d remained in her chambers, grieving, but she had indeed been as strong as he’d suspected, emerging ready for love.

And how lovely she’d been in her bath, he reflected with a smile.

As his feet hit the beach, he willed his clothing gone, then he strolled languidly, burying his toes deep in the wet, silky-warm sand. Once, he’d walked on a California beach, nude in the full glory of his true form. Thousands of Californians had been stricken by high fevers that had erupted in public displays of eroticism.

He loved being Adam.

The sun beat down upon his muscled chest, a tropical breeze licked his dark hair. He was a pagan god, savoring his world—there was no better place to be.

Most of the time.

In the bay, a ship sailed past. Adam grinned and waved. The pitiful occupants of the ship could no more see the island than they could fly to the stars. The exotic isle simply didn’t exist, in the usual sense of the word. But fairy isles were like that—in the mortal world, but not of the mortal world. Occasionally, a mortal was born who could see both worlds, but those creatures were rare, and usually stolen quickly after birth by the
Tuatha de Danaan
, to minimize the risk. Ever since Manannán had given his people the drink of immortality and the Compact had been negotiated, the
Tuatha de Danaan
had been exceedingly cautious when treading in the world of man.

Still, Adam thought, there were times when even a demigod such as himself couldn’t resist. There was something about the world of man that fascinated him, made him think he had perhaps once been more similar to them than he could clearly recall, his memories dimmed by time’s passage.

“In what merriment have you been indulging?” Aoibheal, Queen of the Fairies, purred behind him.

She joined him, her long, beautiful legs keeping pace with his, and guided him toward a crimson chaise that conveniently appeared before them. She sank into it and patted the cushions, indicating that he should join her. She glistened, sprinkled in gold dust as was her custom. Were he to run his finger down her, it would come away glittering with fine gold powder. He had long suspected the dust contained an aphrodisiac that penetrated the skin of those who touched her, rendering them powerless to refuse her.