Читать книгу A Knight and White Satin - Jackie Ivie - Страница 9

If he didn’t cease looking at her like prey she was going to scream, which would be stupid, and cowardly besides. Dallis narrowed her eyes, muting some of the brunt of his physical presence. She’d had nightmares of coming into contact with him again and thought herself prepared…for his size, his bulk…his presence. She knew now she’d been fooling herself. There was no way to prepare for such!

He had an even greater impact than he’d had before, if that was possible, and there was a sureness to him that must have been lacking. He had a litheness to his movements, even the one where he’d twirled through the broken door had been done with a sure-footed grace that made it look melodic and elegant. She swallowed but it was more a gulp. He was very handsome, very manly, truly eye-catching, and he looked immensely powerful. It was a shame he was so base-born. A Caruth would never accept a Dunn-Fadden as their mate. Never had. Never would.

Had he been her betrothed, how different everything would be!

She could see that no matter how much gold she’d sent to pay for a challenger against him it was wasted. She should have spent it on other methods that would have gained her freedom and given her back her power in one fell swoop…something like poison.

Her eyes narrowed.

“You readied yet?” he asked.

Dallis’s lips opened slightly to let the gasp out and everything on her answered him. She watched his eyes flick to her breasts before returning to her face and tried unsuccessfully to stop the blush. Again. The man was maddening. And dense. And thick-witted. And didn’t even know what rejection was. She swallowed.

“For what?” she asked with what she hoped was a tart tone. It didn’t help that it warbled slightly.

He sucked in both cheeks and started unlacing his gloves. They were leather crafted and worn to his elbows, tightly fastened to his arms for warmth, and that gave her added moments of time as he pulled at the laces…first the left, then the right. He wasn’t watching his hands, though. He had his chin lowered a fraction and was favoring her with his unblinking stare.

That was too much impact, and she knew he was fully aware of it.

“Our consummation,” he finally said, and yanked first one glove off and then the other, turning them inside out with the motion, before swatting them back into shape against his thigh.

This time he had to hear her gasp.

“I…thought you wanted…an accounting,” she replied in chunks of words.

She watched him pull at the immense silver disk of his waist, making sinew bulge in his lower arm with the motion. The claw prong on his belt gave up the fastening and he dropped it, making a heavy thud of sound on the thick white rug at his feet.

“First I secure the right. Then, I’ll see to the accounting.” He plucked the tucked end of his plaid from the back of his waist, and just kept watching her as the material began unwinding about his waist.

“You never had the right!” And God curse the squeak in her voice as she said it!

His lips lifted, making a smile on one side of his face. And then it was gone. As was his feile-breacan. Dallis watched with eyes that didn’t seem to belong to her anymore as he tipped to one side and pushed the kilt band from his shoulder, allowing the entire mass of woven wool to fall in a puddle at his feet, covering over the silver glint of belt.

None of him was diminishing. She could tell from the way his shirt fell from humps of muscle in his chest that he’d gained even more size to his frame, and more brawn. And more power. Her breath caught, held, pained her, and then escaped. And then she had to gasp another one in.

“Since when has that put a stay on me?” Payton finally replied.

Then he was crossing his arms, grabbing fists full of the garment and pulling it from where he had it tucked into his trews and over his head with a motion designed to shock her into stillness and lock her tongue since the shirt clung to sweat-damp skin on his upper body and nothing else.

Payton Dunn-Fadden was a mountain of brawn, shadowed by the winter light into hills and dales of shadow; he had ropes of tendons pounding in his lower belly with what had to be his heartbeat; and he had a thin line of hair starting at the center of him and running downward…to where every thought on her stalled at the mis-match of plaid due to his size and condition.

His clan sett had been sewn into a type of trousers, molding about his lower legs before coming together in a knotted swath of material about his lower hip. There wasn’t enough material to hide him. Dallis didn’t move her eyes from his face, but that didn’t stop her from seeing…and feeling everything on her body respond. It was starting with the thump in the bottom of her belly and then it was spreading. Fire flicks of shivers were followed by an ice-melt of reaction, and then that was tempered by the fire again. The ice. The shivers. Then the heat. It was covering her entire frame and making a trembling nobody had warned her about. She’d never seen an aroused man before, especially one of his size, and it just wasn’t fair. Caruths learned from the time they were born of battle and loss and what a female faced should she be taken; rape and ravishment included. But not one soul had told her about what would be happening to her. Nobody. All of which was a huge hole in her education.

