Fiona was still lost in the mists of what had happened. What on earth had happened?
She was only vaguely aware of Diarmid shifting. Her legs sprawled around his shoulders. Some last shred of modesty made her wonder what he could see. But she couldn’t summon the energy to sit up and close her thighs.
After tonight, her body held no more secrets for him. He’d fed on her, and she’d gloried in every moment.
She felt so luxurious and lazy, she might never move again. Diarmid would have to build a special litter for his sloth of a wife, who lay around all day waiting for him to transport her to paradise.
“Something funny?” Even through her satisfaction, she heard the purr in his voice.
Fiona kept staring at the ceiling. “I want to stay like this forever. I’ve never known…”
Words fluttered away from her like butterflies over a field of wildflowers. Although even at her sharpest, she’d never be able to describe that extraordinary event.
He placed a kiss on the base of her stomach, just above the curls hiding her sex. Slowly she wafted back to the workaday world. But it was a workaday world now tinged with magic, thanks to Diarmid.
The bed sagged beneath her, and Diarmid’s face appeared between her and the ceiling. “Ye were created for pleasure,” he murmured and bent his disheveled dark head to kiss her.
His lips tasted salty. She took a few seconds to realize she tasted the flavor of her intimate flesh. The thought made her shiver with arousal.
With Ian, the marital act had been an unforgivable invasion. With Diarmid, she welcomed every profligate incursion.
So after a surprised hesitation, she caught Diarmid’s shoulders and kissed him back with succulent enjoyment. He began to rain kisses across her neck and breasts.
There were a few beguiling, awkward moments while they shifted from lying across the bed to lying along it. Her feet no longer dangled onto the floor, and he stretched out beside her, still kissing her as if he hardly knew which part of her he wanted to taste next.
This playful, passionate seduction had her blood rising like the tide. As he teased her, she moaned with burgeoning desire. Then cried out when at last he lowered his lips to her breasts. She bowed up to encourage him, as a deep, pounding demand set up in her secret places.
Now she had some idea what that thick pulse promised.
“I want you, Diarmid.”
After a conversation formed of sighs and moans and gasps of appreciation, words seemed a shocking intrusion. He went still under her stroking hand and raised his head. A glittering black gaze pinned her in place.
“Say that again.”
Fiona tangled her fingers in the soft curls at the base of his skull. This ease with touching him was new, too. She even summoned a smile. “I want you.”
Before he could answer, she went on, needing him to know how he’d changed her. “I’ve never said that to a man in my life. Before tonight, I wouldn’t have known what it meant. Thank you, Diarmid. Thank you…my husband.”
He looked overwhelmed. “Fiona…”
“Kiss me again.” She gave his hair a gentle tug. “And perhaps it’s time, my dear, for you to take off that dressing gown.”
Chapter 28
Diarmid’s heart squeezed tight, as he rose on one elbow to stare down into Fiona’s breathtaking face. He couldn’t help recalling her desperate bravery when she came to him hours ago and offered to make this a real marriage.
She was still brave, and she was still desperate. But now, praise heaven, she was desperate for him.
He could hardly believe it, although that long, quaking response to his intimate kisses had made him hope that he might lure her into enjoying the union of their bodies. At least he’d assuaged her fears that she was unnatural, incapable of a woman’s full pleasure.
He’d loved the rich, salty flavor of her sex. He’d loved the little gasps and murmurs of surprised joy that greeted every daring incursion of his lips. Most of all, he’d loved feeling her spasm and writhe under his mouth, as she reached her first climax. Her startled cry would echo in his mind forever.
When she’d succumbed with such enchanting, unfettered astonishment, he’d struggled not to take her. He’d been ready for so long, but the bitter recollection of finding his release and leaving her behind proved a great spur to restraint. Perhaps now patience found its reward.
He sat up on the mattress and with a few fumbling movements untied the cord holding his robe in place. He was so het up, even the slide of the velvet against his skin threatened his control. He kneeled before her in all his hard male insistence and waited for her to retreat in terror from his nakedness.
No male organ had given her pleasure. Not even, to his shame, Diarmid’s.