“Yes,” he whispered fervently. “I knew ye would take all of me, Mena.” He drove forward again. And again. Thrusting with controlled urgency, the storm gathering into gale, and then a hurricane. Lifting her incredibly higher, he angled his cock so that it slid along that place deep inside her, the one that made her scream and clamp around him, bearing down on his hard length as it penetrated her again and again.
Using the rock to press back against him, Mena found herself straining to meet his thrusts, setting a rhythm. She anticipated each slippery invasion with eager delight and mourned his every withdrawal. It was as though a bond weaved between them within the Samhain mist, pledging themselves to this night, to this act, to the pleasure they found in each other’s bodies and the ease they gave to the other’s wounded soul.
When another climax blinded her with pure bliss, she locked her legs around his pistoning hips, pulling him impossibly deeper. Shivering pleasure assaulted her in wave after unrelenting wave.
He roared her name to the sky as her pulsing body gripped and stroked at the swelling length of him. Hot spurts of his release spilled inside her. His great body locked with spasms as he crushed her to him and joined her in that place where right and wrong no longer mattered. Where consequences didn’t exist. Where tomorrow was an opportunity instead of a liability.
They stayed in that place for a long time after the storm of pleasure had passed. She locked in the strength of his arms, and he cradled within the softness of her body.
“I find, lass, that I doona want to let ye go,” he confessed.
Mena’s fingers tenderly searched the stark angles and planes of his beloved features. What a man this was. A rare, brilliant, incredible man, and, as of this moment, he belonged to her.
The wondrousness of it was unfathomable.
At her touch, he rolled his hips forward once again, and Mena’s eyes peeled wide as she realized that he was still hard, still reaching that quivering swath of pure, burning sensation deep within her.
He’d … finished. She’d been certain of it.
His teeth flashed a brilliant white in his swarthy face as he shrugged. “It’s a Mackenzie trait,” he said blithely by way of explanation, before he began to move in slow, but insistent thrusts. “Once I’m done here, we’ll probably only make it back to the keep before I’m ready to take ye again.”
“Oh, my,” was all she could say as teasing heat and pleasure stole all her capacity for speech as he began his tireless climb toward bliss once again.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The last time Mena had peered through the black mesh of this veil, she had been traversing the Bealach na Bà Pass toward Ravencroft. It had felt much like it did now, more a funereal veil than anything glamorous or stylish. Something behind which to hide her shame, her face, and her very self. Though she’d taken off the hat, a veil of secrecy had remained for her entire tenure at Ravencroft Keep. For the slightest, happiest time, even Mena had forgotten who she truly was.
The Lady Philomena St. Vincent, Viscountess Benchley.
Purported madwoman, and a ward of Belle Glen Asylum. Fugitive from the crown, her noble husband, and certain insanity. A woman she’d come to despise over the course of her enchanted autumn in Wester Ross. A weak-willed, soft-spoken ninny. A victim of violence. A perpetrator of silence. Ephemeral, unwanted, and thoroughly unhappy.
Mena Lockhart, on the other hand, had become more natural to her in the first five days than the viscountess had been in five years. As the spinster governess, she’d faced down multiple fears. She’d laughed, danced, scolded, healed, and imparted of her hard-won wisdom.
She’d even stood her ground in a quarrel with the Demon Highlander, and not only emerged the victor of their skirmish, but won his wounded heart.
Though, in doing so, she’d lost her own.
Her reflection in the train window showed no traces of the softness and contentment she’d cautiously begun to allow herself to feel whilst hiding in the Highlands. Her full lips drew into a line of prim restraint, her eyes became pinched and dull, her skin wan and pale rather than porcelain tinged with pink.
She’d retreated to a tiny, unoccupied box in a sparsely populated railcar to gather her thoughts. To brood, was more like it.
How in God’s name had she ever allowed herself to board a train back to London? Was she truly mad? Why had she not portended some rank and incurable illness, forcing everyone to leave her behind?
Partly, she admitted to herself, because she’d been pleasured into witless oblivion more times than a human being could possibly be expected to endure and still hold a thought in her head. The hour had struck half past two in the morning before Liam and she had stumbled into her room, and even then they hadn’t slept for some time. He’d thrown the drapes open wide and peeled her dress from her body with curious and infinite languor. He’d taken special care with her stockings, fingering the ribbons and garters and caressing them down her long, sturdy legs.
His rough fingers were infinitely gentle as he discovered every inch of her skin with patient and arousing caresses in the moonlight. They’d talked of amusing things while he undressed her. And insignificant things while she washed the runes and mist from his bare skin.
Then they said nothing at all when he pulled her above him and split her legs over his lean, sinuous hips. They’d communicated only in gasps and sighs as she’d ridden him with sensual rolls of her body. He’d palmed her breasts in his warm hands and said wicked things in his people’s native tongue while she pleasured herself upon his sleek and magnificent body. Then, when he could stand it no more, he’d dug his strong fingers into the flesh of her hips and driven upward until he’d bowed with such shocking pleasure, Mena had thought his back would break.