He sighed, and she pressed on. “Do they only come when you’re asleep?”
“Nay.”
“When, then?”
He was silent for a moment, then said, “They also come…when I’m alone.”
“Oh,” she murmured. They attacked him when he was by himself and vulnerable, when other matters weren’t occupying his mind. Knowing his mind was open to them, his demons snuck in, an insidious invasion. “How do they appear to you?”
“I dinna see them when I’m awake,” he said tightly. “Only when I’m asleep. When I’m awake I only feel them.”
“How do you feel them?” she asked, frowning. She was so curious, but asking these questions made her uneasy. They were so personal, and she didn’t want him to think he was being interrogated.
“Inside. They steal my breath. They wrap around my chest and my throat until they threaten to crush me.”
“I hate them,” she whispered. When he gave her an odd look, she explained, “I hate that they hurt you.”
He shrugged. “I have recovered every time. But twice I have lost consciousness.”
“Oh, Colin.” She wrapped her hand around his arm. “We need to learn how to make them go away.”
He sighed. “I dinna think they will.”
“Why not?”
He hesitated for a long moment, his gaze trained on the road. Then he said, “They’re determined to kill me. And they wilna stop until they do.”
Chapter 12
Late that night as the rain promised by the sheep finally came, pounding down on the inn’s rooftop, Colin learned Emilia’s determination was nothing to be trifled with. She refused to allow him to sleep on the floor, throwing their conversation from earlier in the day back at him.
“You said the demons attack when you’re alone,” she argued. “If you’re lying beside me, you’re not alone.”
If I’m lying beside you, he wanted to retort, I’m so painfully hard from wanting you, I canna sleep, anyhow.
Truth was, he didn’t trust himself. Every day, his desire for her had increased, and now it was a hungry, living thing inside him, demanding to be sated. And his weapons of logic and honor were beginning to falter behind the assault of such fierce need.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she told him, gray-blue eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t hurt me.”
How could she be so confident when he was not? It must be because she was inexperienced in matters between men and women.
“I think you’re the one who’s afraid,” she accused.
She was right about that.
“If you’re sleeping on the floor, then so am I.”
“Emilia,” he said on a sigh.
“Colin.”
They stared at each other, a contest of stubbornness. One he was destined to lose.
He shook his head. “Why?”
“You protect me with everything you have,” she said. “Why will you not allow me to do whatever I can to protect you?”
That wasn’t all there was to it. He didn’t know her level of awareness of it, but she was attracted to him, and that attraction made their sleeping together even more dangerous.
She looked away from him. “There’s more,” she said softly.
Of course there was. Much more.
“I sleep better when you’re close. The nightmares go away.”
He scowled. “You have nightmares?”
Still not looking at him, she nodded.
“About…what happened with your father?”
“They started before that incident,” she rasped out. “But…yes. Last night I was having a nightmare when I woke and realized you were having one, too.”
He blew out a breath.
“He was chasing me. With his cat-o’-nine-tails.” Her chest rose and fell, and her eyes grew bright. “But each time you’ve slept at my side,” she continued, her hands curling into fists, “I haven’t dreamed about him at all.”
With that, his arguments died away. “Verra well, then,” he said in a clipped voice. “I’ll sleep on the bed.”
She breathed out in relief, but her gaze held more than relief. It held heat.
—
As he expected, it was a long night. She lay beside him, warm and sweet, with her arms twined around him. Torture.
He had to will his cock down a dozen times throughout the night. At one point, he woke from a tremulous doze with a straining erection, only to find the weight of her palm pressed against it. Glancing at her revealed that she was fast asleep, her face peaceful in slumber. Gently, he removed her hand and turned away from her, facing the wall and squeezing his eyes shut.
It was tempting to fill his mind with thoughts of battle, because it was the fastest way for him to deal with an unwanted cockstand, but that topic might also call up his demons. Instead, it took twenty minutes of multiplying three-digit numbers in his head before his errant erection went down.
Hours later, he opened his eyes to gray morning light. A misty rain fell from the sky, but here in bed, it was comfortably warm. Emilia’s arm was around him, her body pressed against him from behind. Then he realized she was kissing him, her lips moving softly over the back of his neck.
God. He was so drowsy and it felt so damn good. He should jump away, put distance between them. He was already hard again. But he was weak. He closed his eyes once more, wanting to enjoy her closeness, her kisses, for just a moment longer.
She nuzzled his ear, then gently turned him over, straddling him directly over his hardness. He let her manipulate his body, then opened his eyes again to see her gazing down at him, her curly blond hair like a halo framing her face.
Without a word, she leaned down and fused her lips to his. He opened for her, and they kissed for long, languorous minutes. She lay atop him, threaded her hands in his hair, and kissed him so sweetly he was certain he was going to explode with need.
He stroked her back, palmed her soft, round bottom through her nightgown, and tried to ignore the insistent, demanding throbbing between his legs.
Hours might have passed, he didn’t know. He had no sense of time when he had Emilia in his arms. But finally, she pulled back, a smile quirking her lips. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” he said, cupping her cheek in his palm and gazing into her eyes. Her skin was creamy soft.
