Scandal's Daughters

Chapter 19

Elspeth ran.

Her feet seemed to know what to do better than her heart—this time she ran toward him.

She headed back the way she had just come, racing through the orchard, instinctively heading for the lodge, and Hamish.

And there he was coming through the gnarled apple trees. “I was just coming to say my goodbyes—”

She threw herself at him, looping her arms around his neck in the most forward manner. But she couldn’t seem to help herself. She needed the support of his arms immediately coming round her back to hold her close. She wanted the comfort of his surprised murmur. “What’s all this?”

“I’ve done it.” She mustered her wits, and pulled herself out of his arms. “I’ve gone over the hedge.”

“Which hedge?”

“My aunts’ hedge. I’ve told them all. I’ve told them that I wrote the book, and that you are publishing it, and that I’m going to go to Edinburgh with you and that I love you.”

The words came as no less of a shock to Elspeth than to Hamish. She had not said such a thing to her Aunts, but now that she had made the declaration, she knew it for the truth, and did not wish it unsaid.

“Elspeth.” He met her admission with a kiss that soothed every agitation, and was a balm to every concern. “My God, Elspeth.”

Everything else melted away but the persuasive pressure of his lips against hers, his arms holding her tight, his body pressed close and warm.

He turned his head, angling to get closer, to deepen the kiss. His hands cradled her face holding her as his tongue swept across the lips and into her mouth.

His kiss was everything he was—strong and confident and hedonistic and raw—and it made her want to be those things. To be as equal in this as in all other things.

She opened to him, to the sensations that fluttered back and forth from her lips to her chest and back. And then deeper into her belly, beating their wings in a frantic pace. She hugged herself closer to him, as if this would stop the frantic sensation. As if the hugs were an end and not a means to greater agitation. And greater pleasure.

His weight pressed her down into the soft fragrant grass. He was on her, around her, pulling him into his earth and heat and shelter. She held tight to his shirt front, anchoring herself to him. His chest pressed her hands between them, and she loosened her grip, only to find them flat against the solid shape of his torso. They began to roam of their own accord, up across his collar and along the breadth of his shoulders, out along the sculpted curve of his upper arms, down across the taut flat of his belly.

He made a sound that was equal parts frustration and encouragement, and he ducked his head to kiss and worry at the side of her neck, nosing and nipping until she turned her head to give him greater access.

She let her hands fist up his shirttails so she could slide her hands beneath the rough linen and set her palms flat against the heat of his skin.

He let out a fervent sound of near pain, and almost sprang back from her, kneeling above her to rip off the waistcoat and shirt and fling them away unseen. He closed his eyes when she put her hands back to his skin, and hissed a breath in through his teeth—a pleased rather than painful sound. She did it again, stroking across his smooth flesh, and he swore roughly under his breath, and collapsed down onto her, pinning her hands flat to his nipples with his weight.

He lay upon her for only a moment before he levered himself away and went at the laces of her sturdy quilted jumps as if he were untying a Christmas present all wrapped up to foil him. But no sooner were the laces done away with—flung to join his waistcoat on some lower branch—than he had loosed the drawstring of her shirt, and was pushing it away with the straps of her stays and chemise to bare her shoulders. Beneath the confines of the remaining layers, her breasts began to feel full and aching. One hand rounded to her back, and she arched toward him to give him access, her nipples contracting and rasping with painful pleasure against the starched muslin of her stays.

His mouth returned to hers, the rough, taut texture of his lips rubbing against hers, the whisky-laced tang of his tongue tangling with hers as he kissed and kissed and kissed her. She was kissing him back, returning his heated, open-mouthed kisses with all the fervor she had kept hidden under the tight lashing across her soul, while he ripped away the laces.

This was the mad pleasure she had tried to write about. This was the intoxicating rush of sensation that she had given expression in words put finally into glorious deed.

And then the stays were loosened, and falling away with her chemise, pulled down to reveal the tight furls of her breasts, aching and sensitive in the cool morning air. His hands closed over them carefully, caressing, worshiping. He dragged his thumbs across the peaks, and feeling and sound blossomed out of her—a gasp that matched the exquisite and unexpected bliss—and she pushed herself up into his hands, letting her head fall back, closing her eyes so she could only feel. Only feel him. And the pleasure that grew like a rose out of the thorns of her life.

He followed his hands with his mouth, closing his lips around one sensitive nipple, licking and sucking at her, sending seeds of want and need falling to ground deep in her belly. A sound of shocked surprise blossomed from her mouth.

Elspeth opened her eyes to the glorious green daylight, opening her soul to the sensations snaking through her body, the tight tension that twined through her like a vine, clinging and coiling deep. She wanted to move with it, to twist and turn against him. Her fingers curled into his hair, holding his head as her body undulated like a flower bent by the strong summer wind.

“Aye, lass,” he breathed against her skin. “That’s the way of it.” Encouraging her with his words, filling her with something more desperate than anticipation as he kneed her legs apart and settled himself hard against the juncture of her thighs. His lips returned to hers as his body joined hers in movement, creating a dance to music that they alone could hear—the string of nature’s symphony, the song of the skylark and the keening cry of the hawk.

His work-roughened hands fell to her skirts, dragging up the hem, exposing her legs to the bright summer air. And then his hands were back at her breasts, fondling and fawning until heat and something fiercer, something bright and shining and insistent, budded to life within, pulsing up from her belly. Between her thighs, her muscles clenched in heightened anticipation.