To Desire a Highlander

by Sue-Ellen Welfonder

  He wanted her, burned for her with a force that stole her breath.

  It was a revelation that startled her, need, want, and love rushing through her until her knees weakened. She was sure that if he let go of her, she’d fall to the floor. She hadn’t expected him to return her feelings, hadn’t believed he even liked her.

  But there could be no denying the heat of his kiss.

  The arousal that nudged her through their clothes—hindrances she wanted done with, eager as she was to feel his naked skin next to hers. The thought shocked her, but she could no sooner banish it than tell the sea to stop crashing against the rocks below. A madness had seized her and she didn’t even care if they weren’t truly wed. They were handfasted, even if he’d accepted the bond under a different name. He was the same man and he’d sipped from her clan’s Horn of Bliss, sealing the union in a way that, to her, and anyone of her kin, was a joining more sacred than any other.

  “Sweet lass, I would have you.” He spoke the words against her cheek, between kisses.

  “Then do.” She decided to be bold.

  In truth, how could she do anything but acquiesce when he was nuzzling her neck, skimming his lips and tongue along her skin. He murmured Gaelic love words and praise, lit soft kisses to the hollow at the base of her throat. Delicious shivers rippled through her, warm, golden flutters of need that pooled deep in her belly and low by her thighs. Each kiss he dropped on her skin, every touch, all his softly spoken words, stirred and roused her as only true love could affect a woman.

  And love him she did, as she’d suspected for long.

  So there was no reason not to desire him.

  Far from it, she had a fervent need to claim all of him that she could. To brand herself with his touch so that she’d have something to remember him by in the long, cold nights after he’d left her. For that reason, and so many more, including that she simply wanted him, she slid her hands up between them and undid the laces of her bed-robe, letting it fall open.

  “You shouldnae have done that, lassie.” He drew back to look down at her. He swept one of his hands over her bared flesh, splaying his fingers over the fullness of her breasts as he plumped and weighed them, rolled her nipples between his thumb and forefinger.

  Gillian placed her hands on his chest and then smoothed them upward, gripping his shoulders. She closed her eyes and took a long, shaky breath. She was trembling, but didn’t care. Wicked sensations raced through her, a spill of tingles that danced across her most intimate flesh, warming and exciting her. She was melting with pure need. Never would she have believed passion could be so crystalline and yet so maddeningly dizzying. Her knees had gone so weak that she could hardly stand, and the more he rubbed her breasts, his thumbs now circling round and over their thrusting crests, the closer she came to screaming out for more. She ached for a desperate, urgent something that whirled tightly inside her, threatening to consume her if not soon released.

  “We can stop here, sweet,” he said, even as he lowered his head, his tongue now flicking at her breasts—his thumb still working its terrifying magic.

  “I’ll no’ be wanting to end this, for sure.” He dropped kisses across her bared skin, his tongue like silken fire. “But I’ll no’ do aught you dinnae desire. You must tell me, lass. Shall we stop now?”

  “No.” She spoke her mind, seeing no shame in her feelings. “I would have at least one night of passion, true carnal bliss, with you. More, if the gods are kind.”

  He lifted his head, his gaze fierce. “Gillian, I would lie with you until all the world’s tomorrows, again and again if it pleased you…” Again, he said her name without her title, that intimacy—and his words—spearing straight to her heart, and elsewhere.

  “Would it?” he asked, touching her face, his smile flashing again and in a way she knew she would never forget. Lifting her hand, he pressed his lips to her palm. “I would have your answer, lass.”

  “I will not keep it from you.” She met his gaze, gathered all her strength to answer true.

  If she were to spend her life without him, she’d rather have heated memories than cold virtue to wrap around her when she was old and alone.

  Feeling most daring, she raised her hand to his cheek, lit her fingertips across his bearded jaw, his mouth. She looked deep into his eyes as she did so, her heart knocking wildly against her ribs.

