Page 50 of This Heart of Mine (O’Malley Saga #4)
“What is it ye want of me, Velvet? For God’s sake, lass, I’m only human!”
“What do I want of you?”
She began to laugh softly. “Dear God, Alex, I should think that would be obvious. I want you to make love to me. Here. Now. Tonight, my darling.”
She snuggled closer to him, pressing her round breasts against his furred chest, leaning over to nibble on his ear, and he groaned. She was driving him absolutely mad, and he suspected she knew it. What had happened to change her in these few short hours?
“You took my virginity in this castle almost three years ago, my darling. We began our marriage here. I want to begin it again in this place, Alex. Can you understand that?”
He hadn’t suspected this sentimental side of her, but he didn’t care any longer. All that mattered was that his beautiful wife, his wife from whom he had been parted for so long, was offering herself to him, and he wanted her. Pulling her hard against him, he found her mouth and kissed her with all the hunger that had been building up in him for the last two and a half years. He kissed her until she was breathless, and her mouth was bruised with his ardor. In defense she parted her lips beneath his, and his tongue plunged almost violently into her mouth to love hers with a fierce abandon. Their tongues were like two burning silk banners that twined and intertwined over and over again.
Rolling her beneath him, he caught her face between his hands. “Look at me, Velvet!”
She slowly opened her eyes and gazed directly at him. “I love ye, lass! Do ye understand that? I love ye!”
“I never stopped loving you, Alex,”
she answered.
The unsaid words lay between them, however: I never stopped loving you, Alex, but I loved another also. Still, she was trying, and in time he hoped he could erase the memory of Akbar from her heart and soul, if not her mind. “Ah, lass,”
he murmured, caressing her cheek with the back of his fingers while his other hand smoothed her forehead. Then his mouth descended on hers again, kissing her tenderly this time, re-learning her sweet lips. He trailed a line of kisses down her neck, lingering in the hollow of her throat where he could feel the pulse leaping beneath his lips. His slender fingers slipped up to tangle in her soft hair, while the finger of his other hand turned her face to him.
Gently he nipped her little chin with his teeth, then kissed the corners of her mouth. Velvet pushed her tongue forward to lick at him, and, delighted, his own tongue gave battle. They teased and played thusly for some minutes, enjoying the game and learning to relax once more with each other. Finally he nuzzled one of her ears, running his tongue around it.
“Ye’re absolutely delicious, lass,”
he murmured with hot breath in her ear. Then one of his hands captured a breast, and, turning himself, he sought the other breast with his mouth. While the first hand kneaded and fondled, his mouth began a most delightful torture of the second breast. He sucked softly at the nipple, but gradually he began to draw harder upon it, then he nibbled tenderly, sending little darts of desire through her.
She shifted beneath him almost skittishly. It had been so long since she had been loved. For a moment she felt disloyal, but to whom? To Akbar who she was bound to by an Eastern marriage and a child, or to Alex who was her only husband before the God of her own faith? It was too confusing a puzzle to struggle with, she thought. She must concentrate on the here and now, not on what had been.
Wiggling away from him, she said, “I want to love you, my darling.”
“Ye are loving me, Velvet,”
was his reply, but she laughed.
“Nay, my lord. You are loving me.”
She pushed him back against the down pillows. “Now, I shall love you!”
Before he realized what she was about, Velvet turned herself about, and, grasping the half-hard shaft of his manhood in one hand, she bent her head and took him in her mouth, while her other hand sweetly caressed the pouch of his sex. For a moment Alex was frozen in shock. He had never taught her such a thing! Where had she learned it? The next emotion to slam into him was a wave of raging jealousy. Akbar! She had learned this from him! She had taken him between her honeyed lips and driven him to madness as she was surely going to drive him.
“Jesu!”
The word burst from his throat, and his anger dissolved as the enjoyment she was giving him mounted with each moment that passed. Her tongue licked his full length, teasing the ruby knob of him. His hand reached down to touch her head, to encourage her further, and she sucked strongly upon him while shafts of pleasure plunged into his brain and body like sharp knives, and his manhood hardened like marble.
When he could bear no more, for he was close to bursting with desire, he commanded her through gritted teeth, “Enough, lass! Tis time for turnabout.”
Then pulling her up, he forced her back against the pillows, his head moving down between her legs. He had never before tasted of her, but he realized that if she knew how to use a man as she had just used him, then Akbar had also introduced her to similar delights. He found the little pearl of her womanhood, and, reaching out with his tongue, he began to love it tenderly and was pleased to hear a soft cry of rapture escape from between her lovely lips. “Does that please ye, lass?”
he whispered, and she cried “Aye!”
but no more. His tongue worked the silky, pink flesh until she was moaning with desire.
