by Suz deMello
“What isn’t?”
“Death. Can ye nae smell it?”
“I’ve been smelling it since they…took me.” Her knees quivered a little.
He supported her with a brawny hand on her shoulder before lifting her into his arms. He pressed her face against his chest, but not before she’d caught a glimpse of the large cavern.
When she’d seen it first, it had been strewn with garbage, old clothing, sea wrack and the like. Now it was strewn with bodies.
Scattered bits—heads, arms and so forth—were tossed willy-nilly. Blood oozed, its stench mingling with the miasma of rotting seaweed. Bile rose in her throat and her body convulsed.
Dugald sprinted for the cave’s mouth. She heard the splash of water beneath his boots, heard the crash of waves. Turning her head away from him, she gulped in a deep breath of fresher air. Her muscles loosened as she relaxed.
He carried her to a patch of clean, dry sand and bade her, “Rest here a wee mite. I’ll look for yer clothes.”
“And my boots, please,” she called after him.
“And yer boots.”
The beach was deserted except for herself, seaweed and…the remains of a bonfire. She gulped. She didn’t dare walk over to inspect it, guessing from what Dugald had said Malcolm had been cooked and eaten there.
Instead she looked toward the water. A fish jumped. The sun was rising behind her and she wondered how even a tendril of its light had reached into the cave. P’raps it had reflected off the water, for although fog lingered over the shore, pink pearly light touched the sky.
It was going to be a beautiful day—the best day ever. She stripped off her shift and left it on the dry sand before running toward the water. She had never done such a thing before, swimming naked in the sea, but it seemed necessary to celebrate her life by doing something different.
And, she discovered when the seawater stung her cunny, Dugald had left his mark. Most definitely. Brownish streaks on her thighs—dried blood—revealed her lost virginity. Bruises from where he’d held her tight were darkening on her hips. No doubt that the stony floor of their little cave had scraped her bottom. None of that mattered. She was alive. Every itch and prickle told her so.
Shivering, she nevertheless dipped into the water up to her neck and slid cautious fingers around her cunny. Tingly, but she preferred to be clean. She had a little bump on her head from when she’d banged it in the cavern. Her neck was a little sore, also, and she remembered that Dugald had bitten her.
She shivered. Murdo and Malcolm had also bitten the street whore on the neck. Evidently that was something men liked to do to women. She wondered if she would like to do that also.
She rinsed her mouth before she rose and walked through the waves toward the beach. A whistle caught her attention. She turned her head to behold Dugald emerging from the cavern, burdened by clothes and boots. She thought she saw her green habit in the pile that he dropped onto the sand before heading in her direction with determination written all over his pale, handsome features.
As he came, he stripped off his shirt, stopped to remove his boots and trews. His cock jutted out of a thicket of black, curly hair. Alice stared, fascinated. So that was what he’d put inside her. Mother of mercy, ‘twas huge. No wonder it had hurt.
But it had also felt…well, it had felt better than anything ever.
As he approached her, his cock rose toward his belly, growing even larger.
Her mouth dropped open. “You…you put that…in me?”
“Aye, and I would like to do it again. Unless you say me nay?”
She gulped. “I…uh…that looks…painful.”
“Well, ’twas the first time. But it should be fine, now.” He put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a winning smile.
She drew back a little to regard him and put a tentative hand on his hard, broad chest. “In truth, I do not know where to start.” The chest she’d admired through his whisky-wet shirt at the inn was sculpted like one of the statues she’d seen at the university, and as white but for the dark hair scattered over his admirable muscles. Flat nipples, slightly darker than his flesh, ornamented his torso.
Below, more muscles ridged his belly. And then, of course, there was his cock. She touched it and it leaped in her hand, like the fish at dawn. She curled her fingers around it to hold him still while she looked lower. A furry sac with two balls. His cods. Ah. Legs, long and muscled, with the same midnight hair that dusted him elsewhere.
