Taken by Angeline Fortin (great books of all time TXT) 📗

over her breasts and belly until he was cradled between her thighs.  His fingers sought her heat once more, curling into her as he moved downward to trail kisses and bite at the tender flesh of her moist, quivering thighs.

Scarlett gasped and tensed.  Alternately tugging at his hair to pull him away and grasping him closer as if she alternately welcomed and dreaded what was to come.

In the shadows beneath his plaid, James paused, studying her while she squirmed in anticipation.  “Laird!”

With a groan of surrender, James buried his face between her legs.  Scarlett arced off the ground with a cry of ecstasy.  His passionate lass coming almost immediately as his lips closed around her.  His blood roared in his ears but still he circled her with his tongue, draining every last throb from her until she was begging for him to stop, weeping in her surrender.

Primal satisfaction surged through him when there should be shame.  She was his captive, his responsibility.  He should never have touched her, never coerced her into this but now that he had her beneath him only the pain of death could have separated him.  Scarlett tried to close her thighs and roll away but James forced them apart once more and bent his head to taste her again.   For all her teasing words, she was as sweet as fine sugar.  She tensed, her hips retreating before arching upward.  “No, no,” she moaned.

“Aye.”

James teased her gently with the tip of his tongue, her still pulsating opening drawing him inward.  He thrust his tongue deeply then withdrew, savoring her hoarse, rapturous scream.  One finger, then two.  He pushed inside her scalding depths as he tormented her with his tongue.  Her thighs quivered as he pushed her to the brink, then retreated only to push her higher once more until she begging for release once more.

Never had he known any woman so impassioned, receptive.  A woman who might wring him dry before he even possessed her body.  His raging body screamed for satisfaction, but still he denied himself for the pure joy of watching his lass soar again to the gates of paradise.  He could do this all day.

“Please, please!  Laird!”

Ah, never had that sobriquet sounded so good as it did when torn from her lips.   James suckled her throbbing nub and finally gave her the release she was begging for.  Her muscles contracting strongly around his fingers as she came, hot and liquid.

He imagined her milking his rod just so and nearly spilt himself at the thought.  “Lass?”  The question was pained.  He wasn’t sure what he would do if she denied him again.

“Oh God.  Yes.”

This time there was no hesitation.

A horn blasted through the silent forest, startling them both but Scarlett relaxed almost immediately, lifting her legs high around his hips.  “Laird?”  She nudged him with her heels as one might spur a horse into action.

Her hot hands found their way beneath his kilt, grasping his arse in her hands.  “Aye, lass.”  James bent his head and took her lips again as she lifted his kilt out of the way.  His hard length brushed against her bare thigh and upward, toward her scorching, inviting heat.

The trumpet sounded again.  Three times.

Ah, bluidy, fookin’ hell!

“What’s wrong?” Scarlett whispered, her soft panting against his ear sending a shudder of pure lust raking through him.  Every fiber of his being demanded James ignore the call but he could not.  Not for long.  Not long enough to finish this properly.  And he did want to do it properly and without a rush.

“My apologies, mo chroí,” he murmured, brushing his lips against her ear.    “We maun go.”

“Now?”  Her sweet voice was incredulous with regret.  It gladdened him to know that she was no more pleased by the interruption than he.

“’Tis the King’s herald, lass.”

“And that’s more important than this?”

“Upon my honor, no one is more saddened by the fact than I.”

With one last kiss, he leapt to his feet, throwing the trailing end of his plaid back over his shoulder.  Retrieving his sword, he helped Scarlett to her feet and took her hand in his as he gestured to the north.

Scarlett followed his arm.  To her surprise, she could make out what did look to be an army bearing down on Crichton.  Bannerman at the front of the brigade were visible, even at a distance.

“Come we maun make haste.”

Subdued by the sight, Scarlett followed him back to the castle staying close to his side as they entered the keep.

20

 

“Lift yer arms, please, mistress.”

Peigi was one of the three maids on hand to help her, Aileen and Aleizia ‘prepare’ themselves for supper, dressing for the affair in a fashion Scarlett was quickly realizing was far more ceremonial than the formality she had already witnessed in this time.

To meet the King.

Despite the gravity of the occasion, it was still a tantalizing and thankfully distracting thought.  Meeting Queen Elizabeth once a few years back had been one of the most nerve-wracking moments in her life but the occasion hadn’t had this sort of pomp.

To think, it had taken a five hundred year leap backwards to experience it.

If they were to ever get there.  Dressing, so simple that morning, had become a process proving that she had been wrong before.  This wasn’t Braveheart or a renaissance fair.  This was The Tudors but with far more layers.

Oddly enough, their stockings and shoes had gone on first, when usually they were the last thing Scarlett donned.  Then a fresh chemise of fine linen, petticoats – one, two, three – and then the farthingale.  They’d had to tell her what it was called since Scarlett had labeled it a hoop skirt.  A half-remembered image was forming her mind and she could begin to imagine where this was all going.

Then the corset, but this wasn’t the kind of corset she was familiar with, one that strove toward an hourglass figure. Besides flattening her breasts, this one squared her out from chest to hip.