Marguerite Kaye - Unwed and Unrepentant

Not even with Gideon had she felt like this. This was not flirting. It was not the dance of will-we-won’t-we? It was—communing. Ridiculous. The Highlanders must have infected her with their taste for whimsy.

‘What are you smiling at?’ Iain leaned forward, resting his chin on his hand.

‘I’ve never done this before.’

‘Nor have I.’

He leaned across the table and took her hand. She still wore her travelling gown, but had loosened the buttons around her wrist. He stroked the skin there with his thumb, little circles that soothed and roused, drawing all her body’s focus to that point, where they touched. He didn’t ask her, what, what is it you haven’t done before? She liked that he didn’t pretend. She had always hated that part of the dance—the pretending, the false misunderstandings, the advance and retreat.

‘What were you doing on the docks today?’ Cordelia asked.

‘Thinking,’ Iain answered, not at all perturbed by her turning the conversation. ‘Planning. I’m at a—a what is the word—hiatus? A turning point. I need a change.’

‘What do you do?’

He grinned. ‘Didn’t you guess? I build ships. Paddle steamers.’

‘With spire engines, I assume?’

‘Steeple. Aye. Though I have in mind some modifications.’

‘Is that what you were thinking about, then?’

Iain shook his head. ‘That’s just business as usual. I need— Ach, I don’t know. I need a bigger change.’

He was still stroking her wrist. Shivers of sensation were running up her arm, heating her skin, setting it tingling. She seemed to be doing the same to him, though she had no recollection of leaning across the table and touching him. It was as if her body and her mind were disconnected. ‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘what bigger change were you thinking of?’

‘New markets. New seas. New something. I don’t know. What were you doing there?’

‘I’m going to Edinburgh.’

‘That’s no answer.’

He lifted her hand to his mouth and began to kiss her fingers. The tip of each one. Then the pad of her thumb. His eyes never left hers. They were darker in the lamplight, gleaming with a combination of desire and challenge. Did she want this? He took her index finger in his mouth, and sucked. She released his other hand, slumping down in her chair. Her foot, clad in stockings but not her boots, found its way to his leg. She ran it up his calf over his trousers, and saw the surprise register.

He sucked on her middle finger, his tongue tracing the length of it. ‘Cordelia?’

Corr-deel-ia. ‘Guidebooks,’ she said, sliding her foot higher, over his knee, to the inside of his thigh. He clamped his legs together, holding her there. ‘I write guide books. The Single Lady Traveller’s Guide To—Paris, Brussels, Rome, Dresden. Others. I can’t remember. And now the Highlands.’

‘Impressive. Surprising. You’ve not done any destinations closer to home?’

‘I don’t have a home.’

‘I know how that feels,’ he said.

Sadness chased across his face, but was quickly banished. No questions. ‘No, let’s not talk about it,’ Cordelia said, as if he had spoken aloud. ‘I am tired of thinking about it. My own turning point. There is nothing—I’m tired of it.’

‘Then we won’t talk of it. Should I go, Cordelia?’

‘Do you want to?’

‘You know I don’t, but you also know that I will.’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘No, I don’t want you to go.’

He let go her hand. He let her foot slide back on to the floor. He got to his feet and came round to the other side of the little table and pulled her upright, sliding his arms around her waist. ‘I am glad,’ he said, ‘because I have never in my life wanted any woman the way I want you. Now.’ And then he kissed her.

* * *

He kissed her, and the connection was elemental. She understood it, when he kissed her, this feeling of knowing, of being known. You. You. You. She recognised him with such a strong physical pull that she staggered. As if she had been waiting all her life for him. As if none had gone before him. As if none but him would ever matter. She could analyse and question and dissect, but she had no interest in doing any of that, no interest in establishing a conflict between her mind and her body. Her body had already won. ‘Yes,’ she said, though he had not asked, ‘the answer is yes.’

She led him into the bedchamber. No words were necessary after that, though they spoke with their lips, hands, eyes. Kissing. His mouth felt as if it were made to kiss hers, hers to fit his. His kisses were like questions. This? And this? And this?

And this, she replied, touching her tongue to his, relishing the sharp intake of his breath in response. And this. She opened her mouth. His kisses deepened, his fingers tangling in her hair, his breath warm on her face.

Her hairpins scattered. She pulled at his coat. He threw it on to the floor, then kissed her again. She reached behind her to unfasten her gown. He turned her around, wrestling with the buttons and fasteners, kissing her neck, her shoulders, his breathing ragged. The gown took some time to wriggle out of, hindered and impeded by kisses. He pulled her against him when it finally fell to the floor, her bottom against his thighs. She was frustrated by the layers of her undergarments. He curved his arms around her to cup her breasts. She shuddered, wanting his skin on hers, her nipples hard, aching for his touch. He began to untie the strings of her corsets.

He cursed under his breath. She could not understand the language, which might have been Gaelic, but might have been something more colloquial. When her stays dropped to the floor, releasing her breasts with only her chemise to cover them, he turned her around. Slashes of colour on his cheeks. His eyes glittering with desire. Her own breath quickened, the knot in her belly tightened, the low throb lower down began. ‘Take them off,’ she said, pulling at his waistcoat.

He discarded his own clothes quickly, efficiently, without any modesty. He was as lean and hard as she had imagined, his shoulders broader, his skin paler, the muscles beneath tensed. And he was more than ready, his erection jutting up against his stomach. Cordelia shuddered. She had never wanted anything so much as this man inside her.

He had been watching her studying him. She smiled at him then, quite deliberately, and felt an answering heat as he smiled the same smile in response. This was going to be—everything. Anything. All. Did she say it aloud? She thought it as he pulled her to him once more, and she felt the thickness of him against the apex of her thighs. His kiss was desperate now. Her own too, her mouth ravaging his, her hands clawing at his back, at his buttocks, at his flanks.

He pulled her chemise over her head. She untied the drawstrings of her pantalettes. She wore only her stockings and her garters. He swore again, this time a word she recognised, a harsh, guttural word that should have shocked her, but expressed exactly what she was feeling. Then he cupped one of her breasts in his hand, covered the nipple of the other with his mouth.

Heat, shivering, frissons of pleasure, tugging, connecting up. Delightful. Delicious. But almost too late. There was no time for this, not now. She pulled his face back up to hers and kissed him frantically, pressing herself against him with abandon. Now, now, now. ‘Now!’

‘Aye. I hear you. Dear God, I hear you. Cordelia, I am so—I don’t think I can wait.’

‘Iain, I know I cannot.’

He laughed. A deep, masculine laugh that vibrated against her breasts, her stomach. Then he kissed her, pulling her on to the floor because even the small distance to the bed was too much. Her arms were wrapped around his neck, her legs around his waist, as he thrust into her.