by Nicole Locke
‘You’re beautiful,’ he repeated. ‘Stunning. And I wasn’t expecting this much...’ He looked away, his left hand caressing the ribbon still in his hand. ‘I guess it’s safe to say that everything about this is unexpected.’
She felt her own lips curve. ‘True.’ But she welcomed it. This wasn’t the man who told her to strip when they entered the room. This was Rory, whom she had glimpses of. Like now. Talking to her, easing her concerns.
Turning them into something more. This evening seemed full of surprises, from the emotions of her wedding vows, to the heated exchange to just...this heat between them.
She’d seen men’s bodies before as she tended wounds and illnesses, but this was different. This was her husband and she wanted him undressed to fully see him, to touch him not as a healer, but as a woman. ‘You’re still clothed.’
He frowned, swallowed. A flicker of something went through his eyes that sent a fissure of warning through her overly warm thoughts, but it was gone before she could grasp what it was.
‘Yes, I am,’ he said, placing one knee on the bed. ‘And you still are talking.’
‘Bluntly?’ she gasped, as he lowered his head and hovered his lips along her collarbone.
‘Talking at all,’ he whispered against her skin.
She expected him to kiss her. To make the contact he seemed at first to want when he leaned over her. Instead, he pulled away and carefully knelt between her legs. He didn’t even ask for her to spread her legs for him. She simply did, as if she knew what this part of a marriage bed was about.
And she thought she did, but she didn’t understand at all when the cool slide of the silk ribbon fluttered along her collarbone sending warm chills to every bit of her.
‘What are you doing?’
A curve to his lips. ‘I’m touching you, Ailsa.’
‘No, you’re not.’
‘You don’t feel it? I thought you’d like the feel of the ribbon along your shoulders.’
He dangled the ribbon down one arm and up and down the other. Every time it reached her hand, she felt like curling her fingers around it to see if it truly felt as warm and soft as it did when he wielded it.
It was maddening, especially when he dragged the ribbon down between the valley of her breasts to pool around her navel and then back up again. It affected her.
It seemed to be affecting him, too, if the darkening of his eyes and the flushing along his cheeks was any indication. His lips had parted again and they looked wet and slick. Tempting.
Was this what he’d thought of when he tied her gown earlier? To touch her like this? To see her like this? She felt the same. It made her feel as though she wanted to touch his lips again, to feel some of that soft slickness he had yet to give her.
‘Kiss me,’ she said.
His eyes flashed to hers, stayed there as he unwounded the pooled fabric and wrapped it along one breast and then the other.
‘Still talking,’ he said, but she saw his gaze dip from her eyes to her lips and back again. Felt the brief stuttering drag of the ribbon along her skin as if he couldn’t quite keep control because of her request before he found it again.
Around and around, in some pattern only he could see. She didn’t want to watch what the ribbon was doing to her body, she wanted to watch him.
She could, however, feel the effects of that ribbon. The goosepimples ever increasing, the tightening of her breasts as if she had laces binding her entire torso and then binding her again. Her nipples taut to a near unbearable level. The chill of the room almost accosting in comparison to the ribbon that was warmed her, but not in all the places she ached for it to.
He seemed to want it to touch her elsewhere as well for he wound most of the length around his left fist, giving himself more leverage to wield the soft fabric. Then he touched the tip of the dangling fabric against one nipple before he unwound the fabric to let it drip and slide along her breast.
Then he gathered it again to repeat it on the left breast. Then again...and again until the soft silk tip became almost sharp against her sensitive nipple, the warm glide almost soothing as it slid along the sides of her breasts.
Though she wanted to close her eyes at the sensation, she watched him. His gaze was narrowed and riveted to what he was doing. His lips had parted that much more and she gasped when she saw that hint of his tongue touching his lips.
Brown eyes returned to hers. Not so brown now, darker, so dark and within those depths, something was going on that she suspected was happening with her as well.
She didn’t need to see her body to know her skin flushed like his, her eyes had darkened, her lips had parted to take in needed air. She felt it.
The only difference between them was that he remained nearly immobile and she couldn’t remain still at all. The next touch to her breast and her back arched into it. Another glide of the thin silken strip and her hips rose as well.
He detected the changes in her body, her restlessness, her eagerness for another caress, and yet he didn’t lower his eyes from hers. ‘Is this better, Ailsa?’ he whispered, his voice raspy. ‘Is the lace better free like this? Loose from your gown?’
A flip to the ribbon and he dragged the band along her sides and up again. Down to where her hips undulated and then further along her outer thigh. Up again to encircle her other hip then along her inner thigh.
Closer to where he knelt so the ribbon now touched him, too. His breaths quickened, increasing the golden expanse of his chest. His skin gleamed and an almost unholy light entered his eyes.
‘Turn over,’ he demanded.
She was a midwife, a healer, she knew about the human form, but she knew nothing of this. Of how her own body simply did as he asked before she could think why or how she could do it with him between her legs.