Dunn-Fadden was very aware of what he was doing to her and she didn’t even know why she had such certainty of it. It was in the flick of his eyes when he ran them to where the pinprick darts of her nipples were trying to shove their way through the satin she’d tightened, and then he moved his gaze back to hers.

He stepped free of the mass of discarded garments and put a hand out toward her. Even from half the span of room away, she felt the menace and backed even farther into the stone at her back, earning the chill that contact caused as well.

“Now, come off that perch like a good lass.”

Dallis shook her head.

“Please.” He said next.

The oddest humming was running through her ears, making the word have a melodic and muted cast. Dallis shook her head again.

“I’m na’ a patient man,” he said next.

Dallis shook her head again. He sighed. And then he was coming for her.

The wall had no give to it and that left her only two choices to escape him: left or right. The headboard would impede her on her left, so she chose the footboard, with a slide of her body and then a lunge. She didn’t get there. She was screaming as he grabbed at the satin and yanked, pulling with one hand and reeling her in like a salmon caught in the burn. It was made easy for him with the way Dallis clung to the material, digging her nails into the fabric and halting her cries for the fight, just before finding out his chest was just as hard and unyielding as it had looked when she was slammed against it. The only good thing looked to be that the samite had wadded between them, creating a barrier of material to keep the scorch of his skin from hers.

He wasn’t breathing hard while she was sucking for air and then shoving it out rapidly, making her dizzy with it. And he was chuckling. Then he was holding her glued to him with one arm, while the other hand was busy lifting a hank of her hair and then, God help her, what had to be his tongue was on the back of her neck and sending a blizzard of tremors all over and then through her. There was nothing to hold to, either. Her hands were still gripping the white satin and they were now trapped together where he had her molded to him. Her legs weakened, trembled, and gave, dropping her weight. Payton shifted as he felt it, going to a knee on her mattress and placing her in the depression made by their combined weight. She collided with the bare flesh of a thigh against her backside and then even that was altered as he reached his conquering arm lower, gathering a handful of her rump in order to pull her up, lifting her so securely against him, it was difficult to breathe and impossible to move.

“Nae…please.” She huffed the whisper between breaths that were difficult to take from the position he had her in. And then he made it immeasurably worse, by putting his entire mouth against skin and sucking his way along her jaw until he’d reached her chin, the movement forcing her head backward and making her bow slightly over his bent leg.

He grunted his amusement, feathering the breath across her gapped lips, and that was even more tortuous, she decided.

“Nae…Wait,” she whispered again.

“For what?” He’d disconnected his mouth enough to say that and with the words against the moisture he’d just put on her chin, came even more shivers, making it immeasurably more vibrant.

“The…door,” she stammered out.

His left hand, the one that had been holding her head and pinning her in position for him, was moving, sliding over her shoulder and then down an arm, and back. Again. That was tempered by his huff of amusement as he lifted his head to look at her. He smiled, genuine amusement filling incredibly blue eyes, and Dallis couldn’t halt the widening of her own as her heart lurched so queerly and completely it frightened her.

“Ignore it,” he replied finally.

Then he was shadowing his eyes with his lashes and lowering his head, lifting her again, using the hand at her rear to hold her and the one at her shoulder to make certain of it. Dallis only had time to gasp in a breath before his lips were on hers, fully, completely, and totally.

Time stalled. Her breath was right behind it. And her hands were like twittering baby birds as clenched fingers of material fluttered at her breastbone. There was a moan happening, a deep-throated murmur as his mouth sucked at first gently, and then with more purpose, and then with full-conquering effect. Dallis’s lips held for a moment and then gave to the marauding twist of his tongue and then she was experiencing waves of heat ebb and transfer through her and into him, and then back, as he flicked again and again to the caverns of her suddenly willing and voracious mouth.

