This Fierce Splendor

by Iris Johansen

  “No, not yet.” His hand moved up to rub gently at the rigid muscles, trying to relax them. “It will be better for you if you don’t get excited too soon. Relax, love.”

  Relax? How was she expected to relax when every muscle was vibrating at an excruciating pitch of anticipation? “Don’t be daft,” she said tartly. “What a truly stupid thing to say.”

  Her sudden shift from docility disconcerted him for a moment, and he went still, his cheek on her stomach, his expression hidden from her. Then his shoulders began to shake. He raised his head to look at her, his face alight with laughter. “I’ll try to refrain from any further idiocy.” He shook his head, his eyes still glowing with laughter and tenderness. “I don’t know why I expected you to respond as any other woman would. You’ve never done anything else in the ordinary way.”

  This was how he should look, Elspeth thought suddenly. This was how he would have looked if the gentleness and humor had not been stolen from him by those grim years of hiding and pursuit. She wanted to give him back those years of laughter with a desire that sprang as much from protectiveness as from passion. Her hand reached out and moved over his crisp thick curls, tenderly pushing an unruly lock back from his forehead. “I didn’t mean to discourage you.”

  “Oh, you didn’t.” His fingers were between her thighs, searching. She gave a low cry as the search ended. Her fingers clenched helplessly in his hair as he began to press, rotate, flick. His gaze was warm with pleasure as he watched her face. “You couldn’t discourage me. Not in the next thousand years. Do you like this?”

  “Yes.” She could scarcely speak through the haze of pleasure. She was trembling, shivering. What was he doing to her?

  “Good.” Two fingers plunged suddenly and she opened her lips in a silent scream as the breath left her body. Her head thrashed back and forth on the tartan as he began a rhythm that sent her into convulsions of pleasure and hunger.

  “Dominic!”

  “Shhh …” His face above her was flushed and sensual. “I know. Just let me do this for a little while. It will make the rest better for you.” He wanted to pleasure her with an intensity that surprised him. He had always tried to give his ladies satisfaction; it made his own enjoyment stronger. But this was different. He felt that Elspeth’s every response was linked in some mysterious fashion with his own. Every tingle of pleasure he gave her was his pleasure. He bent impulsively and kissed her lips with a softness that wove a honeycomb of golden sweetness about them both. “But I don’t think I can wait much longer,” he said hoarsely as he lifted his head. “May I come in and show you more, Elspeth?”

  Her smile was radiant as she nodded. “Please.”

  He slid within her very slowly, letting her become accustomed to him. Fullness. That wonderful primitive joining. He began to move, alternating short strokes with long ones; depth with shallowness, swiftness with leisurely slowness.

  His chest was moving in and out with the harshness of his breathing as he struggled to maintain control. “Elspeth, I’ve missed you so.” His teeth were clenched, his words almost guttural. “The tightness … I feel as if you’re grabbing me every time I—” He stopped and looked down at her, his light eyes glittering and wild in the firelight. “Do you know what you’re doing to me?”

  She was beginning to learn and that knowledge filled her with pagan anticipation. She suddenly made an undulating movement with her lower body. He gasped, and a shudder ran through him. She could do it, too, she suddenly realized with delight. She could give him this wonder he was giving her. She experimented again, clenching around him.

  He closed his eyes, the pulse leaping in his throat. “Lord, Elspeth, don’t do that. You’re making me lose control.”

  But her delight was too heady, her sense of power too new. She ran her hand over the tangle of hair on his chest as she began a rhythm of her own.

  His breath was coming in rough gasps as he opened his eyes. “All right, love,” he said thickly. “If you want it this way, heaven knows, it’s what I want too.”

