A Beautiful Lie (The Camaraes)

by Stephanie Sterling

  “Lachlan?” she panted.

  “Mmm?” he murmured, the low sound felt as though it rumbled straight through Muira’s pounded blood. He raised his head, shooting her a wicked smile. “You want me to stop?” he puffed, his breath raising goose bumps on his wife’s creamy white skin.

  Muira shook her head, still too caught in the new thrall of the sensations that were rocking her body to voice her desire.

  “No?” Lachlan breathed for her. “Maybe you want more?” he panted. Muira nodded her head, still wholly unable to speak. “Maybe you want me to touch you somewhere else?” he whispered, laying a suggestive hand on her thigh.

  Lachlan waited, to see what Muira would do, to see if she would shy away, to see if she would welcome him. Her eyes, so glazed with passion that her husband only had to look into them to start to burn, widened, but she didn’t push his hand away.

  Working slowly, as he whispered soft nonsensical words of reassurance, Lachlan hiked the skirt of her nightdress up around her waist so that the white fabric formed a belt around her middle. Muira began to shift nervously, but Lachlan wasn’t prepared to lose her now. He crawled over her body, still fully clothed himself, but pain sliced through his heart when he saw her face become overcast with a shadow of fear.

  “What is it, lass?” he whispered, pressing his lips to her forehead, her cheeks, her nose, strumming his fingers over her sides, working desperately to lull her back into her passion hazed daze.

  He didn’t know if was going to be able to stop. He had only meant to soothe her, pleasure her, but his body was aroused to the point of pain. He wanted to fulfil his fantasies of the night before. He wanted-needed to bury himself between her legs; he needed to make her belong to him in the most primal way known to man.

  “You’re too big,” Muira puffed, but her voice no longer held the flash of fear that Lachlan had recognised earlier on her face. He couldn’t help but grin. “You’ll crush me,” she clarified, to her husband’s amused disappointment.

  “I’ll let you ride me,” he panted thickly into her ear. Her confused little frown sending bolts of desire pulsing through his hugely erect cock. He wanted to show her everything, teach her everything. “But that can wait,” he grunted, pressing his lips once again against hers, distracting her slightly as he let his hand dip beneath her undergarments.

  Muira gasped in shock when she felt him there, between her legs, but Lachlan also groaned in surprise when he felt how incredibly hot and wet and ready she was for him. She was so impossibly slick that his body gave a shudder of appreciation.

  “Lachlan?” she whimpered, her brows knotting in a frown that was a combination of confusion and disbelief. She tried to close her legs, but her husband gently prevented her.

  “Let me do this for you,” he purred, stroking her slit, searching for the swollen bundle of nerves at the head of Muira’s opening. When he grazed it with his fingertip his wife’s reaction was instant, she gasped sharply and bucked of the bed. Lachlan grinned. “Wait, it gets better,” he chuckled, slightly smugly, working the raised nub harder with his fingers.

  He’d already brought her to such a point that it was only going to take the smallest push to send her toppling into ecstasy, and Lachlan wanted to watch her face when she came. Muira was already flushed, her skin damp, her mouth slightly opened as she gasped and whimpered mindlessly.

  “I can’t-” she puffed, eyes rolling back in her head. “Lachlan, I don’t-” she cried, and then she was screaming, jerking of the bed as her whole body convulsed with her release.

  Lachlan didn’t think that he had ever seen anything so beautiful, and he didn’t think he was going to be able to restrain his own rampant needs for another second.

  “I need you, Muira,” he rasped. “I can’t wait. I’m so sorry.”

  But his wife was still trying to recover from her first taste of ecstasy and seemed not hear him, or indeed to notice when he slipped a finger inside her still pulsing sheath.

  Lachlan frowned when he felt how incredibly tight she was, marvelling that she could still be so unbelievably small after being raped by MacEantach… He pushed that puzzling thought aside and worked as quickly as he could to prepare her, his kilt making a mockery of his condition, as he trembled with desperation to slake his lust.