It was too sweet, she thought, as her passion began to build. The feathery touches of his tongue, his mouth, against that greatest secret of her sex was driving her farther than she had ever been driven before. She didn’t think she could bear much more of his loving, and yet she didn’t think she could bear it if he stopped. She would lose her sanity shortly, but she didn’t care. Briefly she remembered back to the beginning of their marriage. He had loved her sweetly and tenderly then, but never as he was loving her now. His own passion had such an incredible intensity that for a moment she feared it would incinerate them both.
Then he lifted his head and, with a soft laugh, pulled himself up and over her. Taking his pulsing shaft in his hand, he positioned it and then plunged into her almost violently. With another cry Velvet wrapped her legs about his torso, her arms about his neck, and together they moved back and forth, dancing to love’s rhythm.
“I’ve waited so long, lass, to be inside of ye again,”
he groaned in his passion.
“Oh, my darling,”
she sobbed as all the memories of their togetherness flooded her soul, “love me well! You’re so big, my wild Highland lord. How you fill me! Don’t stop loving me, Alex! Don’t stop!”
He didn’t, and for several long, sweet minutes they lay locked in that most intimate of conjugal embraces. Then, unable to control themselves any longer, they attained paradise together as he exploded within her, his manhood bursting forth furiously to flood her with his creamy essence. “Ah, Velvet lass! Ah, sweet one!”
He almost sobbed the words.
He had collapsed against her breasts, and she held him tenderly there as she floated down from her own heaven. Would it always be this intense with him, or was it but the excitement of their reunion? she wondered to herself. Her fingers slipped through his fine, dark hair, caressing him, loving him, and he felt her touch through his own daze.
Raising his head, he gazed at her, and Velvet suddenly felt warm and safe again. Smiling back, she gently teased him, “And just what are you looking so pleased about, my lord husband?”
“What kind of a woman have I taken to wife?”
he wondered musingly.
“A passionate one,”
she answered promptly, “and I shall not change, my darling.”
“Christ, no! My God, Velvet, I never suspected yer depths! Ye intoxicate me, my love, and knowing yer passion now, I shall become the most jealous of husbands.”
“I do not belong to you, Alex. I belong to myself, and you must remember that. I will never betray you, my love. I truly never have. But I will not be treated like a possession.”
“Nay, Velvet, I have learned this night that ye’re an equal. I may forget that from time to time, but ye will, I’ve not a doubt, remind me.”
“Indeed, my wild Highland lord, I will!”
He chuckled and, lying back, tossed an arm about her. “Ye did not jest when ye said ’twas time to start our family, did ye, Velvet, but ye’ve fair worn me out. I will need to rest now for a little bit.”
“Not yet,”
she said and, slipping from his embrace, arose. Going to the fireplace, she lifted a small kettle from the grate. Pouring water from the kettle into a silver basin by the hearth, she returned to the bed with it and several soft cloths. “In India a bout of passion is followed, my lord husband, by a careful cleansing so that when Eros’s dart strikes again, the combatants are ready.”
Dipping one of the cloths in the basin, she wrung it out and began to wash his manhood. When she was satisfied, she bent and kissed it, sending a surprising flash of heat through him. “Now,”
she said softly, “you must do me,”
and she handed him the second cloth.
Bathing her sex as she stood before him was, he found, one of the most sensually stimulating things he had ever done. He found himself working slowly, carefully, going back over already traveled territory until she laughed softly, saying, “You will but arouse me again, Alex, and that is not at all the purpose of this exercise. Kiss me now, and then let us rest.”
Mesmerized, he obeyed her, kissing the puckered pink flesh, but unable to resist tweaking her once with his tongue, which caused her to shriek and jump away from him. Laughing, and content at having regained some measure of his self-esteem, he dropped the cloth and climbed back into their bed.
She slid into his arms, warm and sweet, and lay her head against his shoulder. Soon he heard her soft, even breathing and knew that she had fallen asleep. He, however, lay awake for some minutes. The girl he had married almost three years ago was so long gone that he could barely remember her. The woman who had replaced her was a delicious mystery that he suspected he would never quite solve, but in the ensuing years they had together he would enjoy seeking the pieces to the puzzle Velvet had become. Gradually Alex drifted into sleep himself.
Velvet awoke to kisses being lightly pressed over her torso. With a murmur of contentment, she stretched, saying, “Don’t stop, my darling. ’Tis too delicious!”
He chuckled. “Ye’ve turned into a magnificent wanton, my young wife. Dinna change!”
Then he was kissing her lips, his tongue pushing into the fragrant cave of her mouth to re-explore. Challenging his invasion, she played a game of hide-and-seek with his tongue. His passion was slow to rouse this time, the edge having been taken off of it by their last love bout. Sitting up, the plump pillows behind his back, he placed her between his open legs and began to learn once more the curves and lines of her body.