  He plunged deep, piercing her, filling her, each thrust lightning fast, lightning hot, searing her. His palms cupped her bottom, squeezing the cheeks with every bold invasion, lifting her to each thrust, forcing her to take more of him. She tried to offer him that response she had so recently learned, but she was being overwhelmed, deluged in just the taking of him. She was half-sobbing in a fever of heating pleasure. Her nails bit into his arms, released, and then bit in again. The world was expanding, a silver box with a ruby center, a red MacGregor tartan, Dominic’s eyes looking down at her with laughter and hot delight. Beauty merged with passion, as she was merging with Dominic.

  His fingers moved skillfully as he thrust, and she felt something building that she vaguely remembered from that other time.

  “Elspeth—” Dominic’s face was tautened with strain. His fingers moved more urgently. “I can’t hold on.”

  Hold on to what? she wondered dimly. Then she knew as the tension that had been building released in a wonder of rapture that shook her to the depths of her soul. She heard Dominic’s low cry above her as that same rapture claimed him.

  “Thank God,” Dominic breathed. “I was afraid for a moment I’d leave you behind.” He leaned down and kissed her again. Sweetness, gratitude, warmth were all there, wrapping her in a cocoon to shelter her from any chill that might follow the storm. “I don’t want ever to leave you behind, Elspeth.”

  There was no danger of her ever letting him leave her, Elspeth thought. Not now. If he left her, she would follow him. If he grew tired of her as a lover, she would find a way to make herself necessary to him in another way. He had told her tonight that she was strong. Well, she would use that strength to make him belong to her in all the ways a man could belong to a woman. “I pleased you?”

  “Oh, yes.” His hand gently stroked her hair back from her face. “You’re a joy and a surprise. Not one of those hetaeras you’re always talking about could have been better, Elspeth MacGregor.”

  “Elspeth Delaney,” she corrected him. She smiled up at him. “And I thank you for the fine words. I’ll try to improve with practice.” He had not said he loved her but he had said she had given him pleasure. It would have to do for now. “Shall we continue?”

  He threw back his head and laughed. “Not now, I think it best if we rest for a while.” He lifted off her and to the side before bringing her into his arms. His lips brushed her temple as he settled her head on his shoulder. “We have time.”

  She settled her cheek on his shoulder, running the tips of her fingers down the muscles of his chest in a loving caress. Drowsiness was already tugging at her as she murmured, “I hope your wound did not get hurt. You were very … vigorous.”

  He chuckled and bent down to kiss each of her lids with a touch as light as the breath of a butterfly. “You didn’t hurt me,” he teasingly mimicked her Scottish brogue. “And I’d far rather be considered vigorous than adequate.”

  The corners of her lips turned up, and she went to sleep … smiling.

  Dominic’s arms tightened around her with yearning tenderness. He shouldn’t have done this. He shouldn’t have taken what she offered, but he couldn’t have stopped himself. The discovery of what she meant to him had shattered his control and torn aside the veil he had used to mask the truth. And now that he had taken her, he knew that he was not going to let her go again. The love she offered was even more precious than the irresistible draw of her body.

  Perhaps he could make it right. He couldn’t promise her permanency or even stability, but if he tried to make her happy in the moments they had … No, he had to do more than that. He had to find a way to protect her if anything happened to him. He had to keep her secure, and security meant money.

  The Kantalan treasure.

  He stared unseeingly into the darkness, turning over in his mind the possibilities the legendary treasure offered. Not for Killara, but for the woman in his arms. The woman he loved.

  21<
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  “Elspeth. Come, love, wake up.”

  It was Dominic’s voice, but somehow different, vibrating with eagerness and laughter. She drowsily opened her eyes. His face was different too. He was laughing down at her, his eyes alight with the joy of life, and in the moment between sleeping and waking she knew that something in him had come right; a gift taken away from him had been returned.

  “Is it morning?” she asked.

  “No. But it’s time.”

  “Time for what?” Her gaze ran over him lovingly. The fire had burned low, bathing him in a shadowy glow that glinted in the darkness of his hair and turned the bronze of his skin to copper.

