hips. He was a strong, wild Highlands warrior, descended from men who’d beaten back the greatest army in the world on numerous occasions. And he was magnificent.
Glancing up at his face to find him watching her, she reached out to grasp his manhood. In response he made a low sound deep in his chest that sent heat and damp between her thighs again.
Gathering up her courage, she stroked the length of him. With another half-articulate moan he settled his knees between hers and lowered himself along her body for a deep, openmouthed kiss. Skin to skin, warmth to warmth, with an unmistakable hardness pressed against her thigh. Good heavens, she wanted him. Even without knowing exactly what to do, she wanted to be part of him.
He moved again, dragging his discarded shirt beneath her hips. Then, parting her knees further, he slipped a hand between them to fit his cock between her folds. Blood, she realized, even as her brain refused to think. She was, for another few seconds, a virgin. There would be blood. And he was sacrificing his shirt to keep it off her sheets. To protect her.
“Now,” she breathed.
“Ye ken—”
“I know,” she interrupted. “Some of my friends have talked. I won’t scream.”
Raising up on his hands, he lowered his head to kiss her again. “Hold on, my lass.”
Her heart beating so hard she thought it might burst from her chest, Amelia-Rose slid her arms over his shoulders. He pushed forward, the sensation of him sliding deeper and deeper inside her utterly indescribable. Pressure grew, then a sharp, biting pain, and then he buried himself in her fully.
For a long moment he didn’t move, and she dug the pads of her fingers into his shoulders while pain faded and other tighter, deeper sensations made her want to press herself against him, wrap her legs around his thighs, keep him there with her.
“Better?” he grunted.
She nodded.
With that he began to move, slowly and carefully at first, in and out, as if he worried he might break her. The slide, the weight of him across her hips drove her half mad. More, more, more. When she lowered her hands to his clenching backside, arching toward him, he sped his pace, stroking harder and faster inside her.
Moaning in time with his thrusts, her body tightened, stretched, and, with an exquisite shudder, released. Everything vanished but him and their joined bodies, the deep, jolting rhythm of him claiming her. She shattered harder, a mewling sound she’d never heard before coming from her own chest.
Her mind slowly settled into sight and sound again, just as he pushed in to the hilt, shuddering against her and inside her. Breathing as hard as she was, he settled himself along her body and lowered his head between her neck and shoulder. Amelia-Rose tangled her fingers into the damp, lanky hair at the nape of his neck. Hers. He belonged to her now, as much as she belonged to him.
He lifted his head against to kiss her, then went up on his elbows. She tightened her arms around him. If he left, everything might go back to the way it had been. She would be alone, unwanted except for her ability to wear a marriage band.
“I dunnae want to crush ye,” he said, looking down at her.
He was getting quite heavy. But he was still inside her, and she didn’t want that to stop yet, either. “Stay.”
“I mean to, until the dawn.” Niall studied her face for another moment, then wrapped his arms around her back and rolled them over.
Abruptly he lay beneath her, and she tucked her head against his chest. “I can feel your heartbeat,” she said, the hard, fast tattoo just beneath her cheek.
“Aye. And I can feel yers.” He drew his fingers through her wavy, disheveled yellow hair, the gentle tug and pull lifting goose bumps along her scalp. “Ye trusted me, lass. I’ll see that ye dunnae ever regret it. I’ll figure a way to make this work, as long as ye still want me.”
She lifted her head, resting her chin on his sternum to look at his face. This could be them, every night. The thought was nearly enough to make her giddy. But even now, with her body deciding on the next course of action in complete disregard for logical thought, she wasn’t a complete fool. “I still want you. I want everything you spoke of. I also know my mother.”
“I made it in here despite yer mother. But ye