The lushness of her delighted him. Her lovely round breasts fit perfectly into his big hands; her waist curved in so deeply that he could span it with his two hands; her torso was long and smooth. Her hips flared beneath his seeking fingers, and she murmured again signifying her pleasure at his touch. She drew her legs up, allowing him to smooth his hands up her thighs, down her calves. Then he held her in a tight embrace against his chest. His lips pushed her thick auburn hair aside, finding the soft nape of her neck upon which he placed several warm kisses.
“Ye’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known,”
he whispered against her ear.
She smiled in the firelight, but he could not see her. “Is your little mistress, Alanna Wythe, not fair, my lord?”
she asked wickedly.
“Alanna hasn’t been my mistress in months, Velvet.”
“Yet she resides at Dun Broc , I am told.”
“I gave her the choice of returning to England or of remaining in my village of Broc Ailien with her daughter.”
“Her daughter?”
Velvet stiffened.
“She claims the child is mine, and in all probability it is,”
he replied, dreading each word as he spoke it, but it was better that she know it now before they reached Dun Broc. Alanna was still enormously put out by her removal from the castle and would cause mischief given the chance.
“How old is the child?”
demanded Velvet.
“A year or so,”
he answered.
She almost laughed at the irony of it. She had been forced to relinquish her precious daughter because it was necessary that she resume her role as a good Christian wife. Her husband’s whore, however, was allowed to keep her bastard, and none thought the worse of her for it. Alanna Wythe might raise her daughter, but she, Velvet, the Countess of BrocCairn, must not even admit to Yasaman’s birth for fear of offending her husband and their peers. For a moment Velvet thought her heart would break all over again with the unfairness of it, but, taking a deep breath, she said, “I’d as lief the girl were back in England, Alex. Is there no way you can make her go?”
“I’ll try, sweetheart,”
he promised, relieved that she was not going to cause a scene, “but Alanna can be stubborn, and I do feel a responsibility for little Sybilla.”
He hugged her tightly. “Dammit, Velvet, I don’t want to talk about this now! I want to make love to ye again, lass. It’s driving me wild wi’ desire being wi’ ye like this!”
And indeed she could feel him burgeoning and swelling, pressing against her back. She took a deep breath so that her breasts swelled within his hands and moved provocatively against him, tipping her head back so that he could look into her face. “Do you know what I want, Alex?”
she asked him. When he shook his head, she said, “Once you said that I reminded you of a kitten, but the kitten has grown into a sleek cat, and like a cat I enjoy being stroked. Stroke me, Alex. Stroke your wee cat,”
and she slipped from his grasp to lay upon her belly.
She was a most delicious temptation, lying upon her stomach, propped up on her elbows, her round breasts hanging like ripe apples, her adorable bottom thrust up like twin hillocks. He feasted his eyes upon her in the waning firelight that cast golden shadows over her luscious form. Reaching out, he pushed her hair aside and massaged her neck gently before sweeping down the long length of her back to fondle her buttocks. He found the springy flesh of her bottom almost as exciting as he found her delightful breasts.
Velvet lay flat now, stretching her arms and legs out. Unable to resist, he lay atop her and began to tease her by licking at the side of her neck and blowing softly into her ear until she began to squirm slightly. Then he whispered, “Admit that ye are hot to fuck me, Velvet.”
She laughed. “You’re too impatient, Alex. I see that I shall have to teach you that half the pleasure is in the wanting, my darling! The truth is that you are hot to fuck me!”
He was astounded by her bold words, and she knew it.
“Do you really want that sweet child back, Alex? The one who fought constantly with you and lay passively during your lovemaking?”
He thought a minute and then, laughing, said, “Nay, sweetheart, I don’t. She was sweet, but Jesu! I far prefer the hot wanton that ye’ve become in our bed. It still disturbs me that ye learned these things beneath another man’s tutelage, yet I love ye.”
“Always remember, Alex, that I believed Akbar was my second husband. I do not ask where you learned how to be a man, nor do I resent the women who taught you. Do not resent the man who has taught me, for he is now without me, and you will have all the benefits of his skill. Now, dammit, get off of me, my wild Highland husband, for you’re crushing me beneath your great weight!”
He rolled off her, saying, “Then crush me beneath yours, lass!”
She neatly straddled him, laughing softly down in his face. Reaching up, he began to tease her nipples, rubbing them softly until they began to thrust forward like little thorns. Watching her passion rise through his slitted amber eyes, he firmly pinched each nipple, sending little thrills throughout her so that she rubbed herself against him in a most erotic manner, her breath coming in shorter gasps.
“Now, my wanton wife,”
he said softly, “I shall teach ye that ye yet have things to learn, things that ye will learn from me, and no other man. Lean back, Velvet, and brace yerself upon yer arms.”
When she had obeyed him, he lifted his heavy and hardened loveshaft and began to rub it against her throbbing little jewel.