  “Time to further your education as a hetaera.” His eyes were dancing. “I believe you expressed a willingness to learn new skills.” He pulled her to a sitting position. “Well, one of the first things you must learn is to adapt yourself to your lord and master’s whims.”

  “Indeed?”

  He nodded as he carefully wrapped her in her plaid. “Oh, yes, that’s most important.”

  “And what whim is this?”

  “One I’ve been thinking about since the night I brought you back to Hell’s Bluff from Jim’s cabin.” He gathered her up in his arms, ducked from beneath the shelter of the lean-to, and stood up. “We’re going for a little ride.”

  Her eyes widened. “In the middle of the night?”

  “Why not?” He strode toward Blanco, standing saddled and waiting a few yards away. “The rain has stopped and there’s moonlight.”

  “We’re not dressed,” she protested in bewilderment. She was wrapped only in the plaid and he was as gloriously naked as he had been when he had made love to her earlier in the evening.

  He chuckled. “I’ll have no problem and you have your fine MacGregor plaid to keep you warm.” He stopped, leaned down, and kissed her with infinite sweetness. “And I promise I’ll do everything possible to help. You’re not going to refuse me?”

  How could she refuse him when he looked so endearingly boyish? “No,” she said softly. “It’s daft, but if it’s what you want—”

  “It’s definitely what I want.” He kissed her again, quick and hard, and lifted her onto the saddle. “Among other things.” With one spring he was behind her, kicking the horse into a trot.

  The moon cast a silver half light on the hard rocky trail once they had left the shadowy grove, and Elspeth found herself in a strange, mystical world. A warm gray mist was rising from the earth to wreathe around them and veil the spiky tops of the tall pine trees on either side of the trail. She felt as if they were alone in a wild secret garden at the beginning of time, when anything was possible and nothing was forbidden.

  Dominic’s warm breath was brushing her ear and his arms formed a deliciously secure haven around her. The breeze touching her cheeks and tugging at her hair was cool but not chill, bringing with it the heady scent of pine and rich damp earth. She suddenly found herself filled with wild exhilaration. “Do these whims strike you often? This is completely mad, you know.”

  “Is it?” His teeth gently nibbled on the lobe of her ear.

  A tingle of heat ran through her. “Yes.”

  “I admit this is the first time this particular whim has occurred to me.” His hands were parting the tartan, slipping beneath the wool to cup her bare breasts. “But I won’t promise it will be the last.” His thumb and forefinger plucked at the sensitive nipples. “Does this please you?”

  Fire, an aching throbbing between her thighs. “Yes, I … think so.”

  He laughed softly as he enveloped her breasts in his hands and lifted them high. “Only think?”

  “It makes me feel odd … almost hurting. I suppose that’s natural though.”

  “Where do you hurt?” One hand left her breasts and moved down to her taut stomach to rub gently. “Here?”

  The muscles went rigid beneath his fingertips. “Yes.”

  His hand shifted lower and tangled in her soft curls. “Here?”

  “Yes.”

  He tilted her back against him and his fingers wandered down to delicately circle and rub, his thumb pressing skillfully. “Here?”

  She couldn’t breathe, she was throbbing, burning. She wanted him within her. What were they doing on this stupid horse when they could be wrapped in each other’s arms as they had been only a few hours before? “Shouldn’t we be getting back?”

  “You didn’t answer me.” His thumb pressed harder.

  “Yes, but we’re on—”

  “I don’t like you to hurt, love. I feel it my husbandly duty to rid you of the pain.” He shifted back on the saddle, rolled the tartan from her body, then grasped her beneath the arms, lifted her high into the air, and swung her around to face him.

  She was wide-eyed with astonishment, and couldn’t have spoken if her life depended on it.

  His hands cupped her buttocks, lifted her, and he slowly slid into her, filling her. She forgot where they were, she forgot everything but the feel of him. She closed her eyes, her head thrown back, her breath coming in little pants.

  “Wrap your legs around me,” he muttered. “Hold me.”

