This was far beyond what he had ever envisioned. An angel, fallen to her knees, fallen from heaven, taking part in pagan delights here in his bed.
And this was why he had not been able to bring himself to lay down with a doxy. Because this was what he wanted. Penny. On her knees before him. Pleasuring him, not with skill, but with all the bright-eyed determination she put into everything that she did.
The slick heat of her mouth took him nearly to the brink. It had been far too long since he’d been inside her and his hold on his control was tenuous. She created magic with her tongue and set fire to his reason. There was nothing except for the wet, deep suction of her mouth. There was nothing but them. He had been a man of base needs for as long as he could remember. When he was hungry, he wanted food. When his lust was inflamed, he wanted sex. When his anger was stoked, he wanted satisfaction. When wrong was done to him, he wanted revenge.
He did not care about the manner in which he received those things. But she created in him an appetite that could only be filled by her.
And she created in him a yawning ache for more. But as quickly as she created that need, she fulfilled it, the glide of her tongue over his body a sort of witchcraft.
Pleasure built behind his eyes, his whole body tensed. While he wouldn’t mind spending himself down her lovely throat, he felt that was a step too advanced in her education.
And he wanted to be inside her. Properly.
He pulled her away from him, then lay down on his back, bringing her over the top of him, her slick entrance resting against his hard shaft.
‘Now, lass,’ he said. ‘You wanted control? It’s your turn to ride me.’
* * *
Penny was trembling, both with arousal and with shock over what she was doing.
She had done it. She had steeled up her resolve and gone into his room. She had done exactly what Isla and the others had described.
And it had been wonderful. She had never, ever once thought that perhaps the act might disgust her. No. She had known that everything about his body was pleasing to her. Absolutely everything. And if it made her a wanton, then so be it.
Now, as she sat astride him, his big, hard body pulsing beneath hers, she had different thoughts about ruination.
She was not going to be ruined in this bed. She was being remade. Reclaimed.
Or perhaps claimed for the first time.
For all of her life she had been an oversight. A creature that no one much cared about except what she might do for them. Her isolation and her position in society as a gently bred lady meant that she was not only ignorant of the world around her, but of her own body. Of the magic that it contained. Of the true beauty of being a woman. Heat bloomed low in her belly and in that place where she was slick and hollow, waiting for him.
She had felt conquered by him on their wedding night, and every night after. But she saw it differently now all of a sudden. After the way that he had trembled as she taken him into her mouth. After the way that she had found her own power as she lavished pleasure upon him.
He was not taking from her by being inside her. Rather, he was demolishing walls built up high and thick inside her, around all that she was and all that she expected to be. She felt strong, because she knew these things now. Because she knew of her own power. And men—men like him, gentlemen, even—they already knew. They knew what it was to have the sort of passion between men and women, and they deliberately kept it from ladies. Deliberately kept secrets about their own bodies from them. And by laying with Lachlan, she had discovered truths. By being with a man who shared and shared freely, she had found that there could be more.
Not for wives, Lachlan had said. No, for some mythical class of woman, prostitutes, harlots. Women who were disdained in fine circles, but valued in the bedroom, by men who desired acts that they could never teach the women they married, because then they might understand, fully, the power that they wielded.
But she understood. She understood it now.
And she had meant to come back together with him so that she might find closeness with this man, but she had found a closeness with her own self that she had not anticipated.
She had been locked in a prison for weeping when she’d been a girl. She’d been locked in herself for years since. Expectation and carefully concealed knowledge, and the weight of the fact she had no true control over her destiny.
But here…
She felt free.
She manoeuvred herself so that the head of his cock was pressing against the entrance of her body, then she lowered herself over him, inch by tantalising inch. She looked down at him, at her brawny captive, who filled her with his hardness to the hilt. He was so handsome it made her ache. And that was the other side of this power.
She was not unaffected.
For he was utterly and incredibly captivating. The hard lines of his face, the sculpted angles and planes of his chest. The cords in his neck stood out, his biceps straining as he moved his hands to grip her hips and hold her down over his pulsing manhood.
She could feel how much he wanted her and that drove her on. Made her feel a power unlike anything else. But it also heightened her own need. Made her slick and desperate for satisfaction.
It had been so long for her.
She didn’t know if it had been for him.
Her stomach soured at the thought of him laying with a prostitute.
And whatever other women there might have been, they weren’t here now.
It was something that ladies were supposed to accept. That their husbands would seek entertainment elsewhere.
She did not share. And after tonight she would make that clear.
He had taught her what it was to feel pleasure in that first week of their marriage. And now she would teach him what it was to be hers.
She began to move, arching her hips up and down, shuddering with satisfaction as she felt the length of him sliding inside her.
She had missed him. She had missed this.
