“If ye wish to stay separately, I understand. I ken that we dinna have a choice on the way here, but I willna assume just because we are married that ye wish to share my bed. I can prepare a room for ye in the castle. Even if ye wish to stay together, ’tis up to ye where we sleep. If ye prefer the castle, ’tis there where we shall stay.”
Nights of sleeping in each other’s arms on the way here, nights of holding and kissing but not truly touching had me itching for sex in a way unfamiliar to me. I knew it must have done the same to him—he was just too polite to say so outright.
I reached for him, pulling his face into my hands as I kissed him and then wrapped my arms around him to speak into his ear.
“I do want to share your bed, Orick. I have wanted to since the first night you showed up at the back door in the rain.” I laughed, thinking back on my dreams of him. “Truthfully, I wanted to long before that. And the stable house is absolutely fine. I married the pauper, remember, not the laird.”
His breath caught, and he pulled me closer as his hands wound into my hair. He pulled my head back so he could kiss me once more. His lips moved skillfully over mine until my legs were shaky and my breathing came fast. When he pulled away, I could see the need in his eyes.
“Just so I doona misunderstand ye, ye doona mean sleep as we have done so before, aye? Ye mean…”
I nodded and reached down to tease him, gently running my fingers up his thigh.
“Yes, Orick. I think it’s high time we consummate this marriage of ours.”
CHAPTER 39
“Truly?”
He asked the question like he simply couldn’t believe it. His excitement was adorable.
“Yes, truly.” I laughed and kissed him once more. “It would no longer shame me since we are married. Orick, I want to be with you.”
He groaned and held my face tightly in his hands, looking at me with an enthusiasm I’d never seen from him before.
“And I ye, lass. Can ye wait a short while? I havena been inside the stable house in a long time. I doona wish to bed ye amongst the cobwebs and filth. Allow me to clean it and prepare a bath for us.”
“The both of us?” Orick was astonishingly tall and his home rather small. “It would have to take up half the room to hold the both of us.”
He winked and pulled away from me, eager to get started. “Aye, it nearly does. I shall hurry as fast as I can, Gillian.”
“Okay. I’ll just wait over on the castle steps.”
He smiled and watched me as I walked over to the steps.
I had a penchant for being able to sleep anywhere. I was slumped over and out within five minutes.
* * *
When I woke, it was to the touch of Orick’s arms slipping underneath me so that he could lift me from my napping roost on the stone steps.
“Oh wow, my sleeping and snoring is just exactly what you needed to get your engine revving, I bet.”
He pursed his lips together in confusion. “I doona ken what ye mean. Yer snoring doesna bother me, truly. Ye’ll be wide awake soon enough. Come inside with me.”
He carried me through the doorway and then set me on my feet. Everything inside was spotless and perfect. A fire burned in the corner. A comically large tub sat near it, filled three-quarters of the way with water so steaming I couldn’t imagine how he’d heated it all. The bed was turned back and comfortable looking, and on a small table, he’d laid out cheese and ale for snacking. My pulse quickened at the mere sight of everything, and my heart warmed at the thought he’d put into it.
“How long did I sleep?”
He shrugged and smiled at my reaction.
“I doona know. I was glad ye slept, though, for I felt badly for taking so long.”
“Don’t. It’s wonderful.” I smiled as I felt him step toward me, his front touching my back as his arms came around my waist, and he bent so that his chin rested on my shoulder.
“As are ye.” He nibbled at my collarbone before dragging his sweet kisses up my neck as his breathing escalated and his hands started to roam over my front.
I gasped as his hands gripped at my breast, and I reached behind me to start working on my own laces. Seeing what I was doing, he pushed my hands away so that he could undo them for me. His hands moved quickly down the laces, but once the dress was loose, he paused.
“Turn toward me, Gillian. I want to see ye.”
