Page 19 of The Thief (Castle Blackstone #3)

“MacKay, if that woman of yours doesn’t cease rapping on the friggin’ hull, I’m binding her hand and foot and strapping her to the damn beakhead. She’s scaring my men half to death. Do something! ”

Sighing, Ian put down his book which he hadn’t really been reading as his mind had been fully occupied with reliving every moment he had spent with Kate and rolled out of his hammock. “Aye, Bret. I’ll tend to it immediately.”

“Damn right you will. She’s in the bow.” His friend grunted and, shoulders hunched, headed for the companionway ladder leading up to the Sea Witch’s aftercastle deck.

Katie, you are going to be the death of me.

Thinking her exploration of the ship might relieve her worry, he hadn’t said a word when she started going from bow to stern testing every board, beam and timber for soundness, for the ship was indeed sound. So confident was he in Bret’s abilities that he had let her be and began to read, never giving a thought to the impeding storm; that its winds would set the Sea Witch’s quadruple masts to screeching in their holes—-a natural and proper occurrence--and her hull to moaning.

Apparently, Kate had.

After a moment’s search he found her hunched in the four-foot-high forecastle, slippers in hand, skirts gathered between her legs, sloshing through bilge and rapping on planks.

Bent in half, he touched her elbow and yelled over the gale and ship’s moaning, “Katie! Come.”

She swatted at him. “Can you not hear it? The planks are straining. Oh, this is definitely not good.”

God’s teeth. “Katie, for a woman of uncommon sense ye’re behaving like a dolt!”

That caught her attention. She snapped upright and nearly knocked herself out on a deck beam. “ Ouch! ”

He grabbed her arm and pulled her to him. “Enough. Ye’re coming with me.”

He hauled her through the tween deck, past the gun carriages and hammocks suspended from the Witch’s upper deck. The sailors off watch clapped and cheered, which thankfully caused Kate to cease her struggling.

In Bret’s wee bulkhead cabin, Ian kicked the door closed and tossed Kate into his hammock. Unlike Bret’s bed, which was built into the cabin and ran bow to stern, his hammock--because of its length--was suspended before the galley portals on great hooks and ran port to starboard.

As Kate grappled for balance, he caught the edge of the hammock, slid in and stretched out beside her. Wrapping his arms about her, he pulled her to his side.

“Katie, lay still or ye’ll get ill.”

“But, but--”

He placed a finger to her lips. Lord, he had never met a woman who thought so much. “Nay buts. Ye’re in my arms and ye’re safe. ‘To him who is in fear everything rustles.’”

Kate huffed. “Sophocles, and ‘Dead men tell no tales.’”

Good Lord, he loved the odd way her mind worked. “I don’t think that’s what the man meant.”

“Well, I do .” She craned her neck and looked out the nearest portal. She immediately blanched. “Augh!”

Peering over her shoulder and seeing only a roiling slate sky and formidable, foaming swells, he decided he had best give her something else to worry about.

He loosened his hold and rolled onto his side. Kate immediately tumbled, pressing him breast to chest, groin to groin, thigh to thigh and toe to toe.

“Mmm.” Lovely how he and she seemed to align so very well.

He tightened his hold on her waist before she could think to rise and ran a finger along her pouting lower lip. “I’ve dreamt,” he whispered, “of getting you into this verra position for days.”

The tip of her tongue darted out and traced the path his finger had just taken. “Oh?”

“Ah huh. And ye?”

She blushed, her gaze scooting from his eyes to his throat. “No, I hadn’t given it a moment’s thought.”

Ah, so she had. Very good. He kissed that soft place next to her ear as he slipped a hand beneath her hair. Hearing her breath catch, feeling her skin pebble, he used his thumb to tip back her head so they were again eye to eye. “Ye have lovely lips, Kate. Made for savoring.”

“I do?”

“Hmm.” And he did, taking only the slightest nibble, but ‘twas enough to cause her eyes to flutter shut and to make her sigh. He deepened his kiss.

As his tongue slid into her warm, moist mouth, he gently thrust. Groaning, her mouth opened farther. That’s the lass.

He delved deeper still; savoring her taste, mimicking with his tongue what his now decidedly hard shaft yearned to do farther below but never would.

He was rewarded with the tentative press of her hips and breasts. A hand fluttered across his shoulders. Yearning to feel her caress, he jerked on his already-loosened shirt and guided her hand beneath the fabric. He nearly sighed when her fingers glided through the hair of his chest. When her fingers brushed his nipple, he groaned, hoping to encourage her into further exploration. To his delight her hand slipped to his waist.

Lovely. If she wanted to touch, who was he to deny her?

Keeping his mouth locked on hers, he slipped the belt cleat. One click, a lift of his hips, and the belt hit the floor. Whilst he was at it he unfastened his brooch and tossed that as well. There. He was all hers to touch and stroke as she pleased.

She, thankfully, wore no such impediments. Just a wide-necked, deeply cut gown that easily slipped from her shoulder with the flick of a finger. He opened his eyes to examine his prize.

