Page 31 of Highlander’s Torn Bride

Margaret stopped struggling. Her chest felt like it was full of fireworks, with tiny explosions of heat and wonder bursting here and there. “I love you too,” she said. Before she could cry, though, he was upon her, pressing his lips to hers in a way that was so completely new. Their first kiss had been magnetic. Their kiss the night before had been passionate. This kiss, though, was none of those things, yet all of them at the same time. It was just them. Full of the warmth of the sun and the serenity of the moon; the desperate passion of something new and the simple comfort of something well understood.

Alexander ran his hands under her rear and then stood, carrying her in his arms across the room before lowering her to the bed.

As he began to slowly undo the laces, she dug her fingers into his shirt and pulled it off, their lips only parting from each other for the moment that it took her to pull it over his head. With such free access to his skin now, Margaret let her hands roam him, traveling wherever she pleased before her hand finally settled on his hip, where she pressed her thumb into the same place she had the night before, along the joint where leg met hip.

Alexander immediately intensified the kiss, his tongue diving deeper into her and drawing her into his passions. His hands began to work more quickly, finishing her unlacing and pulling the bodice aside, his mouth pulling from hers and diving to the freshly revealed skin while his hands continued to work on pulling the dress off of her. When the skirt was finally around her knees, Margaret kicked it off, making him chuckle against the skin of her thigh, the vibrations of which shook through her and made her release a low gasp of surprise and satisfaction.

Alexander’s mouth trailed up along her, and she waited for him to reach her own lips again, but he suddenly straightened his elbows, putting a bit of space between them.

“What is it?” Margaret asked through heavy breaths.

Alexander’s eyes slowly rose to hers. “It was too dark last time. I didna get to see you, not really.”

Margaret blushed. She could have said the same thing about him. In the darkness, all she had seen of him was an outline. From there, she had felt the shapes of him, drawing a map of his muscles as they crossed and curved over him. It was far more satisfying to be able to see what she was touching in the light of day, and Margaret indulged herself in the moment, tracing a fingertip along the ridges of his abs as they descended down him like steps ending in a deep V, the hard point of which was still hidden beneath his kilt.

“Well, do you like what you see?” Margaret asked, her eyes flitting back up to his when she felt him shiver.

“Aye, canna you tell?” Alexander asked, leaning forward and pressing himself against her so she could feel his stiffness on her, even with the kilt still separating them.

Margaret felt a small moan escape her when he next moved, the fabric of the kilt and the firm heat beneath it combing to create a sensation that was foreign but welcomed against her most sensitive area.

“Are you that excited already?” Alexander smirked, his hand descending to the place where he was pressed up against her and slipping into her folds. “Donna you ken that there is still so much we have to do first?”

Margaret had never been one to explore herself. Her life had been too chaotic, her emotions too painful, to seek that sort of feeling. So, it took her by surprise when Alexander’s finger merely pressed upon her at one point and she felt her entire body quake.

“No… ah…” Margaret sighed as his finger, still pressed against her, began to move. Between that and the omnipresent pressure of him pushing against her opening, yet never able to slip inside, Margaret felt her better sense leaving her. Feeling this way, like a ship trapped in a typhoon, couldn’t have been safe. Yet, despite her objection, no part of her was willing for it to end. Which was why Margaret’s eyes snapped open when Alexander’s fingers pulled away, the pressure he had been putting on her receding.

“What? You said no,” Alexander said, though the soft smile and glint in his eyes revealed that he knew exactly what she was feeling.

“Alexander,” Margaret groaned, feeling her hips move against him without her consent as they sought the touch he had just stolen away.

He bent down, is chest coming down to hover just above hers, so close that she could feel the gentle tickle of his chest hair against her breasts. Now that he was closer, a bit of the pressure had returned, and her hips bucked wildly in that direction, trying to feel more of him.

“Do you want to continue?” he whispered, and she could hear the teasing edge to the words.

“You already ken that I do,” she replied, her voice half a cry and half a moan from her desperation.

His touch returned, but the pressure did not. Instead, he slid down her body, going off the edge of the bed and placing his face between her legs.

“What are you—ah!” Margaret cried out as he kissed her, his tongue slipping out to dart across her. All of her nerves were suddenly thrumming. She had felt this way the night before, but it hadn’t been quite like this. It had been like a bee sting compared to a cannonball. Every nerve moving from sharp tingles to lighting strikes.

Margaret gasped, about ready to call him off lest she truly fall apart, but her voice came out as a cry as the feeling reached its pinnacle, shoving her off of the edge and letting her go sinking slowly down into a happy oblivion.

Margaret struggled to catch her breath, rubbing the sweat from her face as she did. She could hear the soft tinkle of a belt coming undone, then the soft thud of fabric being thrown across the room moments later. When she reopened her eyes, Alexander was laying on his side beside her, looking down at her with a bemused smile.

“Do you love me more now than you did before?”

She blushed, not wanting to give him an even bigger head by admitting that she did.

Alexander either realized that he would receive no answer, or he grew too impatient to coax it from her, because his lips returned to hers, pulling back up the passions that she had thought to have just set aside. Their hands roamed each other, his sliding to her breasts while hers went to his waist. She finished the descent she had started earlier, sliding her finger along the V built into him until there was no further south to go. Somehow, on instinct, she grew a bit bold and settled a firm grip around him.

It was like fire in her hand, though she was not sure if it was his own excitement or hers that was generating the heat. She moved her hand in the same sort of way that he had moved with her body the night before, and it must have done something, because he broke their kiss, collapsing his face down to rest on his shoulder while he groaned. Then, without warning, he reached down and pulled her hand away, pinning it above her head.

Margaret, shocked, turned to protest, but was silenced by the heaviness in his eyes and the slight part of his lips.

“Where the hell,” he breathed, “did you learn that trick, temptress?”

Margaret went to reply, but his kiss beat her to it, simultaneously moving himself so that his tip was just barely against her opening, a more tantalizing tease than it had been with the kilt still trapped between them.