I did, pulling at the fabric near my waist so that it would drop. I still had my hair pulled up from the ride but, as the dress dropped, Orick reached behind me and pulled my hair loose, running his fingers through it so that it draped around my shoulders.
“Yer hair, lass. ’Tis a thing of beauty, just like every bit of ye.”
I stood naked before him. Quickly I grew cold from standing in the open, and he pointed to the tub as he started to disrobe himself.
“Get in and I’ll join ye.”
I enjoyed this side of him. While he was always confident, I liked to see him state so plainly what he wanted. In this moment, he wasn’t thinking about everyone else. I found it insanely attractive.
The water felt amazing as I slipped inside. It was so deep I had to sit on my knees to keep from going under. If I wanted to relax and lay back in the water, I would have to do so on Orick’s lap. Although, I suspected that’s why he filled it as full as he did.
“I’m afraid once you get in here the water’s going to splash over the side, and you’ll have to hold me up so I don’t drown.”
I watched as he removed his shoes first, then his shirt and finally his pants. I’d always thought the expression ‘the size of the shoes shows the size of the man’ was probably a bunch of hogwash—not in Orick’s case. I swallowed and looked down at my thighs in the water to keep from showing my nerves.
He didn’t seem to notice and, once he was naked, stepped into the tub behind me, sliding to his bottom and reaching for me to pull me securely onto his lap. I lay back against him as he kissed my neck.
“Doona worry about drowning, lass. I’ll hold ye right here.”
He reached over the side for a rag and wet it before running it up and down my front, the roughness of the rag scratching my skin deliciously. The touch of it seemed to tease me until finally I could take no more. I wanted his hands on me, in me—I wanted him to send me spiraling.
“Touch me, Orick. Just drop the rag and touch me.”
I felt what my words did to him, and the rod in my back only heightened my need for him. He obliged me quickly using one arm to hold me against him as his other hand dipped beneath the water, reaching in between my legs to massage me there. I panted and writhed against him, climbing as he quickened the pace of his fingers.
When I peaked, he groaned into my ear, standing from the tub as he grabbed a blanket to wrap us in. He pulled me up with him, turning me so that I would wrap my legs around him as he carried me to the bed.
He said nothing. He didn’t need to, our bodies responded to each other in a way words never could.
We fell roughly onto the bed. The weight of him sent my breath out in a sudden rush before he lifted himself for entry. My legs opened on instinct. With our bodies still wet and my center still ready, he plunged into me with so much force that I cried out from the size of him.
“I’m sorry.” His words were choked, painful. “I canna pull out from ye, lass.”
He’d mistaken my scream for pain. While it had hurt, I didn’t want him to stop for a moment. It hurt so good.
“I don’t want you to.”
That was the only permission he needed, and he took me like a man who’d gone a very long time without such intimacy. I reveled in his need for me, in the desperate urgency of his every move. He carried me upward with his passion, and together we crumbled and shook against one another.
CHAPTER 40
Gillian thought he was sleeping. Orick could tell by the way she didn’t move a muscle while she whispered to him beneath her breath. Her feet stayed wrapped around his legs, h
er arm draped across his chest. The only thing that moved besides Gillian’s lips was the wee pup that lay curled between his legs, but he didn’t dare move himself for fear she’d stop talking.
She reminded him of an octopus, the strange sea dwelling creature he saw caught on one of he and Adwen’s seafaring ventures, long ago. She was wrapped so tightly around him. He hoped she wouldn’t ever let go.
If the secret words she whispered to him now were any indication, she didn’t mind being his wife overmuch.
“You want to know how I feel about you? It’s so much easier to tell you when you can’t hear me. But maybe you can, maybe in some way your subconscious will understand what I say, and you’ll feel it when you wake. That seems so much better than telling you to your face.
“I wasn’t always so cold. I used to be quite the artsy romantic. I could fall hard and fast, and I did more than once as a teenager. No one like you—they were boys not men. I have a feeling you were never really a boy.”
