Highland Awakening Read online

  She didn’t trust him. She shouldn’t trust him. It was no surprise, after what he’d done, but for some reason one of the fissures on his heart cracked wide open.

  He climbed onto his bed and drew her into his arms. He didn’t want to think about trust or marriage, and those disturbing thoughts quickly vanished as he took little sips of her mouth, then moved over her so he could kiss her more thoroughly. He kissed her jaw and the soft, slender column of her neck. She lifted her chin to give him more access, her fingers making long swipes over his shoulders, her eyes closed as she hummed her approval.

  He propped himself on one hand so he could unbutton her pelisse, then he urged her up to a seated position so he could slip it off her arms and toss it away. He arranged her on his lap while he worked on the tapes of her dress, moving slowly down her back, taking his time with each one.

  He loved her taste. He loved how she kissed him back with eager, inexperienced, hungry kisses. He could kiss her all day…all night.

  Kissing her all night, every night, having her lie beside him, her warmth and heat and sweetness…That would be bliss.

  Stop. He needed to stop these intruding thoughts of the future. He didn’t need to be thinking about anything but this moment right now, and the soft, pliable woman in his arms.

  He slipped her dress from her shoulders, and she pulled back and looked at him. “Cam…”

  “Hmm?” He looked into her eyes, and a potent mixture of affection and awe spread through him.

  “You really don’t care about my writing?”

  “Your writing?”

  “Are you sure that it doesn’t make you think less of me?”

  He drew her close to him, pressing his lips into her hair. “I already told you, lass. It makes me think more of you. It is a part of you I canna help but respect. I ken what your life has been like, Esme. My sister was raised in a similar environment, though it was probably less demanding and stringent than yours, as you were raised the daughter of a duke and she was only the daughter of a Scottish earl. What you have done with your passion, despite the obstacles you faced and continue to face, shows braveness and commitment.”

  “No one else thinks like you do,” she whispered.

  He grinned. “Aye, well, that’s true. Now kiss me again.”

  She did, dragging him in for a long, erotic kiss. When she pulled away, they were both panting, and his cock was as hard as an iron spike.

  He laid her back down, dragging her dress over her hips, peppering kisses across her body on his way. She possessed feminine curves in all the right places. He had to rid her of her chemise and stays as quickly as possible. He wanted to touch all her hidden spots, cup her breasts in his hands, run his palms along the dips in her waist.

  Once her dress was off, he unlaced her stays and pulled them free, then tugged her chemise up over her head. Now she was naked except for her stockings, shoes, and her ribbon garters tied just below her knees.

  Cam reared up to look at her. She lay on the bed, staring at him with shining eyes as he moved his hands over her chest, testing the weight of her breasts. Set free from the confines of her clothes, they spilled over his palms, heavy and warm and soft. His mouth watered with the need to taste them, but instead, he moved downward, stroking the curves of her waist and her flared hips. A dark vee of hair hid her womanhood, and he pressed his palm to it.

  She jerked in his hands, but he kept going, stroking over her smooth thighs and knees to the ribbon garters. “We’ll leave these on,” he said softly. “We wouldna want you to feel naked.”

  “You’re right,” she gasped. “Removing those would make me feel utterly exposed.”

  He glanced up at her face to see her smiling at him.

  “Are you nervous?” he whispered.

  “I’m always nervous,” she said shakily. “But this…I feel as if…as if I’m going to explode.”

  “Do you like showing me your body?”

  She seemed to consider this for a moment, then she said, “I like the way you look at it.”

  That made his smile broaden. “You have a bonny form, Esme. I could look at it all night long. There are so many things I want to do to it, but that will take days. Years, mayhap.”

  “There’s always tomorrow,” she said breathily.

  He laughed. “Aye, and the day after.”

  “And the day after that…”

  He pulled off his shirt and tossed it to the floor. Then, as she watched, he worked on the buckles of his kilt. “Fair’s fair,” he murmured. “If I were wearing my stockings, I’d keep them, but alas, you’ll be seeing all of me, I’m afraid.”

