Chapter 24

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Seeing Thora laid out on the bed, naked and waiting for his touch, her eyes dark with the same heat that surged through his veins, was intoxicating enough to make him feel nearly mindless with need.

He wanted nothing more than to press himself inside her, to claim her until both of them were drowning in pleasure and spent. But Thora deserved better than that. She deserved to be attended to, pleasured and worshiped like the beautiful goddess she was.

Aedan bent his head and kissed her softly, gently, on the mouth, savoring the sweetness of her, then moved to press another kiss to the point of her jaw. He nipped at the earlobe, and was delighted to hear Thora’s breath catch.

Another kiss to her throat, and he allowed himself to bite gently, leaving a mark like the one she’d requested a few nights before. This one, he fully intended Lachlan Ross and everyone else to see and know that Thora was his to give pleasure to. His and no one else’s.

He pressed a gentler kiss to her collarbone, then the hollow of her throat, making her shiver as he slid his hand down her shoulder and palmed her breast. The soft mound fit perfectly in his hand, and he cupped it, massaging gently. His fingers tugged lightly at the nipple, teasing it into a hardened peak as he kissed the point between her breasts.

He alternated his touches between her right and left breasts, teasing the soft, sensitive nipples until Thora was squirming at his touch. In the meantime, he pressed slow, teasing kisses down her center, over her breastbone, and down the slim, flat stomach muscles until he reached her navel. He laved the indentation there with his tongue, plunging deep as Thora arched to meet him.

Another kiss, this time on the delicate skin between her navel and her groin, just above the soft hairs that adorned her sex. Thora shivered under his lips, her breathing coming in panting gasps. “Aedan…”

He kissed her again, just a little to one side of the first place, teasing. “Ye’re so impatient. What is it ye want from me, little trickster?”

“I want… I want… ye… tae touch me… tae kiss me… there.”

“Here?”

“Nae. Lower.” She writhed. “Please.”

He could tease her more, but that would mean teasing himself, and his shaft was already heavy and aching with need. He wouldn’t last long if he teased her too much.

“Part yer legs fer me.” He shifted downward and massaged her buttocks, and her nicely rounded hips. His thumbs caressed the edges of the junction of her thighs. Thora gave a little moan, and her legs parted further, giving him better access to the entrance of her sex.

Aedan lowered himself further down the bed, between her legs. His hands stroked her thighs. “Ye’re so ready fer me. But nae just yet, little trickster.”

With that, he bent to taste her, his tongue lapping up the moisture that adorned her sex and dampened the hair there. Thora gasped and would have squirmed away if his hands hadn’t held her. A high, breathy moan came from her throat.

Aedan licked her again, then blew softly across her skin. Thora cried out. “Aedan!” Her legs parted further, her hips arching toward his mouth as she panted.

He licked the outer edges of her sex again, then used his thumbs to part the outer folds and expose her inner walls. Thora trembled, and her breath stuttered as he licked inside her, tongue lapping at her fluids and exploring her sex.

Aedan alternated deep plunges of his tongue with little flicks, teasing and tasting, then stroking as deep into her body as his tongue would go.

He found her pleasure center, and swirled his tongue around it before sucking gently on the sensitive flesh. Thora cried out and arched into his mouth, her whole body shuddering with pleasure. He licked again, then sucked more strongly, and Thora’s cry pitched higher, her fluids flooding his mouth as she climaxed. Aedan continued to lick her as she shuddered around his mouth, drinking in every bit of her and her reactions.

Her whole body was humming in the aftermath of her pleasure, but the pressure of Aedan’s tongue, drinking her in, reignited her need. She actually whimpered as he drew back from her.

Aedan moved to cover her, and she felt the heated length of his member pressing her against her thigh. “Greedy little trickster.”

He shifted, and his shaft slid closer to her sex. Thora shifted, heat beginning to dance through her blood once again, along with another slow building inferno of desire.

Aedan hand slid between her legs, parting the lips of her sex. Thora shivered, gasping as the tip of his member pressed against her entrance, then entered her between the folds.

