Page 53 of Beyond Dreams

He settled between her thighs and tried not to crack into a million pieces when the tip of his penis touched the center of her. And then Duncan instantly fell in love with the way she lifted her thighs and gripped him tight.

Slowly, he slid deep inside her welcoming, wet sheath.

He halted there, his eyes closed, absorbing the riot of sensations felt.

You feel like heaven.

In all my life, I’ve never wanted anything more than this.

Never before has burning fire felt so good.

So many thoughts swelled in his head. He spoke none of them, unwilling to make this too... singular, or rather reluctant to advise her how extraordinary this was.

“What do you feel?” He asked instead, opening his eyes.

“I feel...scattered,” she said, husky with emotion, her voice faint. “But then I’m so tightly wound. Christ, Duncan, please move inside me.”

He did, but he was in no hurry. He withdrew and slid forward, groaning as her sheath clenched him. He continued to torment himself and her, his leisurely thrusts both heaven and hell. Until heaven beckoned greedily, and a guttural growl of pure need was ripped from his chest. He bucked his hips against hers, hard and deep. She exploded with a cry, her muscles contracting around his shaft, urging him to thrust harder, faster.Jesu, but she was tight. And sweet, So damn perfect.

He knew he wouldn’t last as long as he wanted, not now, at their first time, while he was still in awe of her body and her passion. Duncan’s explosion ripped through him shortly after hers had consumed her, his body stiffening briefly before he spilled his seed inside her. He collapsed against her, driving his hands into her hair, tugging, burying his face in her neck, vaguely aware that she’d dropped her legs to the mattress. His climax continued to roll over him, the pleasure clawing at him in vivid and beautiful colors at the same time it drained him.

“God in heaven, Duncan,” she said after a moment, her words vibrating against his cheek, “but that was awesome.”

He chuckled, not as heartily as he might have if he weren’t so winded but chuckled nonetheless against her hair and neck. He shifted up and out and away, settling onto his side and drawing her up against him.

“Aye,” he said, still a wee short of breath. His brain couldn’t yet process too much. “God in heaven, indeed.”

He held her close, stroking her back, every sense of his acutely alive and in harmony to the feel of her naked body draped against him. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, tucked beneath his chin.

Her arm was thrown across his chest, her fingers scratching idly, slowly, and then slower until they stopped, and she slept.

He let her sleep in his arms, trying his damnedest to not let their coupling take up any grand residence in his mind or heart. He’d done what had been necessary—if glorious—and that was all. He’d done his duty. The fact that it had been magnificent meant nothing but that he should like to do so again. The woman in his arms, her skin warm and soft against him, her even breaths fanning out over the hair on his chest, meant little to him but for this, for the opportunity to plant his seed in her. He wouldn’t let her be any more to him than that.

Even within the confines of this current rapture, he felt the jolt of old warnings, of his father being led by a string by Doirin. That would not happen to him, he was not so weak as had been his father, did not want to wake one day regretting all that he’d allowed to get out of hand, the loss of control and dominance. ’Twas not to say that he compared Holly to Doirin—they were not cut from the same bolt of cloth, he knew, had known almost from the start.

But then she was a danger as she was, was she not? For being outspoken and brave, for challenging him and provoking him? He still hadn’t decided what her initial fright and tears were about when first she’d come to Thallane. He thought them not merely ploys to have her way, but instead considered her behavior then her own slow coming to terms with their wedding, which as she’d said had rather been thrust upon her, and then raising her chin and forging ahead—as he always meant to do: begin as you mean to proceed. After that first day, she’d shown little in the way of broken and beaten.

A worthy mate, he decided. Though this was worthless, such a thought. He reminded himself that aside from this right here, aside from making and bearing his sons, he simply hadn’t any real use of a wife.

Of course when he woke only a few hours later alone in the bed, his wife gone, he did not recall his last thought before succumbing to sleep, that he would not allow Holly to play any role or hold any part of him.

Her absence immediately suggested some idea that she might regret their coupling, or her eagerness for it, that she wanted to get far away from it, and Duncan was assaulted with an unease he hadn’t expected. He rubbed his hand roughly over the stubble on his jaw, as if that would soften the expression on his face now, and rose from the bed, stalking naked across the chamber to find his clothes, meaning to locate his wife and gauge her mood. He might even find himself amenable to another kiss from her sweet lips.

He paused in the midst of pulling a fresh tunic over his head, the action stalled by both a fresh stab of pain in his arm and by his next thought, that seeking out his wife straight away was probably not a pattern he wished to begin.

His tunic came down slowly, at the insistence of his now absent-minded hands.

He had no intention of behaving the lovesick swain.

He would not seek out Holly this morn, mayhap not for all the day.

Already, she’d proven what power she might be able to wield if he but allowed it.

***

She’d slipped fromDuncan’s bed more than an hour ago, had returned to her own room and dressed, wanting to visit the beach, somewhere invigorating and remote, where she might privately shuffle through all the emotions raging inside of her. She was waylaid at the gate, which was still closed at this early hour, and denied an exit by a metal-helmed soldier who’d looked down upon her from his lofty perch upon the parapet, from which he could see both inside and outside the curtain wall.

“We’re in lockdown, my lady,” he said. “After the laird went missing yesterday—and ye, too—and ever since, captain says the gate stays closed.” At her crestfallen expression, he shifted his stance, his firm expression easing. “Like as nae, my lady, ’twill be opened soon.”

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