  “Good,” she said firmly.

  On his knees over her thighs, he unbuckled his kilt and drew it away. His cock fell heavily, jutting out, still painfully hard.

  Esme gasped, staring at it with wide eyes. “Goodness…I…it’s…”

  “Touch it,” he commanded.

  She reached out and wrapped her palm around it as if she knew what she was doing. She stroked him, and Cam closed his eyes on a groan. “How’d you learn how to do this so well?”

  She chuckled, so low it sounded like a purr. “The ladies at Mrs. Trickelbank’s establishment insisted I practice on cucumbers.”

  Cam choked out a laugh that she strangled immediately by squeezing harder.

  “Does it feel good?”

  He opened his eyes to see her gazing at him, her expression curious. “Too good.”

  Damn it, he didn’t want her to let go, but he needed to prepare her. He wanted her to enjoy this, at least a little.

  There was that unfamiliar voice again. He felt different somehow. Changed. But he couldn’t analyze it right now, not with a beautiful naked woman lying under him, stroking his cock and looking at him with big brown eyes that he could drown in.

  He curled his own hand over his cock and guided her in three strong jerks that nearly made his eyes roll back in his head. Then he peeled her hand away. “My turn,” he murmured as he lowered his mouth to her nipple.

  Oh Christ. He could bury himself in the soft mounds of her breasts. He could dedicate his life to suckling her, to teasing the taut peak of her nipple. He closed his eyes and feasted on her, swirling around the tip with his tongue, moaning when her fingers dove into his hair and held him pressed against her.

  Cupping her breast, he moved to the other one, flicking one nipple with his thumb and the other with his tongue. Above his head, she made sweet gasping sounds, her fingers digging into his scalp.

  He loved women’s breasts. They were feminine and foreign, soft and supple, so different from anything on his own body. And Esme’s breasts were the most beautiful he’d ever seen. Large, ripe, and dark-nippled, with peaks that drew out easily as he suckled them. And sensitive, if her gasps of pleasure were any indication.

  He lost track of time, trailing his lips and tongue over her mounds. He went from one to the other and back again, until she writhed beneath him, each of her breaths emerging in short, sharp gasps.

  But there was more, so much more for him to discover. Eventually he moved downward, over her stomach and her hip bones, until he reached the triangle of hair that hid her womanhood.

  “Let me kiss you here,” he murmured.

  “Yes,” she gasped, and she said it like she knew that was exactly what she wanted, not like a virgin who’d never heard of such a thing. She even gave him an encouraging push.

  He adjusted himself so he was no longer straddling her body; instead, he pushed her legs apart at the knees and settled himself between them.

  He started by touching her, learning her. Studying what made her shiver and moan. He stroked her thoroughly, from the top of her and downward, to the place he’d sink into her—soon, if his cock had anything to say about it.

  But for now, this was about her. Watching her, learning that she liked it better when he stroked around the nubbin at the top of her slit than when he touched it directly. She was sensitive everywhere he touched, though, an
d when he pushed a single finger into her sheath, she moaned, long and low, her passage tight around him.

  She was a virgin. He’d known that, but her tightness confirmed it. God, how would he fit? He lowered his head, kissing the small space above his finger as he withdrew it then slid inside her again.

  “Oh God,” she murmured. “Oh. God.”

  And he’d discovered yet another thing that would be able to consume him all night. Kissing her mouth, her breasts, her sex. All of those activities would keep him happily occupied for the rest of his days.

  She had a sweet taste, like honeysuckle, and she was so responsive, wetness eased his way. He crooked his finger, slid it along her inner wall, and she shuddered around him.

  “Cam,” she whispered. “Ohhhh…” Her thighs tightened around his shoulders.

  He closed his eyes. God help him. He was thrusting his hips into the mattress in a fruitless attempt at soothing his raging need.

  Keeping his finger firmly lodged inside her, he looked up. “I need you, Esme.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “It’s going to hurt,” he warned.

  “I’m not afraid of pain.”