Oh, the lass had no idea. Just because he’d been faster at it than Adwen, it didn’t mean he wasn’t slow to mature. He’d been a boy for far longer than he’d been a man.
“I loved everyone, everything, and I was headed in a million different directions. I wanted to paint, I wanted to act, I wanted to be the world’s greatest chef. I just never imagined that things wouldn’t work out the way I wanted them to.
“And then, my Dad got sick and he died. Six months later my Mom followed him. Losing him was enough. Then I watched as my picture-of-health mother, in her mid-fifties, died of heartbreak. She should have lived for thirty more years. It angered me, it terrified me, and more than anything, it made me determined to never, ever let that happen to me.
“After that I just stopped—all of the dreaming, all of the falling fast—I just stopped everything. I stopped feeling or living past the most shallow of relationships or experiences. Anything that I really needed to feel, I put in a painting. Until now.”
He wanted to turn to her, and speak to her, but he knew she’d stop, and he wanted her to say all she needed to. He kept his eyes closed and listened.
“Before they died, I imagined you, I wanted you every single day. Maybe not you, per se. Even my imagination couldn’t dream up someone as handsome, but I imagined the person you are—the kind, loyal to a fault, understatedly funny, ridiculously awesome in bed, hung like a racehorse man that you are—I dreamed of you. I dreamed of marrying.
“After their deaths, I let the dream go. I stopped imagining anything past the end of the week. Now, I’m imagining things thirty years from now, every one of them spent with you.
“You want to know how I feel about you? I’m crazy about you. I love you. I know I do, but it’s so hard for me to admit. It’s been so long since I’ve allowed myself to feel it, and you’re my worst fear brought to life. You could destroy me. I don’t want to become my mother.
He wished she had the strength to tell him all of these things at a time when he could respond—when he could turn to her and comfort her fears. But to do so now would damage the trust she’d placed in him, so he would have to go forward pretending he didn’t know, pretending that he’d heard nothing.
He hoped at least, she’d eased her own mind. With time, Gillian would share more with him. He knew that with certainly now. There would be a time when she would share everything she’d just told him now. He would be right there to reciprocate and listen when she was ready.
As if the pup knew the moment Gillian’s speech was finished, Toby latched down on Orick’s big toe causing him to jerk up in the bed at the shock of it. He admired the way Gillian lay on her back and stretched sleepily, still managing to look up at him with tired eyes.
“Good morning. How did you sleep?”
He leaned down to kiss her. “I’ve no slept better in my life, but I am no ready to rise from this bed just yet.”
CHAPTER 41
The next day, we made love two more times before noon. When we did finally rise, we didn’t wander far, just out onto the lawn where we played with Toby for a long while. Orick loved the little mess and would wrestle with the pup until Toby would just give out from exhaustion.
It was during one of his short little rests, where he plopped down on the grass and went to sleep, that Orick came over and pulled me down on the grass so that we each lay on one side of Toby.
“I’ve been thinking, lass.”
“Have you?” I smiled playfully at him as if that surprised me. I doubted that he ever stopped thinking.
“Aye, always. If ye stay with me, Gillian, we must settle some matters between us. When and where will we live? What will each of us do? I ken ye time traveling women well enough to know that ye are no content to stay idle. Ye must each have yer own purpose, and I understand. I wondered if ye’d tell me, what ye saw for us?”
I’d not placed much thought in it. I knew myself well enough to know that if I did, I’d freak myself out thinking in the long term. I knew he was right though. It didn’t matter if it freaked me out, there were many things we would have to decide, and all of that would be so much easier for the both of us if I would quit being such a pansy and be honest with him. I would have to face my own fears in order to relieve his. I could tell each time he said, ‘if ye stay,’ he still very much wondered if I would.
“Orick, I’m going to stay. I married you. While it wasn’t the ceremony I envisioned—outdoors with flowers and the sea roaring in the background—it was the ceremony that I got. And forced into it or not, I take that seriously. Besides, I’m kind of crazy about you.”
