Christmas At The Castle: Tarnished Rose of the Court / The Laird's Captive Wife

She pushed herself up against the pillows and saw that John sat by the fire, frowning down at some papers in his hand. A basin and a length of towelling lay on the table beside him, and he looked as if he had just washed. He wore no shirt, and the damp ends of his hair slowly trailed crystal drops of water over his naked shoulders and chest. That light golden skin glowed with the water and the firelight, as if he was an idol in some pagan temple.

She watched avidly as one drop traced a path through the light scattering of brown hair on his chest, arrowing down to the fastening of his leather breeches. For a moment she indulged in the fantasy that it was her hand touching him there, teasing him until that ridged abdomen tightened and …

He glanced up and caught her staring. A roguish grin curved his lips, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. She felt her cheeks turn hot, and she sank back down to the bed so he couldn’t see that she blushed like a silly, innocent girl. She remembered so well that old feeling with him.

“So you’re awake at last,” he said. “Did you sleep well?”

“Aye, thank you,” Celia managed to answer. “I feel much recovered.”

She heard the papers he held flutter to the table, and the tread of his bare feet on the wood floor as he walked purposefully towards the bed.

She felt his knee press into the mattress and tried to draw the sheet over her head. His fingers curled over the edge of the fabric and pulled it away as he knelt over her. She found herself staring up into his glowing blue eyes as he smiled down at her. He seemed in a strangely good mood.

“I’m glad to hear you’re feeling better, Celia,” he said, still smiling. “Perhaps you’re wanting your breakfast now? You looked hungry enough just then.”

“I …”

Before she could say anything else, his mouth swooped down over hers. Open, hot, hungry, as if he wanted to devour her. It awakened something deep inside of her, that seed of longing and need that only John had ever created. He had caused such pain and anger in her life, but such wondrous things too. Emotions and sensations she had never dreamed could exist.

He still did. And when he kissed her he swept her away on a river of fire.

She opened her lips and drew his tongue in over hers. His taste filled her mouth and she moaned. Oh, yes—she did remember this, so very well. And it made her feel just as it once had.

John’s arms came hard around her and dragged her closer to his naked chest. As they kissed, deeper, hungrier, their tongues entwining, thrusting, she laid her hands flat on his shoulders and felt the damp heat of him against her palms. John groaned deep in his throat, his hands fisting in the cloth of her chemise as if he would rip it from her.

Emboldened, Celia slid her caress lower, slowly, savouring the way he felt against her. He was just as she remembered—just as he was in her fevered dreams of the past—only even better. Stronger, harder, hotter. This was what she needed. This was what would close her past with him, let her put it all aside. To have him as he was now, as she was now, and know that was all there was. Free of the past, with only the feelings of this one moment to think of.

She traced her fingertips over his flat nipples and felt them pebble under her touch. She scraped the edge of her thumbnail over one and he growled. She pressed slightly harder, hard enough to give just the slightest edge of pain, but he didn’t shove her away or slap her as her husband would have. His skin rippled, but he went on kissing her.

She slid her touch lower, feeling every inch of his torso, every bit of his skin. He felt like hot satin stretched taut over hard muscle, and the light whorls of hair tickled her palms. She dipped the tip of her smallest finger into his navel before she moved even lower to the band of his breeches.

Suddenly her boldness fled. She could feel his erection, rock-hard against her wrist.

“Curse it, Celia, don’t stop now,” he whispered as his mouth left hers. He pressed hot, open-mouthed kisses to her jaw, the soft curve of her throat. He nibbled at her there, drawing the skin between his teeth to nip lightly at her.

Celia gasped and let her head fall back as her hand convulsed against his waist. Her heart was pounding as if it would burst, and she could feel that his was too as his body pressed closer to hers.

His mouth opened on the pulse that beat at the base of her neck, that vulnerable hollow so sensitive to sensation. He licked at it, swirling the tip of his tongue there before he closed his teeth on it.

“John!” she cried, her head arching back even more until the braid of her hair lashed at his arm. She felt him tug the binding free and her hair fell loose over her shoulders. He didn’t raise his head. His open mouth swept over her collarbone, the little hollows just at her shoulders, until he could nip at the soft upper swell of her breast. The edge of his teeth scraped over that skin too, and Celia’s fist closed on the band of his breeches until he gave a rough laugh.

“You still like that, then?” he whispered.

“And do you still like this?” She moved her hand lower, until she covered the hard bulge behind the leather fabric. She slid her fingers down its length, not as hard as when she’d touched him at the Queen’s banquet, but slower, caressing softly until he groaned.

She pressed her thumb to that spot on the underside she knew he liked, that had once driven him to such fierce need. He seemed to grow even harder.

Suddenly he pulled her chemise over her head, tearing her hand from him. She knelt in front of him, her body naked for him as it had not been in so long. For an instant the heat of passion faded and she remembered she was not as she’d been then. She was thinner, her breasts smaller. And there was her shoulder. She wanted him to remember her as she once had been, not as she was now.