  That made him blink in surprise. The duke’s sister had a surprise for him at every turn, it seemed.

  He kissed his way up her body, resuming the stroke of his finger inside her, keeping his finger crooked the way she seemed to like.

  He hovered over her, watching carefully as he pulled his finger out then pushed in again, caressing her inner walls.

  “Does it feel good?”

  “So…so good.”

  He smiled and settled into watching her as he moved his finger inside her, eventually squeezing in a second finger even though she was so tight he worried he might hurt her.

  “Oh, Cam. Yes…there!” she gasped.

  The corner of his lips quirked up. “You’ve done this to yourself before, haven’t you?”

  She just smiled at him, her expression knowing. Vixen and virgin. God…he’d never witnessed such appealing reactions from a woman in his life.

  He realized he was thrusting his pelvis against her hip, so focused on his ministrations on her body he’d almost forgotten his own needs. But his cock was near to bursting. He needed relief…soon, or this would be over before it had ever even started.

  He kissed her, letting her taste herself on his lips before sliding down her body once again and putting his lips to that sensitive nubbin above his finger. He kissed her deeply there, then closed his eyes and sank into playing with her body, responding to the subtle shifts of tension in her legs and in her channel as his fingers continued to surge in and out of her.

  She grew tighter on his fingers, and her legs tightened over his shoulders. Her nub grew taut, and above him, her pants grew louder until she let out a low keen with every breath. She clutched the bedcovers on either side of her body.

  Again, he curled his fingers, touching that sensitive spot just inside her channel. Her hips would have bucked off the bed if he hadn’t been holding her down.

  And then she came. In glorious pulses that he could feel shuddering through her entire body. She throbbed around his fingers and under his tongue, where he could feel the blood rushing through this most sensitive part of her. She sobbed, her hand clutched his shoulder, clawlike, and her nails pressed into his flesh.

  He licked and stroked her through the orgasm, and finally, when her muscles had relaxed, he slipped his fingers out of her and once again moved up her body, this time kissing her sweat-slicked skin softly, because she jumped when he touched her, as if every inch of her had become oversensitive.

  Finally, he was hovering above her, poised at her entrance. Still panting from her orgasm, she blinked her eyes open to look at him.

  “Yes, Cam,” she said. “Don’t ask. Just…please. I need you inside me now.”

  “Well, who’m I to disagree with that?” he asked, his voice tempered by a sharp mixture of arousal and humor.

  His cock didn’t need adjusting. It was in the perfect place—the notch at the outside of her sex, as if it knew exactly where it needed to be to find its pleasure and ultimate peace.

  He pushed into her. He didn’t thrust in, tearing his way through her virginity, but he pushed slowly and steadily. She was tight as hell, and pleasure ran up his cock, sparking throughout his entire body.

  Finally, he was all the way in, buried to the hilt inside her.

  He opened his eyes to look at her. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her mouth open in a tiny O.

  “Look at me, lass,” he told her. He wanted to see those bonny brown eyes on him as he moved inside her.

  Her eyes fluttered open, at first unfocused, then finding his.

  “Does it hurt?” he whispered.

  “A bit. Less now.”

  Their gazes locked, he pulled out slowly, feeling the squeeze of her from his base to his tip. It was like nothing he’d ever experienced.

  Why? A voice inside him asked. He’d been with many women. Why was this different? Why was this more?

  As soon as those thoughts came, they disappeared, pushed away by the intense pleasure coursing through his body. Everything disappeared but Esme. Cam didn’t care where he was—even who he was. All that existed was this bonny woman and the pleasure she was bringing him. The pleasure reflected in her expression. She gasped, arched into him, ran her hands over his skin, encouraged him with whispers. She was loving this as much as he was.

  He wanted to do it all day. All night. The rest of his life. What pleasure they could bring each other, if only…

  “Cam,” Esme whispered. “Oh…Cam.”

  She slid her hands up his neck, circling it for a moment, adding the slightest pressure, then sliding behind his head and digging the tips of her fingers into his hair.