  “L-lachlan, what-?” Muira stammered. Her voice was breathy, but tinged with a fearful note of doubt. She had finally regained enough of her senses to realise he was not just between her legs, but also inside her.

  “I’ll be gentle,” he panted, appalled by the plea in his voice. He couldn’t remember ever needing a woman this badly before. “I’ll be gentle,” he repeated, willing her to accept him.

  Lachlan wasn’t certain if it was fear or consent on Muira’s part when she allowed him to push her legs further apart. He hated himself for not being in control enough to check. He simply settled in the cradle that he’d created for himself, folds of tartan concealing his erection from Muira’s wide anxious eyes, as he nudged his cock against her wet slit.

  He heard her gasp, and his own breath escaped his body in a hiss as he sank into her sheath, but only by a fraction. He was going to be gentle if it damn well killed him! He owed Muira that much at least.

  “Relax,” Lachlan begged, pushing a little deeper. He instantly felt her tighten, and had to bite the inside of his lip to stop himself from coming immediately. He stopped where he was, physically shaking from the toll this self-imposed restraint was placing on his body. “It hurts?” he groaned. He didn’t know what he’d do if she said yes. He couldn’t believe that she’d got him into such a state!

  “N-no,” Muira gasped hesitantly. “It just-it feels so odd,” she confessed breathlessly.

  Odd? He most definitely had to do something about that! But Muira wriggled unexpectedly beneath him, shifting her hips and Lachlan sank further into her body. His eyes, which had been closed to slits that he could barely see out of, sprang open. He nudged forward again to be certain, eyes now narrowing when he encountered the unmistakable barrier of her maidenhead.

  “You’re a virgin?” he spat.

  Muira’s face had slowly been relaxing, softening in pleasure, as she got used to the feel of holding Lachlan’s sex inside her body, but at his vicious question she tensed in terror all over again.

  “I am?” she whimpered, but Lachlan was in no state to attend her confusing query.

  “In which case,” he growled. “This is going to hurt, Cameron,” Lachlan hissed nastily, making her feel his betrayal, and then he thrust, driving forward as hard as his hips could propel him.

  Muira’s shriek of pain sliced through his heart, and Lachlan instantly regretted his cruelty with an enormity that could not be exaggerated. His body was in heaven, but his soul was in hell. He stilled inside her. She could have been made for him, so hot and tight and wet, clenching around his cock like a sodden fist, but her eyes-her eyes were bright with tears. He moved to capture her lips, silently begging her forgiveness, but Muira turned her head away from him, and Lachlan had never felt so completely in the wrong.

  He couldn’t possibly stay still a moment longer however, so he slowly began to thrust, desperately trying to soothe the hurt he’d caused Muira. It must have been guilt that was holding his body in check, stopping him from coming, as he loved her. He was aching to hear a gasp of pleasure and not pain trickle from her lips.

  “I’m sorry,” Lachlan panted into her ear. “God, Muira, I’m so sorry,” he groaned, hips still rolling into hers.

  This had to start feeling good for her, didn’t it? Pleasure was fairly crackling though Lachlan’s veins. It seemed nonsensical that his body could be racing towards such a towering peak of bliss, while Muira suffered beneath him in pain… and then Lachlan heard a sound that nearly sent him spilling himself inside her right there and then. Muira moaned him name. The single word so infused with passion and need that it was hardly recognisable.

  “Oh God,” he grunted, plunging harder.

 
; Lachlan heard his wife whimper, and then at the change of pace, Muira began to writhe against him, bucking and grinding mindless as she thrashed her head back into the pillows. Her nails clawed at his back, gripping him cruelly through the fabric of his shirt. Lord, he wished he were naked so he could feel the slick heat of their skin moving together.

  Lachlan wasn’t sure if it was due to him, or simply an eighteen-year wait, but he could feel the walls of Muira’s cunt tightening as she approached her second orgasm. The sensation dragged him to the very edge of his limits. One more thrust would be all his body could take. He pulled back, as far as he was able without slipping out of her heat, as caught Muira’s eye. She looked drugged with pleasure.