Her breasts truly were beautiful. So lush and taut. More than a handful to be sure and just how he liked them.

Anxious to taste, he traced the edge of her jaw with his lips then slid along the long column of her neck. At her pulse he licked and she quietly keened.

He slid lower and grazed across the delicious swell of one breast. She arched as her fingers threaded into his hair. Ah, I wager she’s been thinking about that night in the secret passage, about what she saw and what he told her.

He cradled a breast in his hand, relishing the weight and feel. As his fingers gently kneaded from below, he ran his thumb over its large cinnamon sphere. To his delight, she groaned and her nipple puckered to a perfect peak. The ship pitched into a trough as he latched on and gently suckled. When the ship rose on the next wave, he slathered the tip, then lapped the side of her breast. He repeated the process with the next several rises and pitches of the ship so she would ken and hopefully anticipate.

Before long, Kate, panting, placed her hands on either side of his head and tugged. Ah, she wanted his mouth again, wanted to press fully against him. Not the least opposed, he did as she bid, while slipping a hand under her skirts.

As his hand rode up her thigh, her skin quivered in anticipation of where it might come to rest. Ah, his delightful Kate remembered well. But this time it would be flesh on flesh. Had they been in a bed he would have preferred to kiss and lick her there. Then thrust his tongue into her until such time as she arched off the mattress and screamed. But given they were in a hammock he could do naught but fondle and stroke her, and so he did. First, by taunting, brushing ever so slowly by, and then waiting for her to lift her pelvis, which she graciously did with a good bit of moaning.

He pulled his mouth from hers and licked her earlobe. “Tell me what ye want, love.”

Kate responded with a breathy “You.”

For Kate did. Most heartily did she want Ian MacKay.

She had never wanted anything more in her life nor did she ever expect to have this opportunity again. To be with him in this most intimate of ways, to feel a fulfillment she craved to the very depths of her soul. They would part, mayhap never to see each other again, and she wanted his essence deep within in her to cherish. To keep forever and sacred the knowledge that only he, the man she loved, could teach her.

He did drive her mad with his lips and his hands but that was no longer enough. She desperately wanted more. But how did she tell him?

The question evaporated as his fingers slid through the curls at the apex of her thighs and began stroking the greatest need. Oh, yes, please, do.

Oh, he could drive her mad with simply a touch.

“Ooooh.” He now used both hands. One in front whilst the other had slipped in from behind so that his finger now slid back and forth within the aching place. “Ooooh!”

She arched her hips to give him better access. Burning, she pleaded, “Yes, oh yes.”

Surely, she would perish with need. Oh, that his shaft should slide in where his fingers filled her.

She had to know. Had to know or lose her mind. She hiked her skirts and brushed his kilt aside. Ah, much better.

Kate wrapped her fingers around him, Ian groaned, and Kate’s heart tripped. What she held in her palm was heavy, pulsing, and at the tip she found even more heat and a lovely, silky wetness. Yes, he is ready and quite able.

Aye, he wanted exactly what she sought.

The knowledge gave her courage and she threw her leg high over his hip, instinctively seeking contact with him. “Please, Ian, please.”

Ian’s breath caught when Kate shoved his kilt aside and his shaft was enveloped by velvet. Not the velvet he desperately wanted but as much as he could allow himself.

Then her fingers slid around him. Desperate to keep from getting ahead of her, he imagined Macgregor’s flock of one hundred and six sheep and frantically started counting; one, two, three, four...

And then she did the unthinkable; she threw her leg over his hip and pressed forward, giving him complete access. Panting, grinding, she wanted to mate and God help him, he wanted to mate just as badly. Mayhap more, for he’d never been this hard or in so much need in his life. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty...

Her tongue thrust into his mouth, in and out, in and out, in rhythm with her hips as she sought release.

Thirty, forty, fifty, sixty—

Oooh, just a taste, his wee self screamed. Just one little thrust into all that hot sweetness. You needn’t linger. You’re experienced. You know what to do so you won’t spill your seed in her, so that none are any the wiser. Just one thrust...well, mayhap two...just to be sure, so that you’ll never forget. You love her, you know she wants it, and you know you’ll hate yourself if you don’t take it whilst you have it in hand. Do it!

Aye, oh, aye.

His hips lifted and he slid against delicious wet warmth. He pulled his finger out of her slick passageway to make room for his wee self.

And his big self shouted, She’s a virgin, you bloody selfish arse!

Ackkkk!

He went stone still. Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

Lord, he had never been in so much pain in his life.

What on earth had he been thinking almost deflowering her? Shit, he hadn’t been thinking, just feeling, but laud, she felt so damn good.

Kate’s hands came to rest on his cheeks. He opened his eyes to find her, brow furrow, nibbling on her swollen lower lip. “What’s amiss?” she asked.

Poor Kate. Poor him, for that matter. How to explain this. “I’m so sorry, lass. I can’t.”

Still panting, she tipped her lovely head and silently studied him for a moment. Then, looking about to cry, she murmured, “So, it is true then?”

“What’s true, love?”

“That Scotsmen prefer sheep.”