Chapter Fifteen

They arrived at the tiny parish of Gretna Green as the sun was setting. After changing horses in Kendal, they'd traveled through the night and all the next day, leading Brynne's legs to fill with pins and needles as she descended from the brougham.

"Oh," she gasped, and Lachlan was there to catch her before she stumbled.

"The train will make for an easier trip," he said, looping an arm around her waist. "At least we can walk around and stretch our legs when the mood strikes us."

As part of the reason her muscles were so cramped was due to the fact that she'd spent the majority of her time practically sitting on Lachlan's lap, she didn't know if the train would be much different. But if aching legs were the price for having a handsome rogue's arms wrapped around her, she'd pay it gladly.

He hadn't tried to kiss her again.

She'd somewhat hoped that he would.

But there was intimacy to be found in the quiet moments as well. In the holding, and the rhythmic stroke of a hand, and the subtle beat of a contented heart.

"I haven't traveled this far since Weston and I spent a week on the coast in Scarborough. I forgot what to expect. But this…" Her eyes widening, she stopped short. "This isn't what I expected at all."

Admittedly, Brynne hadn't known very much about Gretna Green before embarking. It was a destination associated with scandal and discussed in hushed tones, with rarely a positive word to be shared amidst Polite Society. She'd assumed it would be like…well, it would be like the time her driver had taken a wrong turn and they had ended up in the East End of London.

But instead of narrow alleys and broken windows, there were cobblestone streets and cheerful blue shutters and a wide main thoroughfare lined with quaint houses and shops. At the far end of the street, on the top of a short knoll, sat a building all by itself. Long and white, with large windows beneath and dormers above, it had a black door flanked on either side with green shrubbery and a wooden sign neatly printed with "Enter Here".

Her stomach pitched; a rapid rise and fall of excitement and anxiety and an intangible feeling that defied description. She took a half-step towards the building, as if drawn to it by some magnetic force of destiny calling her name but, with a husky chuckle, Lachlan pulled her back.

"Aye, and that's where we'll be married in the morning. But for tonight, we've food and rooms waiting for us at The Queen's Head."

"Rooms?" she asked, questioning the plurality as he effortlessly hoisted their luggage–her small carpet bag and his slightly bigger valise–over his shoulder and proceeded to the inn while she walked beside him, her head on a swivel as she attempted to take in all of the sights and the sounds of her surroundings without letting any detail, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, escape her notice.

She wasn't a girl who had dreamed about her wedding day at St. Paul's Cathedral, which was where both her grandparents and parents were married. She hadn't envisioned hundreds of guests lining the pews, or the half-dozen attendants it would take to carry the heavy train of her gown, or the smell of incense burning.

That day had always remained blank. A canvas yet to be painted. And now that she knew what colors to add, she did not want to miss a single one.

"As we're not yet husband and wife, I thought ye would be more comfortable in a room of yer own," Lachlan explained as they entered through the pub and were greeted by the innkeeper. Money was exchanged, the luggage was handed off, and then they were free to find a table.

Her appetite barely that of a rabbit's, Brynne managed a bowl of broth and a slice of the most delicious bread she'd ever eaten. Still warm from the oven, crispy on the outside, and soft as a pillow within, it tempted her into a second piece, and then–feeling slightly self-conscious–a third.

"What is this called?" she asked, swallowing a moan as she sank her teeth into a fresh slice.

"Fife bannock. A Scottish staple," he replied, his gaze pinned to her mouth with such blazing intensity that she stopped eating.

"Do I have a crumb on my face?"

"Aye." But instead of handing her a napkin, he reached for her hand.

She gasped when he took her thumb between his lips and slowly swirled his tongue around it, his eyes–molten shards of garnet–never leaving hers.

" Lachlan! " Her voice was a whimper. A pleading. Although whether she was asking him to stop or to continue, even she wasn't certain. Shrinking low in her seat, she darted a glance to the left, then the right. The dining room, such as it was, was dimly lit with a combination of wax candles and lanterns, but it wasn't completely dark. And their table, while positioned in a corner, was hardly hidden from view. "There are people all around."

Releasing her thumb with a pop of suction, he guided her hand and pressed her thumb, still damp from being inside of his mouth, against her chin.

"There," he said huskily. "I got it. And I wouldna worry about anyone disapproving of us. In case ye havena noticed, this is a place for lovers. No one is looking further than the lad or lass sitting right across from them."

Another surreptitious glance around the room confirmed that he was speaking the truth. Of all the inn's occupants, only one–the barkeep–was without a partner. But an entire lifetime of propriety was a difficult thing to disregard.

As was the humming in her blood or the slippery wetness between her thighs.

She pushed her chair back. "We should go upstairs."

"Poor wee lamb," he said, the corner of his mouth lifting in a rueful smile as he joined her in standing. "Ye must be exhausted, and we've another day of travel in front of us after the ceremony. Let's get ye tae bed."