  “Please,” she begged breathlessly, catching Lachlan completely by surprise. He slammed home, stealing both their breaths, and they both broke in ecstasy.

  It had never felt so good… was the one thought flashing through Lachlan’s brain, as he was nearly rendered unconscious by the force of his release. He jetted his seed deep into Muira’s womb, loving the feel of her jerking beneath and around him.

  “Oh God,” he panted, collapsing on top of his wife’s body, bearing down upon the ample pillow of her breasts. “Oh God,” he swore mindlessly. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t move, he could barely breath.

  Lachlan let himself lie like that, in a sated exhaustion, until he felt Muira begin to shift uncomfortably beneath him. Using what little strength he retained, he managed to roll off her body, but clasped her very firmly against his side. He waited until enough of his breath had returned to let him speak, and then he turned his head to look at her.

  She looked utterly dazed, and Lachlan couldn’t contain a satisfied smile when he read the expression of blatant fulfilment on her face, but neither could he forget the discovering he’d made, or his cruel reaction to it.

  “Muira,” he sighed, sitting up and stripping off his damp shirt. “I’m-sorry that I did that to you-but do you want to tell me why you lied this time?” he asked wearily.

  “I didn’t!” she cried, the blissfully little smile instantly vanishing from her lips. She blinked tearfully and then tugged at her nightgown, covering herself from his sight.

  “You told me MacEantach raped you,” Lachlan growled, some of his anger returning.

  “R-raped?” Muira blinked still anxious, but clearly confused.

  Lachlan glanced down at her with some confusion and sighed. “You know-forced himself on you?”

  “He did!” Muria argued adamantly.

  “He did not!” Lachlan growled. “He could not possibly have forced you to do what we’ve just done!”

  Muira opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. No… Tavish hadn’t forced her to do that exactly, but that must have been what he’d intended to do to her. She shuddered in disgust at the thought her despised ex-fiancé doing anything so intimate to her body, of having him joined with her, of feeling him moving inside of her… Muira took a gulping breath and willed the heat that was rushing to her cheeks, at the memory of Lachlan doing those things to her, to go away. She hadn’t known that it was possible to do such things, to feel such things…

  Muira glanced down at her hands to try and hide her blush. Her body was still tingling slightly, and she felt incredibly sore inside, but she wouldn’t take any of it back. Well… maybe Lachlan’s anger, his disgust…

  “Muira?” he pressed firmly. “The truth.”

  “I-I didn’t know,” she mumbled.

  “You didn’t know what?”

  “I didn’t know that-that this,” she flailed her arms helplessly in the direction of the bed “-was what happened between a man and a woman,” she blurted, humiliated.

  Lachlan didn’t laugh at her, as she’d feared he would though. He did smile, but it was in the same kind manner that she remembered first seeing light his handsome face.

  “Oh Muira,” he whispered, placing a kiss on her forehead. “My Muira,” he added, and he sounded quite possessive, Muira found that she liked it. It warmed her poor, battered heart. “What did he do to you?”

  “Tavish?” she whispered, curling into Lachlan’s side and laying a hesitant hand on his now bare chest. He nodded his head, gently stroking a hand through her curls. “He-well the morning before I ran away and met you, he came to my room,” Muira explained in a small voice. “He said he-he’d come to advantage of his rights as a husband.”

  She watched as Lachlan frown darkly. “Go on?” he pressed.

  “I didn’t want him to, but he didn’t give me any choice,” she whispered, shivering. Lachlan pulled her closer. “He t-touched me with his hands like you did,” she whimpered, “only-but I didn’t-it felt-” she cried softly.

  “Where did he touch you?” Lachlan growled. Muira could clearly hear the anger in his voice again now. She hoped desperately that it was directed towards Tavish and not herself.

  “H-here,” she sniffed reluctantly, waving a hand across her breasts as if she couldn’t bear to linger over the memory. “And l-lower down-” she dropped her hand towards the core of her femininity, where Lachlan had been just minutes before, loving her fiercely and obliterating the taint that Tavish had left behind, but then she broke in into a full flood of tears.

