The Lover

by Nicole Jordan

  His arm slid around her body then, his hands gliding up to cover her breasts, molding her to him. Sabrina suddenly went weak all over.

  “If you…find me…a-appealing”—she stumbled over the word—“then why didn’t…why haven’t you…” She flushed, unable to complete the question.

  “Why haven’t I made love to you since our wedding night? Because, pet, your body needed time to grow accustomed to my hard usage.”

  The ache of her breasts within his gentle grip distracted her. “I thought you…had no interest in me.”

  “No, sweet mouse. I have a very keen interest in you. I assure you, abstinence has not been easy.” His intimate smile made it the grandest compliment ever received. “But I am about to remedy the situation.”

  “Now? You…cannot be serious.”

  “I am always serious about seduction.”

  She started to draw away, but the powerful muscularity of his arms prevented her.

  Arrestingly, arousingly, his fingertips made a slow, circular motion around the peaks of her breasts, making her feel the soft friction of the linen fabric.

  Her breath checked sharply, while lower in her body, surprised flesh pulsed to life.

  “See how well we fit together?” His lips nuzzled the curve of her throat. “Your height makes you an ideal match for me. I have no need to strain when I bend to kiss you….”

  His teeth grazed her ear, making her shiver. His breath was a raw whisper. “Shall I tell you what it feels like to kiss you? How sweet you taste…Your lips are like wine, your breath like nectar, your skin so soft and silken…I want to drink you in.”

  That bewitching voice vibrated against her skin, while sensations, warm and hot, surged inside her. He was caressing her again, stroking her nipples with his long fingers, making her flush with intense heat.

  “Yet there is so much more I want to show you, sweet. To lead you to discover your own lush sensuality…”

  She already was discovering it, Sabrina thought dazedly. Shameful pleasure flared wherever he touched her. With a soft, breathy sound of capitulation, she shut her eyes against the knowledge of his scandalous caresses.

  His mouth moved slowly over her skin, down the side of her slender neck, lower, along the gentle slope of her shoulder. Each caress seemed to define the word sensual. And with every inch he left her more breathless, more confused, until she couldn’t seem to frame a complete sentence. “Niall…”

  “I think it time we hold another lesson in wifely conduct.” His hands fell away from her. “Bare your lovely breasts for me, sweeting.”

  “W-What?” Her dazed eyes fluttered open. “Why?”

  “Because I wish to see you. I want to teach you about pleasure, sweet Sabrina. I want to learn each curve and swell and hollow of your body…and have you learn mine. I want to show you how to please me…Now, do as I say.”

  She hesitated, her cheeks flushing at his brazen command.

  In the glass, she could see him smile. “We really must practice with great diligence to conquer your shyness.”

  With trembling fingers she reached up to free the tiny buttons of her chemise. When she drew down the neckline, liberating the pale globes of her breasts, the rosy peaks were already budded tautly.

  “Excellent,” he said lazily. “Now touch your nipples.”

  “I…don’t…”

  “Remember your vows, love. Did you not promise to honor and obey your husband?”

  Feeling utterly shameless, Sabrina acceded to his demand, her fingers rising to close around her straining nipples. At once she shut her eyes at the tingling shafts of pleasure that arrowed through the sensitive buds.

  “Perfect. Now hold that pose. Remain just as you are.”

  Her eyes flew open as Niall moved away. He did not go far, though. Merely to the clothespress, where he drew off his waistcoat and shirt, exposing his heavily muscled chest.

  She was smotheringly aware of his magnificent body, of the throbbing of her hot nipples beneath her fingers. Niall was offering a wild, reckless excitement, an exquisite promise of passion and fulfillment.

  A promise she desperately wanted him to keep.

  She stood rooted to the floor as casually he settled himself in the chair before the hearth. Then he looked at her, his gaze fired by a smoldering sensuality.

  She was becoming more accustomed to his open expression of desire, but it startled her when he proceeded to unfasten the buttons of his close-fitting trews. In an instant his hard flesh sprang free, huge and rigid, from a nest of curling black hair.

