Devil in a Kilt by Sue-Ellen Welfonder

Chapter 25

Hellfire and damnation!

Duncan remained poised above his lady wife, frozen in place, afraid to even breathe lest he hurt her more.

Helplessly, he watched several fat tears leak from beneath her tightly closed lashes and roll down her cheeks, leaving silvery tracks in their wake.

“Sweeting,” he breathed, his voice ragged. He stared down at her, noting the rapid beat of her pulse, visible at the base of her throat. Her lower lip trembled, the signs of her pain twisting his heart. “Linnet, I-”

“Dinnae say you’re sorry.” Her eyes opened then, and she regarded him with a gaze the color of molten bronze. “Please. I couldn’t bear it.”

“Och, lass.” As tenderly as he could, he brushed the tears from her cheeks with the side of this thumb. “I only regret that I’ve hurt you. For the rest, and the gift you’ve given me, I am grateful and awed.”

Lifting her hand, she curled it around his neck, tangling her fingers in his hair. “The pain is not so great.”

Duncan frowned. “I would have spared you any hurt.”

“I know that.”

“Still…” He caught her wrist, kissed her palm.

By the hounds, he’d meant to seduce her, not cause her pain no matter how sharp or small. He’d wanted simply to win her trust and acceptance with the prowess he’d once been so proud of.

And what had he done?

Stormed into her virginal sheath with all the finesse of a rutting stag!

In one out-of-control moment, he’d proven himself no better than the wild beast she seemed to hold him for at times.

“You didn’t hurt me,” she said then. “Leastways, no more than an unexpected pinch.”

“Lady, I do not believe you,” he murmured against her temple. “But I promise you, ne’er shall you suffer the pain again. You wouldn’t have this time, at least not so badly, had I been more gentle.”

Yet, saints have mercy on him, how could he have known?

He’d truly thought he’d taken her in a hippocras-induced haze on their wedding night.

Cautiously, he began easing his still-swollen shaft from the tight heat of her body. She tensed at the movement, stiffening beneath him and the fleeting wince she hadn’t been able to hide lanced his conscience with the sting of a newly sharpened sword.

Instantly, he froze, the tip of his manhood still within her, the warm silkiness of her woman’s flesh intoxicating him, urging him to sink back into her heated softness.

Instead he swallowed an oath, remaining where he was, rigid and unmoving.

He started to tell her he wouldn’t mount her again lest absolutely certain she was ready for him, but she reached up to stroke his jaw, her fingertips sliding lightly over his lips, silencing him.

“You could not have known, my husband.” She gave him a small smile. “I, too, thought I was a maid no more.”

A maid … a virgin.

Duncan’s manhood throbbed, jerking at the very thought.

His heart melted.

Ne’er had he been the first with any woman. Not with Cassandra and certainly not with the paid joy women he’d visited to assuage his need in recent years.

Truth to tell, he’d doubted virgins existed. For sure, he hadn’t expected his new bride to be one.

He hadn’t even cared.

Yet now, as they lay joined together still, guilt at his clumsiness roiled through him, twisting his gut even as an incredible feeling of joy coursed through him.

A feeling so powerful, he wanted to race to the battlements and cry out in triumph.

Shout his gladness for all to hear.

For as surely as her virtue pleased him, the willingness she displayed in the moments before he’d plunged into her meant more.

Much more.

Her welcoming acceptance filled him with such happiness he felt as if some great hand had ripped aside a dark veil, allowing light to stream into the dark void he carried within.

His entire weight resting on his elbows, he feasted his eyes on her. She lay as if cut from marble, her beautiful eyes staring up at him, her lips slightly parted, her cheeks still glistening with her tears.

The silvery light slipping through the shutters cast a lustrous glow to her smooth skin, and the dying fire reflected in the tangled mass of her hair spread across the pillows, turning her tresses the color of dancing flames.

A dusting of freckles stood out against the creaminess of her skin, and he ached to kiss each and every one of them. He’d begin with the ones sprinkled like stardust across her nose and end with the ones adorning the swell of her wonderfully full breasts.

Duncan drew a deep, steadying breath, wholly awed. Ne’er had he seen a more beautiful sight.

Ne’er had he desired a woman more.

And ne’er would he have believed he’d come so close to loving again.

“On my life, lady, I wouldn’t have taken you so roughly tonight had I known,” he said, lowering his lips to the warm skin of her neck. “But I … I thank you.”

“I am the one who is grateful,” his wife said, her voice so soft and low Duncan doubted he’d heard her correctly.

Taking his full weight onto his arms, he pushed himself up, easing his manhood completely out of her. “What did you say?”

Rather than answer him, Linnet used the tip of her tongue to wet her lips. She gave him a shaky smile, then sighed and touched her hand to his cheek. “It was nothing I shall repeat, but I will ask why you pulled away.” Her words were barely audible above the din of the storm outside. “It is a wonderful feeling, this, and I would that it continues.” She smiled again, brighter this time. “I told you I would not shatter.”

Deep inside Duncan, something swelled and did shatter. Another great portion of the wall around his heart. “You would that we go on?”

“Aye, indeed.” Her gaze steady on his, she nodded, then moved against him. The feel of her soft, intimate curls brushing against his shaft nearly drove him past the bounds of restraint.