She was clumsy with it. There was no way to manoeuvre otherwise than to draw her legs in and turn before lying flat once more.
The sound he made didn’t make her movements seem clumsy or too hurried. A rough groan choked off, a harsh swallowing. She knew then, that he’d seen everything. The cradle of her hips as they tilted towards him, the curve of her behind. How wet she was.
She lay there and waited for the ribbon, knew it was coming, but he held it aloft too long. He was doing something else now. He was gazing at her. Why she felt more vulnerable than when she had first stood naked before him, she didn’t know. Maybe because she couldn’t see him or know why her back would be so interesting.
‘Women have backs, too,’ she said, trying to recall their earlier conversation.
‘Not like this,’ he said.
His words heated her more and she lost more control of her thoughts, more control of what was happening between them. ‘You remember the others, then.’
‘There was never one like you. There couldn’t be.’
When he lowered the ribbon to her skin, it was different this time. Different because that slight stuttering he made with the silk before was now almost constant. He, too, was losing control as he brushed the ribbon along the back of her arms, between her shoulder blades and along her spine. Brushed it along her until he pooled the ribbon in the small of her back, then wound it around and around until she felt as if he wound the silk between her legs, low down, and much, much deeper.
‘Lift your hips,’ he said.
He’d claimed that she spoke bluntly, but he bludgeoned her with his rough rasped words. Her body instantly responded, knees drawing in, elbows pressing into the mattress more, giving her leverage enough to tilt her hips up and back.
Into the calloused grasp of his hand against her right hip. The shock of the sudden contact making her gasp. Pant. The ribbon was warm, but his hand was hot, searing her.
Another clenched sound from him. From her. And then... And then a brushing of something just at her centre. Too firm to be the silk. Too slender to be
his thigh. She guessed that he had somehow released his breeches and he was there, there to finally press forward into the ache that her body had become.
She arched her hips to give him more access and felt the scrape of his breeches against her inner thigh. He was still clothed. Once she registered how he touched her with one lone calloused finger, she understood the intimacy of his touch. Sliding around her outer lips and circling in. Sliding around and circling in. Like the pooling of the ribbon.
It was too much. ‘Rory.’
He hummed a reply that wasn’t a reply. This wasn’t how it was done with her body tightening to some unimaginable degree. With her knees almost digging into the mattress and her hands gripping the quilt. He needed to be undressed, she needed to face him. They were meant to join their bodies and bind their marriage.
But his finger that had drummed along the surface of her skin now curved along her wetness, winding her body like the silk of a ribbon. Coiling everything inside her tighter and tighter.
‘We have to stop now. Please.’
‘Ailsa, let it go. You must let go before I... I’m here. This...this is what was meant to be.’
‘Rory—’
His hand gripped more firmly against her hip, grounding her. Centring her. Another finger added and he pressed more firmly.
She couldn’t catch her breath. Her hips wouldn’t stop their own movement that mimicked his fingers. But her hips weren’t as gliding and insistent, they trembled and juddered until she felt something else.
The ribbon. He’d wound the ribbon around his hand. It was there, too at her centre. Just as insistent and demanding. Soft. Silk surrounding the bluntness of his hand that pressed and rubbed against her until it was all too much.
‘Rory!’
Chapter Eight
‘I hope you don’t intend to use that ribbon to secure my gown when we leave this room,’ Ailsa said.
Raw with denied need, Rory felt like chuckling despite the fact his wife had somehow shifted their positions and turned partly on her side to make that comment.
She was still underneath him, but her legs were stretched so he straddled her long limbs. The move had bared her shoulders and breasts to him, showed the soft curve of her belly and hips and gave a hint of what was between her legs.
He felt the wet hint still on his fingers though he’d practically flung the ribbon away once her pleasure was done. It didn’t help his need to free himself of that ribbon. It only made him aware of how his fingers were now unbound so he could touch and reach every bit of her. His wife, this night, wasn’t supposed to be like this at all.
They had started as enemies. They still were. Paiden was proof that this marriage wasn’t to be trusted.
He couldn’t even take comfort that he had somehow remained in control, that he remained clothed because that made this point in time all the worst. Damn politics and clans. To see her like this, how she responded, to know what they could be together...
Shoving away his need, forcing away the want for more, Rory knew he must extricate himself from this bed, from this room. He must pry himself from the woman. His loyalties couldn’t be divided, not when his friend’s life was at stake.
‘I’ve no intention at all.’ He hoped they found the ribbon and burned it before he forgot all his loyalties. ‘Does that please you?’
‘Please me?’
‘Because you don’t like laces.’
She smiled and it punched him in the gut. Her green eyes almost slumberous with the desire that wasn’t quite sated. He knew it wasn’t because they’d begun that flitting thing again, making him aware how bare he was to her still and how undone he must seem.
He was so undone.
‘I might have changed my mind,’ she said. ‘I might add more laces to my gowns now.’