By no means would Brynne describe herself as brazen. She was well aware of her sexual inexperience. Her innocence. Her naivety with all things having to do with the bedroom. That wasn't to say that she was not aware of how the act was done in its most rudimentary form. She'd read books, and Hawkridge Manor had plenty of foals every spring which did not exactly appear out of thin air. Yet watching something as a bystander, and being an active participant, were two entirely different things.

If she were being completely honest, she'd have to admit that she was somewhat intimidated by the idea of sharing her body–her entire body–with Lachlan.

But she was also intrigued.

And having thoroughly enjoyed everything he'd done to her thus far, she could only assume that committing the deed itself would produce just as much (if not more) pleasure than all their kisses combined.

"Yes, I am ready to go to bed," she said demurely. Then she swallowed, and before she lost her nerve, blurted out, "Except I've no intention of sleeping."

He went very, very still. But for the sudden throb of his pulse at the base of his neck, he might have been frozen.

"Lachlan?" She bit the inside of her cheek. "Do you…do you understand what I mean, or–"

"Aye, I understand," he said hoarsely. "If this room was empty, I'd already have ye stretched across this table and ye would soon know just how much I understand."

" Oh ," she squeaked as her entire face erupted with heat. "I–I see."

"Are ye sure?" He searched her gaze. "We can wait until tomorrow, after we're married. Or even until we're at the castle and ye have had a few days tae unwind yerself. There's no hurry, Bry. Not when we've the rest of our lives tae enjoy each other."

A flicker of nervousness–followed closely by anticipation–coursed down her spine. "Do you want to wait?"

His answer to that was a short, incredulous snort. "What I dinna want tae do is push ye before ye're ready."

"It's not pushing if I'm pulling." Darting another glance around the room to ensure no one was paying them any mind–they weren't–she lowered her voice and murmured, "Could you…could you do that thing with your mouth on my thumb again? I quite liked that."

"Oh, love." Lachlan's grin, wide and wicked, could have rivaled Lucifer's own. "If ye liked that, ye're going tae love what else I can do with my tongue."

A single candle lit the bedroom in a hazy orange glow, casting shadows far and wide. Brynne was grateful for them, as they helped to disguise the pink blush rapidly overtaking every inch of her skin as Lachlan closed the door and quietly locked it behind him.

The ceiling was low, accentuating his massive height and the breadth of his shoulders. Goodness, but he was large . Far larger than she. In the vast halls of Hawkridge Manor, the difference wasn't as obvious. But here, in this little room with its single bed and dresser, she couldn't help but wonder how they were possibly going to fit together. For an instant, her gaze centered on his loins, and then jerked guiltily back to his countenance as her blush deepened.

"What…what do we do first?" Her fingers curled inward, nails pressing into palms that were already slicked with perspiration.

The wooden floorboards creaked beneath Lachlan's weight as he crossed to her; a small sound compared to the pounding of her heart. He clasped her hands, raised them to his mouth, and placed a kiss on every single knuckle before staring into her eyes.

"First, we make ye comfortable. This isna something tae be rushed, or endured. It's meant tae be enjoyed, every bit of it, from the first moment tae the last. I willna lie and say there willna be an awkward moment or two, as surely there is with any new thing. But it doesna have tae be as serious as ye would have some people believe. Nor nearly as fast. Lovemaking is intended tae be a celebration. A feast for the senses, and the souls, for all involved." While he spoke, he began to undress her. Slowly. Gradually. A tied string here. A button there. As if it were the most natural thing in the world when no one else had ever taken off her clothes except for herself and her lady's maid.

Her dress was the first garment to fall. It pooled at her feet, was followed by her petticoat, a swath of fabric that tied at the waist to give shape to her skirt, and then her boned corset. Her drawers were next and, finally, her chemise, leaving her clothed in nothing but air and shadows and the weight of Lachlan's gaze.

"Ye have a beauty that outshines the moon on its fullest night." Lowering his head, he pressed his mouth to her shoulder, his breath warm against her ivory flesh. "A thousand stars would bow before ye, and it's a blessed man that I am tae be able tae claim ye as my own."

A poet , she thought dazedly as he kissed a path across her collarbone and up her neck. She hadn't known he was a poet. With his words as much as his hands.

She trembled when he traced the shell of her ear. Quivered when his hands skimmed down her back to cup her buttocks, and who knew there so many nerve endings in that particular part of her anatomy?

He kissed her lightly. A teasing brush of his lips across hers. A little nip. A husky sigh. Then he stepped away and began to undress himself, his countenance somber save for the faintest tilt of his mouth.

With half the amount of clothing to remove, he was naked within a matter of seconds, and her breath caught as she studied the rugged planes and valleys of his chest and abdomen, his sculptured muscles carved from a land that made men out of boys and warriors out of men.

"You're so…big," she ventured, and that was even before her gaze traveled below his waist.