She raised her eyes to his face and found that he was examining her as closely as she’d been looking at him. His hands also roved, up and down her sides, one coming to rest between her legs to caress her cunny while the other fondled her breasts, paying special attention to her nipples. Usually pale pink, she noticed that their tips had reddened.
“I’ll swim,” he told her, “and then I would lie with ye.”
Her eyes widened.
“I willnae come to ye dirtied by the roiseán of that foul nest.” He released her, turned and strode into the sea. When he was waist-deep, he dived forward into an oncoming wave, swimming ably as a dolphin.
She shivered and walked out of the water onto the sand, stretching her arms up toward the light. Not very warm, but she’d let the sun dry her rather than getting salty water all over her clothes.
Dugald emerged from the ocean, long dark hair streaming with water, the flat planes of his body gleaming in the pale dawn light. Like Poseidon, but with a spear between his legs not in his hands. She stifled a giggle at the thought, but his tool was far less threatening after a drenching in cold seawater.
How had a drab like her attracted a man like Dugald Kilburn?
Mayhap he had other women. The thought was deflating but logical. He hadn’t said a word about marriage, merely stating, “I’m your man.” Though that statement was quite definitive.
She swallowed her hesitation and stepped toward him, meeting him with outstretched arms and a willing kiss. His embrace was colder than the ocean but as ardent as the crashing waves. He crushed her to his wet body, dampening her, and as they kissed, her body undulated against his like an eel, smooth and sleek.
She felt beautiful when she was with him like this, naked and free, beautiful and bold as the morning. He pushed his tongue into her mouth as he picked her up, one hand on her shoulders and one beneath her rump. She wrapped her legs around his waist to support herself.
He gave a rumble of agreement. “Aye, that’s right, lass.”
Her cunny rubbed against his burgeoning cock. She hadn’t planned the action but welcomed it nevertheless. Welcomed it but was surprised when his rod’s round head slipped inside her with little warning. She had not known she was so open to him, so ready.
He lifted her a bit before letting her down and her channel, tight and wet from the seawater, parted to admit his length. She gasped at the unaccustomed intrusion. Again, he stopped and waited. She breathed heavily, moved tentatively and, following his lead, also waited. Waited until her body said yes to his, a condition heralded by a tingling sensitivity in her cunny, a feeling that drove her to grip his shoulders and slide herself up and down on his pole.
Ahhh…she flung her head back and panted, pleasure washing through her like the waves sweeping the sand. His hand slipped, its side resting in the crack dividing her bottom.
He gripped one buttock firmly. Again a new feeling, the side of his hand nestled deeply into tender flesh no one else had ever touched.
Her first instinct was to protest. Wasn’t that place dirty? But another part of her argued, not on me. She’d just washed in the ocean. And everything that Dugald and she had done had felt good, if…different.
So she didn’t ask him to move his hand. Rather, while he had her, and she him, she wriggled so his hand teased that mysterious, forbidden, enticing spot.
Leaning forward, she kissed him, shivering with a peculiar mixture of desire, heat and, yes, cold, for the morning was chilly as was his mouth and his hands. Could she reac
h the pinnacle she’d climbed last night?
She didn’t know if she could until Dugald walked over to the pile of clothes he’d previously dumped and laid her upon them. She sprawled over finery of all sorts—satin and velvet, brocade and golden trim. Her bottom rested on a silken scarf while she fingered fine lace. She sniffed suspiciously, but contact with the air outside the cave had swept away the cavern’s stink from the fabrics, replacing it with an oceanic freshness.
Still inside her, looming over her, Dugald leaned his weight on one elbow and picked up a chain with his other hand. He trailed its end across her naked breasts. Another new feeling—one she liked, for her nipples had been sensitized by his loving. She was drawn to her breasts as much as he was and so she cupped them, giving them a squeeze so they appeared larger, the nipples higher, tighter.
“I like that. I like watching you touch yourself.” His voice was husky. He bent his head and licked her offered nipples before sucking them. “Mmm, salty.”