  His arse flexed then relaxed each time he sank into her then pulled out, feeling the slide of the pressure all around his cock from top to bottom.

  “Kiss me, Cam.” Esme’s body trembled beneath him as she pulled him downward. “Please. Kiss me.”

  He bent lower and kissed her, drinking deep of her, tangling tongues with her, sinking inside her and becoming one with her in every way he possibly could.

  Damn it. He wanted this to go on forever. But it couldn’t. He couldn’t last. He was going to come, soon. Tension coiled at the base of his spine, and then…it simply detonated. He thrust into her, hard, and froze, pleasure so fierce exploding through him, spots burst in his eyes. His whole body undulated, like a leaf caught in the grip of a fierce gale. He’d never come so hard.

  It seemed to go on and on, seed gushing from him in near painful bursts, until all the strength seeped from him at once, and he sagged onto the mattress.

  No, not onto the mattress. Onto the woman beneath him. He was probably crushing her. With a final burst of effort, he managed to roll off her to the side and drag her into his arms, resting his chin on the top of her head as they wrapped their limbs around each other.

  He might have fallen asleep. He had a vague awareness of the world falling into darkness, of Esme’s chest moving against his body, of how her breaths and his came in a soothing sort of unison.

  He thought of happy things. Childhood moments. His mother’s gentle voice. Anna’s laugh. Tossing a ball with Alastair. Esme’s sweet smile. Her lovely body. Her intriguing mix of vulnerability and strength. How good she made him feel. Not only physically good, but gratified, content, happy.

  If only he could feel this way forever.

  Chapter 17

  When Cam came fully awake, it was as dark as pitch in his bedchamber. Esme was curled into him, her breaths slow and steady in sleep. It took several minutes to extricate himself from their tangle of limbs without waking her.

  He’d wake her soon, but not yet. He needed a moment alone to think this through.

  He slipped out of bed, found his kilt on the floor and felt around until he found the single straight chair. He sat in front of the desk and placed his elbo
ws on its surface, his head in his hands.

  What had he been thinking?

  He hadn’t. He’d been so seduced by her, so overcome by being inside her that he hadn’t thought.

  He’d come inside her. His whole life, he’d been careful to never come inside a woman, to never risk a pregnancy. He didn’t want children, and he definitely had no intention of fathering bastards. His father had two bastards that Cam knew of—the first by a maid and the second by Anna’s governess, and Cam’s gut had twisted every time he’d seen his mother lay eyes on one of those boys. Those lads’ existence had torn his mother to shreds inside.

  And now…he’d been stupid. He could have given Esme a child.

  Stupid…just like his father was stupid. Crass and thoughtless and uncaring, like his father had been.

  Having a child out of wedlock would ruin Esme. He wouldn’t be able to protect her from the names that would be slung in her direction.

  Unless…He looked back at the bed, hardly making out the shape of it and the figure of the woman lying upon it.

  Unless you marry her.

  He closed his eyes.

  He couldn’t marry her. She deserved far better than him. But could he let her suffer the stigma of having a bastard? Could he allow the child to suffer that stigma?

  He turned back to the desk, pushing his fingers into his hair.

  Fear welled up and twisted in his gut. He was suddenly more afraid than he’d ever been in his life. More afraid than he’d felt facing the entire French Army on the field at Waterloo.

  He’d been so thoughtless, only caring about his own pleasure, not thinking of the repercussions to Esme. He’d ruined her. What had he been thinking when he’d thought Whitworth would make her unhappy? That was pure arrogance. The truth was, Whitworth would probably do a far better job of being a husband to her than he could.

  He curled his hands into fists, pulling his hair taut between his fingers.

  Bloody hell.

  He knew what he had to do. There was no question of it, not now. He wouldn’t let Whitworth be the cause of her unhappiness. He wouldn’t let the vultures rip her apart.

  He’d do it himself. Make her unhappy. Rip her apart. His sister’s words resonated through him yet again: “This sounds like something our da would do—”