by Hazel Hunter
“Oh. Then you’re a crazy man, because the water is like ice now.” She pulled him down for a kiss, and felt the heat radiating from his tattoo. “What’s wrong?”
“Naught I can fix.” He hauled her onto his lap and wrapped an arm around her, pressing her cheek against his shoulder. “There’s a fair down in the village. They have dancing and games and all manner of food. I thought we’d spend the day there.”
Rachel didn’t care about a fair. She wanted to know what had him so upset that his ink was practically sizzling. Yet when she reached into his mind, all she saw was her own face, like a reflection. He wasn’t thinking about anything but her.
“Maybe we should stay in today.” She straddled his thighs, and pushed on his chest until he lay back. “We can dance and have food and play my favorite game, right here.”
Evander tucked his arm under his head. “You’ve a favorite game?”
“Yes. It’s called Loving Evander Talorc.” She bent down, curtaining his face with her hair as she brushed her lips over the hard line of his mouth. She kissed his chin and the angular line of his jaw, and then worked her way over to his ear. “Do you want to know the rules?”
He ran his hand down the length of her spine. “Aye.”
“There aren’t any,” she whispered, and nipped his earlobe.
Rachel rubbed her hands over his chest and shoulders as she left a line of soft, damp kisses stretching from his ear to his collar bone. She had to shift a little lower to lave her tongue over his flat nipples, which puckered and hardened in response. She could feel his erection hardening against the top of her belly, and sucked on one nipple until his penis had swollen so hard and thick she could feel it throbbing through his trousers.
His tattoo burned against her lips, but as she swept her tongue over his crossbar spear the heat changed. What had been feverishly hot now pulsed with delicious warmth, which she caressed with her lips and fingers.
“Oh,” she groaned as she felt an answering heat spread over her left breast, and brought his hand to her mark. “Do you feel that? I think someone’s waking up.”
He rubbed his thumb over her ink. “It hardly sleeps since we mated.”
“So that’s why I always want you to touch my breasts. My ink is flirting with yours.” She smiled as she moved his hand over her, nudging his palm with her hard nipple before she shifted lower. “Your spirit is driving me crazy, you know.”
His brows arched. “How so?”
“It puts ideas in my head.”
She pushed her hands under his hips to unfasten the laces at the back of his trousers, and then tugged them down to free his erect penis. She crawled backward off the bed to finish stripping him before she pulled off her night shirt.
When she went around to the opposite side of the bed, Evander looked up at her with a frown.
“I think you want the other end of me, lass.”
“Be patient,” she said and climbed up over him, straddling his shoulders and tucking her legs under his arms as she positioned herself. When she lay down on top of him she heard him make a rough sound as she presented her slick sex to his face. “I think you’ll like this.”
Rachel curled her fingers around his shaft, squeezing him gently as she whispered a kiss over his engorged cockhead. As she parted her lips to draw him in she felt his fingers stroke her folds apart, and then the heat of his breath just before he began licking her. Her breasts throbbed in response to the intimate kiss, and she rubbed them against his belly as she slid her mouth down and sucked on his cock.
The thrilling, sexy feel of Evander lapping at her fueled Rachel’s desire to give him the same pleasure, and she began working her lips down on his shaft with gentle, tugging strokes of her mouth. His shaft jerked as she increased the pull and lashed him with her tongue, and then she worked the base of him with her fist, squeezing and releasing with the rhythm of her sucking. When she felt his thoughts pour into her she focused on what aroused him the most, and then caught a fleeting desire for her touch on the tightly constricted bulge of his balls.
Rachel cradled his sack in her hand, and caressed the softly furred flesh with her fingertips. At the same time she went down on him as far as she could manage, sealing her lips around him as she held his cock in her mouth and sucked hard. Evander made a deep sound that vibrated through her pussy, and then worked two fingers into her tight, wet opening as he tugged on her clit, sucking it.
