Page 28 of Farlan (Immortal Highlander Clan McKeran #3)
Chapter Eleven
A lec slipped into the great hall, spotting his wife standing at the back and watching as the clan’s head gardener finished his opening prayer, and a dozen female vassals climbed onto the platform.
Although all of the lasses had donned their finest gowns, the sight of Olivia in her soft blue linen blouse and dark trews made every muscle in his body tense.
As a familiar surge of hot blood poured through his veins, he wondered if he would ever grow accustomed to the desire that his sweet love alone sent raging through him.
Tonight he’d dressed in his finest tunic and trews so that she might find him more handsome.
Yet had there ever been a night—or a day, for that matter—when the moment he first saw Olivia he did not think of sweeping her into his arms and kissing her until she moaned his name?
My wife. It still stunned him that she had agreed to wed him, for Alec knew for all his looks he was no prize. Her happiness, ’tis all I’ll ever want or need.
One of the maids pushed to the front of those on the platform, and planted her fists on her wide hips. “I shallnae accept but one offer for all of my days.”
A slender, nervous-looking lad sidled through the assembled to stand before the women before he went down on one knee. “Ida, I wish to take you as my wife. Never shall I want another. Shall you accept me?”
Although it looked for a moment as if Ida were prepared to hurl herself off the platform and squash her intended, she remembered her dignity and curtseyed to him instead.
“Aye, for my husband of a lifetime, I choose Kurk.” Before anyone could react she cast a stern eye on the other vassals. “Dinnae expect me to choose again, for all of you, you’re naught to him.”
Alec applauded with the rest of the clan as the newly chosen husband helped his glowing bride down the steps. As they exchanged an awkward but eager first kiss, some of the dogs barked and scampered around them .
“’Twould seem you’ve the blessing of the hounds as well as the Gods,” Doon called out.
As everyone laughed, Olivia’s bright eyes shifted until at last she saw Alec. He started toward her, and her lips parted as she took in a quick breath. The way in which she pressed her fingertips to her throat told him that the first sight of him caused her to become just as enthralled.
’Twill ever be thus for she and me.
When Alec finally reached her he took hold of her hand. “How fare you, Wife of my lifetime?” he asked, keeping his voice as low as he used it in their bed.
“I’m fine, as long as you stop looking at me like I’m standing here naked,” she murmured back, her cheeks turning a soft, pretty pink.
Even now Olivia could be wonderfully bashful with him.
Indeed, they both behaved as if in the throes of a first love—which, as he considered that, they were.
Her demented birth mother had locked her away and starved her, much as his grandsire had done to him.
He would always be grateful that she had been spared the other abuses he had suffered.
Although he should have regretted her being caught by the spell trap and denied a life in the world beyond, her unwavering love had healed the scars left on his heart .
“I should like to see you naked, my lovely one. Indeed, I should like to make you naked.” He laced his fingers through hers, rubbing the pad of his thumb in a slow circle against her palm that he knew made her shiver with longing. “How long do you wish watch the ceremony?”
A low laugh escaped her. “I thought since it’s my first one I should stay for the whole thing. Ava said she would.”
Alec knew it would take several hours to get through the choosing as well as the lottery. He also suspected if he waited that long to be alone with his wife that he wouldn’t permit her a moment of sleep for the remainder of the night.
“Ava shall tell you later how the vassals fared,” he said, and led her out of the hall and through the kitchens to the storage rooms.
Olivia’s blush deepened as Alec tugged her inside the linens room, where Elspeth, Doon and the other chief female vassals stored the bedsheets, coverlets, towels and cloths needed for the household.
He only paused after barricading the door to light one of the small wall lamps before regarding his woman, and extending a hand.
“Come here to me,” he said, his voice lowering as his need grew ferocious.
His wife knew his most savage of moods, and yet never feared them.
As generous as ever, she came into his arms, tugging at the laces of her bodice to reveal her lovely chebs for him.
As he touched her, the soft peaks puckered under his fingers, begging for his lips and tongue.