She wasn’t aware of the answering moan that came from her as her limited knowledge of sensation was shattered and then leveled to dust. The whorl of emotion he was stirring she’d never before known, never before tested, hadn’t even been aware of. Nothing in her night-time dreams had warned her of the spiral of passion he was putting into place. Nothing had been close. She didn’t feel him moving, going to his haunches on the mattress and bringing her with him, settling her into the triangle support of a bent leg, until the heat and rigidity of his arousal came into contact with her material-covered belly, making everything on her go oddly alert and focused and frightened.

“Nae…”

Dallis managed to pull her mouth from his long enough to say it before he had her lips again, this time lapping at both upper and lower before taking the upper into his mouth with such a delicate suction action, she was crazed with how it felt. All the while the hand at her rear alternately squeezed and lifted. Squeezed. Lifted…and then held her against his arousal time and again, while everything on him alternately shook and then stiffened.

His other hand wasn’t unoccupied or lazy. That one was about her shoulders now, supporting and holding her and making certain she couldn’t put deed to word until nothing about her was in denial except her mind, and even that her body was betraying.

He was pushing her backward, using his kiss for the tool, his upper body for leverage, and his hands to guarantee her movement until her head and shoulders reached the pillows, placing her in an arch over his bent leg. Dallis’s hands moved then, releasing the satin to mold against the hard mounds of his chest, where the feel of his bare flesh against her palms was nearly as vicious a sensation as his tongue had been.

“Nae,” she mouthed again the moment he released her lips.

“Why now?” His voice was lower than before and it wasn’t whispered. And he was looking at her with a blend of anger and something else she didn’t know enough about to name.

“I…doona’ ken,” she stammered, and earned herself another huff of amusement.

“Doona’ fash yourself, then. I ken well enough for the both of us.”

He released the arm at her back, sliding it away and making her skin suffer the colder temperature of the bedding at her back without his warmth, and that impression was only slightly offset by where he’d moved it.

“Nae…please?” Dallis was begging and hated the pleading tone in her voice as much as she hated the urge that made her say it.

“You’d best be begging for what I can give, lass.”

He was whispering it against the sensitive tissues of her lips that felt sucked raw, and then he was moving his mouth along her jawline…to her neck. And then he was lacing her chest with trails of fire-laced wetness he’d tongued into place. His hand was helping, and Dallis felt him at the edge of her satin, pushing it down, slapping slightly at the fingers she was putting in his way. She’d given off trying to hold him from her with her hands, and was using them now to keep him from seeing…touching…tasting.

The material slid lower, pushed by his tongue as well as his fingers, and his chuckle was making everything worse. Dallis pulled each breath in with a tense motion and let it out with a hiss as she struggled, hearing a slight rip of cloth, sensing air, and then the defeat as her nipple popped free. Then, the other. And then she was slamming her eyes shut to all of it.

That was worse.

“You’re pleasant fair, lass. Ripe. Soft. Womanly. Perfect…”

She heard his whisper through rasps of breath, felt the caress of air, and then arched in shock as what could only be his tongue claimed a breast tip, lapping all about her flesh with precision and skill, and making everything on her react. She had her eyes scrunched so tight the most vivid yellow light arced through her lids, joining the riot of pleasure that started in her nether region and then swelled through her entire frame, turning her into a quivering mass of delight as his tongue gave way to his entire mouth and the suckling drove her to the brink of eroticism and then shoved her right over it. The yawning chasm of pleasure she fell into cradled her for whole moments of time as Payton toyed with her flesh, moving his ministrations from one to the other nipple, and at one point placing them in a conjoined position so he could slather both with attention at the same time.

Dallis was kicking against the bed, lurching and shoving herself against him, into him, and holding wads of hair in her fingers as she hung on, shivered, moaned, and then shrieked with the eruption of pleasure.

“Oh…dear God. Sweet…sweet…Oh!”

She was mouthing the words and then she was screaming them. And it was Payton orchestrating it, huffing a bit between his ministrations to make certain of a response. Then he was moving the white satin lower, lifting his weight from her with one arm, while the other slid the material down…revealing the flatness of her belly, and swell of her hip…the reddish colored hair of her woman-place. And then he swore with a deep guttural tone, while the mattress bowed and then rocked with his exit from it.