“I like kissing you.”
He smiled. “I like kissing you, too, lass.”
She considered him, chewing on her lower lip. Then she sighed. “There’s no danger, you know.”
He raised a questioning brow.
“I mean, I am no longer who you think I am.”
He still didn’t understand.
“I’m no longer a lady of English society,” she explained. “I cannot change my blood or my name, but my position in society will forever be changed.”
You can change your name, Colin thought, if you marry. If you marry me.
He drew in a breath through a suddenly constricted throat as she continued. “I have become an anomaly. The people who made up my social circle will no longer be interested in associating with me. The rules of society don’t apply to me anymore, Colin.”
His lips tightened. “Why are you telling me this?”
“I’ve slept beside you,” she said softly. “I’ve run away from home. My father is a traitor, and I’ve shared his secrets with the world. My reputation has already been ground to dust.”
His heart thumped hard against his breastbone.
“All the arguments you’ve had against touching me are no longer valid. I can be with you, Colin. Don’t you see?”
“Emilia,” he ground out.
She wiggled against his pulsing cock, and it practically leapt with joy.
“You want me, don’t you?” Her eyes were so wide, so innocent. He was going to expire. Right here, right now.
He closed his eyes tight, unable to bear looking at her for a second longer. She was too damned bonny to look at.
“You ken I do,”
he managed.
“Then you should take what you want,” she said. “It’s what I want, too.”
“You dinna ken what you’re saying.”
“I do,” she argued. “I know exactly what I’m saying. Do you think I have been kept sheltered from all aspects of human relations?” She shook her head, her eyes sparkling mischievously. “I have always been a curious person, Colin. If I want to learn about something, I find a way. Alas, that particular quality has been much to my detriment when it comes to my father’s affairs.”
No doubt about that. But she was teasing the hell out of him, her pelvis rubbing rhythmically against his. He narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re a minx.”
She shook her head, and a smile played on her lips as she moved above him, a sweet grind over his cock. “I have always known what I want,” she said quietly, “even when I knew I was only dreaming and could never have it.”
He loved this confident part of her that was cracking out of the shell her father had beaten onto her.
“I know what I want now,” she continued. “And I’m thinking it’s not as impossible as it might once have been.”
Perhaps she was right. Nay, she was right. Colin knew how to please a woman, and, more than anyone he’d ever known, this woman deserved the pleasure he could offer her. “Come here,” he murmured, his voice a rumble in his chest. “Kiss me.”
She bent over him, her breasts pressing to his chest. God, if only his shirt and her nightgown weren’t in the way…Her sweet lips touched his, and he immediately took control of the kiss, wrapping his arms around her upper back and slanting his mouth over hers. She was berries and cream, silky smooth and delicious, so small and feminine she brought out all his protective urges.
He could kiss this woman forever and be a happy man. Of course, the rest of his anatomy might have something to say about that.
He realized he was thrusting up toward her, instinctively searching for that basest of connections, and he gently turned her over so that he was on top, his legs wedged between hers. Her wounds had finally healed enough for this position, and that made him happy. He preferred to be on top.
Dropping kisses over her cheeks and jaw, he murmured Gaelic endearments to her. “Gaolach Emilia, mo leannan, tha gaol agam ort.” She didn’t understand, of course, and for that he was glad. He wasn’t ready for her to hear such intimate words of love in English. But as he spoke, she gasped, and when his lips reached her throat, he felt her pulse beating frantically under her skin.
Maybe a part of her understood. Perhaps that’s why her breath caught and her hands fisted in his shirt and her body arched beneath him. He hoped so. He hoped she understood that he wasn’t making love to her just because his body demanded it, but because something was happening to him that had never happened before. Something deep in his core, irreversible and permanent.
He kissed her chest, his lips searching for the taste of her skin but encountering only the cotton of her nightgown. He counseled himself to patience, wanting to give her time to experience and enjoy each new sensation. While his body demanded immediate relief, his mind and heart wanted to give her everything.
He grazed his teeth over her small, rounded breast until he reached her nipple, which was already peaked, a sharp point against the fabric. He flicked his tongue over it, and she squirmed, gasping, her fingers tightening in his shirt. Smiling, he moved to her other breast, giving it similar treatment.
Moving back and forth, he loved each of her breasts with his mouth and his hands until she was panting. Then, keeping one hand on her, his thumb grazing over her nipple, he moved downward, kissing a line over the center of her flat stomach, over her navel, and lower.
Her breaths changed, grew shorter and choppier, when he reached the apex of her thighs, where the nightgown was bunched, exposing the tops of her legs. Kissing her through the folds of cotton, he moved his hand down, starting at her knee and stroking upward, moving the nightgown over her lower belly. He fit his hand into the dip of her waist. Her skin was warm, soft, and smooth under his palm.
He raised himself up on his free hand, high enough to see her face.
