He lavished the sensitive bud with attention, swirling his tongue around the dusky peak, grazing with his teeth, drawing gasps and moans of delight from his wife’s lips as one corner of his passion-hazed mind clung desperately to what she had said… it’s always good for me, even when she didn’t want it to be perhaps…?
“Lachlan,” Muria gasped, arching towards him as he ravished her. He wanted this to be perfect. He wanted to show her how much he adored her. So he peeled away every scrap of clothing that she was wearing until she was lying, spectacularly naked, beneath him.
“So beautiful,” he moaned reverently, drinking in the sight of her body, the heavy curves and flushed creamy skin. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, in between the kisses he peppered over her forehead, and nose, her cheeks, her lips…
“I want-” Muria gasped, clutched helplessly at his shirt. She looked up at him with unfocused eyes. “I need-” she gasped incoherently, tugging again at the fabric.
Lachlan kissed her soundly, and then obeyed her unspoken command-stripping off his shirt and kicking off his boots, until he was only clad in his kilt. He hesitated then however; he didn’t know how he would cope if his wife decided to reject him… Rejecting Lachlan seemed a very far thought from Muria mind however, she gave a frustrated whimpered and reached impatiently for the buckle of his belt.
“Slowly, lass,” he purred, smothering her lips under his as he let his fingers stroke her sides. He wanted to savour every moment, still only half believing that what was happening was real and not just another dream.
“No, Lachlan!” Muira begged, passing her hand heavily over the tented fabric of her husband’s kilt until he was rocking into her hand. “Not slowly,” she panted, running her hands possessively over the tight muscles of his back, working up and then down, lower and lower until she was cupping his arse.
Lachlan froze, breathing unsteadily as Muira worked the tartan through her fingers until she was touching him skin to skin. He moaned thickly as she increased the pressure of her hands, dragging him down and pushed herself up-grinding their bodies together in a wanton, sensual dance.
“I want you,” Lachlan grunted, confessing the obvious, reaching with shaking hands to rid his body of the kilt. He watched as Muira nodded eagerly, parting her legs wide and sighing with relief when he settled back between them, the enormous rod of his cock finally exposed to her hungry view.
He kissed her again as his hand wandered down to the core of her heat. He wouldn’t have thought it possible, but he hardened further when he felt how incredibly wet she was for him. He trailed one bridle worn finger through her slit, studied Muira flushed face as his own body pulsed and twitched. A low cry trickled from her lips, and she almost instantly began rolling her hips into his hand as he teased and tortured her.
“Do it, Lachlan,” she begged raggedly. Her nails were digging cruelly into his shoulders as she thrashed around beneath him. “Just take me!” she whimpered.
The last thread of Lachlan’s restraint snapped. I love you, he thought, and wanted, but didn’t dare, to speak the words aloud as he plunged forward, burying himself deep between Muira’s legs.
They both lost their breath. Lachlan stilled, knocking up against Muira’s womb, barely able to believe how good it felt to be inside her body again. It was like heaven. It was like he’d come home. After only a week of being empty she was already torturously tight, straining to accommodate the thick girth of her husband’s sex.
“Oh God, move,” Muira panted, trying to roll her hips beneath him. “Move, Lachlan,” she begged, crying out in ecstasy when he obeyed.
He rocked back and then slammed forwards, bringing their bodies crashing together with a delicious, sizzling amount of force. It had been all of seven days since Lachlan had last had Muira, but it might have been a lifetime given the sheer amount of bliss he felt in finally being allowed to take her again.
She had to feel it too. The thought echoed through Lachlan’s mind, as he loved his wife fiercely. She had to see how right this was, she had to understand that they were made to be together… she had to know how sorry he was for hurting her.
They were both too desperate, wound too tight, for Lachlan to believe that he could draw things out between them. His body had been aroused to the point of pain before, and now that he had been given the liberty to thrust into the wet channel of Muira’s cunt he didn’t see how he was possibly going to last very much longer.
“Come for me, lass,” he panted into Muira’s ear.