Dallis was afraid to open her eyes at first. The position he’d left her in was indefensible, open and wanton and female. There was nothing about her that looked to be fighting him, either.

The sound of movement at the door had her moving her head, pulling the satin from her knees at the same time. It was Payton. He was maneuvering the door back into the portal preparatory to dropping the bolt on it. It probably wouldn’t hold, but it was better than the yawning opening of before. He was breathing extremely hard. And then he turned.

Dallis gaped. Her entire frame started shuddering and she had to slam her eyes shut again, and hope he wouldn’t see the awe and fear before she could stanch it. He was still clad in the plaid trews, but they were hooked on what he possessed, delineating a weapon Dallis instinctively knew was going to cleave her apart. And worse. She wanted it. Desperately. With a craving she didn’t know how to contain…. And with the lowly, base-born Dunn-Fadden laird.

“There. That should hold.”

His words were gruff and he was nearing. Dallis didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t move. She was trembling with the effort of stopping her response to everything he did.

“You were right a-fore. The door should be shut. Barred.”

“What?” She whispered it through cold lips.

“Nae man sees my wife. Na’ now that I ken how glorious she is.”

The bed dipped with his entry into it and then he was fitting himself beside her if the movement of the mattress was any indication. Nothing on her was fighting it and yet everything was. Dallis kept her eyes closed, denying the knowledge entry.

“Why did you cover again?” he asked from a position above her head, every breath ruffling strands of her hair.

She shook her head.

“You’ll na’ say?”

She shook her head again.

“Why na’?”

He was fitting a finger along her collarbone and sliding it along flesh that was so sensitive, the motion raised a riot of goose bumps.

She shook her head again.

“I appear to have marked you. Na’ good.”

“What?” Dallis whispered again. Nothing he said made sense. The way he was holding himself from her made less of it.

“We’ve but started, lass. You ken?” he asked.

Dallis shook her head again.

He grunted. “’Tis a good thing, that. And bad.”

“What?” She slit her eyes open. He was heaving for breath, toying with a lock of her hair and turning such an uncertain look toward her that she frowned. The King’s Champion…hesitant and unsure?

“’Tis a verra good thing that you ken naught of tupping. The act of it.”

He had such amazing blue eyes! Eyes that looked akin to pools of warmth, holding such depth and soul it was difficult to gaze into them! Dallis blinked.

Since she’d come of an age for a betrothal, Dallis had been warned of the beauty of the Dunn-Fadden clan. Everyone was. She’d thought it a story to make the girls shiver in anticipation of their own wedding bed. More than one of the older matriarchs of the clan had told her to stay from the spell of their beauty, since that’s all a Dunn-Fadden would ever claim. That, and poverty.

And here that beauty was. Right before her.

“I would na’ have it bandied about that my firstborn be a bastard.”

“What?” She wasn’t pretending the confusion. It sounded in her voice.

He smiled slightly. “Our offspring. Their legitimacy. Due to your maidenhood. Despite your age, you still possess it?”

“My…age?” She was bristling, and that had the exactly right effect on her senses and her emotions.

“Doona’ take offense. A man wishes a maiden to wife. ’Tis just…you’re just…Uh…well….” He stopped and swallowed and looked sheepish.

“Don’t say it,” she warned.

“You’ve some years to you,” he finished.

“Payton Dunn-Fadden!”

“What?” he replied.

“I am na’ auld! I am definitely na’ too auld! And you have nae right to infer such! None!”

She’d gone into a sit, pulling her legs under her and he hadn’t stopped her. In fact, he wasn’t doing anything except grinning. Widely.

“What?” she finally said.

“Good. You’ve conquered your fear.”

“I’m na’ a-feared.”

“We’ll work on the lying tongue later.”

“What?” Her voice was raising along with her torso and she had to keep the satin against her skin with one hand since it was locked under her legs.

“You were a-feared. And now you lie about it.”

