The look in her eyes when she said it was not one of humor, but of deep longing and obvious doubt. If he had thought that doubt was for his worthiness, he would have denied it, but he knew it was for herself.
He could not stand to see such a look in her eyes. “Mayhap you were. I only know I am a very lucky man to be touching you like this right now.”
Her smile was like the sun coming from behind the clouds.
He leaned down and took one of her berry-ripe buds into his mouth, laving it with his tongue, gently tugging it with his teeth and suckling until she whimpered, the scent of her sex calling to him with increasing urgency.
He followed the enticing aroma, moving until his face was between her thighs.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice tinged with shock but a lot more desire.
“Saving your virtue,” he said just before his first delicate lick along her most intimate flesh.
She tried to jerk her hips, but he was ready for her, his hands holding her legs apart and still.
“Lais,” she whined.
And he liked that sound, so like a wolf’s whine but she was human.
“Remember, sweet one, do not move, or I stop.”
“I can’t help it.”
“You can.”
He caught the gush of wetness his words elicited in her with his tongue. Entranced by her flavor, he alternated between lapping at her entrance and tonguing the swollen, wet passage he craved sinking his sex into, until a steady litany of pleas fell from her lips.
She wanted him, but she needed release. She did not yet know what that was though, so she begged with incoherent words for something she could not name.
To know he had this of her, this innocence. That he had the ability to introduce her to the ultimate pleasure for the very first time caused his cock to pulse with needs of its own.
He shifted his head so he could swirl his stiffened tongue around her pleasure spot and he heard her turn her head into the bedding as she screamed into the furs.
It did not take long from that moment to bring her to completion, but he did not stop in his ministrations to her and she broke. Writhing against him until a second climax overtook her and she screamed his name, the sound muffled by the furs she had stuffed into her mouth.
He reared up on his knees between her thighs and touched himself, his stroke harsh and quick. When he erupted with his own orgasm, it took every bit of his self-control to keep his seed on his hand and not bathe her in it, marking Mairi as his.
Chapter 11
I am not one who was born in the custody of wisdom; I am one who is fond of olden times and intense in quest of the sacred knowing of the ancients.
—GUSTAVE COURBET
The ride back to the Sinclair fortress took less than an hour, every moment both pleasure and torture for Eirik.
By the time they were all assembled in the great hall again, this time without the twins and with Guaire, Eirik was in a piss-poor mood.
Nevertheless, he stood beside Ciara’s chair, his hand resting on the high back, his expression daring anyone to make something of his choice of where to stand.
Talorc gave him an amused smirk but said nothing. Abigail’s smile was much more innocent, though the look of worry she gave her adopted daughter did not sit well with Eirik’s dragon.
There was no safer place for Ciara than with him and all assembled should realize that.
Talorc leaned against the mantel of the empty fireplace, his stance deceptively relaxed. “You are in a better frame of mind to discuss whatever it was that had you worried yesterday?” he asked Ciara.
She nodded. “I’m feeling much more myself.”
The Sinclair inclined his head in a silent gesture of thanks toward Eirik. “That is very good to hear. Your mother and I have been concerned.”
“I am sorry.”
“There is nothing to apologize for. You are our daughter. It is our job to worry.”
Just as it was Eirik’s job to be concerned for his people and now this clan he belonged to. That concern meant he needed answers about the Faolchú Chridhe.
He had a hard time accepting that Ciara had said nothing to Talorc before this. Eirik’s dragon trusted her, but he was not sure this time his beast’s instincts were right.
Despite the protectiveness he felt toward her and the intimacy of sharing her