Her gasps were growing increasingly desperate, and evolved into a full cry when Lachlan slide a hand between their bodies to milk her clit. Her face was the most erotic sight that Lachlan had ever seen. Her features were bunched, mimicking an expression of pain that her husband knew belied the most exquisite sensation of pleasure. Her eyes were two silver slits, her parted mouth flushed red and swollen, while her fiery hair frames her beautiful face. He didn’t think it would be possible to love a woman more…
“I-oh Lachlan I-” she moaned mindlessly. Lachlan could feel her start to tighten around his cock. He pinched her clit between his thumb and forefinger, and then hilted himself in her cunt-the duel assault sent Muira toppling into ecstasy with a scream of his name on her lips.
Lachlan shuddered as Muira clenched around him. The image of her as she came, head thrown back, neck arched and body heaving, was enough to drive him into taking her like some kind of wild beast. His back flexed and cracked like a whip as he thrust frantically, plunging impossibly hard, impossibly deep, as Muira continued shivering in release.
It was only a few more moments until Lachlan joined her. His cock throbbed fiercely and then Lachlan exploded inside her, spilling his seed as pleasure so intense that it knocked out all of his other senses crackled through his veins.
Once he was spent, he collapsed onto the pillow of Muira’s breasts, too gloriously sated to move again for several moments.
When Muira eventually made a small murmured of protest Lachlan managed to roll off her and onto his back, but kept her clasp firmly against his side. His eyes were shut, but his lips twitched in a smile when he felt his wife’s fingers skate tenderly over his chest.
He wanted to tell her how amazing it had been, how amazing she was, how much he loved her… but what he actually said was: “thank you.”
“Thank you?” Muria echoed, a note of confusion evident in her husky voice.
“For letting me back in,” Lachlan murmured, running his fingers lovingly through his wife’s hair. She was still and silent for a moment, but the words she then spoke cut like a knife being plunged into Lachlan’s heart.
“It’s not as though I had a choice.”
The accusation was softly spoken, but it pierced Lachlan’s very soul. He froze. His whole body seemed to catch its breath as he processed her words.
“You what?” he choked, but didn’t give Muira time to answer. “But you said-you wanted-” he groaned, pulling away from his wife, dropping her from his arms. The pleasure, which had been so bone-deep a minute ago, was gone, forgotten, leaving only the ravages of intense pain in its wake. He stumbled off the bed, away from Muira, but his eyes never left her face. “You-” he began again, but he just couldn’t find the words.
“Wait! I didn’t mean to say that out loud,” Muira blurted. She looked desperate, but Lachlan couldn’t forget what she had just said, despite what she might try to say now. Muira crawled across the bed however, making to reach for him, but Lachlan stayed out of her grasp.
“But you would have been thinking it,” Lachlan breathed. His voice had taken on a surreal note of calm. He reached numbly for his clothes, while Muira watched him anxiously from the bed.
“Lachlan, please listen,” she said quickly, wringing her hands. “I didn’t mean it like you think,” she squeaked. “Please?” she begged, but he shook his head.
So she saw herself as being unable to deny him, unable to refuse him his “rights” as her husband… hadn’t he hear
d her say something similar in relation to Tavish? No wonder he felt sick to his stomach! Lachlan didn’t know how he’d managed to get this all so wrong, but he was determined to put it right if it killed him… which there was every possibility that it might.
“I’ll deal with it,” he muttered cryptically, sitting down on the edge of a chair and pulling on his boots.
“Deal with what?” Muira croaked. “Lachlan what are you going to do?” she cried. She picked up a shawl off the end of the bed and hurried over to him. “Please Lachlan, I only meant that you-” she paused, frantically trying to find the words. “That you can-well, make me feel things I don’t always want to.”
Lachlan winced. How was that any better than his interpretation of what she had said? What was the difference between forcing her to feel things and forcing her to do things? Pivotally to Lachlan, he was forcing something upon Muira that she didn’t want-namely himself. He loved her much too much to continue to do that…
“I don’t want you to feel that way, Muria,” Lachlan breathed difficulty. He stood up, towering over his wife.
“What way? What do you mean?” she asked anxiously, trembling as she spoke.
“To be always afraid, always scared of what I might do next.”