Yet it had never been like this. Because here, with the candles flickering over his face, she could see that he was in the grips of a pleasure that looked nearly like pain. That he was utterly hers. In this moment.
Inside her.
She rode him until waves of need made her internal muscles pulse, until ripples of desire radiated out from low in her stomach further down. Until her head fell back and she cried out her pleasure, crashing down over her. In her. Then on a growl she found their positions reversed, found herself lying on her back, her great warrior looming over her.
He was fierce and he was strong, and was terrifying in the most thrilling of ways.
He had told her that a show of strength was always necessary. That it always benefited a man for those around him to know he was strong.
Tonight she thrilled in that. In his strength. And how very much a man he was.
It had been so foreign to her at first. But now suddenly she understood. She was soft. She was female. And her body had the power to make him shake. He was man. He had killed countless men in battle, hadn’t he told her so?
He could easily kill her. With one large hand wrapped around her throat, he could end her before she ever had the chance to scream. But he chose instead to give pleasure with those hands. To hold her in all of that strength and not crush her with it. The strength of a woman. The tenderness in a man.
Though he was not tender now, his powerful thrusts pushing her back against the headboard, making her cry out in pleasure. The ridges of wood bit into her skull. She didn’t care. She was so desperate for all that he could give her. For what she wanted. She was desperate for everything.
And suddenly she understood. She understood that great well of emptiness that had opened up inside her after the other times they had come together. For their bodies had connected, but this time their souls had entwined.
This wa
s unleashed. And it was what she wanted. The warrior. The man. The one who was frightening and beautiful all at once.
She wanted to see not only what his lovers had seen, but what men on the battlefield had seen before them at the end of their life. She wanted every piece of Lachlan.
She didn’t understand it. Didn’t think she ever could.
But it didn’t matter, because there was no room for thought now. She was a creature made entirely of sensation, when for most of her life she had been stitched together by too many thoughts and a great hollow pit of loneliness.
But not now.
Now, she was bursting with sensation. With pleasure like she had never known.
She had come to seduce him and had been thoroughly seduced in return.
And she was glad.
‘Lachlan,’ she whispered his name.
‘Penny.’
Her name on his lips made her soar.
She hadn’t imagined that she might find her peak again after she had already done that so quickly before. But when she did, it was earthy. Deeper. Her second climax shaking her, rocking the very centre of what she was. Then he growled and did not withdraw from her body. Instead, he poured himself into her as he shuddered out his own orgasm.
Little aftershocks of pleasure made her quake and she clung to those brawny shoulders.
When she fell asleep, she tangled her body around his. And she did not allow for distance.
* * *
In the morning, Penny was woken up by, not Isla, but Lachlan.
The night before came flooding back to her in great, colourful images.
Her face burned.
He was standing there at the centre of the room, gloriously naked. His broad chest bare, chiselled and covered with hair. His waist was lean, his hips narrow. And his manhood…was very definitely interested in exploring yet more pleasure between them.
It took her a moment to realise he was holding a tray. With a tea service, and a plate that seemed to have…
A piece of toast.
‘I had thought you might wish to take breakfast in bed.’
He set the tray down in front of her.
‘Did you fetch that naked?’ She was trying to imagine the kitchen maids handling all that rampant virility in their midst.
And while she was only teasing, even in her own thoughts, she found that the idea made her burn with jealousy. Because she didn’t want to share the glorious sight of Lachlan’s body. It was hers. Hers alone.
She picked up the piece of toast and bit into it fiercely.
‘I don’t get thanks for that?’
‘Oh, of course you do. But you didn’t go into the kitchen naked, did you?’
‘I did not. It might surprise you to learn that I do possess some manners.’
‘Good. I feel that it has not been established between us, but I would like it very much if you did not go to see whores.’
She successfully shocked him into making a sound somewhere between a laugh and choking. ‘You would appreciate that?’
‘I find I don’t relish the idea of sharing your body.’
‘Well now, lass, you denied me your body.’
‘I did,’ she said. ‘Though I sort of expected you to take your husbandly rights without my leave.’
‘Is that what you would have preferred?’
‘No,’ she said, her face feeling hot, her throat scratchy.
‘And so now you’re concerned about my taste for doxies?’
‘It is a concern.’
‘There haven’t been any,’ he said.
She blinked. ‘None?’
‘Oh, no, lass, many. But all before you.’
‘Oh.’
‘I found I didn’t have the taste for it.’
‘Why not?’
‘The hell if I know. All I know is that when craving the touch of my innocent wife, it did not appeal to me to go to a lightskirt to find my pleasure.’
‘Well, I would like for that to be… I would like for you to not.’
‘I promise,’ he said. ‘I vow. Only you.’
She hadn’t expected that. She hadn’t expected for him to promise, to vow. And he had. Easily.