  The sight, so decadent, so sinful, held her shocked, rapt attention.

  “Do you remember how I kissed you between your thighs, pet?” Niall asked, a heated quality in his voice that made her think of dark passion, spent and rekindled. “One day soon you will learn to take me in your mouth, to stroke me eagerly with your lips and tongue. But you are not ready yet for such pleasures. For now we will simply enjoy one another. Come…sit on my lap.”

  He had to repeat the soft command before Sabrina could force her weak limbs to move. A wave of the most potent sense of anticipation she’d ever felt flooded through her as she approached him guardedly.

  When she was near enough, he caught her hand and drew her down to sit sideways on his lap. Sabrina found herself captured in the light, protective circle of his arms.

  “Don’t be afraid to be a woman, sweeting,” he murmured huskily.

  “I am not afraid,” she lied. She felt his maleness rigid and hot against her thigh, felt the rippling sinews as she braced her palms against his chest…all warm, taut muscle against her softness.

  “Good. Then we shall play a love game. You are to seduce me this time.”

  “I…don’t know how.”

  “I shall teach you. Hold your breasts for me, sweeting.”

  “Like…this?” Tentatively she cupped the swells in her hands.

  “Lift them higher…press them together, so I may kiss them.”

  He made her feel wickedly seductive, yet she felt an instinctive, feminine urge to please him. Brazenly, Sabrina did as she was bid, lifting so that her firm flesh gleamed pale above her fingers, exposing the rigid nipples to his warm breath.

  He nipped lightly, dredging a gasp from her throat.

  “Your nipples are such hard delicious points…they appear very eager for my mouth. Do you wish me to suckle them?”

  She nodded in breathless embarrassment.

  “Say it, pet.”

  “I…wish you to…suckle them.”

  “Then offer them to me.”

  With her breasts raised high and mounded in her hands, she leaned forward, arching her back a little so that he could reach. Niall lowered his dark head to taste her. When his tongue flicked over a hot, peaked tip, a shaft of pleasure streaked through her so keen it made her gasp. He paused at the engorged crest to circle and probe, teasing with his tongue, taunting.

  Heat and dizziness swept over Sabrina. Her senses swam. His mouth was a searing flame upon her bare, aching breasts. She shivered at the sweet spasms of desire that arrowed down to her belly. Craving the forbidden throbbing pleasure he promised, she almost protested when he drew away.

  “How enticing.” His voice was warm and lazy. “Your breasts are beautiful, wet and gleaming from my tongue…. The ripe buds merely whet my appetite for the rest of you.”

  He thrust his hips upward gently, pressing his hardness against her thigh, reminding her of the incredible desire he could make her feel.

  With a whimper, Sabrina pressed against him, warm and soft to hot and hard, fighting the gnawing restlessness that plagued her. How could he so effortlessly make her want him?

  “Slowly, love. Let this be your chief lesson…. Anticipation makes the pleasure all the more sweet.”

  His lips plundered her breast again, the soft sound of his sucking powerfully erotic, caressing till her flesh was tender and swollen and tingling from his kisses. She arched against him, wanting to cry out. When
he drew away, the air was cool on her taut, thrusting nipples.

  His mouth soothing the hurt he had inflicted, assuaging the terrible ache, he murmured, “Do you wish to pleasure me?”

  “Yes…”

  “Let me hear you say it.”

  “I wish to pleasure you, my lord.”

  “And how do you intend to go about it?”

  “I…you…should I make love to you?”

  “Exactly. Do you want me, sweet?”

  “Yes.”

  “So tell me how much.”

  “Niall…I want you.”

  “You want me to fill you?”

  “Yes…”

  The soul-stopping smile stole her breath away. “All in good time,” he pronounced in that rich, caressing resonance that recalled warm bodies writhing together in ecstasy. “I’ll fill you to bursting, but not yet, sweet Sabrina…”

  He shifted her body a little, till her shoulder lay against him, her loosened hair spilling down over his supporting arm. Then he raised the hem of her chemise, gathering it around her waist. “Part your thighs for me.”