“I must warn you, it will not stop hurting,” he managed, his voice raw. “Not this night.”

“I do not care,” she said, the breathy sweetness of her voice undermining his control. “Let us keep on so we can bring this time to completion, then do it again,” she added, surprising him. “For I should like to experience this … this joining … without the pain.”

Duncan’s passion surged anew, his shaft swelling and lengthening as he slowly eased himself back inside her. She tensed, her fingers clutching his shoulders, her soft sighs urging him on.

But still, he held back, not yet ready to guide her into the age-old rhythm her untried hips instinctively sought.

“Relax,” he coaxed, his hand sliding over her breast, gently kneading her fullness as he spoke. “Let your knees fall farther apart and give yourself up to what you’re feeling. I’ll try not to hurt you.”

Linnet did as he said, opening her thighs wider to accommodate him, trying to relax as he said she should, to will the tenseness from her limbs.

She wanted to, for the sensations spreading through her were almost too exquisite to bear, but doing so wasn’t easy.

It did hurt.

Much more than she’d expected.

Yet the searing discomfort was nothing compared to the way he made her feel and the exaltation flooding through her since she’d glimpsed the truth of his desire for her.

Indeed, it was written all over his face and in the tender way he moved within her.

“…good lass,” she heard him say, his voice somehow distant, blurred by the haze of passion swirling around her.

“Open yourself a wee bit more,” he urged, using his hands to gently ease her thighs farther apart. “Dinnae worry – I’ll withdraw immediately if you but ask.”

“That I shall not do,” she said, smoothing her hands over the broadness of his shoulders, glorying in the feel of his hard muscles working beneath her fingers.

Faith, how could he think she’d want him to stop?

She couldn’t bear it if he did.

Now not, just when she was reveling in his pleasure of her as a woman.

The raw need raging in the depths of his eyes, the urgency in his touch, the huskiness of his deep voice, his concern for her comfort, all went straight to her heart, overwhelming her with a powerful surge of emotion, the likes of which she couldn’t begin to comprehend.

It was a glorious feeling, and she wanted to savor each moment it lasted, relish each touch, memorize the wondrous feel of him inside her.

Give herself up to the heady sensations he awakened in her, enjoy the feel of his magnificent body joined to hers. Indulge herself in the sheer intimacy of his maleness moving ever deeper into that most secret part of her.

Simply knowing he wanted her made her spirits soar so high she feared she might never come back down.

“Am I hurting you?” his voice came again, this time so close to her ear his warm breath sent a delicious shiver down her neck.

“Aye, it hurts,” she told him true, “but dinnae stop, for the rest makes up for the pain.”

He raised up at that, looking down at her with a triumphant smile spreading across his face. The first one she’d ever seen that fully reached his eyes.

Then the smile faded, replaced by an expression of intense concentration and something else – a heavy-lidded, smoldering look that turned her knees to jelly.

“This will help, sweeting.” His gaze locked on hers, he slipped his hand between her thighs, touching her … there … where their bodies came together so intimately. She couldn’t help but gasp, her eyes widening.

A faint ghost of the smile returned, flickering knowingly across his lips as he began to move his thumb in a slow circular motion that made her press up into his hand, so intense the sensations.

“Ahhh…” she gasped, startled. “Whatever are you doing to me?”

“Shhh,” he urged, and she suspected he knew full well what his intimate ministrations were doing to her. “Just relax. Let me pleasure you, lass. Feel me touching you.”

Breathing rapidly, incapable of speech, she turned her head from side to side, squeezing her eyes shut, and raised her hips, pushing harder against his hand, ever closer to his roving fingers.

An exquisite throbbing began deep inside her, the sensation centering in her very core, then spiraling outward, filling her with a tingly warmth and heaviness almost too sweet to endure.

She opened her mouth to cry out, but he captured her lips with his, smothering any sound she might have made with a deep and sensuous kiss.

Desperately seeking, struggling to reach some elusive goal hovering just beyond her grasp, Linnet opened her mouth wide beneath his, welcoming the silken glide of his tongue. She melted into him, wanting and needing more, burning for all he could give her.

As if he knew what she sought and meant to aid her, Duncan slipped his other hand beneath her hips, drawing her higher, ever tighter against him.

Then he increased the caressing motion of his thumb. Linnet cried out and dug her fingers deep into his shoulders.

Unable to do more than cling to him, she let him sweep her into an abyss of such intense sweetness she wondered if she’d die of it – so powerful were the sensations whirling through her.

All else faded away. The bed and its cool sheets of linen. The fine embroidered coverlets and many silken pillows. Even the darkened chamber with its faint scent of still-smoking tallow candles and the cold freshness of rain ... its very stone walls seemed to fall away, ceasing to exist.

Nothing remained save the tempest building inside her. A storm a thousandfold more potent than the one still raging outside.

Then its fury broke, releasing a flood of pleasure such as she’d not dared to dream existed. As if from a distance, she thought she heard Duncan call her name. She wasn’t sure, for the fierce sensations surging through her had stolen her ability to hear anything but the rushing of her own blood, the pounding of her heart.

She lost control, was powerless but to let this wondrous feeling carry her to a place she wished she could stay forevermore.