by Suz deMello
She gestured helplessly at the tussling boys—she couldna think of them as men—and opened her mouth to ask, or at least say something, but she didn’t quite know how to frame her…was it a question or a comment?
Finally, she said, “Da?”
Her father looked down, then up to her, then down again. One hand—Jamie’s, she thought—flung outward, landing close to the hem of Mamma’s gown. Using the toe of his elegant shoe, Da nudged it away, then sipped champagne.
“Are they fighting over ye, lass?” he asked.
She nodded.
Mamma frowned. “I would have preferred a duel.”
“Then…it’s not bad?” Isobel asked.
“Of course not. Yer man should be willing to go to any extreme for ye.” Da looked at Mamma, his black eyes twinkling.
Mamma tried to look stern, but her mouth twitched. “But we should stop them before they come to serious harm.”
“Ye’re right.” Da stepped closer to the squirming, struggling pair and tipped his glass, pouring champagne over the combatants’ faces.
Spluttering, they broke apart and struggled to their feet wearing similar hangdog expressions. Edgar sported a cut above one eye that was dripping a rather dramatic flow of blood. Jamie clutched his side and licked a split lip.
Da surveyed them. “‘Twas a shame to waste good tipple on a pair such as ye.”
Isobel clasped her hands together. “How will we conceal them? This canna be good for my reputation.”
“Your reputation is of no moment, Isobel, as you are betrothed.” Edgar spoke with a tight jaw, and the words sounded as though he were grinding stones between his back teeth.
She looked at him and her heart melted. Her gaze traveled to the blood oozing from his forehead, and the craving seized her. She twisted her hands together to avoid reaching for him.
“Come,” she said, keeping her voice level. Grace and calm, she told herself. Grace and calm. “Let’s get ye cleaned up.”
She led him around the house, planning to use a little-used back entrance. She didn’t want to start scandal by taking him through the crowded ballroom.
“What about me?” Jamie trotted after.
“Get one of the maids to tend ye. I’m sure Ailean willna mind.” After entering the house, Isobel took Edgar upstairs to the family quarters.
“Ye’re taking him to yer room?” Jamie sounded scandalized.
“We’re betrothed, practically married. ‘Tis all right. But don’t jabber about it.” She poked Jamie in the chest with her finger.
“Ouch!”
“And I won’t tell about you and Ailean.”
He grinned rakishly and disappeared around a corner. Isobel shoved Edgar into her room and closed the door.
He was a mess. His gold velvet jacket was blotched with dirt. The formerly elegant swaths of lace at his wrists were torn and grubby. His cravat dangled and his hair, normally bound and tidy at his nape, swung freely, with sweat sticking the strands together.
She rang for a maid, then lit the fire and checked the ewer on her dresser for fresh, warm water. When the maid came to the door, Isobel didn’t let her in, but took Edgar’s jacket and handed it off. She pushed him down onto the bed. Leaning over him, she kissed his forehead.
He grabbed her around the waist and squeezed. “I know that I’ve shamed you, but when I saw that lout’s hands on y—”
“Shh.” She carefully licked away the drying blood and ran her tongue over the wound, shuddering with pleasure. When she was done, she managed to pull away. She went to her dresser and, hands shaking, poured out warm water into a bowl. She clenched her fingers around a fresh towel, breathing deeply. When she’d recovered her composure, she wet the cloth and used it to clean his face and hands, then picked up her hairbrush to tend his hair, retying its ribbon.
She eyed him. His pearl buttons were loose, some dangling. “Take off yer waistcoat and shirt.”
He raised his brows, and she picked up a sewing box from her dresser. Opening it, she brandished a needle as though it were her sgian dhu. “Laddie, I could sew on yer buttons while yer still wearin’ yer clothes, but I canna guarantee ye’d come through the experience unharmed. Besides, we’re betrothed, remember?”
“Oh, I remember. Do you?” He unbuttoned his waistcoat, shrugged it off and tossed it onto the bed beside him. His shirt was already half-open, exposing his chest, ridged with muscle.