  “There is much that would please me.” A marriage in truth with the man I’ve come to love and desire, the chance to make a home of this tower, to know the isle is smiling again, if ever it did, and to raise our children here, teaching them to love and care for this world I can’t bear to leave.

  Unless it were to be at your side in another place you love more.

  “I am not a shy lass,” she said, leaving her heart’s cries unspoken. “There can be no wrong in a handfasted pair mating. Though, in truth, I would see no shame anyway. Viking blood runs in the veins of Hebrideans. We are strong and proud, a lusty race.”

  Proving it, she cradled his face and kissed him deeply, letting her robe slip to the floor as she did so. Stepping out of it, she kicked it aside to stand unclothed before him, desiring no more than to feel his hot naked flesh pressed tight to hers. “I’ve been waiting for this for so long.”

  “You are certain?” He pulled back, taking her wrists and lowering her hands to feel the hard ridge of his manhood. “I am no’ able to resist you, sweet. See what you have done to me.”

  “I am glad.” She curled her fingers around him, gripping tight.

  “Och, you shouldnae do that, lass. No’ yet…” But he made no move to thrust her hand away.

  Instead, he reached to unclasp the large Celtic brooch at his shoulder and then tore off his plaid, flinging it onto the floor. Next, he pulled his shirt over his head, and then bent to tug off his boots. In almost as little time as it’d taken her robe to slide down her body, he stood equally naked before her, his large, swollen hardness leaving no doubt about how much he wanted her.

  She shivered, sure she’d never known a greater thrill than standing skin to skin before him, both of them bare-skinned and desirous, wanting and needing nothing more than to indulge the passion that flared between them.

  Every inch of her thrummed with excitement. Delicious, almost unbearably intense sensations whirled across her woman’s flesh, a heated throbbing that made her ache for more. Precious gifts she knew only he could give to her. Things she’d heard of in Sway’s kitchens when the serving lasses and laundresses shared tales of their tumbles in the heather with the lads they desired.

  She’d always let on as if she hadn’t heard. In truth, she’d inched near. She’d hidden in the shadows, listening raptly to the delights they revealed, secretly yearning to know such pleasures herself—though she’d never expected to experience them, betrothed as she was to a man she’d loathed.

  Now…

  He stepped even closer, so near that his warmth surrounded her, as if their bodies had already merged. “I doubt that tiny cot will hold us, but I would touch you, lass.” He reached down between them as he spoke, gliding his fingers up her inner thighs. “Part your legs for me so that I may caress you properly.”

  His words took her breath, his intent sluicing her with embarrassment despite her previous declarations of bravura. She could feel two spots of heat blooming on her cheeks. Yet she also loved the feel of his hands on her. His fingers were warm and moved over her lightly, so magically she wondered she could still stand—so exquisite were the pulsing sensations between her thighs. There, where she knew he meant to touch her. It was beyond imagining! How could she deny herself such pleasure?

  She couldn’t.

  So she closed her eyes for just a beat, and reached deep inside herself to grasp the wild abandon of her Norse ancestresses. She was sure that none of them would have hesitated to grant the carnal wishes of a man as naked and glorious as Roag, most especially when he stood before her with his hands on his naked hips, his smile saying he wanted to devour
her.

  She stole a glance at his hands, so strong and beautifully made. His long, skilled fingers stroking the tender skin of her inner thighs, moving slowly upward…

  Her Viking blood heated, all modesty fleeing.

  “Like this?” She did as he bid, opening her legs so that she stood before him with her feet about a foot apart. “Is that enough?”

  “For the now, aye,” he fair growled, staring down at her, his heated gaze almost scorching her exposed flesh. He kept his gaze there as he slid his hand higher, and then lit his fingers over her intimate hair. He brushed softly back and forth a few times, toying lightly with the curls, before he slipped his hand down between her legs and began stroking and rubbing her. “You can do the same to me, sweet.”

  He wrapped her fingers around the long, rigid length of him, showing her how to stroke him. He kept his hand over hers until she found the rhythm, all the while rubbing her intimately as she squeezed his hot, silken hardness, her hand moving up and down on him.

