Lingering warmth from the wine she had drunk enhanced the feeling. She felt as if it spread its heat all through her.
He opened her bodice, stroking the tawny velvet as he did. The cool air in the room made her tremble as he untied her shift ribbons and bared her breasts.
“Ah, lassie,” he murmured, “how beautiful you are. I wish we could take our time, so that I might show you how pleasant this can be. But I fear…”
“… that someone will come, I know,” she said. “I do know something of what must be done, because Grandame did tell me. But can it be done so swiftly?”
The question alone was answer enough for Fin’s willing body, which leaped mightily at the vision she produced in his mind. But he did not want to hurt or frighten her, so he said, “It can be done, sweetheart. But I’d liefer have your dress off first, for you will be more comfortable so.”
She reached for her gold-linked girdle, unclasping it and setting it atop a kist. He helped her slip off her velvet tunic, its matching skirt, and her red flannel underskirt. Standing before him in only her shift, its top still agape to reveal her firm, rosy-tipped breasts, she was even more magnificent than he had imagined.
Stripping off her shift and casting it aside, he picked her up and carried her naked to the bed, which the women had turned down to reveal the pristine sheet. Laying her down, he took off his shoes, hose, and netherstocks. His cock was ready for her, and he saw her eyes widen when she saw it, but she did not protest.
“You did not say if your grandame warned you that the first time may be painful for you,” he said. “But I’ll do all I can to make it easier, especially since we have a long ride ahead of us. We need only couple, though, no more, so—”
“Aye, sure, I know that,” she said as if she wondered why he would say something so obvious.
“Ah, but there is more to this than you may be thinking after we’ve finished. So you should know before we start that to do what I mean to do will deny me much pleasure. That denial will weigh heavily on me until I can ease its weight, which,” he added, grinning now, “I mean to do before we rest tonight.”
Catriona could scarcely breathe as she watched him. He had taken off only his hose and netherstocks. But it was enough to tell her that Lady Annis must be mad to think that a man built as he was could ever couple with a woman as small as Catriona.
He glanced again at the door to the main stairway.
“In troth, sir, I doubt that anyone will enter without rapping first,” she said.
“Likely, you’re right,” he said. “We’ll just snatch blankets over us if they do.”
On those words, he got into bed, stretched out beside her, and raised himself on an elbow to lean over and kiss her. His breath smelled pleasantly of whisky, and the velvet doublet he still wore caressed her bare breasts, stirring new sensations wherever it touched her. “Breathe deeply, and try to relax,” he murmured against her mouth as he stroked her belly. “I’ll be as gentle and as quick as I can be.”
With that, his stroking hand moved toward the juncture of her legs. When she stiffened, he shifted his hand to her thigh, stroking it gently but moving slowly, inexorably back toward his objective until his fingers brushed lightly over the curls there. When he slid a finger inside her, she started.
“Easy, sweetheart,” he murmured, kissing her again. “I think your body is more prepared to receive me than your mind is. Don’t think, just feel.”
Chapter 16
I’m feeling so much that I can’t think,” Catriona muttered. Then Fin touched something that made her earlier feelings seem tame by comparison. Fire shot through her. His lips claimed hers again, holding them captive as his fingers teased her more.
His tongue invaded her mouth, and she responded at once with her own.
She barely realized that she was moving against two fingers now, trying to increase the pleasurable sensations they elicited within. Then he withdrew them and moved to replace them with a larger part of himself.
Straddling her now, bearing his weight on his legs and his hands, he looked into her eyes as he pressed himself gently inside her. Catriona tried to