Elise
Page 31
Pipes started playing, haunting and loud, and filled with power and thunder, anger and strength.
Colin moved to her other breast, and he was yanking her dress from her body with four powerful pulls of his fists. Elise knew it because she felt them. Then he was moving and she was screaming again.
Moving. Screaming.
The bed had more bounce to it than she’d known, and he met her on the second upward one. It was the mass of his body forcing her down, onto her back, and then he was pulling her away from him by using her braid. The chemise was sliding up, baring one breast, then the other. She watched as Colin appeared to be devouring the sight with his eyes.
“I know, I’ve not... much meat to me,” she teased.
“Shut up,” he replied, hoarsely.
She heard further ripping, and from the corner of her eye, the red, green, and black plaid of his kilt went sailing to land in a puddle on the floor. Elise’s wide eyes watched it. Then she moved them back to the entire male nakedness that was him.
“Colin?”
“Doona’ say ... I dinna’ warn you, Elise.”
Hoarse breathing filled the chamber, joining the pipes and the hum in her ears and in her soul. And Colin was right there with her, filling her eyes and her mind with the glory of it. There was more, too. She knew there was, and she shook with the struggle for it, her body in an agony of want, desire, and lust that was worse than anything he’d described.
“Lass? Me. Look to me. Nae, not there!”
Elise only had a glimpse, and then she was shaking for another reason. Her arms halted the wild caresses of his back, and her limbs turned to absolute water where they were still wrapped about him.
“Colin?”
“Open for me, love. Now.”
Elise had her legs locked about him, and there wasn’t any part of her that wasn’t open and ready and willing and absolutely terrified.
“No. No. Please? Nae.”
It was her head wildly shaking, until he had to put his temple against hers to stop her. Heavy. His weight covered hers, and then he had his hands on her thighs and was parting her legs even farther, and then he was splitting her with pain, and blood, and absolute agony.
Time stopped. Nothing moved. Elise lay panting, her body filled with ache, and her eyes swimming in tears that slid out and were replaced by more. She hadn’t even known she was crying. Colin lifted his head, and the movement made more of his weight press down on her.
“Elise? Love?”
“Love?” she whispered.
“Aye.”
He gripped her hips tighter, and then she knew why as he pushed himself farther into her. Elise lifted her head and howled the agony at the ceiling.
“It’ll ease, love. It will. I promise. ’Tis your maiden wall making it so. I promise.”
He accompanied his words with yet another hold to her hips and another shove into her. Elise arched her back on it.
“You dinna’ say there would be pain. Nobody said there would be pain.”
“Elise. Love, look to me.”
He lifted his head to say it, then moved both hands to both sides of her head, where he was smoothing stray hairs over her ears. His words turned into a croon of sound, full of strength, power, and pain.
He pushed himself again. Her eyes flew open.
“Why, Colin, why?”
“I’m na’ fully sheathed yet, lass. ’Tis near insurmountable, this is. I dinna’ know if we’ll manage it fully tonight. I know I can na’ keep it back much longer. Oh, hell.”
He twinged something in the innermost, painful part of her. Elise narrowed her eyes and met his. They weren’t green or brown or anything other than black. Elise clenched her jaw and bared her teeth.
“Then do it.”
“I can na’—”
“Do it!” Elise moved her hands, and now it was her holding his head in place as she glared at him. His hair was wet, and the lace collar he still wore as a headband was wet with it. “Do it, Colin. Finish it. You say it won’t pain further? Prove it. Do it. Now.”
“Now?”
Breath touched her forehead as he lifted himself onto his arms, showing her every inch of sweat-damp flesh and sinew and muscle. Elise slid her hands from his head and molded them about the planes of his body, filling her senses with every bit of it, and then she tightened her legs about him and helped.
“Oh, dearest God.”
Colin rolled onto his side, and then his back, his hands pinioning her buttocks in place against him. The release from his weight was countering the fire-like feeling of their joining, until both sensations melded into one.
Elise sucked in air, let it out. Sucked it in. Let it out. Again. Over. Again. Her hands rubbed along his chest and belly, pushing against the solidness of him, until her palms tingled with it, and the blood in her veins sang with it.