He stood. His eyes gleamed a devilish, unearthly blue, and she would have bet her favorite fan that he was planning how he’d take her. With a slow smile, he undid the rest of the buttons and eased off his shirt with unhurried grace, revealing his flesh only an inch at a time.
Her mouth watered, and she bit her lower lip.
Now naked to the waist, he stretched forth a hand. The shirt dangled from his long, tanned fingers. Firelight glinted on the blond hairs on his arms and chest, turning them into strands of molten gold.
She snatched the shirt and backed away toward her dresser. When she felt the ridge of the chair’s seat jab against her thighs, she sat with a thump and threaded her needle. She stabbed it through the lace-trimmed cuff as though she were stabbing an enemy. When she’d finished, the lace looked as though it had been attacked, with bumpy ridges seaming its previously impeccable webwork.
She didn’t care, figuring the poor patch job was enough to get him through the house, out and away without causing too many whispers. She started on to the waistcoat’s buttons.
Edgar took a position behind her, saying nothing, but she could feel heat radiating from him like the sun on a summer morning. He stroked her shoulder, and the needle slipped through the brocade and slid beneath her nail. With a short scream, Isobel dropped everything to shove her finger into her mouth, moaning.
“Darling, what is it?” He knelt beside her and gently tugged her hand away from her lips. She whimpered, and he kissed her fingertip.
“Oh.” The warmth of his mouth immediately dispelled the pain. Or p’raps she didn’t mind any more.
Still holding her hand, he looked up at her and continued kissing her fingertips. Now the longest one, then the ring finger, then her pinky.
He took her thumb into his mouth and sucked on it. The heat of desire swirled through her, and she drew in a breath she hoped would calm her. Instead, her heartbeat leaped.
He bit the tip of her thumb. “Do you love him?” he asked.
Isobel blinked, surprised. “Jamie? Cousin Jamie? That boy? Are ye funning me?”
“He was touching you, and you weren’t pulling away.”
“I was faint and he was touching my forehead. Testing for fever.”
Edgar touched her face. “Cool as always. Tell me. When a Kilburn becomes ill, how does one tell?”
Jerking her head away, she stared at him.
“Does your flesh heat with fever, like mine would? Or are you always so damnably cold?”
She stood, tears prickling hot in her eyes. “Edgar MacReiver, if ye didna want a Kilburn why did ye agree to the betrothal?”
Still kneeling, he rubbed his chin. “At the time, I had little choice.”
“Ye’re as trapped as I am.” Something inside her chest twisted painfully. “Do ye want to jilt me? After all that’s happened?”
He got to his feet. “Nay, lass, I’m a man of my word. And I’ve a mind to keep my head on my shoulders.”
“And yer blood in yer veins.”
“If I marry you, what chance of that is there?”
“Is that all that’s bindin’ ye to me, fear of my father?” She set angry fists on her hips, panniers swaying.
He huffed. “Nay, Isobel, I’ve a mind to make you my wife, whatever the consequence.”
“What consequence could there be?”
“Have you ever heard about Sir Gareth?”
“Heard about him? I—” She shut up, a hand over her mouth.
“What? What do you know?” He grabbed her arm, dragging her close.
Close enough that she could have lick
ed the sweet, salty sweat off this throat, his so-close, incredibly tempting throat. She swallowed. “He’s me great-grandda. Of course I know—”
“Did you know he slaughtered most of my clan?”
“Aye, but if he hadna, we wouldna be here.”
He hesitated, his arm falling away.
She touched his cheek. “Do ye still grieve?”
“Nay, but I’m…cautious.”
“Of what are ye afraid?”
“You.”
Time stilled and stopped. Now, she thought. Now is the moment. I could tell him that I’m baobhan-sith, and he’d let me go. I could choose.
But…
Think of the disasters that could happen, she told herself. What if she did grow into an evil, fae creature? And what could happen if she did pick another husband? What if, one day, she killed her new husband in an uncontrollable lust for blood?
What if she killed one of her children?
And who would she want more than Edgar? Would she even find a man who would understand when she took a few sips here and there?