She slapped at him, losing the satin on one side at the same time. It didn’t help that he caught her hand midslap, and then used it to pull her off balance, right up against him, shoving her entire backside into view since she had nothing at all to cover it. He held her in place with one arm about her torso, while the other trilled down her back, cupped her buttocks and then slid to a thigh.

Dallis gasped at the shock, and then she was warm with the blush. And then she was just all-over warm as he continued stroking her, to the midst of her back…down over her curves and nearly to her knees with his reach.

Payton grunted a guttural sound and then huffed a sigh. “As I said a-fore. Nice. Pleasing. Womanly…Perfect.”

“Get your hands…off me,” Dallis replied, but she had to swallow midsentence to get it out.

“How about my lips?” he inquired.

The sound she made wasn’t an oath, but it was close.

“I’ll take that for an aye,” he murmured and then brought the captured hand to his lips and proceeded to touch his tongue to the fingerpad of her index finger. Then, he moved it to her middle finger, then to her ring finger, and Dallis had wide eyes on him the entire time, while needles of sensation ran down her arm to her elbows, moved from there to her back, and made everything heated again. Everything.

“You doona’ wear the ring?” he asked finally when he’d given off sucking at her fingernail and pulled back a fraction.

“What…ring?” The throaty whisper couldn’t be hers, and yet it was.

“The one I crafted. Designed. Paid for. Meant for all time to be put on your hand. For all to see. You belong to one man. Me.”

“Oh. That ring,” she replied with a flat tone.

He looked heavenward for a moment before lying back, making the bed groan more than she was as he pulled her atop him. Dallis locked the satin to her with an arm as she moved, bringing it with her and creating a barrier even as she split her legs to straddle him. Then he just lay there, holding her with hands like talons and heaving great breaths that moved her up and down with each of them.

“Aye,” he finally replied, moving his gaze back to her face from her exposed bosom where the material didn’t reach. “That ring.”

“Oh.” She was failing. In everything. Dallis should have registered that as her legs quivered and then slackened and then squeezed to him without her giving the order.

“Why doona’…you wear it?” he asked, lifting a brow with the question.

Dallis shook her head on the reply.

“Why na’?”

“’Twas Dunn-Fadden clan. It bore the Dunn-Fadden seal.”

“True,” he remarked, putting his mouth in a bow position with the word. Dallis concentrated on that, rather than the hard abdomen she was perched atop that kept thumping with each heartbeat against her inner thighs. And then she had to ignore the hands that were sliding around her torso, using the pressure of his forearms against her thighs to keep her from moving. She felt his movements at her buttocks, fumbling with the material he still wore. She caught a breath. Shoved it out. Caught another one.

“You are Dunn-Fadden clan,” he remarked through his teeth.

Dallis’s eyes flew wide as heat touched her backside, scorching and branding and owning her so that her entire body broke out in a sweat of tremors.

“Always. From this day forward. Ever. Mine.”

The blue of his eyes darkened, warning her as much as the pressure of his hands lifting her fractionally, holding her for raw moments filled with harsh breathing and the shake of his arms while he shoved the white satin aside, and then she was yanked swiftly down atop him and impaled.

Dallis sucked in on the scream as pure fire tore through her, branding and owning her, and then she started beating at him, silently and viciously and repeatedly, not even seeing through the blur of red in her vision. And she was sobbing. Dallis Caruth never cried. She’d have died first.

“Hush, love. Hush.”

There was more he crooned in a low timbre of voice that was accompanied by his hands; he held her to him with one and the other wiped at her cheeks with the satin. And all the while he was rocking beneath her, slowly and gently and to a rhythm only he heard.

“Cease this,” she whispered.

“Oh, nae. Na’ now.” He was smiling as he said it and then he was crooning nonsensical words again, and rocking hard enough to make the bedstead creak with it.

“Please?”

“Never.”

“But…you hurt me.”

“Could na’ be helped, love. You had a maiden wall to breach, and I’m na’ a small size.”

“You’re still hurting me.”

One side of his mouth lifted. His hands continued moving her forward and backward. “Give it time, love.”

“How…much time?”

The pain wasn’t as intense, nor did it burn anymore, but it was definitely tender and raw and his movements were making everything jumpy and sensitive.