When they had first become lovers he had not known what to expect from her, for he had never willingly taken a woman before Olivia.
Her shyness enchanted him as much as her generous nature, for she gave herself to him without the least reservation without demanding anything in return.
Alec still wondered if she would ever tire of him. “I shouldnae steal you away, aye?”
“You can’t steal what’s yours, War Master,” Olivia said, standing on her toes to kiss his jaw. She shivered with delight as he turned his head and caught her lips with his.
Kissing his wife made Alec even harder, and he walked her back to lay her on a pile of bed linens.
Sliding his hands up the sides of her legs, he unlaced her trews and tugged them down, kneeling between her bare legs once he’d stripped them off and gazing upon her small, pretty quim.
Breathing in the perfume of her arousal made him fumble with his own laces, but then her hands came around him and she undid them.
“This is one of my favorite moments when we’re together like this,” she said as she pushed down his trews to release his cock from the confinement. “Seeing you. You’re beautiful everywhere, my darling husband.”
“I ken what you like more.” He came over her, dragging her thighs up around his hips as his straining cockhead pressed against her folds.
“When I find you so wet and warm, I cannae help myself—and you’re ever thus for me.
” He pressed in, working himself into that narrow ellipse, and relished the fist-like tightness of her clenching around his cockhead.
“You want me here, aye? As I must come into you. I never wish stop loving you, Olivia.”
“Oh, Alec.” The pure, clean desire in her eyes nearly made him spill. “I hope you always do.”
Taking her from heated need to ecstatic bliss allowed him to watch the pleasure he gave her possess her utterly.
Olivia gasped and writhed under him, helpless and yet silently commanding every touch, every movement he made for her delight.
He held back his own wants so that he might lavish her with all the skill he had, the skill she had given him from their first love making to this very moment.
“When we finish here I shall carry you to our bed,” Alec told her as he thrust heavily into her softness. “And there love you the rest of the night, with my mouth and fingers and cock. Do you wish the same, Wife?”
“Yes, please.” She went mad, kissing his chest and neck and rolling her hips with every stroke of his cock into her quim, until her back bowed and pushed her chebs into his hands.
Then she cried out his name, over and over as she shook with her elation, gripping Alec’s shaft so tightly that he began to jet his cream into the core of her joy.
He kissed her, rolling to his side after the last of his seed filled her, and kept his cock nestled in her silky body. As the tremors racked them he stroked her with his hands, wishing once more he’d had enough patience to undress her so he could see the pretty flush loving gave to her skin.
“I wish I could tell you how much you mean to me,” Olivia said, tracing a circle around his flat nipple. “Just saying ‘I love you’ isn’t enough.”
“No one ever loved me but you,” he reminded her. “The closest I’ve come to such is being accepted into the clan by my brothers.”
Tears shimmered in her eyes. “Then I’ll love you forever, just to make up for it.”
Alec gathered her close, and held her as their skins cooled.
He imagined Grace Johansen would someday have a similar conversation with Farlan, who had become entirely smitten with the lady.
As a man who had always been coveted for his physical beauty, he understood the newcomer’s remoteness better than anyone.
He sensed that she, too, had suffered because of how others perceived her.
An odd thump hit the outside of the storage room door, making Olivia sit up and tug on her bodice laces. Alec straightened his garments and went to see who had interrupted them, only to find the passage outside empty.
His wife came to stand beside him, and peered out. “What was that?”
I n the guest chamber Grace walked around the room, unable to calm down or come to a clear decision.
She had been so sure that announcing she and Farlan had become lovers would satisfy everyone.
Ava and the laird wanted to keep the peace.
The vassal guys who could marry needed to know she was already and completely unavailable.
Yet seeing all the maids gathered in the great hall, and getting ugly looks and scowls from them, made her question her intentions.
All the women at Dun Talamh seemed to love the seneschal and hate her.
What if they tried to interfere? What if Farlan didn’t think she was worth all the hassle ?
Why am I panicking? The man likes me. He wants to be with me. That’s what matters.