“I’m not afraid of you!” she gasped, so passionately that Lachlan couldn’t bear to believe that it was a lie.
“But you hate me-you said so yourself,” he murmured, flinching at the painful memory. “I thought-” Lachlan stopped himself. “I doesn’t matter what I thought,” he sighed, shaking his head mournfully. “It’s over now.”
“What?!” Muira shrieked.
“I’m going to go and see your brother. I’m going to tell him-”
“You can’t!” Muira cried, suddenly throwing herself forward against his chest. She clung to him desperately. “Please, oh-please, don’t send me away, Lachlan?” she croaked, staring up at him with glassy, teary eyes.
“I know that you’re worried about what your family will think,” Lachlan said difficultly, trying to steel himself against the luscious feel of her body pressed up against his own. “But I’ll make sure they know it was all my fault-that you are completely innocent. They’ll be ready enough to blame a MacRae warrior I’m sure.”
He couldn’t understand why Muira was shaking her head, why she was clinging to him, why there were tears coating her cheeks. After everything that she’d said to him, surely this was what she wanted?
“Muira,” he said, trying to prise her off him, but she merely hung on to his body tighter.
“Please?” she sobbed. “Please, just-just forget that I said anything?” she begged. “I just wanted to hurt you. I was just lashing out. What you-we did just then was-”
Lachlan would never know how Muria had intended to finish that sentence, because there was loud knock on the chamber door. Muira, in her near-to-naked state, squealed and ducked behind her husband as he called for whomever it was to enter.
“Laird MacRae wants to see you immediately, Lachlan.” The man delivering the message was the MacRae’s war captain. His eyes flickered disapproving towards his tanist’s wife. “He’s going to see the Camerons now and wants you with him.”
Lachlan nodded his head gravely. He heard Muira whimper his name again, but he couldn’t afford to pay her any heed. He knew what needed to be done now. It was just a case of doing it.
..ooOOoo..
Muira watched her husband go with a newly broken heart. It had just been starting to mend. She’d very slowly been beginning to heal, and then, like a scab being ripped off a wound, she was in a worse place than where she’d started! And this time, it was all her fault!
“Oh God!” she whimpered, turning back towards the mattress and crawling upon it like a wounded animal. She breathed in the scent of sex that lingering upon the sheets and began to cry in earnest. What had she done? What had she done!
It had been so wonderful, so heavenly. Muira had finally found a sense of peace as she’d lain in Lachlan’s arms, and then as the blissful clouds lifted there had been a second, just a moment, of bitter resentment-and it had come spilling out of her mouth!
She wailed pitifully into her pillow. She felt emotionally shattered, but also physically exhausted. Her swollen eyelids were too heavy to keep open, and before she had a chance to fight it, Muria had cried herself to sleep. It was a few hours later when the sound of the door opening woke her instantly.
“Lachlan?” she called, squinting through the darkness, a little surprised by how late it was, her stomach growled in protest.
“Muira?” Lachlan’s voice carried through the shadowy room. There was an edge of concern to his tone that Muira clung to. “Are you all right?” he asked anxiously.
Of course she wasn’t all right! Muira wanted to scream at him. How could she possibly be all right? However, when she opened her mouth to shout as much at her husband, an intense wave of nausea gripped her. She clamped a hand over her mouth, jumped up from the bed, and rushed over to the china washbasin where she was violently sick.
If she hadn’t felt so absolutely dreadful all of a sudden, Muira would have been completely mortified about being sick in front of her husband, as it was, she simply whimpered pitifully and crumpled in a little heap on the floor. She barely even registered Lachlan rushing to her side.
“Muira? Lass, what is it? What’s wrong?” he asked desperately, crouching down by her side.
“Probably just something I ate,” Muira groaned, holding herself rigidly still and waiting to see if the nausea had passed. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” she moaned, trying to struggle back onto her feet. Lachlan’s arms were instantly around her. He lifted her effortlessly off the floor and held her gently in his arms.
“You want to go back to the bed?” he asked softly. Muira nodded her head weakly, and allowed Lachlan to carry her across the room. He laid her down carefully on the blankets, staring at her worriedly. “Should I call for the castle doctor?” he asked, pressing his hand against her forehead to check for a fever.