She tried to turn away, to draw her hair over that shoulder, but his hands were already on her again. He turned her back into his arms, his head lowering to her breast.

“So beautiful,” he muttered. “You are so damnably beautiful, Celia.”

And when he looked at her, touched her, she could almost feel beautiful again, as she once had with him. As his mouth closed over her nipple her head fell back and her eyes closed. She felt the soft brush of her hair on her back, and the heat of his lips on her aching breast.

He suckled hard, drawing her deep into his mouth. She bit her lip to keep from crying out at the way it made her feel. Her body, which had felt so frozen and numb for so long, roared back to burning life again.

He covered her other breast with his palm, his fingers spread wide to cradle her, caress her. One fingertip brushed over that engorged nipple and a cry burst free from her lips. She felt him smile against her, just before his teeth bit down lightly and he pinched her other nipple.

She reached desperately between their bodies to unfasten his breeches and push them down over his lean hips. His penis sprang free against her abdomen, rock-hard and hot. As she touched it, naked in her hand at last, it jerked and he groaned. His teeth tightened on her nipple before he arched his head back.

Celia looked into his eyes and they were burning and dark, the blue almost swallowed in black lust. She bent to kiss the side of his neck, to bite at him as he had with her. He tasted salty and sweet under her lips, of that night essence that was only John. It was intoxicating, dizzying.

As she kissed him she ran her palm down his manhood to its swollen tip. There was a drop of moisture there, and she caught it on her finger to spread it upward again, slow, steady. Aye—she remembered this so very well.

John’s hands suddenly closed on her backside, his fingers digging into the soft skin as he dragged her even closer. Her hand dropped away from him and he slowly pressed the tip of his penis against the soft nest of damp curls between her thighs. He moved up and down, lightly teasing at her swollen cleft.

“John …” she whispered against his neck. “So wet—so hot,” he growled. He pulled her flush against his hips, and then suddenly pushed her back to the bed. He came down on top of her, his hips between her spread legs, his lips claiming hers in a wild, desperate kiss.

Celia wrapped her legs around his waist and instinctively arched up into him. He was so large, so strong and—and overwhelming. She was completely surrounded by him, by his heat and power. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe.

She tore her lips from his kiss and tilted her head back to try and gulp in a breath. Her hands dug into his shoulders as if she would push him away.

But he seemed to sense something was wrong, that the icy hand of fear was creeping over her, reminding her of the horror that was her marriage bed. His hands slid around her waist, and in one deft twist he lay on his back on the bed and she was on top of him. Her legs lay to either side of his hips as she straddled him.

She stared down at him in dizzy astonishment. The air suddenly seemed clearer around her, the fear dissipating like clouds after a storm. She wasn’t held down, overpowered. She was free, yet still tethered to John by the light touch of his hands at her waist, the look in his eyes. He watched her with an almost feral gleam in those eyes, as if he was so hungry he could devour her now in one bite, yet there was tenderness there too, so deep and reassuring. His face was set in taut lines of fierce control.

Yet he made no move. It was as if he knew what she needed now: to be in control of what was happening. Celia swallowed hard. She had never been in this position before, never looked at a man in this way. It was—quite nice.

Very nice indeed, she thought as she braced her palms flat on John’s chest. She slid them down, down, a slow, hard glide on his skin. He felt so tense under her touch, as if he waited for her, held himself tightly leashed to let her touch him as she would.

It made her want him even more.

She shook her hair back and smiled down at him. A muscle flexed in his jaw and his eyes never wavered from her. She gently moved his hands from her waist and held them to the bed as she leaned down and laid her open mouth on his chest. His hands jerked but he didn’t push her away.

She tasted him with the tip of her tongue, and moved to swirl it lightly over his flat, brown nipple. It hardened under her kiss, and she could hear the harsh hiss of his breath.

She nipped her teeth over the arc of his ribs.

“I always remember this, John,” she whispered. “Even when I hated you, when I cursed your name, I would remember this late at night. Your taste. Your smell. The way your skin felt on mine. It was as if I could still taste you on my tongue. You must be a sorcerer, to hold my dreams so enchanted by what you would do to me.”

She licked at the indentation along his hip, that enticing masculine line of muscle that dipped towards his manhood. She exhaled a sigh over the base of his penis, and sat up again.

“You’re the witch,” he ground out as he stared deep into her eyes, not letting her go. “No one has ever made me feel like you did, Celia, from the first moment I saw you.”

Celia shook her head. She didn’t want to know he had thought of her. Not now. She wanted to remember how it had once been. She only wanted this, them together, now.

“Sometimes when I dreamed of you at night, John, I ached so much. I had to do this.” She closed her eyes and laid her hand lightly between her breasts. Slowly, slowly, she traced her touch down her body, over her abdomen, until her hand lay over the place that was so wet for him she ached with it all over again. He had taught her to do this, and she remembered how the sight of her hand there affected him. How it made him explode.