Under her fingers she felt the surge of his semen, and felt the rigid swelling of his shaft that preceded him coming. She pressed her pussy back against his mouth as she stroked his penis with her fist, sucking at him until the first jet surged over her tongue. The taste of him pushed her from aching, tight need into a storm of sweet, sultry ecstasy.
More primitive thoughts filled Rachel’s mind as she came, and spread through her as she drank Evander’s silky come. It seemed half-memory, half fantasy. She saw herself kneeling naked before him in a meadow filled with warriors holding torches, and strangely-carved stones in a circle. Someone had bound her wrists behind her, but she wasn’t afraid. There she sucked his cock in front of the tribe, his tribe, while they watched. Some of the men caressed the bulges at their crotches, while others openly took out and stroked their own erections. But oddly it didn’t seem obscene to her. She could feel their emotions, and they were honest and sensual.
This was his tribe, his ritual, his mating bond. He had chosen her as if she were a woman of the Pritani. His spirit had marked her. They were not simply connected now, they were joined.
The thoughts faded as they shuddered with the force of their climaxes, and when it was over Evander righted her and held her against his side.
“I do like that,” he told her, making her laugh. “’Tis how such pleasures are shared in your time?”
“Yes, but I’ve never tried it before now,” Rachel admitted. “I did read up on it, and I…practiced a couple times with a banana.” She sighed. “I was going to have my first time on my wedding night.”
“Hmmm. I am glad you didnae waste that on your spineless bawbag of a husband.” Evander stroked his thumb over her tingling lips. “What is a banana?”
“A long, yellow fruit that’s the right size and shape for practicing.” She glanced down at his hand, which was shifting her legs apart. “And what are you doing down there, Master Talorc?”
“Playing your game,” Evander said and ran his hand from her knee to the inside of her thigh, where he stroked her slick folds with his fingertips. “Open your legs to me. Aye, and wider.” When she had parted her thighs he penetrated her with one long finger, pumping it gently in and out of her pussy. “You want me inside your quim still.”
“I want that every second I’m awake.”
She had never felt him more focused on her, as if no one and nothing else in the world existed for him.
He studied her face. “’Tis the same for you, then, the need to be joined.”
“Aren’t we already?” she asked, shifting closer until her mark touched his. “Isn’t that what this is?”
Evander dragged in a ragged breath. “I’ve taken you, and I’ve marked you. ’Tis enough now.”
He didn’t seem to be talking to her. “I want it all, my love.”
Burning shadows welled into his eyes, and he groaned and shook as his ink began to dart down his abdomen and then the crossbar fell onto her belly and began inching up her body. Rachel’s eyes went wide as she felt the ink, hard and hot, but knew not to resist it. It crawled between her breasts, spreading over them and then tightening as if the tattoo were fondling her.
“Evander, oh, god,” she breathed, thrusting her mounds up into the strange, intensely arousing sensation.
The ink scrolled from her breasts to her throat, where she felt it split and race along her arms, dragging them up over her head. She could feel the pieces of tattoo rejoining at her wrists, effectively binding them together.
“Our willing captive,” Evander said, his voice taking o
n a harder edge. “Bound to us and marked as our mate. What shall you offer for our pleasure?”
Rachel discovered she could still move her arms, and lifted her wrists over his head, settling them against his neck.
“Everything,” she breathed. “All of me. Take what you want.”
He pressed her knees up as he moved between them, his chest heaving as he rooted against her. His eyes remained locked with hers while he worked his cockhead into the ellipse of her opening. The tattoo tightened around her wrists as he gripped her bottom, and with a single, powerful thrust buried his cock inside her.
Rachel clutched at him as she absorbed the shock of the penetration, grateful that her earlier climax and his mouth had made her so wet. He had filled her so completely she could feel every inch of him, hot and hard inside her pussy, and that alone was going to make her come again.
Some of the blazing darkness left his eyes. “You called me your love.”