Inch by inch, Aedan slid into her, filling her channel with his warmth. The pressure and heat of him stretching her core, filling her, was like nothing she’d ever felt, and all Thora could do was tremble as she was slowly, gently, impaled on his shaft.

She felt the pressure of his member against the delicate barrier of her maidenhead and swallowed.

Aedan moved and kissed her, one hand toying with her breasts, teasing them until she was writhing under his hands, pleasure driving her mad. She felt the sharp burst of pain as he claimed her, but then it faded, lost in the rising heat and pleasure as his body slid into hers, filling her to the core, until he was sheathed fully inside her.

They were both still for a moment. Thora panted, her body adjusting to his presence, then shifted her hips, pressing upward to take him deeper. The change sent sparks dancing through her, and she quivered with it. “Aedan… please…”

“Please what, little trickster?” His voice was as hoarse as her own.

“Move…”

“Aye.”

Thora whimpered as he drew back, leaving her feeling empty, then gasped as he thrust deep inside her once again, then again, setting up a steady rhythm that surged and pounded like the beat of her heart, entangled with his.

Every thrust was pleasure and heat. The heat of his body surrounding hers as he lay over her. The heat of his shaft, sliding into and out of her. The heat of her pleasure, her desire, sweeping through her, burning through her until she wondered if she was going to catch fire, to burn like the Yule Log that would be lit in the Great Hall in just a few nights.

The pressure coiled inside of her, need thrumming through her until she began to move as well, arching up to meet Aedan’s thrusts, pulling him deeper, her inner muscles clenching around him as she chased the sensations his touch evoked.

Aedan made an inarticulate noise and began to thrust faster and harder. His hand moved to protect her wounded shoulder, and his mouth claimed hers.

The world narrowed to heat and pleasure and Aedan. His every move sent her higher, and her very skin sang with every brush of his hands, his mouth, his body against hers.

Aedan shifted, and his next thrust pressed against her pleasure center. The world shattered in a wave of heat and brilliance as her release swept over her like a wave, turning her vision white with pleasure. Thora cried out, back arching, muscles clenching around Aedan as her body convulsed in the onslaught.

Aedan grunted, hips stuttering, then stiffened, his body pulsing in hers as his release took him as well. His seed pumped deep into her body, sending another wave of sensation and pleasure through her. Thora shuddered, her channel clenching around his shaft as both of them rocked together in shared pleasure.

How long it lasted, she had no idea. Nor did she know how long she drifted in the afterglow of their love-making, lost in the lassitude that followed such intense passion and sensation.

Eventually though, she began to be aware of her surroundings, enough to realize that her fluids and Aedan’s were sticky on her thighs, and that Aedan was lying beside her, drowsing. He’d pulled a sheet over both of them, and in the light of the fire, his face looked more at peace than she’d ever seen before.

Carefully, Thora stole out of bed and made her way to the wash basin. A bit of water and a rag took care of the worst of the mess.

Once cleaned, she grasped a nightdress and slid it over her head, then started back to her bed, smiling at the slight soreness that served as a reminder of her pleasure.

She’d never guessed Aedan Cameron would be such a good lover, or a good man. She almost wished he could be her husband in truth.

Thora froze, the pain of that followed by a wave of guilt as crushing as her earlier pleasure had been uplifting. No, Aedan Cameron couldn’t be her husband. He didn’t know who she was. To him, the girl he’d lain with was Thora MacTavish, just a lass who’d come to him with visions and a ruse.

What would he say, if he knew she was not MacTavish, but MacLeod? How would he respond then? She could guess, and the knowledge of it made her stomach feel as if she’d swallowed stones.

When Aedan found out the truth, he would hate her, and he would be right to. She had no right to have made love to him, or awakened his desire for her, nor given in to her own desire for him. Not so long as she was keeping the secret of her true identity.

She shouldn’t have surrendered to her desire. Not before telling him the truth. The knowledge of what she’d done, and what it would do to him if and when he discovered the truth, was like a knife in her heart.

She was still reeling in her guilt, and her awareness of the enormous folly she’d committed, when someone knocked on the door.