He ran his fingers through the thick, damp tresses of her hair. He felt her hands flutter over his back, up the knots of his spine, flatten over the wings of his shoulder-blades. He lifted his head, and she looked at him, wide-eyed, passion-flushed. Her blatant desire for him sent his own desire rocketing. With a low growl he barely recognised, he picked her up and carried into the shade.
‘Like a caveman,’ she said, but teasingly, rubbing herself against him as he set her down.
‘I hope I can manage to be a bit more civilised,’ he said.
Cordelia smiled, catlike and provocative. ‘I rather hope you can’t.’
Her dress was of pale blue. The bodice buttoned up the front. She began to unfasten it, button by button, all the time watching him. The sleeves were long and tight. She had to wriggle to free herself of them, for the sea made them cling to her skin. As who would not, Iain thought, watching, fascinated, his heart pounding. The skirt of her gown fell to the ground. He had no idea how she’d unfastened it. Her hair, already drying in the heat, was the colour of newly varnished wood streaked with ripe wheat.
Her throat and her hands were tanned, but the swell of her breasts above her corset was creamy, untouched by the sun. He ached to touch her, but he was mesmerised by the way she touched herself, by the way she undressed for him, all the time looking at him, watching him, testing him. His chest heaved with the effort of breathing. His erection strained inside his trousers. He watched.
Her corsets also fastened up the front. She pulled at the laces. Her own breathing was fast, shallow. He was fascinated by the quiver of her breasts. Freed of her stays, she stood before him only in her shift and her drawers. He reached for her now, but only to turn her towards the light, to reveal the body beneath her undergarments. The swell of her breasts. The hard nub of her nipples. The indentation of her waist. The feminine roundness of her belly, the flare of her hips. He traced her shape with his fingers. She shuddered, her eyes closing momentarily. There was a stillness in the air, as if time were suspended. Then their eyes met once more, and the thing which had bound them from the start yanked hard, and they moved together of one accord.
Kissing. No longer languorous, but passionate. Tongues touching, entwined and then thrusting, in a carnal echo of what they sought. Iain tugged frantically at his clothes, fumbling and pulling at the fastenings, all the time kissing her, for he could never imagine having enough of her kisses.
He was naked before she, but not long before. Her shift tore, and fell on to the blanket, was kicked backwards into the damp sand of the cave with her drawers, and the kissing paused as they looked, blatantly looked at each other. Her eyes travelled over the length of his body, and he felt his engorged shaft stiffen further in response. Her nipples were dusky pink, puckered. He took one in his mouth, and sucked, drawing a soft moan from her, making her arch her back. He laid her down then, on the blanket, and began to kiss her. Mouth. Throat. Cupping her breasts to trace their shape with his tongue, before licking, then suckling, first one nipple then the other.
She reached for him, arched under him, rubbed the soft curls of her sex against him. He was in an agony of wanting to thrust into her, but he was too in an agony of wanting this to be different, better. ‘Wheesht,’ he said, when she said his name urgently, ‘patience.’
‘I don’t feel patient,’ Cordelia said, digging her fingers into his buttocks.
‘Tell me,’ he said raggedly, ‘tell me then how you feel.’
* * *
Iain was lying over her, his body covering but not quite enveloping hers. His skin was hot. She could feel the tip of his shaft against her thighs. Tell me, he said, and it was part tease and part challenge, the way he looked at her. She had never felt so aroused. She shifted, just enough to allow the hard length of him between her thighs. ‘Urgent,’ she said, smiling back at him. ‘I feel urgent.’
She felt the rumble of his laughter in his chest, vibrating against her breasts. ‘I doubt you could feel anywhere near as urgent as I do. Have you any idea what that does to me?’
She arched her back, thrusting up under him. ‘Yes.’
Iain swore. Then he kissed her, hard, on the mouth. She kissed him back equally hard. Already, she could feel her climax building, coiling. She clenched tight. ‘Iain.’