He probably would be overcome with lust every time he saw one binding her body. The thought of her like that shuddered through him and his knees gave. Which was a mistake because it brushed that part of him that needed her against her stretched legs and her eyes widened and locked on him.
Ailsa thought she knew what happened in the marriage bed, but Rory had showed her otherwise. She thought there could be no more pleasure, but the burning heat of him against her leg proved that idea false as well.
‘I didn’t know it could be like this,’ she said.
He tensed and his gaze, which was now pointedly over her shoulder, glanced to her again and then slid away. ‘I’m glad I had the experience to bring you such pleasure.’
A sharp stab that she didn’t want to identify pierced her. Ailsa didn’t want to think of him with other women though it was foolish of her to think he hadn’t been. Even if he wanted to stay away from women, his status and looks would have women coming to him.
He adjusted his legs to sit beside her and she immediately missed the heat and feel of him there.
‘Why did you ask if I’d had another lover?’ he asked.
Did he hear that she didn’t want to think of his lovers? His tousled hair fell heavily along his jaw and shoulders, his eyes held just a hint of the heat they had before, but more of a puzzlement she couldn’t understand until she remembered his question.
‘I didn’t ask if you had another lover,’ she said. ‘I asked if you had seen the female form because I had seen the male as well.’
‘What do you mean, you’ve seen the male form? Do you mean naked?’
She shrugged. ‘Of course. I’m a healer. I’ve seen lots of bodies and their parts over the years.’
He raked his hand through his hair, controlling the wild locks she’d been admiring. ‘I don’t like it.’
She couldn’t have heard right. ‘The fact I’m a healer?’
‘The fact you’ve seen other males.’
Was he jealous as well? Could he be feeling the same as she did? If so, she’d ease his concerns. ‘I’ve seen females, too. I’ve tended children...animals. Any living creature injured.’
‘Your father, your clan, allowed this?’
Allowed. That wasn’t a word she appreciated. ‘Of course. It was either that or, when the old healer died, which she did, there would be no one to tend injuries. Would that be preferable?’
A rough exhalation and Rory turned away, so his back was to her and his legs were over the bed.
That was an answer as good as any. He obviously didn’t want to argue. That was fine with her. There would be all the time in the world to discuss what she was capable of as a healer and a woman. He seemed intelligent and, after her discussion regarding the benefits of her marriage, amenable to listening to her, but maybe now wasn’t the time.
Maybe their time now was for something else. She was struck by the definition of his back, the tapering of his waist, the fact that seeing him like this made her want him more. Ailsa propped herself up to touch his arm.
He flinched, but held still, and she took advantage of it to caress his skin as he had hers. To watch him turn his head to gaze at her hand as she stroked his shoulder and traced her fingers down his spine. He fascinated her. All of this fascinated her not as a healer, but as a woman discovering the different textures of a male’s skin and the fact his body didn’t give at all underneath her touch.
So wonderfully different than hers and the more she touched, the more different he became. No longer pulling away, but almost leaning into her touch as if he welcomed it.
She welcomed it though she’d found her pleasure. Simply curving her palm along the blades in his back had her needing more. Didn’t he need more?
‘Rory,’ she said. Was her voice threaded with desire?
Must be since his riveted gaze locked with hers. ‘Ailsa.’
‘Yes?’
‘You keep...’ He gave a hard swallow. ‘You keep saying my name.’
‘I thought you wanted me to say your name.’
&nb
sp; Brows drawn in. ‘The way you—’ He shook his head.
Oh, she wanted him to finish that thought. When he didn’t, she spread her fingers to reach more of his back, his skin, to feel the way his ribs curved around his side.
The way he imperceptibly shivered when she did so. Did he feel the desire like her? He must. They were strangers and newly married, yet here they could talk, they could know each other...discover each other.
She wanted that. Very much. So why did he turn away?
‘Why are you not touching me?’ She sat and released the quilt so she could feel the ridges of his abdomen, the narrow trail of dark hair. The way his—
He grabbed her wrist, which pleased her. He tried to stop her, but she’d felt his response to her touch and knew he was as affected as she. Now they could join and bind their marriage to make their vows to each other and their clans complete.
She lay down again and stretched her limbs. Since Rory kept hold of her wrist, he had no choice but to turn just that bit to see how she lay before him. To see how much she wanted him.
Like this she felt vulnerable and powerful as his deep brown eyes caressed her legs, her hips and breasts and down again. Slowly, she took his hand and laid it on her stomach and felt the warmth, the heat seep down deep into her. ‘Come lie with me now. I want you to.’
‘Ailsa, you don’t know what your words do... I can’t...’ A hiss and his fingers curled. It sent shivers through her and she wanted him more. ‘You keep...surprising me,’ he said, sounding puzzled. She wanted to ease his concerns.
‘You keep doing that to me as well.’ Something in her bubbled to the surface. They were strangers, but there was some connection between them. All would be well. ‘Come lie with me. Let’s complete our marriage vows. After all, it’s not every day I get married to the man who vowed to kill me.’