  Sabrina obeyed, letting her legs fall open to his heated gaze, till her sex was lushly on display.

  “Now touch yourself.”

  Her eyes closed in mortification, but she complied, moving her hand over her belly, lower, over the dark triangle of curling hair, till her finger just brushed the cleft of her womanhood. Her hips jerked at the fierce, arousing pleasure.

  “Are you getting wet?”

  To her utter shame, she was. “Yes…” she whispered.

  “Let me feel.”

  His caress probed the dusky curls crowning her thighs, his thumb discovering her heated nectar between the pouting folds. Sensation, shocking and primal, flared through her. Languorously he inserted a deft finger inside her, and brought it out, drenched with her juices.

  “Just as I suspected, sleek and wet. Like hot velvet.”

  “Please…”

  “Please what?” He slowly thrust again. “Please take my fingers out of you, or put them back in?”

  Sabrina shuddered convulsively. Her breath was gone, the scent of wanton need warm in her nostrils.

  “Do you want to feel me inside you?” he asked.

  Unable to answer, she twisted restlessly, helplessly. His fingers stroked her again, teasing a moan from deep within her throat. His touch was magic. Sensuality was a fine art to him, but he was too good at it, too good…

  “Take me in your hand,” he urged.

  Blindly Sabrina shifted her weight so that her fingers could close around his jutting shaft. He was huge and hot and throbbing, all rigid male, and she trembled with excitement when the thick length surged in her hand.

  “Do you feel how painfully you’ve made me swell? The thought of all I’m going to do to you is pure torment.”

  When she would have released him, Niall shook his head and muttered hoarsely. “No…hold me tighter. You cannot hurt me. Squeeze me harder. Do you know what it’s like to have you touch me? I want your luscious wet heat sheathing me, shivering around my hardness.”

  A pulsing began deep inside Sabrina at his raw words of lust, a sweet mindless wanting that swept away all reason. She felt faint with the pain of desire.

  He kissed her mouth then, his masterful arms holding her tightly, and the blazing heat became a hurting, painful need. She clung to him, every soft silken curve melting into his hard-muscled form. His bold tongue plunged rhythmically into her receptive mouth, showing her exactly what he intended to do with his male weapon.

  She felt his hot desire lick at her senses, his erection stiff against her pulsing flesh.

  “Now, cherie, I think you are hot enough…You may ride me if you so wish…Do you desire me, cherie?”

  “Yes…”

  “Then sit astride my lap.”

  Trembling she tried to turn, but had difficulty shifting her weak limbs when her chemise tangled around her thighs.

  “Help me,” she pleaded.

  A slow devilish smile flooded his handsome features. “Gladly.”

  His hands on her narrow waist, he lifted her to meet the full hard length of his arousal, positioning his member at the entrance to her hot honeyed crease.

  Her heart thrumming a wild, uncontrollable rhythm, Sabrina tried to press closer, driven by urgency.

  “Steady, my little tiger,” Niall murmured. Expertly guiding her, he slowly impaled her on the rampant blade of taut male flesh.

  Sabrina’s breath caught in a sigh of rapture as pleasure slammed through her, full and rich and heavy. She fell against him, her face buried in the sweaty silk of his shoulder, wishing she could stay like this always.

  But Niall was by no means through with her. Letting his hands slide down to her flaring hips, he penetrated deeper, groaning as the slick heat of her body enveloped him fully. “You’re so tight…Sweet heaven, how you fire my blood…”

  Erotically he rocked against her, making slow lazy circles with his lean hips. When Sabrina arched in response, he urged her on. “That’s it, my bonny lass, let me feel you move. I want you wanton and reckless for me…”

  Excitement flared through his senses as his erection swelled upward into her clinging heat. He wanted her beyond reason or logic. He wanted her mad with need for him. With a fierce effort at control, he applied himself to the delightful task of truly making her moan.

  Watching the tawny-pink flush that had crept to her cheekbones, he showed her how to move, matching each silken thrust to her half breaths. Not giving her a moment’s surcease, his hands kept her hips moving in that maddening rhythm, working her up and down on his impaling shaft till she was flame-hot and trembling.