His eyes were dark, his pupils large, his cheeks flushed. She felt him readying himself to thrust, and opened her legs to receive him. Then he laughed, though it was a strange, harsh sound, and shook his head. ‘Did I not promise to prove to you that I had some finesse?’
‘Iain, I don’t care about finesse. I— Iain!’
He was still between her legs, but no longer touching her. He was still kissing her, but not her mouth. He was kissing her throat again, her breasts again, his tongue, his fingers, teasing her nipples, making her ache, that sweet dull ache that plucked, strained, twisted into a slow, pulsing thrum between her legs.
He kissed her belly. Then he pushed her legs further apart, and entered her, not with his shaft, but with his tongue. She bucked under him and called out in surprise. Then his mouth covered her in the most intimate way, licking into her, over her, and her cry became something more guttural.
His mouth did wonderful things. A new world of kissing. She was vaguely aware of herself moaning, pleading unashamedly for him not to stop, not to stop, when he slowed, waited, started again. She was so tense she thought she might break apart, wanting, not wanting it to end as it built, coiling, coiling, so intense it was on the edge of pleasure, like fingernails on a slate, until she could hold on no more, and he seemed to sense it, and held her, one hand on each of her thighs, licking into her just there, exactly where she needed him, and she came suddenly and so violently that she bucked beneath him, again, and then again and then again, in sharp bursts, which reverberated and ebbed, like consecutive waves, catching each other as they broke and retreated.
She had no idea if she had cried out. She lay panting, spreadeagled, for long seconds or minutes, completely caught up in the shock, the wonder of this most extraordinary experience. She thought she was spent, but when she opened her eyes and saw him kneeling between her, his erection jutting thick and hard, her body began to clamour instantly for another sort of completion.
She smiled at him, that look she knew unravelled him. It was a powerful thing, that smile. He leaned over her and kissed her. She twined her arms around his neck and wrapped her legs around him and, taking him quite unawares, rolled him over on to his back.
He was pressing between her legs once more. This time it was he who arched urgently under her, his expression tight, his desire for completion unbearable. Cordelia kissed his mouth. She moved her hips provocatively. He groaned. ‘How urgent do you feel, Iain?’
He sensed her intentions before she moved, and grabbed at her bottom, but she wriggled free of him. She kissed his neck. His chest. His nipples. She kissed her way down his rib cage, kneeling between his legs, in a deliberate echo of how he had kissed her. She leaned over him, grazing her nipples over his chest, sending frissons of pleasure rippling through her blood to feed the fire between her thighs. Below her, Iain shuddered. His face was rigid with the effort of control. She felt powerful and, despite her climax, intensely aroused.
She licked into his navel. A thin line of soft hair arrowed down from there. She hesitated. She had never once imagined doing such a thing, never mind attempting it. She sat back, taking him in her hand, curling her fingers around his girth. Such satinlike skin, and beneath he was solid. Not like rock or steel, something very different. She stroked him. He jerked. Her touch was reflected in his eyes. She could see him contracting, tightening. She could feel her insides doing the same. And tingling. A warning. Yet she stroked him again.
‘Cordelia.’
Urgent, his voice was. Truly urgent. Yet once again she could not resist. She leant over him, touching the tip of his shaft to
the tip of her tongue.
Iain swore. ‘Cordelia. I don’t think...’
The muscles in his neck were standing out. She couldn’t. She didn’t want to. What she wanted was what he wanted. Now. She let him go, slid over him, took him inside her.
He went higher than she expected. He was harder. She was tighter. She was already shivering, clenching, shaking, with her impending climax. His hands were on her waist, bracing her. She lifted herself, and he helped her, almost to the tip, and then down.
He said her name. No one had ever said her name like that. ‘Come with me,’ she said, the same command he’d given her. He nodded. Gripping. So thick inside her. She lifted herself, and came down on him harder, thrusting her hips forward, drawing a gasp from him. Again, tilting, so that he was higher inside her, and she came instantly, astonishingly, wildly, crying out her delight, the pulsing of her climax triggering his, his warning cry heeded just in time, as he rolled her from him, shuddering to completion beside her, and she lay, eyes wide, watching what she had done to him, feeling utterly replete.