Edgar understood.
He could help. Help her cope.
She remembered what the auld gentleman had said. “None of us can happily live divided.” Having made her decision, she took a deep breath. “I’m a woman. There’s naught to fear. And doona ye remember what we’ve done together?”
Sweat sprang out on his forehead, his chest. She touched a finger to his throat, caressing the pulse pounding in the little hollow, and ran her nail down between the hard plates of his chest. She stared him in the eyes as she dragged her tongue over her fingertip. “Aye,” she said. “Ye remember.”
With a groan, he grabbed her, crushing her to his naked torso. He dug his hand into her hair and tugged her head back before taking her mouth with his. His lips forced hers apart and he thrust inside. All his restraint had fled and she quivered in his arms, glorying in the passionate onslaught she’d unleashed, a little afraid of the beast who’d burst free of the gentlemanly constraints Edgar usually exhibited.
He dropped a hand to her rear, gripping the sensitive flesh. Her quim tightened and flooded, readying for him. He spun her around and then flat onto her back, onto her bed. He released her only to drag up her skirts to around her waist, exposing her. Grabbing her thigh, he wrenched her legs apart and slammed his hips down into the cradle of hers.
Harsh it was, and rough, but she gloried in it, gloried in the hardness grinding into her soft and waiting flesh, so empty without him. But she remembered something else her wise great-grandda had said. “A man will not buy the cow if he can get the milk for free.” Mad he might be, but he knew much that she wouldna disregard.
“What are ye doin’?” she asked Edgar.
Edgar swung his pelvis back and forth. His hot, hard pole rubbed against her. With her chemise up around her waist, she was shielded from him only by the flimsy satin of his breeches.
Need flooded her and she gasped, her open mouth near his naked chest. Heat emanated from him and she couldna resist leaning her head just a little bit forward so she could kiss his torso.
Salt and sweet… She slid her mouth over to his nipple, dark against his slightly golden skin, and sucked on it, closing her eyes in bliss. His spasmodic jerking eased, smoothed into a more graceful rocking rhythm. The almost violent ecstasy she remembered from the last time they’d played together returned. A rush of color and sensation and light burned brilliant against her closed lids. Her body wrenched against his.
His hold loosened and she blinked.
He looked at her. The tenderness in his gaze brought slight tears to her eyes. He stroked her lips with a gentle finger. “Would you like to learn to make love in the French fashion?”
“In the French fashion? How did ye learn such a thing?”
“A man has to have experience to please his lady.”
“Och, aye, so ye went to France to learn?”
“Yes.”
“I thought ye were buyin’ wine.”
He shrugged. “I bought other things as well.”
“Experience.”
“Yes.”
“That’s na fair. I havena had another, but ye’ve had affairs.” She hated the thought of Edgar loving another, and squinched her eyes at him resentfully. “Why can’t I?”
He leaned forward and kissed her hair. “Because you, silly lass, could increase.”
“Oh, aye. And there’s na consequence for ye.” She scowled.
“That’s the way of it, my dear.” When she continued to frown, he said, “I did it for you.”
She huffed.
“To learn to pleasure you.”
She huffed again.
“‘Tis true. Let me show you. Truly, I never would have thought of it myself.”
“Is it like what we did…before?”
“Nay, it’s better. Lie down.”
Her glare hadn’t faltered.
“Please.”
“Weeelll…since ye’re askin’ so nicely…” She stretched out on the bed, her skirts still bunched around her waist.
“Open your legs.”
Lifting her head, she narrowed her eyes at him, her distrust evident.
“I promise my breeches will stay on this entire time.”
“Verra well.” She leaned back.
He parted her thighs with eager hands before leaning in to look, truly look, at his Isobel’s womanhood.
First he gazed at her white, lustrous thighs, pale and gleaming as pearls. He stroked her, delighting in the delicate skin overlaying muscles developed from her active pursuits. She had a horsewoman’s legs, strong and beautiful. She was glorious.
He pulled out the ribbon securing his hair and swung his head forward, toward her cunny, allowing his hair to stroke her tender flesh.
