She cupped his face and tilted it up to hers and his kiss was devouring. Searing. His tongue over hers, his lips claiming hers. His warm breath. She could feel he was giving her his soul, his heart, everything. And she wanted it. And she wanted to give it back.
His hands were at her waist, holding her lightly. With the passionate and demanding nature of the kiss, she wondered why he was not pulling her to him as he had moments before. Before his proposal.
He answered her unspoken question.
“I think we better get the dress off you, Kate, my love.” His voice was shaky. His gray eyes were soft.
“Yes,” she said and felt herself Kate, the farm girl. She felt young, in a way she had not in a long time. Yes, let her be Kate with her Jamie. Starting anew. Each kiss a surprise. Each caress a mystery.
Holding her hands, James got off his knees and stood.
“Upsidaisy,” she said to him.
He looked down at her, startled for a moment, and then chortled and gave her the boyish grin she loved so much. She laughed, too.
Even as she was still laughing, he put his hands on her bare shoulders and kissed her mouth gently, tenderly. And then ever so slowly, he moved his kisses off her lips and to her cheek and jaw and then her ear and neck, all the while slowly rotating her and himself until she had her back to him.
It had been a masterful move on his part.
Oh, Jamie.
He palmed her rounded lower abdomen from his position behind her. Yes. Our child, Jamie. His fingers skimmed over her waist, her bodice, touching the silk and the edge of the chemise. The fingers came up to join his mouth at the back of her neck. Buttons undone more surely this time. No haste and no fumbling.
And once the dress was off and had joined her rose-pink dress over a chair, Catherine thought there now would be a tearing of clothes and a fervency from her Jamie. But no.
“Would you untie my cravat, Kate?” he asked. She reached up to do so and as she did, she caressed his jaw.
“I’ll shave you tomorrow,” she said and had to blink several times.
“Six weeks, Kate.” He grinned. “A Viking, Kate. For our honeymoon.”
The promise of this aroused her as much as the searing kiss. Not just the beard on her Jamie but the sense that suddenly they had all the time they wanted.
The cravat was undone.
“Shall I loosen your stays?”
“That would be lovely, Jamie.”
The stays were off and she helped him off with his boots and the rest of his clothes and he removed the delicate chemise and the petticoat and her hose and shoes. They were standing naked. His arms were around her and they were kissing and she could feel licking flames in her breasts and her cleft. His hard member was pressed between their bodies. Now, surely, he would take her, ravage her mouth with his, fill her empty aching need.
But he did not. He kissed her and he touched her, but nothing was a grope or a grasp. And she put herself again in the mind of Kate Cooksey and every stroke of his hand on her skin, every brush of his slightly whiskered lips was a revelation. And for her, the feel of his skin and his muscle under her hands as she touched his chest and his flanks and his back and his buttocks, these were sensations wholly new as well.
When he picked her up under her arms, just a few inches, to put her on the bed, they both simultaneously said, “Upsidaisy” and then burst out laughing.
And then they were in the bed together and laughing and touching and kissing. And the kisses became longer and longer but sweeter and sweeter even as their hands wandered over each other’s bodies and her throbbing grew. In the past, that throbbing caused by him had driven her to aggressive wildness, to wanting only to quench her own thirst for him, to getting on top of him and putting him inside her, to taking his cock in her mouth and making him moan her name. But now, she just wanted to be Kate with her Jamie.
There would be a time in the future for that wildness. He would want that from her, but they would have many years together. Time enough for wildness, for tenderness, for all the flavors of love except for those that spoke to cruelty and danger.
And then his gentle mouth on her breast was as if no one had ever touched her breast before. And after a long time, he was on top of her and she could feel his hard shaft between her thighs. Slowly he went from being in between her thighs to being inside her. And as he filled her and kissed her, she felt a euphoria of jumbled emotions and sensations. Love combining with arousal combining with affection. It was almost too much.
As if he knew she was overwhelmed, he quickened his pace and the depth of his thrusts, and she felt a seizing of her groin and the waves of her climax began, rolling over her and over her and she sneezed and arched herself into him and off the bed. And he was matching his strokes to her clenching, thrusting in as she tightened so she could not imagine being fuller.
And his gray eyes were on her as he was in her and even as one series of waves seemed to ebb, she would sneeze and another would seem to begin, until she felt she might drift off the bed entirely if he were not holding her in place with his member.
“I love you, Kate.”
“I love you, Jamie. Oh, Jamie.”
Those eyes.
And then his face changed as it always did before he released. An almost questioning look, an arrest of breath, and a spasm of his muscles and the interruption of his rhythm. And as his own climax pulsed, she felt the last of her own waves recede and go away and the entire ocean was still and they were alone in the universe.
They were the only two.
And she held him on top of her as she had never held him before. She held him. And held him. And she did not let him go. She. Would. Not. Ever.