‘Good. And if there any more…tricks that you wish for me to learn that are not becoming of a lady… I find that I quite enjoyed learning those others.’
‘Vixen.’
‘Perhaps I am. I would’ve done quite well as a duke’s wife. The peerage are notoriously unfaithful to one another. Perhaps I would’ve enjoyed exploring my many options.’
‘You have one option.’
‘And that is?’
‘My cock. And with it, you may unveil the mysteries of the universe.’
‘That is quite a lot of confidence in one cock.’
‘Confidence has never been my issue.’
‘Thank you,’ she said finally. ‘For the toast.’
‘You’re welcome.’
A warmth spread in her chest. This was what had been missing. This. He held her all night long, then he had brought her toast. In that, he had shown just a small bit of caring. And she found that she had desperately needed it. Just something to show that he was…changed.
Because she was changed. And there was no denying it.
‘And thank you for the fidelity.’
‘There is a cost to that,’ he said.
‘What is that?’
‘You no longer have your own bedchamber.’
A delicious, forbidden shiver raced through her. ‘If I can have toast, then it will be a small price to pay.’
‘I believe you’ve just sold your body for toast.’
‘And yet I find myself unashamed.’
It was true. With him, there was no shame.
She had made friends here and they were a balm for her loneliness. But this was something more. The fulfilment of a need she hadn’t realised she’d had.
Such a strange thing to have moved into a life so far away from the one she had imagined, only to find exactly what she had been searching for.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Lachlan’s men had convened for a meeting. They had been issued an invitation to visit the Laird of Clan Darrach and he felt it only right to consult his men. Though he would decide how to proceed as he saw fit.
That was the easy part of the meeting. They would be gone at least three nights, between travel and the acceptance of hospitality. Some would remain behind to protect the people, but Lachlan and a select group would go.
He had been back for over a month now, and he felt it was time to get a sense for the way things had progressed.
Penny was the biggest surprise. Lachlan saw her strengths easily, but when he introduced her as a topic among his men he was surprised to see they saw them as well. That they gave full credit for her planning of the party, which had brought the clans together and felt like the start of a new era. That they saw her caring for the people in the village, building relationships and community.
Of course, not everyone was accepting of the Sassenach bride, but he felt that more were than were not.
Tensions remained, however, most disturbingly within the men who acted as warriors for the clan. The biggest opposition came from his cousin, Callum, and the men who served under him. But he was blood and Lachlan felt a particular loyalty to him out of that connection.
Callum was from Lachlan’s mother’s line. And he owed loyalty to that. To the MacKenzies.
‘The feast was excessive,’ Callum said. ‘There is concern that, while you shared this time, your English wife will beckon you to behaviour more like that of the English aristocracy. Such unrestrained displays of craven wealth are not welcome here.’
‘It was a gift,’ Lachlan said, protective of his wife and of the celebration she had planned.
<
br /> ‘Aye, and the people loved it.’ Lachlan was surprised when Paden, one who was loyal to Callum, spoke out against him. ‘Though there is unrest still regarding your wife.’
Rage ignited in Lachlan’s gut. ‘And many of the people love her. She has gone out daily into the village to share food. To offer aid. She is the one who brings back the needs of the people to me. I have no interest. Were it not for her, they would find their bellies much less full.’
‘You must be firmer,’ Callum said. ‘What we need is a Laird with a fist of iron. We have no need for parties.’
‘Yet it seemed as if the people did need a party.’
‘This is not a London ballroom,’ Callum said. ‘This is Scotland. Clan MacKenzie is proud. We are warriors.’
‘You need not speak to me of war,’ Lachlan said. ‘I know war. It was my world for nearly ten years. All of life cannot be a war. I fought tirelessly. And it was that fighting that gave me what I needed to return here. To restore our people and our land. I know war. Not the petty skirmishes that happen here, but devastation on muddy battlefields. Young men filled with lead. Their bodies destroyed by cannon fire. I have no desire to be at war for all of my lifetime. And perhaps the people of the clan deserve better.’
‘Austerity with survival is better than luxury for a time, only to have it end in death,’ Callum said.
‘Where is death?’ Lachlan asked. ‘There is no enemy at the gate.’
‘But there could be an enemy at the gate, any day. At any moment. And we must be prepared.’
‘There is a difference between being prepared and living under siege when it is not necessary.’
‘You would be better off divorcing your wife. Sending her back to England. Picking a Scottish girl from the village,’ Paden said.
‘I have married Penelope.’ He thought of last night, of the brilliant fire that had burned between them. It had been like that ever since the night she had come to him a fortnight before.
The distance and coolness that had existed between them in those first weeks since their return to Scotland had melted away. Whatever reason she had for keeping her body back from him, she had banished it. She came to him joyfully. Freely.
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