She quivered, rippling as though she were still water and he the wind caressing her. He closed his eyes, savoring the experience, then rubbed his face against her smooth, cool skin, so unlike that of any woman he’d known. The French whores he’d used had been hot and sweaty, with a pungency he realized was the result of an aversion to bathing.
Not so his Isobel. The dark bed of curls at the junction of her lovely thighs was redolent with her distinctive aroma. A woman’s aroma, musky and enticing, but with overtones of the wind and the sky and the freshness of flowers. Heaven had to smell like Isobel; otherwise, after death he’d inhabit hell.
He bent his head, still holding her knees apart, and drew a deep breath.
He could get drunk just breathing her scent. He closed his eyes, focusing, then rubbed his face against her. He was moaning and so was she.
He raised his head. “Shh.”
“Oh.” Her dark eyes rounded.
He nodded with a slight frown. “Yes. Until we are wed, we must be very quiet. Very subtle.”
She gave a little chuckle. “I am not known for subtlety, Edgar.”
He stroked her thigh from the knee toward her sweet cunny. “I know, my darling, but even your father’s tolerance has limits. I should not be abusing his trust and his friendship.” He pulled away.
“You promised!”
He sighed. “I know, and I will fulfill my promise.” He bent his head again and this time he resolved that he would not stop. He touched his tongue onto her, running the tip of it around the tip of her, circling the rosy pink dot of flesh that was the center of her desire.
“Oh, Edgar.”
“Hmm?”
“I never thought—”
“Don’t think.” He bent his head to his sweet task again, and this time fulfilled his resolution. He didn’t stop until she was gasping and pressing her hand against her mouth in a vain attempt to stifle her noisy pleasure. He had her opened wide with his hands while his mouth was busy sucking and slurping her virgin juices. Nothing was tastier, and when she collapsed back upon her pillows, he slipped his finger into her. Her tight channel seized him, strong as a fist and twenty times as active, pulling and loosening with the rhyt
hm of the sea.
He couldn’t help imagining how she’d feel clenched around his tool, and jerked away to open his breeches before he released into them. Losing control like that would be intolerable.
The cool air calmed him, and he looked down at his lover.
Isobel’s normally pale cheeks were flushed. The swells of her bosom, pressed high by her corset, surged and fell like a stormy ocean as she panted. Sheened with sweat, they were irresistible, and so he didn’t resist, instead bending over her to lick and suck and caress those cloudlike mounds.
Her hand thrust into his hair and cupped the back of his head, pulling him down harder against her. “Careful,” he murmured, kissing the valley between her breasts. “I daren’t leave a mark.”
“Oh…aye, ye’re right.” She let go, and her gaze traveled his body until it rested on his erection. “Oh.”
“Have you ever seen a man’s cock before, darling?”
She glowered at him. “Of course not.”
“Don’t be angered, lass. There’d be many a time that you might see a man in passing having a piss or p’raps swimming.”
“Weell, I’ve seen me brothers, but they’re nothing like ye.”
He couldn’t help preening.
Sitting up, she reached toward him, curious. Edgar’s cock, as he called it, jutted out of a nest of golden hair. Red it was in contrast. She touched it with a hesitant finger to find it rock-solid.
It bobbled against her hand. She pressed it with her palm, finding that it had a surprising combination of textures. Smooth and silken over hard, a wonderment to be sure. “Ah,” she breathed.
He sucked in a breath, echoing her. “‘Twould be so fine if you would do for me what I did for you.”
She eyed him uncertainly. “Kiss it?”
He closed his eyes. “Yes.”
She took it in her hand and raised it to her mouth, hesitantly touching the round, red tip of it with her lips, then her tongue. It tasted sweet and a bit salty, like Edgar’s chest had when she kissed it, but with an additional spiciness she couldn’t identify. Edgar, she thought, yes, that flavor composed of mint and honey and good clean water. She drew a circle around its ridge with her tongue and was rewarded by a happy-sounding moan followed by a thrust into her mouth.