“I’ll be touching you now,” he told her. “Here.” He cupped the tight blond curls between her legs, pushing with the heel of his palm into the softness that was her womanhood.
She stared at him, her eyes glazed with lust, and her body shuddered.
“I’ve read…that this is sometimes done.”
His lips twisted. “Have you, now?”
She nodded. “There were certain books in our library…The School of Venus, Aristotle’s Masterpiece. I read them.” Her eyes locked onto his. “All of them.”
And knowing her uncanny ability to remember small details, she could probably recite them to him line for line. She could probably teach him a few things about coupling. “Curious little minx,” he growled.
She huffed out a laugh that was cut short as he dropped back down, replacing his hand with his mouth. No mercy, he thought. He was going to drive her mad with pleasure.
He went to work, spreading her wide and devouring her like a feast. She was hot and sweet, and before long, her thighs had tightened around his shoulders and she moaned on every breath.
He took his time, learning every fold of her pussy, judging by her responses where she was most sensitive, where she was too sensitive.
When her hands threaded into his hair, he kept kissing her, suckling her, teasing her opening with his lips, but he added a finger, stroking as he worked her with his mouth, sliding through her slick folds, circling the sensitive nub above her opening.
Her legs began to tremble, little vibrations against his shoulders, and her fingers tightened in his hair. She was close. Slowly, he pushed a finger inside her tight, virginal channel, and she arched up to meet him, swallowing his finger with her body and releasing a low groan of pleasure as she did so.
Good God. She wasn’t just a minx, she was a goddess. Colin had always considered himself highly sexed. He’d always loved women, loved the feel of their bodies under him, the exquisite sensation of having their sex wrapped tightly around his cock.
But Emilia…she might be his equal. She was a pulsing fireball of carnal energy. When he’d first met her, he’d thought her lovely but shy and unassuming. Now he knew she was a true force of nature. Not wilting, but blooming, vibrant, and full of life.
“Jesus,” he muttered against her, his cock hot and hard enough to cut diamonds. He moved his finger, sliding so the tip pressed her slick inner wall, and pumped in and out of her, bringing his mouth back to that sensitive nubbin.
“Oh God,” she murmured above him. “Oh Lord.”
He couldn’t blame either of them for invoking the deity at this moment. She was shaking now, her whole body shuddering around him, her channel clenching at his finger, so wet he was sure she’d drenched the mattress with her juices.
He was shaking, too, close to coming even though his cock hadn’t been near her body in long minutes. His hips pumped against the bed in time to his finger pumping into her, and he was shaking uncontrollably, and he was losing his damned mind.
He suckled her nub, circled it with his tongue, pressed the flat of his tongue against her. She wasn’t just shaking now, she was undulating, her fingers nearly pulling his hair out by the roots—but that only made him hotter.
“I can’t—” she gasped. “Can’t—”
Aye, she could and she would. He added a second finger, knowing she could take it in spite of how tight she was. She moaned loudly, and he pumped into her several more times, rounding his mouth over her nub in a way he knew she liked.
Her legs went rigid around his shoulders, her body clamped so tightly over his fingers that he had to exert force to push them deep into her, and then her back bowed off the bed.
She came in glorious waves, her channel fluttering wildly over his fingers. Her body rolled with the orgasm, and his own spasmed and rolled as well. It went on and on, her hands going open and
falling away, clutching at the bedcovers. She came silently, without a sound, and he wished he could see her face. Next time.
As the spasms slowed, so did Colin until he pulled his fingers out and gave one last gentle kiss to her glistening folds. She shivered in response, and he crawled up her limp body. Only then did he realize he had come, too, his cockstand shrinking and his belly wet with his release.
He crawled beside her, kissed her softly on her open lips. “Jesus,” he whispered in awe, looking down at her, every other word in the English language eluding him.
She was tussled and beautiful, her eyes at half-mast, her cheeks glistening with sweat. Unable to support his weight a second longer, he sank down beside her, drawing her utterly compliant body into his arms as a strange, tingly sensation overwhelmed him to his core.
Was this what love felt like?
Chapter 13
They traveled in silence for most of the morning, the horses taking them closer to the Scottish border with every hour that passed. Emilia would be excited about that, had she been able to think clearly. But she hadn’t. She was dazed, and her whole body still vibrated from what Colin had done to her this morning.
Reading about something was far different from actually doing it. She shivered, remembering the feel of Colin’s tongue on her, and looked at him from under her lashes. He was gazing at the road, his profile strong and masculine, and so very handsome. She licked her dry lips and tore her eyes away, taking an unsteady breath.
After nearly an hour of silence, Colin murmured, “Are you all right, lass?”
She turned to him. The expression on his face clawed at her heart. Concern puckered his brow, and something akin to fear darkened his eyes.
Laying her hand over his thigh, she nodded. “I am all right.” She gazed at her lap, chewing on her lower lip. “I…am more than all right,” she said.
“Are you certain?”
“I am. I feel…” She struggled to put all her complex feelings into words; she wanted to be honest with him, and also allay his fears. “I didn’t know it would be like that,” she admitted.
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