Page 75 of Here in Your Arms
Wanting to assure him of her devotion to this moment, Rose said the first thing that came to mind. “I want you. Everything.”
With a low growl, Tiernan covered her mouth again, claiming her as his. He slipped a finger inside her and Rose’s eyes opened wide with wonder.As I live and learn! she thought, her vision filled with Tiernan’s face, his closed eyes, the perpetual furrow in his brows.
His eyes opened before her, mere inches from hers.
“Jesu, but ye are wet, and so bluidy tight,” he groaned.
“And...” she searched for the word, what she felt right now. “Desperate.”
He kissed her again, his tongue sliding in and out in the same lazy, provocative rhythm as his finger. Rose lay happily helpless under him, her only awareness being that of his hands, the press of his body, the way his tongue filled her mouth. She moved in natural rhythm against him, lost in the thrill, wanting this to never end even as she ached for fulfillment. Tiernan kissed her mouth, her breasts, her neck and continued his decadent assault, sliding his fingers deeper and faster, each stroke taking her further from reality. She groaned and threw her head back and....
Tiernan removed his hand. Deprived of his touch and swiftly turned into a shameless beggar, she opened her eyes and instinctively reached for him, but he had fled the bed.
No words of complaint erupted, however, as Tiernan stood and quickly removed his breeches and hose. Instead, her pulse leapt in her chest as he faced her boldly as he stripped. The flickering light thrown by the fire rippled across the muscular contours of his powerful body. His shoulders and arms flexed gorgeously as he tossed his clothes onto the floor beside the bed.
Rose’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of him, staring at a fully aroused, completely naked Tiernan only a few feet away from her. His thighs were as huge as she’d imagined, markedand marred with dozens of scars, old and some new. His erection she could not have imagined, but he...he was a big man, so it only made sense that he’d be big all over—but frankly, she’d simply never thought about that part of his anatomy.
An errant, wayward thought of,Well, that’s not going to fit,was quickly forgotten as Tiernan returned to her.
He lowered one knee to the bed and bent over her, taking her nipple in his mouth, sucking gently, and Rose felt the excruciating pleasure return to her again. In the next moment, he shifted, coming on top of her until he lay cradled between her legs, pressing the tip of his erection where his hand had been. Slowly, he rolled his hips, sliding his hard length against her opening, probing, preparing her. Rose, aware of her emptiness, could have wept with a desire to be filled. She arched against him, wanting to be his.
“Tiernan,” she begged.
“Open yer eyes, lass,” he commanded.
She did so automatically, having been so lost in sensation she hadn’t been aware they were closed.
His jaw set like stone, Tiernan took her face in his hands, compelling her gaze.
Breathless with anticipation, Rose met his blue eyes, hardly able to conceal what might have shown in hers, all her want and need and so much more that she hadn’t bargained for.
Clenching his teeth, he surged forward slowly but relentlessly until Rose gasped as pain seared her when he possessed her completely. Tiernan responded by kissing her, though with little tenderness. He kissed her hungrily, as if a man long starved, his tongue seeking, teasing, tormenting. After a moment, he moved again, shifting his hips, sliding out and then in, and Rose gasped against his lips.
“I dinna want to cause ye pain, Rose...”
“It’s not,” she started, pausing to assess. “It hurts, yes, but...how does it also feel so good at the same time?”
He received this with another primal growl, and Rose closed her arms around him, her fingers digging into his back. At his instruction, she lifted her legs and wrapped them around his tight buttocks. And as she clung to him, he began to move again, faster and deeper. Rose took all of him, happily, heartily. She caught his rhythm and rocked against him until that beautiful pressure built again, and she reveled in the pleasure and the pain, having some ancient, primordial sensation that she belonged to him now, that this was exactly what she wanted.
He thrust harder and deeper, coiling the tension so tightly inside her she thought she might lose consciousness. A spiral of desire rose and rose until she nearly cried out and then a swelling sensation burst within her, eliciting a whimper as her entire body was rocked by a violent explosion. The orgasm crashed over with an unexpected intensity, shattering her—she had no idea, couldn’t have imagined such a thing. Her body shuddered and spasmed and clutched him tightly, pulling him even deeper inside her.
A primal, guttural groan erupted from Tiernan as his passion crested, filling her. He held her tightly, his arms and chest as rigid as steel against her at the same time she struggled to rise back to consciousness.
Tiernan dropped his head against hers and she became aware of their breathing, ragged and hot.
Neither moved for a long time until Tiernan gently slid away from her, dropping onto the mattress beside her, drawing her into his arms.
***
Rose didn’t know how long they lay there, tangled together in the furs, their bodies still warm and her heart still strumming. The fire in the hearth had burned low again, and the storm outside had faded to a distant hush against the thick stone walls, but inside the chamber, the air felt dense—heavy with heat, with breath, with the quiet aftermath of what had passed between them.
She had never imagined herself here—curled in the arms of a medieval warrior, her body aching in ways that felt wholly unfamiliar and yet somehow right. She’d never pictured what it would feel like to be seen this way, touched this way, with a kind of reverence and hunger that hadn’t come from tenderness, exactly, but from something more intense. And now, with his weight still lingering in her body and the memory of his touch fresh on her skin, she felt unsettled, knowing something had changed, though she wasn’t sure how it would play out, what it would mean.
Drowsily, she considered that it had been inevitable, this thing between them. Hadn’t it been? The slow, volatile build, the friction that sparked every time their eyes met, the tension thickening in every breath they shared, every time they’d clashed, sometimes as brutally as striking flint to steel.
Of course it had led here.
Another part of her—a less quiet and more unwelcome part—knew it couldn’t last. He had said he was leaving in the morning. She’d known that, even before he’d kissed her. She wasn’t foolish enough to believe this meant more than what it was: a physical connection, a beautiful collision.