  “Is this right?” She could hardly speak.

  “Aye, just so.” He sounded strained, but also pleased.

  She was, too, for such intense pleasure ripped through her that she didn’t know where it began or ended or which sensation was the most thrilling—his fingers moving so skillfully over her or holding him in her hand and stroking him as she was. In truth, it was all almost too glorious to bear.

  She could hardly breathe.

  And she didn’t want him to stop. Didn’t want to take her hand off him either.

  “This is more pleasurable than I’d imagined,” she blurted, rocking her hips against his hand, the sensations whipping through her filling her with wonder. “I’d heard—”

  “You have spoken of such delights?” He drew back to look at her, his dark eyes amused.

  “I have not,” she met his gaze, and the very act of looking into his face as they stood there naked, touching each other so intimately made her quiver and tingle all the more. “I heard whisperings in the Sway kitchens is all.”

  “What sort of things did you hear?” He kept his gaze locked on hers, his thumb now circling a swollen, aching place that felt under siege by white-hot bolts of incredibly intense pleasure. “Did they say that men enjoy touching women as I am touching you now? Or perhaps that when a woman is caressed by a skilled hand, she will know a greater bliss than much else?”

  Gillian bit her lip and nodded. “More or less, aye,” she managed, not sure she could stand holding his gaze much longer. But, the fates have mercy on her, it was so delicious to do so! “They said a man with good hands was a prize worth more than gold.”

  “You believe that?” His voice was low, husky. He looked even deeper into her eyes, his thumb circling slower now, the rubbing deliberate, maddeningly delicious.

  “I do…”

  “Did you also hear that if a man and woman kiss when touching each other this way, that the pleasure increases even more?”

  “I did not hear that, no.”

  “Would you like to try?” He lifted his thumb from that exquisitely sweet spot, trailed his fingers lightly up and down the center of her before he again resumed the thumb-circling. “If it pleases you, we can kiss now.”

  Gillian couldn’t speak.

  She did feel a great tremor rip through her, a cresting madness so powerful that she feared she might break apart. As if he knew, he swept an arm around her, drawing her hard against him as he lowered his head and claimed her lips, kissing her deeply in a rough, plundering blend of lashing tongues and a bold sharing of hot, desperate breath. It was like no other kiss they’d yet shared. Wild and raw and open-mouthed, this kiss was so hunger-filled that only his thumb and fingers moving so skillfully between her legs felt more delicious.

  Or so she thought until the world shattered, blowing apart in thousands of colorful fragments that whirled everywhere, leaving her limp, gasping, and so wondrously depleted that she could only cling to him as he scooped her up and carried her a few paces to where he’d tossed his plaid before the fire. He lowered her gently, settling her onto the fire-warmed wool as if she were made of spun glass.

  “Dinnae move, precious lass,” he urged, kneeling beside her, looking down at her with such intensity that she felt another quick flurry of the same delicious sensations that had just torn through her. “Breathe deep, and lie still. I will fetch you something to drink…”

  Standing, he strode across the room to the table with her untouched evening repast. He poured two cups of ale and returned to her, once more dropping to his knees beside her.

  “Nae, dinnae sit up.” He placed a hand on her shoulder, gently easing her back down when she tried to rise. Instead, he slid an arm around her shoulders, supporting her as he tipped the ale cup to her lips. “Drink, my sweet, the ale will refresh you.”

  Gillian almost choked. She would never be the same again.

  And she’d rather have more of the same than be replenished. But she drained the ale, her breath still coming fast and shallow. “Oh, my,” she gasped as he set the empty cup aside and smoothed back her still-damp hair. “That was… I cannot describe it. I have never known such a feeling. It was more than—”

  “It was you, my love.” He slid his knuckles down her cheek, then trailed his fingers along her neck and over her shoulder, soon tracing light circles across her breasts. “You are beautiful, wonderful, and dinnae e’er think I didnae enjoy every sweet moment.

