Page 66 of Winter Longing
He brought his mouth back to hers and pushed her backward, toward the bed. One hand skimmed down her back and pressed her hips against his. Ailsa gasped into his kiss, feeling the hard line of him pressing against her softness.
She nearly wept a moment later when he stopped. Completely. Took his mouth and his hands away and just stopped.
With a whimper of discontent, Ailsa opened her eyes, her fingers clutching at his tunic.
“Ailsa, I have to ask... have you done this before?” While she shook her head slowly in answer, he questioned, “Do you...know what we’re about to do—what I very desperately want to do with you right now?”
She felt no shame confessing that she hadn’t a clue, shaking her head once more. In truth, she hadsomeidea, but as were Anwen’s warnings about a man’s possibly inappropriate behavior, Ailsa’s knowledge was vague, lacking specifics.
He took her face in his hands again and kissed her forehead and then said, “Do you want me to lay it out for you? Well, wait—first, are you sure you want to do this?” With seeming regret he lowered his hands and put a bit more distance between them. “I have a feeling that you’re going to—and not because you’re a woman or anything, but just because of the time period, that gulf of centuries between us—that you’re going to be looking at our marriage as a forever thing... even though I’ve said and I hope you understand that I just don’t know what the future will bring.”
It struck Ailsa that this was the most amount of words Cole had ever strung together all at once, and she sensed that he was nervous about something.
“I’m saying it wrong,” he admitted when she failed to respond. “I just mean, once it’s out of the bottle, so to speak, you can’t put it back.”
Ailsa narrowed her eyes at him, trying to understand exactly what he was saying.
He grimaced a bit and tried again. “Ailsa, I’m guessing you’re a virgin,” he continued bluntly, “but you won’t be after tonight.And I’m wondering if you’d rather remain a virgin, maybe if... well, if something does happen and I somehow get back to my time, maybe you would marry for real and would want to be a virgin for your husband. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think virginity is kind of prized in a bride in this time period.”
The words,for real, stung. Sharply. But she didn’t let on—she’d already been holding her breath so a gasp was impossible. She wanted his touch, wanted more of his kiss, wanted his hand on her breast again, felt as if she would die of hunger if she wasn’t fed these things. So she focused on the one thing he’d said that would—or might—get her what she wanted.
“Ye are my husband.”
He smiled. It came with a burst of a sigh, something like relief. “I was hoping you would feel that way.”
If onlyyoudid, she thought with a bittersweet twinge.
In truth, she counted herself lucky, to have had as many moments as she had with this handsome, considerate, mysterious man from the future. But she was greedy and wanted more. She’d take whatever she could get before he was taken away as he supposed he might be.
“I trust ye,” she told him.
“That’s funny,” he said. “When I first came here, I felt the same about you—I trusted you almost immediately. I still do.”
They stared for a moment at each other. Cole brushed her hair back from her temple.
“This is desire, what I feel when ye kiss me?” She asked, wanting that clarified. “Passion, mayhap?”
“Um, yeah,” he said, grinning playfully, “if I’m doing it right. And yes, if you’re wondering, I feel the same.”
“We have desire and trust, then,” she told him. “That’s a guid beginning, even if the beginning is all we have.”
He liked this, she decided. One corner of his mouth lifted and he looked into her eyes, left and then right. “Sometimes Ilook at you and I can’t believe you’re real. But yeah—then we’re good. Although I still need to know, do you want me to spell out what...making love is, or...do you want to feel?”
“Feel,” she answered automatically, greedily. “I want to feel...everything.”
“That’s a good answer,” he said. His white teeth flashed briefly. “I really don’t think you want to hear me stumbling and fumbling through some lame explanation of all the moving parts and what they’re going to be doing. It’ll be so much better if I show you.”
Once more he pulled her close and kissed her again. His mouth was like warm silk against her lips, infinitely persuasive, and soon he deepened the kiss, ravishing her, and Ailsa clung to him.
He lowered his head and claimed her lips with a scorching kiss. Her mouth opened instinctively, allowing his tongue to tease and torment with relentless skill until her knees threatened to give way. Was this to be her fate—to be undone again and again by him, by the relentless pull of the desire he stoked in her?
Somehow, they had gotten turned around—or Cole had turned them around without her realizing—so that the bed was behind him. He pulled her forward, his lips not leaving hers even as she felt him lower a bit. He leaned or sat against the side of the high bed and reached for her hips, easing her into the space between his thighs. She was happily trapped and greedily drank in his kiss while he raised his hands and stroked strong fingers down her back and then up until he found the laces of her léine. As if he were facing the ties with his eyes opened, he loosened them effortlessly. Next, he moved his hands to her arms, pushing them up, dragging his mouth from her so that he could raise her léine over her head. He did not kiss heragain immediately though but stared at her chest for a moment, compelling Ailsa’s gaze to drop as well.
Her breasts ached and her nipples stood hard against the thin fabric of her chemise.
Time, that funny thing that brought him to her, stood still when next he touched her breast.
With worshipful awareness he closed both hands around her breasts. Ailsa shivered but otherwise did not move. He kneaded her flesh through the fabric, his thumbs stroking over the peaks. Ailsa moaned and dropped her head to the side, closing her eyes, reveling in the sensation, the way her pulse pounded with delight. Her eyes jerked open, however, in the next moment, when he put his mouth to the fabric, pulling at her nipple with his teeth. The sensual shock of it weakened her knees but Cole moved his hands to her hips steadying her, bringing her more intimately between his legs, bringing more of her breast into his mouth.