  “Oh, darling,” Lachlan breathed, sitting up and bundling her into his arms. He kissed her temple, and then he cheek, before finally finding her mouth. Muira melted in his arms. It wasn’t passion, but comfort, that he was imparting. “I’m so sorry,” he growled. He paused for a moment, but then asked: “How did you get away?”

  “He said he was going to tell my father,” she croaked wretchedly. “He said that he’d go to him the morning after our wedding and tell my father that I was whore,” she wailed, “that I’d already been with a man. I couldn’t let him do that!” she sobbed. “I fought back, I-I think I must have surprised him, and then I ran.”

  Lachlan sighed heavily. “And then I found you and handed you back over to that bastard,” he spat, self-disgust evident in his tone.

  “You didn’t know,” Muira said quietly.

  “That night, he tried again?” Lachlan scowled, and Muira nodded.

  “But you saved me,” she said, with a small smile. “And then look what I did to you,” she finished sadly.

  Lachlan kissed her again instead of responding with words, deeply and fiercely, his tongue surging between her lips as he trying to relate something that he was unable to say.

  “I am sorry, Lachlan,” Muira gasped breathlessly when her mouth was released from its sweet imprisonment. “If I’d only thought-if I could do it all again I’d-” she was silence by her husband pressing a finger against her lips.

  “Don’t lass,” he said gruffly. “I’m beginning to think that I really was your only escape.”

  “So you’re-you’re not angry with me anymore, for what I did?” Muria asked hopefully. So knew that it was a rather huge thing to ask him, and it was probably still too near the event for Lachlan to fully be able to forgive her, but she just couldn’t stop the words from spilling forth.

  Lachlan stared at her silently for a moment, but then turned his head and looked away. “You’ve had a long day, you should sleep,” he muttered.

  Muira felt her heart sink, which was odd, she considered. Given how awful things could have been between her and Lachlan, they really weren’t too terribly bad. In fact, considering that she had thought he might try to kill her things were positively rosy, and yet…

  “Let me strip off this top blanket and they you can lie down,” Lachlan said gently, interrupting Muira thoughts. She looked at him in question, and then down at the covers. Her cheeks burned in humiliation when she saw the red stain of her lost innocence.

  “Oh my-I should-”

  “Leave it,” Lachlan said gently, lifting her with him as he stood. He kissed her cheek soothingly, seemingly sensitive to her embarrassment. “I’m glad I was the first man to have you,” he whispered huskily, and Muira felt her discomfort waiver in th
e face of this affirmation. She watched him pull off the blanket and leave it in a corner of the room, returning to her side to add: “the only man to ever have you.”

  “Lachlan-” she began breathlessly, but a light kiss was dotting on the tip of her nose as she was nudged back into bed.

  “Sleep now,” he yawned, extinguishing the candles as Muira obediently crawled into bed. She listened to the whisper of fabric in the dark, as her husband took off his kilt, before joining her in bed just as he had the night before, gloriously naked.

  The fact stirred something in Muria now, something that was definitely not fear. Lachlan had awoken the sleeping passion of feminine, and everything that had once seemed threatening now appeared thrilling. Muira shivered when her husband reached for her, pulling her back against his chest.

  “Cold?” he asked sleepily, draping an arm around her waist and holding her tight.

  “No,” Muira gasped, wondering if she would ever be permitted to sleep without her gown, and wondering at herself for having such thoughts!

  She felt Lachlan kiss her neck one last time, before her warrior husband settled down to sleep. His breathing was deep and regular almost the second his head touched the pillows. Muira was less able to slip into dreamy slumbers however; she had far too much to think about. She was replaying the night’s events in her mind, reliving every kiss, every caress… every thrust of Lachlan’s hips. She licked her dry lips, growing restless just from the memory.

  The moment of pain when he had taken her had been intense, both physically and emotionally. She’d been convinced in that second that although their bodies had never been closer their hearts and minds had been leagues apart, but then slowly everything had merged together in a swirling vortex of white-hot bliss.

  It wasn’t love, Muira arguing, yawning herself as her eyelids grew steadily heavier. It wasn’t love… but maybe it could be?