* * *
Cordelia stretched voluptuously. Her whole body was singing with satisfaction. Beside her, Iain rolled on to his side and propped his head on his hand. ‘Well?’ she asked, buoyed up with that heady combination of pleasure and the utter lack of inhibition that seemed to have crept so insidiously over her since leaving England.
Iain ran a finger over the length of her arm, from shoulder to wrist, his knuckles just grazing her breast, making her nipple pucker in response. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it certainly was worth waiting for, if that’s what you’re asking.’
She tried to stop it, but the smile of contentment seemed to push its way over her entire body. ‘I feel as if I am glowing,’ Cordelia said.
‘Sunburn,’ Iain said. He ran his finger back up her arm, wrist to shoulder, this time slowing over her breast.
She stared fascinated by her own response to him. The lightest of touches, and it set off a delicious frisson inside her. ‘We are in the shade.’ Her voice had taken on that breathy quality, yet she had only just...
She reached over, copying his action. Shoulder to wrist, her knuckles grazing his chest. Then back up again, more slowly. His shaft stirred. ‘You are not inclined to wait another year before we repeat the exercise,’ she said.
He caught her hand at the wrist. ‘I’m inclined to wait a wee bit longer. Apart from anything else, I’m hungry.’
‘And I’m sandy,’ Cordelia said, becoming aware of that fact for the first time. In fact, she seemed to be lying more in sand than on the blanket.
‘You’re not the only one.’ Iain rolled over and got to his feet, hauling her with him. ‘Come on then, first things first.’
She gazed out longingly at the sparkling blue of the sea. ‘You can’t be serious.’
He grinned. ‘What, have you suddenly developed inhibitions, Lady Cordelia?’
She had. It was all very well to lie here naked in the aftermath of making love, but to stride out, wearing only one’s skin, into the bright sunlight... She caught Iain’s eye, and saw that he had once again read her mind far too accurately. There was only one thing for it. Though her inclination was to cross her arms over her breasts and run, she forced herself to walk, arms firmly at her sides, slowly down the beach, praying that no other curious sightseer or fisherman would choose this moment to pay a visit to the cove. The thought that she would have been utterly oblivious to any number of sightseers and fishermen a few moments earlier, made her blush from her toes to the tips of her ears, and sent her into the water at a rush.
It was not cold, but it felt it. Her feet sank into the soft golden sand. The water lapped at her ankles, her knees, made her gasp as it reached the top of her thighs and then her waist. She turned to see Iain not far behind her. A rather delightful sight that made her forget all about the possibility of being discovered.
‘I’ve only ever swum in the Clyde,’ he said. ‘Even in the height of summer, it’s cold enough to freeze the— It’s freezing.’
‘I’ve never been in the sea before,’ Cordelia said.
‘So this is a first.’
He caught her by the waist, pulling her up against him. Cool water lapped on warm skin. ‘The second first of the day,’ Cordelia said.
‘Second? What was the— Oh, you mean that.’ Iain laughed, pulling her closer. ‘Did you like it?’
‘I believe I’ve already pointed out that you’re the last man on earth to need his ego boosted, Iain Hunter.’
‘All the same, I like to be sure. I wouldn’t like to do it again, if you didn’t like it.’
He hitched her legs up around his waist, and slid his hands under her bottom, supporting her in the water. She wriggled, enjoying the lapping of the sea against them, between them, enjoying the way their skin clung. Then he began to walk out. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Admit you liked it.’
The water was up to her chest now.
‘I will not be blackmailed.’ She was laughing, but she was also clinging tight, for she could feel her body trying to float away. ‘Iain, I can’t swim.’ There was a note of panic in her voice.
He stopped. ‘I can. Don’t you trust me?’
In the clearness of the water, she could see the reflection of their joined bodies shimmering. She could feel the bump of his heart against her skin. Above them, the sun beat down. His expression was serious. She looked down at him, and something twisted inside her. This was the kind of day she would remember in all its perfection when she was old. She didn’t want it to end.