"Thank ye," he said solemnly, as if she were the queen with a scepter in her hand and she'd just placed it upon his shoulder to award a knighthood or other valor of honor. "Surely the greatest compliment I've ever received from the lips of the bonny lass whose opinion matters the most."

Her brows jutted in bemusement…until she happened to glance lower, and then with a sharp gasp she met his twinkling eyes. "You're…you're…"

As comfortable with his nudity as she was self-conscious of hers, he rested his hands on the edges of his hips. "Big is as fine a word as any, and the perfect way tae stroke a man's ego if ye were after such a thing."

Big?

He was enormous .

And if she'd questioned whether they were going to fit before, she was convinced they wouldn't now.

"Lachlan," she said hesitantly, "I–I don't think this is going to work."

"Aye, and I'm sure that's what they said about the Great Pyramids when they started laying the first row of stone."

"We are not the Great Pyramids."

He grinned. Glanced down. "Speak for yerself."

If his intention was to make her laugh and thus loosen the coil of tension wrapping her body in thin, invisible string, he succeeded. Her fingers relaxed. Her shoulders eased. The knot in the middle of her temple unraveled.

His toes bumped into hers as he cupped her jaw with one hand while the other plucked the pins from her hair and scattered them across the floor. Undone, her pale tresses tumbled all the way to the small of her back where he gathered a fistful of curls and gazed at them with the reverence of a pirate king admiring his chest of golden treasure.

"Blessed," he repeated, letting the tendrils slide through his fingers before he brought his mouth to hers and slid his tongue between her lips in a kiss that was neither light nor teasing.

She tasted his hunger. His need. His raw, aching desire to possess. To take. To conquer. All tempered with an exquisite level of self-control that far exceeded her own.

As lust smoldered and flames licked, she wound her arms around his neck, nipples tingling where they rubbed against the soft mat of curls spread across the top of his chest. She tentatively probed his mouth with her own tongue, and when he growled and hitched her against his body in a taut embrace that brought her belly in direct contact with the hardest, hottest part of him, her exploration grew bolder.

They went to the bed, the back of her knees pressing against the wooden foot rail before Lachlan picked her up and placed her on the mattress, her head cocooned on a pillow stuffed with goose down, her arms never loosening from those broad shoulders.

He knelt over her, bracing his weight in his thighs. Cords of muscle rippled and stretched beneath her fingertips as he kissed the sensitive space right beneath the curve of her jaw, and then the base of her neck, and then her breasts, suckling the tender buds one at a time while those large, callused hands spanned her ribcage before beginning a perilous descent that had her arching off the bed, first in surprise…and then pleasure.

When he touched her there , gliding a single fingertip along the velvety wet seam of her most intimate place where even she hadn't dared venture for fear of committing some ungodly sin, it was as if a new color had been added to the rainbow. A shimmer of light that she never knew existed before Lachlan opened her eyes and allowed her to see it.

It was stunning.

Glorious, even.

Then his finger slid inside of her…and the rainbow fractured into a hundred different colors, each brighter than the last.

For a long while, Lachlan just petted, and stroked, and kissed, all while whispering sweet nothings in her ear in a language that her ears didn't comprehend, but her heart did. Dividing his attention between her lips, and her breasts, and the curls between her legs, he seemed to be driving her towards something...a hill, or a peak, or even a mountain. She was too delirious to care which. Too drunk on desire to notice how high they were climbing.

"Aye, and ye're wet and wanting, are ye not, ionmhainneach ?" he rasped, and when she nodded–because of course she nodded–he captured her wrist and gently guided her hand to the core of his body where he was nearly as damp as she, and hot, and pulsing besides.

Tentatively, and then with a growing confidence spurred on by his groans, she encircled his staff and ran her palm along its heavy length all the way to the base before reversing direction, instinctively pleasuring him as he had pleasured her.

His jaw clenched. Candlelight reflected off the sheen of sweat clinging to his temple. Without warning, he grabbed her arm, and when she looked at him in question, he made a tortured sound caught somewhere between a laugh and a moan. "I was soon tae spend meself like a green lad if ye didna stop." He tenderly brushed a curl off her cheek. "Are ye ready for me, Bry?"

Her eyes widened. "That wasn't…that wasn't it?"

There was that devilish grin again. Stealing across his mouth like a thief through the night. "Oh, luaidh mo chèile . We've barely begun."

She didn't understand what he meant…and then, all at once, she did.

He was right.

There was more.

So much more than she was ever capable of imagining. But then, how could you explain the infinite vastness of the ocean to someone who had never stepped foot upon the sand?

As sensation after sensation washed over her, she clung to him, her slender calves wrapping around his muscular buttocks to follow the undulation of his hips as he filled her, deeper and deeper. Until suddenly, they weren't climbing the mountain, they were standing on top of it.

A plunging thrust of his hips as he claimed her mouth in a possessive kiss that demanded she give all of herself to him, and both Lachlan and Brynne soared over the edge together.