Page 40 of A Celtic Vow
Chapter Thirteen
CONSTANCE MARVELEDAT her dreams. At watching her and Aodh when they were younger, planting the acorn that gave birth to the tree overhead. At seeing the two of them as teenagers struggling with how hard it had been not to touch one another too intimately. Loving each other so much yet being barred from it because they had no choice.
Then she felt his determination to fight something on her behalf. Something that would take him away from her forever if it had its way. So she pleaded with him to stay. Not go. Never go. But he didn’t listen. Instead, he went, left her, and she cried out over and over that he stop. Not leave her yet again.
“Please don’t go, Aodh,” she wailed, only to wake wrapped in his strong arms.
“’Tis all right, lass.” He caressed the back of her head much like he had when she’d nearly died at his castle. “I’m right here. I haven’t gone anywhere.” His voice grew hoarse with promise. Vehement with conviction. His determination to defy whatever stood in his way. “I’llnevergo anywhere.”
She breathed in his scent and pressed closer, trying to burn away the chills racing through her. An icy cold that slowly abated as she found herself caught somewhere between the terror of losing him, the desire her teenage self had felt for him, and the flat-out lust she experienced now.
“You promise?” she murmured against his ever-warming skin. She flicked her tongue, eager to taste him. “Because I want—”
“Something that I fear giving ye.” He tilted her chin until she had no choice but to look at him. “’Tis not a gentle thing laying with me, lass. Not that I know of.”
“That's okay,” she whispered. “Even though I think you might be wrong.”
“Then ye are more naïve than I’d hoped.”
“Hoped based on what?” She traced her fingers along his stubbled jaw. “Our time as teenagers when we couldn’t even touch? When you told me the same thing? When we never got to see if I was the same way?”
At least back then, she had known what she was before she was somehow forced to forget it.
Before Aodh could respond with more excuses or fears, she pressed her lips against his, then dropped small, intentional kisses when he continued to fight it.Her.
“I don’t want to be a virgin anymore,” she whispered against his lips and dropped another kiss. “It’s been too long.” Another kiss. “Way too long, and I’m beginning to think not just in this life.” Two more kisses. “But the last one as well. In fact—”
Before she could keep going, he groaned, wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, and kissed her so passionately that her ability to think and keep persuading him faded away. Instead, she lost herself in the way he made her feel. In kisses that went from passionate to hungry to angry back to loving.
All the emotions rushing through them both.
She murmured his name, needing more. Moaned with approval when his hand traveled down her neck to her breast, then lower. She shook with awareness. Need. While she craved his touch, wanted his hands everywhere at once, he seemed to understand what she needed most when one hand caressed the side of her neck gently, and the other slowly pulled up her dress.
His kisses grew more insistent as his hand trailed up her hypersensitive thigh. As he caressed then squeezed just enough to make her feel captured by him in some small way. Imprisoned by how he took control.
“Ohh,” she gasped when his mouth traveled from her lips to the area of her neck he’d been teasing. When he dusted his finger back and forth over her clit, barely touching. Rather, matching the flicker of his tongue until he nipped her neck while rubbing his weapon-roughened, hot fingers over the throbbing flesh between her thighs.
She squirmed, fighting him because it felt so good, too good, but he locked her down. Kissed her again and pressed a finger inside her while still rubbing her clit.
It was impossible to fight him after that.
Not when their tongues twisted, and she had no choice but to give in to how he made her feel. She moaned against his mouth when he worked another finger inside and kept building her up. Stole away her ability to think.
“Do ye want to think?” he murmured against her lips when mini-climaxes washed over her, and she arched against him. “Or is it time to feel even more?”