“Are they?” She was absurdly delighted. “Are they good?”
“Aye, and I imagine that this is sweet.” He slid down her body until his head rested near her mound. He parted her legs with a gentle hand. “Your cunny is more pink than last eve.”
His candor unaccustomed, she giggled. “It’s…umm, she’s had more attention than ever before.”
“Aye, and it willnae be the last time.” He bent his head and kissed her softly, parting the folds with his lips before taking her with his tongue.
She opened her legs wider and reached down to guide his head to the spot that would please her the most, that little bump atop her slit. He obliged, licking her there while sliding a finger inside her channel.
While she allowed bliss to flood her body, her mind hadn’t stopped. She wondered what she’d become. Last night she’d thought they were going to die, which had made what she did with Dugald permissible, of no consequence given their probable fate. But what were her reasons on this new, bright day?
She’d been carried away by the beauty of the morning and sheer relief that she—they—were still alive. That did not make what they were doing right, or smart.
But could she stop herself, or him?
Later, p’raps, but not at this moment, not when he had his head buried between her legs and his tongue buried in her cunny and his fingers, his marvelously long, clever fingers, buried in her channel doing delicious and naughty things.
Naughty. She’d never before been naughty. Never had the opportunity, really, not after her mother had died and they’d lost their home and everything had gone to—she dared think the word—hell.
There. She hadn’t said it, but she’d thought it. My life had been hell. And hell for her had been a cold and lonely place, wandering between different colleges and universities, never knowing a true home, not since Mama had died. She’d taken care of her father and made the semblance of a home as best as she had been able wherever they’d been, but life had been hard. Life had been hell.
Dugald stopped kissing her cunny and looked up the length of her naked form and into her eyes. “What is it, mistress? For a mo’ ye seemed ten thousand furlongs away.”
She came back to the moment and smiled at him. “I was just thinking.”
“Thinking?” His black brows drew together. “Ye’re not supposed to think when your man makes love to ye, lass. Ye’re supposed to feel. But what thoughts trouble your lovely head?” He scooted up her body by her side and draped his arm around her shoulders.
“Everything’s changed now. Everything in my life.”
“Everything had already changed for ye. It’s just changed a little more.”
She turned her face away. “I don’t want the Kilburns to think I’m…loose. Unsuitable to teach their children.”
“Och. I didnae think of that last night. ’Tis true that milady is a stickler.” He shrugged. “Well, then, there’s a few solutions. We’ll hide what we do, or we won’t do it at all. Or we’ll marry or, if ye prefer, handfast. There be many Kilburn men—mayhap ye’ll prefer another.” He winked.
“Never. What if I’m…increasing?”
His face went blank and smooth, and her heart chilled.
Then he smiled at her and hugged her closer. “That shouldnae happen, but if it does, I’ll love our bairn all his life.”
“Or her.” But what had that momentary bleak expression meant?
“Or her.” His voice was firm.
She cast aside her concern. He sounded sure, so why should she worry?
He went on, “I’m your man, Mistress Alice. One look at ye, one sniff of your gorgeous perfume and I was lost, lost forever.” His voice had taken on a sonorous tone.
She jabbed him with an elbow. “Stop that.”
He laughed.
“And what perfume do you mean? I don’t wear scent. I can’t afford to buy any.”
He nuzzled her neck. “Then your fragrance is something natural to ye. And as enticing as the tastiest stew.”
“Thank you,” she said tartly, stood and walked off.
He followed her toward the water, watching as she rinsed.
A mystery was Mistress Alice, and again he was assailed by doubts. What had he said that was so wrong? What had she been thinking?
He sighed. He knew ‘twas wrong to compare, but his wife Elsbeth had been an open book, earthy, warm and direct. Alice was frequently direct, and undoubtedly honest, but she was different.