  “I have ne’er desired a lass more,” he told her, plucking lightly at her nipples, his touch sending more streams of the same kind of pleasure spilling through her. “Ne’er have I known a more passionate, responsive woman. You, sweetness, are a treasure.”

  “And your pleasure?” She did push up on her elbows now, her gaze flicking to his rampant manhood, still aroused, and not yet sated. “What of you?”

  “My enjoyment is in pleasing you.” He traced his hand lower, down her ribs and across her belly, threading his fingers lightly in her intimate curls. “Though it would make me very happy if you will let me just look at you.”

  Gillian caught her breath, his words sending another bolt of powerful liquid heat arcing through her, right to the swollen little nub that had caused such delicious sensations when he’d rubbed her there with his thumb.

  “What do you mean ‘look at me’?” She could hardly speak for excitement.

  Something told her he meant a most wicked kind of looking. And the thought of it was making her tingle anew.

  “I would gaze upon your beauty.” He slid his hand between her legs again, began stroking her once more. But very, very lightly now, and using only the tips of his fingers.

  “You are looking at me.”

  “No’ as I’d like to.” His grin flashed against his beard, the bold, wicked smile that did funny things to her belly.

  “I am sure I don’t know what you mean.” I do and just can’t say the words.

  Go ahead and look, please, whatever you want of me. I am already shivering with need, my desire burning.

  As if he’d heard, his eyes lit triumphantly and he moved farther down the plaid. Still kneeling, he placed his hands on her knees. Then he looked up and met her gaze, seeking her willingness.

  “Please…” Gillian nodded, biting her lip as he returned her nod. Then, lowering his gaze from her face, he eased her legs apart, letting her knees fall wide.

  He looked down at her there, his gaze dark, fierce, and so filled with masculine appreciation that she almost cried out with the sensations that swept her. She did begin rocking her hips. A deep urgent need to do so almost consumed her. It was a wild, elemental urge that she couldn’t control and didn’t want to.

  “Nae, lass, no’ yet.” He placed the flat of one hand across her lower belly, holding her down. “There will be time for that soon. All you need to do now is keep your knees apart and let me gaze on you.”

  And so she did, sure that the longer he peered down at her, stroking her so lightly with one hand as he
did so, the more she became convinced that his hands weren’t just “good,” but magical. But then so was everything about him.

  Perhaps he was a wizard?

  A fae man not of mortal men, but sent here to torment women with his pleasure-spending talents.

  Gillian shivered, almost believing it.

  “Relax, be at ease,” his voice was deep, roughened by what she supposed were the same delicious sensations flooding her. “You’re tensing, and I want you completely comfortable. Indeed, if you’ll trust me, I know another way to be sure you’re ready—”

  “I am now.” She knew enough of breeding, was aware of what was yet to come. Preparing herself, she tried to rise again, but he put his hand back on her belly, his warm fingers brushing her curls again, and in ways that made her forget wanting to sit up.

  “You have magic fingers,” she said, not caring if he could tell how she trembled in bliss, or how wet she was becoming. That, too, she’d heard of from the kitchen wenches at Sway. She’d not understood at the time, but she did now.

  She’d gone slick and damp with what they’d called the “dew of desire.”

  “You are the magic, lass.” He was looking down at her again.

  No, he was breathing on her!

  “By the gods!” This time she did push up on her elbows, her bravura fading when she saw just how closely he was looking at her! His head was right between her thighs, his dark, amused gaze peering up at her now. “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing that you willnae enjoy, I promise,” he said, and licked her.

  “Oh!” She nearly burst. Her hips rose off the plaid, bucking when he did it again, and again.

  Embarrassment sluiced her, but only for a moment. The feel of his tongue on her, licking slowly up the whole of her, then swirling over the exceptionally sensitive spot, was too exquisite to resist. Still, she had to say something…

  “Please, you shouldn’t—”

  “I should, and you need only relax and enjoy.” He looked up at her, once again locking gazes with her, this time as he licked and licked her.