“That’s because I’m in love with you,” she said. She hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that, but he was so deep inside her that she couldn’t think of something cleverer to say. “I know it’s too soon, but let me love you anyway. You’ll like–”
Evander cut her off by kissing her, his mouth almost desperate as he pushed in his tongue to stroke hers. His body shuddered over hers, and then he drew out of her, and plowed back inside, over and over, but he never stopped kissing her. He swallowed her gasps and cries and the shaking moan she uttered as she came on his pistoning cock. He fucked her through the wild delight and kept shafting her, their skins growing slippery with sweat. Rachel felt now what he had been thinking, as if nothing else existed but the two of them. Her world became his body over her, the bed rocking under them, the devouring hunger of his mouth, and the endless pumping of his swollen, satiny penis into the clenching, quivering suppleness of her pussy.
After an eternity Evander wrenched his mouth from hers, and brought his hand up to cradle her cheek.
“We are joined now. I am yours, Rachel.”
He meant it, she realized as his feelings flooded into her. He belonged to her, now and forever. His heart, his body, his soul. He was giving her everything he was, everything he would ever be. He would never touch another woman again.
Rachel finally understood the meaning of the ritual she had seen in her head. The men of his tribe demanded complete surrender from their mates, because once they had it, they gave the same to them. Then all of his memories poured into her, and she saw all at once the twelve hundred years that Evander had lived since his days with the Talorc tribe.
He hadn’t been fantasizing about being an immortal warrior.
Her vision grayed as her whole body flushed, and she fell into a roiling sea of primal sensation. She had no name for what came next, only that it filled her head with soundless light, and wordless joy. She felt on fire from within and without, and at the same time submerged in the coolest, softest water. She could hear the high, helpless sounds she made, and the deep, harsh grunts from Evander as he poured into her, and they blended together into a symphony of pleasure.
For a long time Rachel lay holding him, heaving in the air she’d forgotten to breathe and feeling him do the same. After what they’d shared she couldn’t go on keeping the truth about her ability from him.
“I have to tell you something.”
“Aye, and so must I you.” His weight lifted, and he moved to her side, turning her to face him. In his mind he was remembering a beautiful lake surrounded by dark mountains. “Tonight, after the fair.”
She didn’t understand why he was so determined to take her to it, but if it would make him happy, she planned on doing that every day for the rest of her life.
“Whatever you want.”
Chapter Sixteen
KINLEY MCDONNEL LEANED over her sleeping husband and nuzzled the serpent inked across his chest. The skinwork responded to her with a lazy ripple of its lines, and a flicker of its forked tongue against her fingers.
“Brash wench, to wake your laird from the only good sleep he’s had in days,” Lachlan grumbled. “Why did you no’ do it sooner?”
“I was thinking.” She climbed atop him, her slender, naked body soaking up the warmth of his body heat. “Not about this.” She shifted to cradle his morning erection between her thighs. “I want to go and visit Lady Gordon, and see the baby.”
“Aye, that can be arranged.” His big hands splayed over her bottom. “She enjoys your company, but that isnae why you wish to go.”
“I heard an interesting rumor,” Kinley said. She rose up on her knees, teasing the engorged head of his cock with the slick seam it wanted to delve into. “Laird Gordon is often seen riding at night around his woods and tenant farms.”
Lachlan’s brows arched. “I ride at night. In fact, you ride at night. What of it?”
“He doesn’t ride alone.” She let herself sink down just enough to lodge the curve of his dome inside her opening. “He always takes his bodyguard with him. Just the bodyguard, no one else.”
Lachlan’s jaw tightened. “He’s a laird, and one of the king’s men, and no’ a fool.”
“Or he’s up to no good somehow, and has the bodyguard, well, stand guard.” She wriggled as he tried to urge her down on him. “Stop being so impatient for sex. We’re having a conversation here.”
“You’re talking.” He flipped her onto her back and plowed into her. “I’m facking you.”