  She promptly did so and could feel Dominic’s heart pounding against her breasts; his chest, rising and falling with every breath, brushed hard against her aroused nipples.

  He brought her closer still and she could feel the prickle of the pelt surrounding his manhood brush that most sensitive part of her. She moaned, clutching helplessly at his shoulders. “Dominic.”

  “Hold on, love.” He kicked the horse into a gallop.

  The pounding.

  The supple leather of the saddle beat against their flesh, driving her deeper onto the warm sword of his manhood. Elspeth felt a wild scream building within her, wanting to be let out.

  Dominic arched her against him, bending his mouth to envelope her breast, suckling, biting. She sobbed. The arousal was too intense, the brand within her too hot, too hard. The pressure on her bottom too rhythmic, too pounding. Her head felt as if it were exploding, each single hair on her head burning, streaming out behind her in lightning flames of sensation.

  It went on forever. Timeless. The hunger built, the pounding built, the fever built. The horse ran faster. Her hair was going to be torn from her head by the wind. Dominic’s breath was a half sob in her ear.

  “Now!” The word was spoken between Dominic’s clenched teeth. “Now!”

  Yes, now, Elspeth thought wildly. It had to be now or she would be lost forever in this maelstrom of heat and hunger.

  She screamed, a sound harsh with primeval satisfaction as now came into pagan, magnificent being.

  She collapsed against Dominic, her head cradled on his chest, struggling to get her breath. He cupped the back of her head with one hand as he reined the stallion to a walk with the other. As soon as she thought she could speak without gasping, she lifted her head to look up at him. He was as breathless as she, but he was smiling down at her with tenderness and that same touch of boyish mischief she had noticed before. “Shouldn’t I move?”

  He looked down at their joining and flexed lazily within her. He turned the stallion. “Why? Don’t you like where you are now?”

  The color flooded her cheeks. “Yes, but I thought … isn’t it finished now?”

  He laughed softly. “Oh, no, it’s only beginning. Blanco has a hell of a lot of paces for us to try. Now we have to ride back to camp. I think you may enjoy that every bit as much, my love.” He kicked the stallion into a lope. She gasped as the jarring rhythm rocked through her. “Yes, every bit as much.”

  The fire beneath the lean-to was reduced to glowing embers when Dominic laid Elspeth down on the blanket. “I’ll be right back.”

  She watched him dreamily as he knelt and put fresh wood on the fire. Then he was beside her, gathering her close, his hand tangling in her hair as he pulled her head back to kiss her gently. “Are you tired?”

  She shook her head. “It was very …” She searched for the cor
rect word. “Stimulating.”

  He chuckled. “I’m in complete agreement. You’re a constant astonishment to me, my lovely hetaera.”

  The smile faded from her lips and she glanced away from him into the depths of the fire. “You don’t have to say that.”

  “Say what?”

  “I mean, you don’t have to pay me compliments. I think it’s better if we’re honest with each other. I’m well aware that I’m a plain woman.”

  He stared at her with blank amazement. It seemed a century since those first days when he had actually believed Elspeth plain. He couldn’t even remember why he had thought it to begin with. Even masked by her spectacles and shrouded in those hideous gowns, he should have been able to see the beauty that was Elspeth. He had a vague recollection of her making some such comment before and he realized now that she could not see her own beauty. Her father had been such a bastard that he’d stolen her pride in the person she was inside and out. “Did your father say you were plain?”

  “Of course.” She didn’t look at him. “But I always knew it anyway. I have a mirror.”

  “I wonder what you see in it. Is it what your father saw? No, it couldn’t be that, because then there would be no reflection.” His thumb and forefinger were beneath her chin, turning her face so he could look into her eyes. “Because he was a blind man, Elspeth. Blinded by cruelty, selfishness, and his own ugliness of spirit. You didn’t believe him when he told you there was no Kantalan, why should you believe him when he told you that you had no beauty?”