Katharine Ashe - When a Scot Loves a Lady

“Oh, God. No,” Kitty groaned, feeling him without even touching him. Knowing everything was changing now.

He knew it as she did. He had tried to put her off before, but he had succumbed below stairs, and again now. He had come to make love to her although it could not be wise. They were not for each other despite this thing that drew them together, the hot familiarity that should not be there between them.

But perhaps he was merely a man, unknown to her as he said, who would say anything to gain entrance to a woman’s bed. She would depend upon it. She would pretend there was nothing else, nothing she could feel each time he looked at her.

It felt like a lie to even consider it! And she wanted no more lies. No more secrets. She wanted life and laughter, and this man made her feel those with barely a word. And he made her want him as she had never wanted anything simply by standing before her in gorgeous disarray.

“This is a very bad idea,” she whispered. “You must go.”

He took several deep breaths.

Silently she prayed.

He turned and went to the door. Kitty’s knees gave way. She collapsed to the bed, dropping her face into her palms again. The door clicked shut. The bolt knocked into place. Her eyes flew open.

He moved right to her, with a firm hand on her shoulder pushed her onto her back and climbed over her, sinking the mattress with his knees. He looked down at her, both their breaths audible.

“Tell me nae.”

She could not.

Holding her gaze, he nudged her thighs apart and lowered his body onto hers.

Kitty trembled, every muscle paralyzed. This was too much. Too fast. It was not her life, her rigid existence of purpose and poise. This was a man’s body brushing hers from chest to knee. A breathtaking man with raw desire in his hooded eyes.

She whispered, “Yes,” barely a breath.

He shifted his hips into hers. Her body erupted in sensation. His need was hot and hard against hers. Her eyelids fluttered and she moaned softly, her knees coming up to clasp his hips, hands seeking his waist. The desperate ache spread as she pressed to his erection. He moved against her again, pushing her into the mattress, and she nearly came apart. She groaned in pleasure and lifted, rocking herself against him.

“Yer wanting mair than this,” he said above her lips, each thrust through the friction of their clothing like sin, making her feel everything. His hand circled her calf, moving beneath her shift, along her thigh. “I am.” His voice was rough, as hot with need as her body.

“Yes,” she uttered, and on a breath, “If you would oblige.”

He pushed her shift up, past her hips and breasts. She would have kept it; he yanked it over her head. He shoved his shirt under his arms and brought his chest against her naked breasts and his mouth down upon hers.

She drowned. Feeling him, skin against skin, his taut muscle against her nipples, was utterly bewildering and spectacular. His tongue delved into her, demanding, his hands sweeping down the sides of her breasts, curving along her waist and hips. He dragged her against him, releasing a cascade of pleasure in her and coiling the ache tighter. She drank him, ravenous for his tongue sliding in and out of her mouth, nibbling at his lips, wanting more.

He broke away from the kiss and pulled off his shirt. His hungry gaze swept her from brow to toe.

Kitty sucked in breath and turned her face away. She knew what he would say. She had been here before.

“Pray, do not—”

“Your body is art, Kitty Savege.” His chest rose on hard breaths. He caressed her hip, his strong hand possessing. “Perfection.”

Kitty couldn’t breathe. The man who spoke was not the man she had taken into her bed. His words were beautiful, deep, and smooth, the Scots burr entirely gone, like that moment in the yard.

Her lips parted. “Per-perfect—” she stuttered. “But—”

“No,” he ordered.

She gripped his shoulders to push him off. “But, yes.” She scrambled out from under him, her arm a brace holding him away, her other hand grabbing up a corner of bed linen before her as a hasty covering.

“Kitty—”

“What you said,” she panted, feeling his hard breaths through her palm with every nerve in her body. “Why did you speak that way?”

His eyes were so dark, liquid with desire.

“Kitty, luve,” he said somewhat raggedly, “A dinna ken whit A’m saying nou A need tae be inside ye.”

A sound escaped her, a surprised whimper that was nothing like her.

“All right,” she heard herself whisper. “That will do for now.” She threw herself at him.

He grabbed her up and bore her down beneath him, and cupped the sides of her breasts, the pads of his thumbs seeking the peaks, and she moaned. Then he caressed her into silence, and submission. Her hands sought the waistband of his trousers and clutched around his tight buttocks. His hand slipped between her legs. He held her a moment, neither of them breathing, then he delved into her.

“Kitty,” he groaned, sinking his finger deep, and she clutched the bedclothes. He caressed, and she trembled as he touched her so perfectly— sublimely. He drew out, but she was breathless for more.

Then he entered her again. Her body shook, his fingers driving her, slowly in and out, teasing. She arched into him, begging for more with her body.

He kissed her mouth, her throat, the valley between her breasts, then her tight nipple until she moaned, wanting him.

“I must have you now.” Deep, husky, perfect, a fantasy of words and cadence.

“But I— Now,” tore from her. “Do it now.”

He pulled off his trousers and moved between her legs, spreading her thighs with his hands. His shaft pressed into her, opening her, and it was a hard invasion, welcome, at first almost unbearably so; it grabbed her breath.

Then delicious. Perfect.

He groaned; she echoed him. His arms and jaw were taut with restraint. With each gentle thrust he gave her more, and it was an agony of tortured pleasure. Push in, retreat. Again farther in. And again, each thrust better than that before. She quivered, strung. She hooked a leg around him and tried to pull him close.