“I’m sure it’s nothing serious,” Muira sighed. In all honestly she was already feeling quite a lot better. She didn’t want to do anything that would run the risk of making Lachlan stop looking at her in the devoted fashion that he was staring at her now, but she had to know if he’d spoken to Ewan yet. “How did things go with Laird MacRae?” she croaked, gratefully accepting the glass of water that her husband had just handed her.
“Fine,” he said curtly, ringing for the maid to clean things up.
“Lachlan,” Muira sighed, gazing up at him imploringly.
“It was a couple of hours of people introducing themselves,” he shrugged his shoulders. “Graem hasn’t made his offer yet.”
“A couple of hours?” Muira repeated fearfully. She didn’t know the exact time, but she felt certain that Lachlan had been gone a lot longer than that. “What else did you do?” she whispered.
Lachlan sighed. “I spoke to Ewan.”
“NO!” Muira cried, sitting up quickly, and suffering a wave of dizziness for her trouble. “I told you! I didn’t-”
“Muira, we’ll discuss it when you’re feeling better,” Lachlan groaned, raking a hand through his hair.
“No,” Muira sobbed, shaking her head fervently. “No, we need to discuss it now-”
“Muira,” Lachlan growled in warning. “Just lie there and rest,” he pleaded.
“But I need to know!” she begged.
If he’d told Ewan everything that had gone on between them… well, then Muira was frankly surprised that Lachlan was still standing in one piece, but was her brother about to storm into the room and drag her back to Castle Cameron kicking and screaming? Because she wasn’t going to go quietly! She might have made this mess, but she was going to unmake it too!
“Muira, please just rest, you’re not well,” Lachlan begged wearily. He really didn’t want to go into what had happened between himself and Ewan Cameron-and was prepared to use almost any excuse
to avoid doing so.
Lachlan had kept details to a minimum, but his brother-in-law wasn’t stupid, he would be back to ask more questions once he’d had time to process the tanist’s strange request. Lachlan didn’t doubt it. What kind of husband asked for his wife to be taken away from him after all?
He’d told Ewan that irreparable differences had emerged between himself and Muira since they had been married. Ewan’s repeated ‘are you quite sure Muira feels the same way?’ had taken Lachlan rather by surprise, but he had insisted, and Ewan had, of course, agreed to take his sister home with him with he left Eilean Donan.
“Lachlan, I’m fine!” Muira argued. “Really, it must have been something I ate earlier.”
She did look a little better, Lachlan had to agree. She was a bit less pale and her eyes were brighter, still… that didn’t change his mind. He didn’t want to discuss what he’d said to her brother. Fortunately a further interruption helped him avoid the subject, in the form of Liane.
“I’m afraid your mistress has been somewhat ill, Liane,” he murmured. The maid nodded in obvious concern… and then her eyes caught on Muira, who was still protesting that she was fine, and then flitted over to him. Liane’s gaze darted between the couple half a dozen times, and then a broad smile lit her face.
“Oh aye, ill sir?” she grinned, but given that this was Liane, and that she was prone to her little oddities, Lachlan didn’t pay her too much mind. “Shall I have a bath made ready for you mistress?” she asked of Muira.
Lachlan followed the maid’s gaze. Muira seemed to hesitate. He could practically see her thoughts turning over in her head. He shifted uncomfortably, not having a clue what she might be up to now. It was breaking his heart to think of letting her go… but perhaps that was the whole problem? He’d been weak. He’d let someone in. He’d let someone matter.
“Yes, thank you, Liane. I think I would like a bath,” Muira said slowly.
Liane nodded cheerfully, while Lachlan sighed quietly. He’d been hoping that Muira would let him sit by the fire, ostensibly reading, while he really kept an eye on her. He didn’t trust anyone else to look after, (that was going to be a problem when he was forced to let her leave!) but he didn’t trust himself to be left in same room as her while she bathed! He felt his body quicken at just the thought of seeing her naked, glistening figure half submerged in the large tub.
A Beautiful Lie (The Camaraes) Page 26