Page 49 of Taming the Heiress
"I do feel it," she said, her lips brushing his neck, his jaw. "I know what we are about here." She stretched for his kiss.
"Meg," he said, dragging his lips from hers, determined to make certain all was clear between them, "I must know something. You walked with a fellow on the beach the other day. Norrie said it was Sir Frederick Matheson who came to see you. Tell me—if he means something to you." Voice low and ragged, he hated himself for asking. But he had to know.
"He is no one," she murmured, her mouth tracing over his. "No one at all to me."
He lay back, gathered her into his arms, held her. "You kissed him." Surprisingly, he felt only a little jealous; instead he felt a strange sense of knowing, of certainty that she was his and could belong to no other. He wanted to trust her loyal, caring heart and dared to hope that she shared his feelings.
"He kissed me," she corrected. "And it meant nothing to me. Do not think about it. And I will not think about it." She added in a low and oddly defiant voice, "Not now." She tilted her head to kiss him again.
He broke away. "Meg, my girl," he whispered, "I need to know what you want of me, of us, just now." This time he would ask—this time, he knew just what he wanted and why. Her, forever. He held still, heart driving hard in his chest, and waited.
She looped her arms around him and stayed so still that he thought, for a moment, she would simply pull away and end this. Fair enough, he thought, if that was what she needed to do.
Setting her cheek beside his, she sighed in his ear. "I want the dream," she murmured. "Just once, I want the dream that I am truly, deeply, utterly happy. Where I have all that I want and I am just who I want to be, with the man who has my heart in his keeping."
He sighed out low and traced his lips over hers, stirred so deep he could not speak. The dream, as she called it, was what he most desired himself. And she was the dream. He drew back, waited.
"For this one night," she went on in a soft voice, "though I know it cannot last, I want the beautiful dream that I have kept and treasured. After that—" She stopped, and he held her, feeling the thump of her heartbeat through her slim rib cage, beneath his hands.
"After that?" he whispered, easing his lips over her earlobe, teasing, tugging, as he waited.
She shook her head a little. "Then I will go back to the other world and do what must be done."
He nodded. But he intended to take her with him into that other world, as he moved from place to place, from city to remotest point. She was indeed the dream, had always been so for him. He dared hope, now, that he would be the dream for her, as well.
He rose over her then, propped on his hands while she lay back on the sand. The water rushed at their feet, and from far beyond, he could hear the faint strain of a fiddle and the sweet harmony of singing. He looked down at her.
"What do you dream?" he murmured.
She pulled him down toward her. "I have often thought about what we had once before," she said, "that perfect knowing of one another, perfect caring for each other. And I dream that all the years in between never happened, that we have always been together. Just this once, I would like to feel that it is so."
He kissed her, then drew back. "It could be so. We could stay together forever." His feelings for her, he realized, had formed years ago and had not changed, staying deep and full, waiting dormant until he had found her. Now that he had begun to know her, with her kind heart for others and her sweet, honest purity, he knew that he loved her.
She shook her head gently, something he had not expected. "Just the dream," she said, sliding her fingers into his hair. "That is all I want tonight. Please," she whispered, and he heard a note of such plaintive force, such surprising desperation, that he felt himself run hot and deep with longing and desire. He wanted to give her joy, complete himself in the completion of her.
"Please—" she repeated, and he touched her mouth with his, took the word and turned it into a kiss. He traced his tongue over her lips and shifted lower, drifting kisses along her jaw, her long and beautiful throat, until he found the swell of her breast. He fingered gently at the buttons of her blouse and opened it, slipping his hand inside the warmth there, sliding beneath layered cotton and cambric. As he touched her incredible softness, she gasped, and his body tightened deep within, like a fist, and began to throb with a burgeoning need.
Dipping his head, he touched her nipple with his tongue, coaxed it to stiffen, heard her whimper as she slid her fingers through his hair, over his ear, and down, until she was tugging at his shirt, and he in turn slipped her blouse from her and fingered the delicate laces of her camisole.
Gasping, moaning softly, she undressed him quickly, and he drew off her garments, one after the other, until they lay nude on a scattering of dark clothing and pale sand, hidden in the black shadow of the headland where no one could see them, where they had found a small private space to relish each other.
Feeling the gentle, cool evening wind on his skin, he drew her into his arms, her skin warm and delicious against his, and he traced his lips over her breasts, teasing her nipples to pearls, while she arched and breathed out in a cry. He traced his tongue over her breasts, between them, and downward over her abdomen, to where she was sweet, tender, and secret.
As she shivered under him, he teased her, stroked her, until she clutched at him and whimpered out her release. When she subsided, sighing like a wave, he could not control the powerful need much longer, his heart slamming, body and soul near to bursting. But he must not give her a child, not yet, though he wanted that, someday, with her. Even if he could not resist her—yet again—he would not knowingly compromise her well-being.
Through a haze, he reminded himself to be cautious, even as she pleaded with her writhing body and a low, throaty moan that sent a hot pulse through him. She moved in the soft sand beneath him, pulling him over her, and he gave a low groan, all fire and blaze and no longer himself.
As his body slipped into the glove of hers, she became his crucible and he hers, all fire and passion, all wind and sea and pounding heart. The storm tore through him, and somehow he found the strength to pull back, to spill himself into the warm sea that teased around them.
Breathless, he gathered her into his arms and rolled to his side to hold her. Moments later, he realized that she wept silently, hiding her face against his shoulder.
Chapter 13
Moonlight on the whispering sea, the surf rinsing at her feet, and Dougal's arms around her would become memories to carry her through the rest of her life, Meg thought. Years from now, she would treasure this night and one other, and she would always remember him like this—her kelpie, so strong and beautiful, tender and kind, and hers alone.
Soon she must never see Dougal again. Once she resumed her existence as Lady Strathlin, she was sure that her future husband would not allow his wife—no matter her fortune or her desire—to return to Caransay alone, free, without threat.
She sucked in a quick breath against the pain of that and ducked her head against his chest.