“A bit,” he answered.

“But you hurt me,” she repeated.

This time the huff of amusement was hard enough to cool her belly with the force he gave it.

“I ken as much. ’Tis only fair.”

“For what?”

“The pain you give to me.”

Dallis straightened, earning a groan from the man beneath her, but he didn’t stop his rocking.

“Pain?”

There was the slightest smirk on his lips at the way she said it and then he slit his eyes open, caught her gaze and nodded.

“Definite…total…pain,” he replied, and then he went back to his crooning and rocking.

“Where?”

The ripple of laughter went all through him and transferred from where her hands were balanced on his chest and where they were joined, until she trembled with it as well.

“Now what?” Dallis asked.

“Doona’ move. That’s what.”

She wasn’t moving anything. He was. Still. Although he wasn’t humming anymore. He was still moving her up and down, increasing the speed proportionately each time. He was sucking in small gasps of breath, too, easing them out and then doing it again, making a pout each time. That was visual and stirring and showing every bit of his handsomeness. She didn’t feel remotely like weeping anymore, either. What she felt was flickers of sensation coming from where he had her linked to him, to flit about her frame and lift every bit of hair she possessed.

“Payton?” she whispered.

“Aye?”

“I doona’ understand.”

He chuckled then, caught her to him with a sit-up of motion to halt everything, groaned, and then started shaking.

“Sweet Jesu’. I’m na’ sure I can stay this…much longer.”

“Stay…what? Where?”

“This!”

He slammed his mouth against hers, pulling her into an embrace of unbreakable strength with one arm, while the other held her loins exactly where they were, and then he was moving, shifting, pulling, and tearing and making everything hurt again. And if he’d give her a moment from the assault on her mouth she’d tell him of it.

And then she was on her back, her legs wrapped all about him, and holding for dear life as he started pummeling her body with his, leaving off any small movements to make large, heavy lunges that made the entire mattress sway while the creak of the bed was louder than ever. And he was crooning love words again between kisses.

“Ah lass. Lass. Love. That’s it. Sweet! Sweet! Ah…Jesu’!”

Dallis held to him as he arched upward then, filling her entire vision with a red flush happening all over him, and the deepest, most heart-rending sobbing noise came with it. Dallis had her hands full of him, her arms wrapped about him, finding that holding to him was lifting her from the mattress as well, and then he was shuddering, the massive arms holding him making the bedstead rattle for a differing reason before he collapsed heavily, pushing every available bit of air from her body since he landed directly atop her.

“Pay…ton?”

The name came out in two parts due to not having enough breath to say it. He groaned slightly and then snorted. Dallis tried again, and this time, she trilled a finger along his side. The response this time was a roll to the side of her with his upper body. It didn’t separate them and he was still shaking and twitching there. Dallis reddened despite herself as she looked down at them.

“Jesu’, Mary. And Joseph. Where did you learn to tupp, wife?” He lifted his head to ask it before dropping it back to the pillows again.

“Well!” Dallis pulled in the surprise and anger and tried shoving away from him, but that was as successful as shoving at a loaded cart would be.

He was chuckling then, and moving his head sideways to rub his chin along her cheek. “Dinna’ take more offense, Wife. Just get the damned ring on your finger.”

“I…” She stopped. She didn’t know how to tell him she’d sold it.

“If you’ve lost it, I’ll have another crafted. Larger. With a larger stone. I might just make it with a chain, too. Attached to me.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you are…without one doubt…the most amazing woman I’ve ever had. Ever.”

I…am?”

“Oh, aye.”

Dallis couldn’t believe the ripples of joy that cascaded over her at the praise. And then she stopped it. This was the Dunn-Fadden clan laird heir. She shoved again at him.

“And cease that.”

“But Payton. I have to wash. I have to…”

He opened one eye and stopped every thought with the blue-lit color made easy to spot since he had both eyebrows lifted.

“Oh, nae. You’re na’ to move. Na’ yet. Na’ for some time. And if you complain more, I may make it a larger span a-fore I allow you from my marriage bed. Jesu’! You’re that good, lass. That good. I hope I survive.”

“Payton!”