Then he was moving her; his hands lifted her ever so slightly and let her fall back down. Embrace him. Lift from him, embrace him. The music of pipes floated into the room, coming from the opened window; the smell of new rain accompanied it, and Elise sucked in another breath full of it.
“Colin?” she whispered, opening her eyes.
“Aye.”
He had his eyes closed to slits, and that span of chest was rippling with each movement he was making her do. And he was pursing his lips, as if for an imaginary kiss. Elise had never seen anything like it and wasn’t willing to forget a moment of it.
“Colin?” she asked again.
“Aye?”
The word was said in the same modulated tone, and followed with the same kissing motion.
“I... doona’ understand.”
One eye opened wider; then the other. The kissing motion was back, too, and she realized why. He was controlling his breathing with each motion he did with her body. He was pulling in a small bit of air, and with the next, he was letting it out.
“What... doona’ you ... understand?”
He spaced the question between two of his motions.
Elise watched him do it and felt a powerful twinge deep within her at the sight. The moment it happened, Colin was in a sitting position, holding her immobile against him, and adding a bit of sound to his breathing.
“Colin?”
“Doona’ do that again, lass. I’m begging you.”
“What? This?”
This time his breathing halted and was followed almost immediately by the lowest groan she’d ever heard. Elise bent forward and put her ear to his chest to hear it better, and that unleashed something so primitive and basic within him, that she had to clasp every limb in order to have any part of it. Colin filled her vision, his mouth holding hers, then her throat, then her breast. Breathing with her, glorying in the passion with her, and sending every secret so far into her past, she’d never find them.
Harsh breathing filled her ears, bagpipes joining it, and then there was the thumping rhythm of rain drumming on the sides of Dugan’s Tower. And there wasn’t any part of her that wasn’t part of the storm outside, crashing, creating, living.
Elise held to Colin, fought with him, cleaved herself to him, danced with him, and when the rapture hit, it was her screams blending with his groans, her body sending the bliss of it back to his, and her soul matching everything of his.
A log fell.
Elise lifted her head from where it still lay, pillowed atop Colin’s chest, rhythmically rising and falling with each of his breaths. She thought he was asleep; the steady cadence of his breathing was a good indication of it. But when she tried to move, a hand snaked out and held her immobile.
“Doona’ move, my love. Na’ yet.”
“Why na’?” she asked, in a whisper.
“I’ve na’ finished memorizing this.”
“You, too?” she asked, laying back down.
He chuckled, and the sound echoed through to her ear. “Oh, aye. Me, too. Me. Forever. Dinna’ you recognize it, yet?”
Elise frowned. “We can na’ sleep lik
e this, Colin.”
“Why na’?”
“It will be cold.”
“I’ll warm you,” he replied.
“You’re beneath me,” she replied.
“I’ll crush you with my weight, otherwise. But I’m willing if you are.”
“Wait.”
Colin’s chuckle answered her as she put her hands on both sides of him to stop any such movement.
“At least, let me shut the window. It will be cold.”
“The window is na’ open, lass.”
Elise lifted her head again. “It has to be,” she whispered. “I heard it.”
“You heard an open window?”
“Nae, I heard pipes. And I heard the storm. Rain. I smelled it.”
“I know you did, lass. As did I. Trust me, the window’s shut and latched. Always has been.”
“But—?”
He was chuckling again and pulling her back onto the security of him. Then he was smoothing a hand down the mass of hair that had once been a perfect braid and ending with the caress on her buttock.
“Colin,” she warned.
“You’ve got perfect meat to you, lass. Perfect.”
“That is na’ what you said.”
“You’ve picked up a delicious brogue, Elise. I rather like it. I do. But then again, I like everything about you. Especially this. Right here.”
He had gripped her derriere and was using the handhold to move her. His chest was flexing with it. Elise rose and fell with it.
“Come eve, I’ll show you how much, too. You’re so much lass. Almost too much, even for me.” He stopped his motions and patted her.
“Colin—”
“All right, you win. You’re perfect. For me. True?”
She nodded and settled back down. It was true. She was.
Copyright © 2015 Jackie Ivie
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter-16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter2í
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28