Velvet whimpered deep in her throat as tiny flames of pure desire began to touch her. This was a most delicious torture. She quivered slightly as she felt him caressing her softly, sensually, but when she attempted to shift herself so that he might enter her body, he reached out and prevented her.
“Nay, lass. Not yet. I will say when this time.”
“I … I can bear no more, Alex.”
Her voice was beginning to quaver.
“Aye, lass, ye can bear more, and ye will, or in the end I shall not gie ye that hot sweetness ye crave. Did ye not tell me that the wanting was a part of the lovemaking?”
Then he began again to tease her.
Velvet thought that she would die with the pleasure that his touch evoked. Looking down, she saw the ruby head of his shaft, almost glowing with its passion, stroking at the fountain of her very desire, which was now pearly with her lovejuices. She felt poised upon a precipice, and each touch brought her nearer to the brink. Finally she could bear it no longer, and with a little cry she slipped over the edge to whirl away into pure pleasure.
“That’s it, lass,”
she heard him encourage her.
When her head cleared, he was still playing with her, and she could feel her hunger beginning to rise once more. “Oh, Alex,”
she sobbed.
“Stop trying to gain control, Velvet,”
he said. “Let it happen, lass. Let me pleasure ye for ye’ll soon pleasure me.”
It was too much this time, and she fell forward, but he caught her in his embrace. Turning her onto her back, he spread her wide to him and drove into her throbbing, honeyed sheath. Her scream of satisfaction almost caused him to lose his careful control, but he held fast and began to pump into her with long, slow strokes of his manhood.
“Ah, Alex,”
she cried, “ ’tis sweet! ’Tis so sweet, my darling!”
Her nails raked a path down his straining back.
His rhythm increased, and he towered above her, thrusting fiercely within her eager body. He felt all-powerful! She inspired him to the heights of passion such as he had never attained before, and she kept pace with him, thrusting her buttocks up to meet his every downward stroke. Wrapping her legs about him as she had done earlier, she smoothed her hands down his back, cupping his tight buttocks within her warm hands, sending hot thrills of delight through him.
“Christ, Velvet!”
He groaned as he moved from sanity to total mindlessness.
“That’s it, my wild Highland lord,”
she breathed in his ear, “love me! Love me well!”
Neither of them remembered the ending to this interlude, for Velvet, climbing passion’s peak, found herself falling away into a state of unconsciousness, so great was her lust for her husband. As for Alex, he could not remember a great deal more than the fact that, unable to bear any more of the delicious combat between them, his throbbing body had dissolved into hers, and he had rolled away from her in his last conscious moment.
Velvet awoke, chilled and exhausted. The gray light of early dawn was beginning to creep into the room. Beside her, Alex was sprawled, his long legs and arms akimbo. Her eyes went to his sex, and she smiled to herself. One of God’s great mysteries surely had to do with a man’s cock. It was hard to believe that the cupid’s bow now between her husband’s legs was the mighty lance that twice the night before had pierced her so sweetly.
Slipping from the bed, she knelt by the fireplace and, finding several hot coals left there, fed them little pieces of kindling until she regained a small flame, which she then encouraged into a decent fire. There was still a half kettle of water left, and this she heated while emptying the cold basin out the window. Refilling the silver basin with the now warmed water, she took a fresh cloth and began to bathe herself.
“I thought that was my duty,”
Alex said sleepily, and with a smile Velvet brought the basin to the bedside and handed him the cloth.
“ ’Tis a nice way to wake up, lass,”
he teased her as he worked.
She grinned down at him. “I don’t remember the end of it at all last night, Alex, do you?”
He had finished, and while she took up the cloth to bathe him, he shook his head ruefully. “Nay, lass, I dinna remember anything except the fact that ye’re the most delicious piece of goods a man ever held in his arms. If I wanted to tell find the proper words, for I dinna think they exist.”
“Why, Alex,”
she said, coloring becomingly, “that is most gallant.”
Finished with her task, she put the basin with its cloths aside and climbed into bed with him. “I’m cold,”
she complained.
He wrapped his arms about her, and she snuggled contentedly next to him. “Dinna get too comfortable, lass,”
he cautioned her. “I’ve promised to go fishing wi’ Bothwell, and ’tis almost dawn.”
“You’ll need better bait than this,”
she said, tweaking his manhood mischievously. “What happened to that fine, randy fellow who entertained me so well last night?”
“Ye’ve worn him out, Velvet lass, but dinna fear, for he’ll be calling upon ye again quite soon.”
Then he chuckled. “Ye’re a bold wench, Lady Gordon, and full of surprises, I’m learning. I think that living wi’ ye isna going to be either quiet or dull.”
“Never dull, Alex, my wild Highland lord! That much I can promise you,”
she said, and, leaning over, she bit his shoulder sharply.