Kinley shivered as he began thrusting deep and hard, his thick cock filling and emptying her, and then his mouth came down on hers and she forgot everything but him. He pinned her down and worked inside until she came twice, and then shuddered and jerked as he pumped her full of his cream. When he fell beside her she curled up against him, and stroked the sweat-sheened vault of his chest.
“Gordon does naught wrong on his night rides,” Lachlan finally said. “I cannae say more than that, but I am sure of it.”
“Okay,” she said simply and climbed out of bed. She went to wash, and then pulled on a gown so Meg wouldn’t give her any grief. When her husband came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, she stiffened. “Hey, sorry. You cannae say more, I cannae go for round two.”
Lachlan sighed. “Gordon is an ally, and a private man. I have few secrets that I keep from you, but this ’tis one.” He turned her to face him. “Tell me your suspicions, and I will dispense with them.”
“Lady Gordon has asked for Cailean Lusk to visit her, about a dozen times, and yet he never shows.” She draped her damp linen towel around his neck. “She thinks he’s avoiding her, and it has something to do with Gordon. Then I heard Raen mention how often he sees the laird riding at night.” She let out a breath. “Do we need to be worried about him? Could he be an undead thrall or something?”
Her husband smiled fondly. “No, love. Of that I can assure you. Since Cailean helped arrange the Gordon’s marriage, I doubt he is dodging the lady. Perhaps ’twas some simple misunderstanding, or he is much occupied with other duties.”
“He spent two days here last week playing checkers with Neac. Meanwhile, Lady Gordon is birding me about him like every other day.” Kinley reached into the cabinet and showed him the sheaf of messages she’d received from Lady Gordon. “What do I say to her?”
Lachlan kissed the tip of her nose. “Give her messages on to Cailean. ’Tis his doing, so should be his remedy.”
“So I’m his answering service now?” she said and nipped his chin. “All right, it’s a good idea. You may have sex with me again.”
He gave her his laird look. “I may have you whenever I wish.”
“Prove it,” Kinley said and then shrieked with laughter as he scooped her up and tossed her onto their bed. “Now that’s more like it.”
Chapter Seventeen
AS SHE AND Evander rode along the narrow mountain path leading down to the village, Rachel silently blessed her father for insisting she take riding lessons. The medieval saddle her lover had made he
r turned out to be oddly comfortable, which given the heightened sensitivity between her legs was a blessing. Even minus the stirrups she’d used in her time, the tack fit her and the horse like a glove. The dappled gray, however, hadn’t been ridden in weeks. Guiding the skittish mount down the unfamiliar, somewhat overgrown trail kept Rachel fully occupied until they entered a seaside glen at the base of the mountains.
She gave the horse a grateful pat. “We made it, ah…” She looked at Evander. “What’s her name?”
“The nag? She doesnae have one.” He reined in the roan to stop beside her, and saw her expression. “Dinnae give me that look. Fiona and I had been running from the clan when I bought her. ’Twas enough for me that she was strong and sturdy.”
She loved that he was beginning to talk about Fiona more openly.
“Well, I’m not going to call her ‘the nag.’” She leaned forward to say to the horse, “How about Dancer?”
The mare ignored her and began cropping grass.
“You’re not helping, Dancer,” Rachel said, and then regarded Evander’s horse. “Let me guess. He doesn’t have a name either. Since he can swim underwater, let’s call him Diver.”
The grin vanished from Evander’s face. “You cannae tell anyone of that, lass.”
His body turning transparent flashed through his mind, as did the feel of bubbling currents and streaming through a river on the roan, with Rachel plastered against his chest. What she would have dismissed yesterday as another strange fantasy now became very real. Along with being an immortal, he was able to bond with water, and use it to travel long distances in just a few seconds.
Why had he been afraid to tell her about it? After all the magical, wild sex they’d been having with his war spirit and the tattoos, why would it worry him? And why was he now thinking about a lake beside a sheer cliff?
“I won’t say anything,” she said and frowned. “I think I can fake a passable Scottish accent, but what should I call you while we’re in the village?”