Page 54 of An English Rose for the Highlander
Rose stood in the study for a moment longer before Dominik insisted to Fiona and the servants that they needed a moment of privacy in their chambers. She was hardly aware of moving through the halls, of stepping along the familiar stonework, and climbing the winding stairs to the second floor. She could scarcely notice that they found Dominik’s bedchambers and stepped inside, her husband bolting the door behind them.
What she was acutely aware of was the fact that the English officials were gone, and they had very nearly taken her husband from her.
She stared wide-eyed at the floor as Dominik guided her to a chair. He had a similar small table in his room, a similar hearth, if much bigger than her own, and a similar bed, if also much larger and with a canopy and four posts.
“Are ye all right, lass?” Dominik’s voice shook her out of her jumbled thoughts.
“Yes, thank you. I am fine. I…They had brought a document of promise. They were intent on taking me?—”
“Aye, lass, they were. But they dinnae get the chance. Yer keen eye picked out the issues with the document. Ye…Ye were a sight, Rose. I’ve seen supposedly bolder men crumble under the pressure of like situations.”
Rose looked properly at her husband for the first time since they entered the room. They were inside Dominik’s bed chambers. This was thefirst timeshe’d seen them, and her heart hammered against her ribcage. His brow was furrowed as he stared down at her, standing right at her feet as he held her hand.
Those green, green eyes, flaring brighter than the leaves after a rainstorm.
“Kiss me.” She didn’t blink, holding Dominik’s stare as she squeezed his fingers. “Claimme. I…Ineedto feel you. Here and now.”
He looked at her with shock painted over his expression, but it melted away in moments. A face of almost relief, overwhelmed by the presence of desire and so much stronger than the caution and care they had been taking up until this point, met her then, and Rose stood from the chair.
They had been playful before. They had been acting on duty before. But now, as Rose thrust herself into Dominik’s arms, and he yanked her against him tight, it was none of those things. Itwas passion, raw desire, and the desperate need to know that the other person was not gone.
For they had very nearly lost one another, and Rose knew more than ever how much that would have crushed her.
Dominik kissed her with a frenzy, a claiming motion that took all she was as he spun them around and practically leaped onto the bed with her. Rose wanted that, needed it, her entire body humming with urgency and demand. Without thinking, she reached for his shirt, untying the laces at his throat.
Rose wasn’t sure when he had taken off his outer layer. Dominik only wore his shirt and kilt now, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care that this was so different or that she had initiated it. She didn’t care that the calm propriety of a marriage couple’s intercourse wasnottaking place right now.
All she cared about was feeling Dominik, touching her, claiming her, within her. In every way, she simply longed to be united with him and enjoy that moment for as long as the stars would let them.
With the laces to his shirt undone, Dominik leaned back, kneeling with his legs between her on the bed. He hoisted his shirt over his head, throwing it behind him. Rose marveled at the chiseled muscles of his frame, littered with the scars of battle and a life of hard work. She dragged her fingers down his chest, moving through the soft curls of hair.
“Ye remain far too dressed, lass.”
Dominik pulled away her shawl, flinging it somewhere, and then moved quickly through the motions of ridding her of anything that might stand between them. In an impressive flash, her husband had her down to her shift, leaving her stays and outer skirt somewhere she didn’t know.
In the only moment of slowness, Dominik reached for the bottom of her shift, crawling his fingers up the sides of her legs as he gathered the fabric. It bunched at her hips and then her ribs until her husband was pulling the long, thin garment over her head. Rose lay then utterly naked before him, and she felt the heat funnel into her cheeks and core.
“Heavens, Rose, ye are the most beautiful thing I have ever laid eyes on.”
She grinned, pulling Dominik down to her so that she could kiss him, relishing in the way he groaned against her lips. With her eyes closed, Rose could feel Dominik reaching for the top of his kilt, fingers moving deftly as he unfastened the thing and let it tumble to the floor with the rest of their clothes.
He was before her now as naked as she was, and the sight of him so bare and proud made her pulse flutter in her neck, the need for him reaching epic, dizzying heights. Dominik grinned at her, that roguish smirk of his, and then he took her breast in his grip, squeezing gently as he brought his mouth down to her nipple.
“Och, lass,” he murmured against the pert bud, “I should never tire of the sight of ye, or the taste.”
His tongue danced around her skin, making her nipple ache for how erect it was. His manhood smoothed against her thigh as he pressed into her, and Rose tangled her fingers in his dark hair. Arching against him as he lavished her other breast with the same attention, Rose found herself brave, reaching between them to take him in her grip.
“Rose,” Dominik grunted, his eyes squeezed tight with his brows down over them, “och, lass, ye’ll be the death of me.”
Giving into dark instincts she didn’t know she had, Rose stroked him, feeling the velvety skin moving beneath her palm. It felt powerful and wild to be taking hold of him like this, and the look of painful joy on his face was perhaps the most perfect sight she had seen in her life.
Coming up higher on his knees, Dominik dragged his hand down from her breast, letting her nipple pop out from under his thumb in an exaggerated motion. His fingers wormed down her stomach until they reached her mound, slipping down between her thighs and touching her as he had before.
They both moaned low, moving with each other as they took this moment to enjoy the touch and feel of the other as if their lives might depend on it. Dominik knew precisely how to wind her up like a top about to release, and she held him so tightly, her up and down movements growing frantic and quick.
“I will feel ye like this, lass. I will feel that squeeze of ye before I sink myself deep within yer clutch.”
“Dominik!” Rose arched against him, unable to keep her hold of his length for the sensations barreling through her.