She’s a Sassenach, he reminded himself. An outsider, an Englishwoman. But that couldnae be the root of the mystery, could it? Elsbeth had also been English. But she’d been milady’s servant, while Mistress Alice wasnae one thing nor the other, he hazarded. She wasnae a highborn lady but not a servant either.
He didnae quite ken how to deal with her. But deal with her he must.
And, truth to tell, he wanted to be hers, and she his. That she’d been virgin had been a bonus. He would be her one and only.
As for bairns…well, that might never happen. He’d pulled out, and creatures such as he rarely reproduced, despite their long-lived nature. Should he tell her of his doubts? Of his late wife’s fate?
No.
He followed Alice to the edge of the water and in. Impulse seized him and he grabbed her around the waist and hauled her deeper into the waves.
She squealed. “Stop!”
“Why?”
“I can’t swim!”
“I can,” he said, laughing. “Have I ever steered ye wrong, mistress mine?”
She stopped gulping in air and calmed, her struggling body growing still. “Er, no.”
“Weel, then…” He towed her swiftly out beyond the breakers, and she gasped. From his speed, he reckoned. He was bigger and faster than ordinary. He didnae regard that as anything to boast about, just fact. “Push your feet doon, like ye’re stamping on a floor.”
She obeyed and he held her away from his body so she wouldnae knee him in the cods. “I’m gonnae let ye go now.”
She sent him a glance replete with fear.
“I’ll no let ye drown. How would I explain that to milaird and milady?”
“Very amusing.”
“‘Tis no’ amusing at all.” He sighed. “I already have to explain Malcolm’s death.”
“What will happen? Will you be punished?”
“Och, no. That’s not milaird’s way. There may be some shouting, of course, but no punishment except that of me conscience.” He pulled away from her, holding on only to her hands. Her fingers curled around his even while her arms gently waved beneath the water’s surface.
“That you have one is to your credit. Many men do not.” She took a deep breath and let him go. She trod water quite capably though she hadnae lost the look of a frightened ewe.
“Good! Good! Ye may now add swimming to yer list of accomplishments when ye meet milaird and milady.”
She giggled. “Hardly. I feel as though I am barely staying alive.” The waves lifted her and let her down, clasping her in
their rhythmic grasp. Her breathing evened.
“Treading water is the first step. The other two are stroking with yer arms, like this…” He demonstrated. “And kicking. Well done. Take me hand and let’s go back.”
She obeyed. “Yes, let’s. It’s cold. I can’t believe you dragged me out here!”
“’Tisnae nearly as cold as the sea at Kilburn,” he said whilst towing her. “Home is much farther north. Remember to kick and stroke.”
“Ah.”
She kicked and he towed and they speedily reached the shoreline. He walked up the beach, found a clean, dry chemise and handed it to her along with her new pink silk shift. Though crumpled and none too immaculate, ‘twas nevertheless hers, and he guessed she’d prefer to wear her own apparel.
He was right. She dried her lovely, lithe body—the body he’d claimed and loved so well—with the borrowed chemise and donned her own, then found stockings, a blouse and her riding habit. “Where are my stays?” she demanded, holding the jacket in one hand and the skirt in the other.
He evaded her eyes. “I couldnae find them. Do ye really need them? Your form is beautiful, mistress, in need of no…staying.” He shoved his legs into his black trews and tied them at his waist.
“Thank you.” A bonnie blush stained her cheeks as she found petticoats and tied them beneath her habit’s skirt. She slid her arms into the jacket and buttoned it up to the throat before looking for boots that fitted. That took a few minutes while she tried different pairs before she exclaimed in delight. “You found my boots!”
“I did?” He slipped his arms into his shirt.
“Yes!” She held up a pair of battered black boots.
He restrained a sigh. He’d hoped she’d find a different, newer, pair. “Do any of the others fit?”
“Yes, but it never does to break in new shoes on a long trip. Didn’t you know?”
“That may be, but carry with ye any shoon that fit, mistress. Ye may have need of them.” He sat on the discarded clothing and pulled on his boots. “Are ye ready?”