But he would not give it all to her. She struggled beneath him, sliding against the bed linens, pushing herself up to meet him. His big hand curved around her face, a fingertip tracing her lashes.

“Please,” she whispered.

“Vainement je m’éprouve.”

Kitty’s eyes flew open.

His eyes were nearly black. He kissed her hard, then whispered above her lips, “Is this whit ye be wanting, lass?” He braced his hands to either side of her and drove up into her. Their moans mingled.

He filled her completely. She did not want him to withdraw. She did not want it to end.

He knew her mind.

“’Tis anely the beginning.”

“Make it last,” she uttered as she shifted her hips to feel him thoroughly. Her fingertips sank into the muscle of his buttocks, holding him tight to her.

“For ye an me both, luve.” His voice was as strained as hers. Breaking her hold, he pulled out, she gasped and he thrust in again. Again, harder with each thrust, and a little bit deeper each time, caressing her so deep within. He met her center. She bucked, dragging herself onto him, and he went deeper still, giving it to her over and over until she whimpered. She bit her lips to withhold her shouts, breaking the skin. He covered her mouth, sucked on her lip. His voice came rough and deep.

“Contre vous, contre moi.”

“Leam.” He forced her down into the mattress. “Now— oh!” But he kept coming until her breaths shallowed and dizziness gripped her. Then rapture, rolling, sudden. Her sounds of pleasure tangled with his, his hands holding her hips down as he rose high in her. His body strained. She met him, taking his fast thrusts amid her shudders and feeling him thick and powerful. His hips pressed hard into her a final time, and with a great breath he went perfectly still.

She sighed a stuttering exhalation. He fell upon his forearms. She pressed her cheek to the mattress. Their breaths came heavy, her breasts flattened beneath his chest. She ought to unwind her arms from around his waist. His skin was damp beneath her palms, his heartbeats thunderous like hers.

Finally he pulled away and rolled onto his back, taking a tress of her hair with him, between his fingers. His eyes were closed and as his breathing slowed his thumb stroked the lock across his palm.

Kitty shifted onto her side, curling her knees up to hug, and the strands slipped from his hold.

For long minutes they lay like that, his fingertips by her shoulder but not touching. The chill air tingled over her cooling skin.

“What was that you said?” she finally said. “The English part.”

His breaths seemed to pause. “A dinna ken, lass,” he finally replied.

“I don’t believe you.” But she was, after all, well suited to games. She would demand an explanation, but tomorrow. Not now. Not filled up and trembling as she was at this moment. “What do we do now?” she said, repeating her question from earlier, the confusion welling within her ever stronger now. She had never given this to a man, not this abandon.

He turned his head, and his eyes were all gentleness. Somehow it did not surprise her, this warmth.

“Ye weel ask that quaisten, winna ye?”

“It is a good question.”

Silently his gaze traveled the line of her hair, across her features.

“And?” She must try to understand at least this. She was accustomed to having a plan. “What now?”

“Whitiver ye wish, lass.” The words came upon a hard breath, as though brought forth reluctantly this time. He curved his hand around the side of her face and passed the pad of his thumb across her lips, the same caress that had made her want him so swiftly. It was at once tender and demanding.

She did not know exactly what she wished, so she did not speak.

“’Tis best an A go nou,” he said quietly.

Her throat was dry. “Of course.” She had never considered an alternative. Lonely wanton, her imagination did not extend further.

He pushed onto his elbow and surrounded her face with his hands. His eyes, like pitch cast in the sheer silver of night without, sparkled. He placed a warm, astoundingly gentle kiss upon her lips.

“Happy Yule, Leddy Kath’rine.”

She could not reply to wish him the same. Her throat was closed finally, somewhat belatedly. She had not actually known that she could moan in such a manner. No one had ever warned her it was even likely. No one had told her anything, of course. And she had most certainly never discovered it on her own.

She had been kissed so very differently before, by a man who told her she was imperfect, her body inside and out something to be ashamed of, even as he used her, telling her that she was not desirable.

She had not known a man could kiss a woman with such tenderness. She had not known this.

Leam sat on the edge of the bed, drew his trousers on, and shrugged his shoulders into his shirt, then stood. For a moment he remained so, his broad back to her, looking out the window. Then he turned, touched two fingertips to her cheek, gave her another smile, and left.

Kitty stared at the closed door.

Nothing could have been worse than Lambert Poole’s cruelty, how he had used her, then laughed at her, telling her he had ruined her out of spite to her brothers whom he despised. Kitty believed for years that she had experienced the worst a man could do to a woman. She had told Lambert that herself.

Clearly, she had been wrong. Somehow, astoundingly, a sweet, simple good night from this man after everything was worse.

Church bells woke Kitty. Uneven, inharmonious church bells rung by an inexpert hand, which seemed unlikely, so she dragged herself from the bed in which a near stranger had made love to her hours earlier, and peeked out the window. Glare from the snow pricked her eyes.

Rapid knocking came at the door. Not a man’s knock. Of course not. Kitty had little doubt that in company the Earl of Blackwood would appear today as he had after each previous encounter, the same mildly flirtatious, lazy-eyed semi-barbarian she still could not quite believe she had invited into her bed. Although in point of fact she had not really invited him. He had climbed in.