He smiled and reached to pull me near him, but I held out a hand to stop him, not wanting to squish Toby.
“Ye are crazy about me? ’Tis a good thing?”
“Yes, it’s one of the best things. I know you need more, but that’s all you’ll get out of me today on the feelings front.”
He shook his head and said words that took my breath away. I already knew how he felt. He showed it all the time.
“I love ye, Gillian. I doona care if it takes ye a fortnight or a year to tell me the same, it willna change my feelings. Ye are allowed to need time. I’m glad ye are no leaving, but ye still have no answered my question.”
“Right.” I’d gotten sidetracked. “Would you believe me if I said I hadn’t thought that far ahead?”
His eyes grew wide as he nodded as if it were no surprise to him at all. “Aye, I believe I would. It doesna matter, for I have thought much on it. May I make ye a proposal?”
I shifted to sit cross-legged so I could look at him. I wanted to pay close attention.
“Yes.”
“There was a time when I dinna think I would ever leave Adwen’s side. Now I ken that I canna ever go back to it. If he needs me I’ll come, but I must live my own life—a life spent with ye. I ken that we’ve still much to learn about one another, but I doona think ye are a lass suited to this life, no all the time.”
I didn’t either, but I planned to make the best out of it, to try as hard as I could for him. “I’ll try. I really will.”
Orick shook his head and reached to squeeze my hand.
“Ye shouldna have to. I doona think I’ve told ye, but I spent a few night’s in New York City with Adwen, Jane, and Cooper.”
“What?” For the life of me, I couldn’t picture Adwen and Orick in that concrete jungle.
“Aye, and do ye wish to know something else? I loved it. So many of the things from yer own time, things I should have found strange, I took great pleasure in. I think ’twould be easier for me to live there than ye here, though I hope that we could mayhap live our lives in a little of both.”
While I truly hadn’t placed much thought in it, I had never seen Orick living in my own time as an option. The thought delighted me to no end. “Do you mean it? You would do that? Live away from Adwen, Jane, Cooper, Isobel...everybody?”
“Aye. ’Tis a bonny thing about Cagair. We can live in both times and travel back and forth as we n
eed to. ’Twould work well for the others, too.”
“It would, but what would you do there? I don’t think you’re one to sit idle either.”
I could see Orick’s enthusiasm at my question, and he quickly pushed himself up to sit opposite me.
“I’ve thought on this as well. My life has been spent in the service of others. While I am Adwen’s friend, I grew up as the MacChristy’s,” he hesitated, “I doona ken the right word for it.”
“I know what you mean. You were their man. You did whatever they needed.”
“Aye. I believe I would still like to be there for others. I’ve an idea for Cagair.”
I couldn’t wait to hear what he said. I wondered if he found me as surprising as I found him. “What is it?”
“The castle has far too many rooms for my liking. Even if we had a few bairns, many would still lay empty. ’Tis as beautiful a place as I’ve ever seen. Why doona we open our own inn?”
The moment he said it, I couldn’t believe I’d not thought of it myself. It was the perfect idea. I knew Orick birthed the idea out of care for me. He may have enjoyed his time in New York, but he was a simple man, a man who would miss many things about his life here. It would be a sacrifice for him to stay in the twenty-first century, even if we traveled back here often.
If he could do it for me, I could make a sacrifice for him as well.
“I would love that, but only if we don’t live in the castle. Let’s go forward and tell Aiden and Anne our plan, offer them residence in the castle? They can work for us, and they can be the ones to live in the castle. We will live in the stable house.”
He crossed his arms as if he didn’t believe me. “Gillian, I know what I said about castles, but I doona expect ye to live out here. Ye love the castle.”
“Yes, but I also love this little place. It suits you much more, I think. It’s the only way I’ll agree to the inn.”
Love Beyond Dreams (A Scottish Time Travel Romance): Book 6 (Morna's Legacy Series) Page 16