‘Cordelia?’
She blinked. ‘Of course I trust you,’ she said, ‘but if you don’t mind, I think I’d rather stand on my own two feet.’
‘As ever.’ He waded a few paces into the shallows and let her slither down. ‘I’m going for a swim.’
Had she offended him? It was difficult to tell, but she did not want to take the risk of spoiling the day. ‘Iain,’ she said, catching his hand as he turned away. ‘I admit it. I liked it rather a lot.’
He laughed, as she had intended he would, and waded out, executing a shallow dive. She watched him, dipping under the waves so that the water covered her to her neck. He swam splashily across the bay twice, then turned to float, arms spread, gazing up at the sky. Though she had no desire to swim, she envied him this, for it looked so relaxing. It could surely not be that difficult. She tried to emulate him, but her body refused to straighten, and her bottom pulled her down. She stood up, spluttering and cursing. Iain was still floating, blissfully unaware. She tried again. This time the problem seemed to be that her neck wouldn’t straighten. The effect was the same, only she sank deeper. On the third try, she went completely under, and emerged, hair dripping, eyes stinging, spluttering the very, very salty water she had inhaled, to find Iain standing only a few yards away, laughing.
‘I could have drowned!’
‘I’d have saved you. You look like a mermaid.’
‘Drowned rat, more like. And you were far too intent on enjoying yourself out there to save me.’
He pushed her hair from her eyes. ‘I wasn’t enjoying myself out there. I was recovering my strength, so that we could both enjoy ourselves. Together.’
He pulled her to him and kissed her, and she discovered that her body too, was fully recovered. She took his hand, and made to wade into the shore, but Iain shook his head. ‘It’s a day for firsts,’ he said, stopping in the shallows, and pulling her down on to the sand.
He kissed her with as much hunger as he had kissed her before, and she found in herself the same hunger. His hands stroked her body, rousing her into passion, as the waves licked at her feet, her calves, her knees, and the grit of the sand in her back contrasted with the soft sureness of his touch. This time it was seamless, the transition from kissing to touching to
joining. They moved with the fluidity of sea creatures, arching and bowing, clinging, skin to skin, muscle to muscle, the rhythm of the tide, ebbing and flowing, their passion not violent but something deeper.
When she started to come, he kissed her, drawing her climax out from deep within her, holding back until she was done, rolling away from her into the sea as his own shook him. Turning his back on her, as if he did not want her to see what he felt.
A day for firsts, he’d said, which meant that the other two had not been, not for him. Cordelia shivered. Once before, and only once she had felt this emptiness, a sense of loss. She got to her feet, covering her breasts with her hands, and made for the cave and her clothes. It was the cold, that was all. She was not a mermaid, and she had been in the sea too long.
* * *
Watching from the shallows as Cordelia walked across the sand, her shoulders hunched, her arms protectively around herself, Iain wanted to run after her, to console her, but for what? He wanted her more than ever, but he was pretty certain anything more between them would be a mistake.
It frightened him, what he’d felt making love to her. The first time today—that had been—well, it had been powerful. Every bit as good as he’d remembered, but on reflection not at all what he remembered. It was the second time that left him feeling wrung out, and that’s what he’d felt the next day in Glasgow more than a year ago now. Turned inside out. As if some sort of storm had passed through him. Confused. And strangely desolate.
By the time he joined her, Cordelia was dressed, sitting tucked tightly into herself on the rug. Iain pulled on his own clothes hurriedly. The picnic he had so carefully selected was delicious, smoked kid, little parcels of rice and lamb wrapped in vine leaves, a salty cheese, olives and flat bread, but neither of them did justice to it.
They talked in a desultory manner of their onward journey. She tried to rouse him with a reference to their former captain’s short-sighted attitude to the advantages of sail. He managed a brief eulogy on the power of steam, steel, paddle and screw, but his heart wasn’t in it.
Harlequin Historical May 2014 - Bundle 2 of 2: Unwed and UnrepentantReturn of the Prodigal GilvryA Traitor's Touch Page 16