  When Sabrina sank her teeth into his shoulder, Niall laughed in triumph, and surged into her again, deeply, powerfully, forcing her frenzy ever higher.

  His movement touched off an explosive wildfire of sensation; suddenly it was too much for her to bear. Sabrina strained madly against him, but Niall held back until he felt her release beginning, the delicious spasming, the convulsive tightening of her loins around him. Each tremor burning through him with an exquisite torture, he held her surging body, feeling her ripple and contract in her ecstasy.

  When she sobbed and cried out his name, his restraint slipped; all his senses seemed to crest and shatter. He caught the frenzied woman in his arms and drove into her with hammering wildness.

  Sabrina screamed with pleasure, but his hot, hungry mouth smothered the keening sound as he possessed her with a savage tenderness, an endless raw pleasure so intense it seared. His shaking arms crushed her as he found his own hot, sweet insanity.

  In the quiet afterward, she clung to him, gasping, her limp body collapsed against him. Niall sat unmoving, his head tilted back as a peaceful wave of exhaustion and pleasure flowed over him.

  Sometime later he roused himself enough to ask hoarsely if she was all right.

  Sabrina stirred unwillingly at the intrusive thought. Her face nuzzled against her lover’s throat, she nodded weakly. Niall had left her barely coherent, but he had not hurt her. Except for her heart. That vulnerable organ was more endangered than ever, she realized with aching awareness.

  She hadn’t been mistaken about his terrible secret—the reason for his incredible power over members of her sex. He knew how to make a woman feel utterly desirable. Needed. Wanted. And after so many years of unfulfilled dreams to comfort her, her lonely heart craved such masculine assurance. Her inexperience made her helpless against him.

  When she felt his lips brush her temple, Sabrina drew back, wanting to escape, but Niall would not permit it. With a gentle finger under her chin, he forced her to meet his gaze.

  “You are an apt pupil, sweeting.”

  The burning sensuality in his look sent a fresh tremor of desperation coursing through her. He could command her desire at will, while she meant nought to him but another conquest.

  With effort she managed a semblance of a smile before turning her f
ace again into his shoulder.

  You’ll break my heart, she thought despairingly. And there would be nothing in the world she could do to prevent it.

  Chapter

  Eleven

  She wanted him, and nothing seemed strong enough to make her stop wanting. Niall had awakened in her an irresistible hunger, stripping away her defenses and exposing a brazen, primal need.

  The remembrance of her own wantonness made Sabrina flush with dismay. She thought of herself naked in his arms, allowing him—no, begging him—to do things to her body that no lady would permit, and she wanted to hide.

  And yet she was indebted to him as well. Niall made her feel beautiful, desired, fully a woman. When he looked at her with such erotic tenderness, she could almost believe he wanted her as much as she did him.

  It was folly to delude herself so, Sabrina knew. She commanded his attention for the moment. She was a novelty to him, a diversion. He considered it a challenge to transform her into the kind of paramour he fancied. But there were scores of women waiting in the wings should he lose interest in his latest amusement.

  She was forcibly reminded of that likelihood when Eve Graham called the day before the Beltane festivities to tell her about some of the superstitious customs Highlanders observed.

  “You must wash your face in the morning dew to beautify the skin,” Eve explained, “and plant a hawthorn branch before the door of your sweetheart. And when evening falls…” Eve smiled. “The bonfires are lit to ensure fertility for the crops, but the surrounding darkness presents an opportunity for much ribaldry. I recall last May Day with great fondness. Couples paired off into the wood, and Niall and I—Ah, forgive me for my wayward tongue. You would not wish to hear of that.”

  Never accomplished at hiding her emotions, Sabrina felt despair claim her features at this reminder of Niall’s former intimacy with the beautiful widow.

  Eve immediately assumed an expression of sympathy. “I feared this would happen, Sabrina. That rogue of a husband has bewitched you. I warned you to keep your heart safe.” She sighed. “’Tis only to be expected, I suppose. Niall is a champion seducer of females. That handsome devil knows the key to a woman’s heart.”