her to keep her in place for his fingers.
“Tell me, Jemma, tell me to stoke yer sweet flesh some more. I promise ye, it gets even better.”
“Better?” Her voice was harsh and breathless, but her clitoris begged for what he promised. Her question gained a flash of his even teeth as he smiled and made another pass of his fingertips across her slit. This time, he slid two fingers into the folds and swept them down to the opening of her body. He only touched her clitoris through the twin folds of her sex, but that sent a flame of pleasure up her passage.
“Aye, better, lass. Shall I show ye what pleasure it is that couples defy the Church to gain?”
She felt as if she might die if she didn’t know the answer. Her heart was pounding so hard, her hearing became nothing but a rushing of her own blood. Her back arched, trying to lift her hips up so that she could gain the pleasure he hinted at. She wanted it, craved it so greatly that nothing else mattered.
“Then ye shall have it, lass, from my hand.”
She craved attention on her clitoris. The little button throbbed at the top of her sex, making her mindless with need.
“God, ye’re wet.” Now his voice was raw with need. She heard it and knew exactly what it was. He pushed her chemise up to bare her and leaned forward to suck on her clitoris. His mouth was impossibly hot around the sensitive nub. But she didn’t have time to care that she might be burned. He sucked on her clitoris and worked his finger in a small circle around the opening of her passage. The motion pushed her over the edge into a swirling pool of pleasure that was so intense she felt it tearing her apart. It was blinding and almost deafening, but she still heard her own cry echoing off the ceiling. Every muscle tightened, straining toward his mouth. The walls of her passage clamped down while the pleasure broke deep inside her.
She lay there, boneless, unable to move anything except to draw in breath. Her chest rose and fell in shallow motions because she lacked the strength to draw deeper breaths. Gordon sucked a few last times on her clitoris before raising his head to watch her. Smug satisfaction gleamed from his glittering eyes before he crawled up the bed to lie beside her. His arms gathered her close while she struggled to regain enough strength to think once again.
She didn’t want to. All of the fight that had been coursing through her before was completely gone, and in its place was a contentment she couldn’t recall feeling in far too long. She felt as if she was exactly where she should be.
Which made no sense at all.
But her body was glowing with delight, hands reaching out to touch him because it felt so very right. His kilt brushed against the tender skin of her inner thigh, making her open her eyes to look at him.
“You didn’t take any pleasure.”
He was still fully clothed, and he moved the moment she spoke, sitting up and pulling her remaining boot off. That action recalled their quarrel to her thoughts. He stood up but turned and tucked the bedding around her in a tender action that confused her.
Extremes again. Tender and hard. She confessed to enjoying both.
“I don’t understand you.”
He looked down at her, as if his gaze was memorizing the sight of her. Satisfaction glowed in his eyes when he was finished.
“Trust is nae something that can ever be demanded, lass. Too many men think that what they have from their brides is trust when it is actually fear. Frightened by their fathers and clergy, they lie on their backs and submit, all the while cringing. My first wife was that way and I swore that I’d never repeat the mistake of taking a woman that was a feared of being with a man to me bed again.”
“You have a wife?” Jemma felt her skin turn icy in a flash of horror.
“Nae. I had a bride who could not enjoy being a wife, so I let her go to a convent when she begged me to. She says she is very happy there, and the Church dissolved our union in favor of her becoming a bride of Christ.”
Jemma sat up, her eyes rounding with horror. She held the bedding tightly against her body to cover her nudity. The bed rocked, and a hard hand cupped her chin.
“Do nae look like that, Jemma. Ye have nae been whipped and broken with the notion that women are placed in this life to service men without any pleasure for themselves. Yer passion is natural, the way God designed ye, and I want ye just like that.”
“So what was this? Some indecent test? To assure you that I would be passionate enough to please you?”
He chuckled, a harsh sound of male victory that was too arrogant for her pride to tolerate.
“Aye, it was. Part of courting is discovering what manner of woman ye are. I don’t want to discover my bride hates the very idea of touching after the priest has blessed us.” His expression turned dark. “I’ve already done that once. Nae again.”
So he was not repentant one bit, even if she found it unsettling. “This is not part of courting.”
His eyes flashed at her. “It is for me. I am not some beardless boy content with soft kisses, and ye would be dissatisfied if I trailed after ye begging for yer attention. Ye are too much of a wildcat for that, Jemma. Part of ye needs to be taken.”
“Then why stop short of making sure that I am ruined for anyone else?” Maybe she shouldn’t have asked that question, but it was one that burned for an answer, eating away at her until she could not resist the need to know.
He released her chin and caught her hand in his. With a controlled pull, he drew her hand beneath his kilt and pressed her fingers against his cock. His flesh was hot and rigid beneath her fingertips, and she couldn’t suppress the shiver that went through her.
