The Highlander's Secret, page 23
Phoebe shook her head. “I couldn’t. He threatened to kill my family, to wipe out my entire clan.”
“Why didn’t you come to me?” He repeated, a cavernous groove forming between his brows, his expression haunted.
Phoebe looked away. The first day she’d seen Slade after it had happened, it had been ten in the morning and Slade had been bleary eyed and drunk. He’d been in a hell of his own, having just lost Sylvia. She might have decided not to add to his burdens then, but there was another reason she hadn’t told him.
“I was ashamed, felt dirty, and broken,” she whispered. The truth cut her like a dagger.
He shook his head at her words, yet she found solace in his eyes before he gently pulled her in for a hug. Phoebe’s cheek rested against his chest, and in his warmth, with his beating heart soothing her, a measure of peace settled on her.
“You have nothing to be ashamed of and everything to be proud of. You are a fighter Phoebe, a beautiful warrior Goddess, and a survivor. No one controls your emotions but you. No one has the power to make you ashamed, angry, sad, or feel less than you are worth, unless you allow them. And you, my love, are nothing short of extraordinary,” he said, his words quiet, but each landing with the strike of a gavel.
Her mind soaked up his words. And as her heart soared, a measure of serenity settled on her soul, as if she’d arrived home.
CHAPTER 58
As blissful as Phoebe was in Slade’s embrace, she pushed forward with the past.
“When I was younger, I disobeyed my father quite a bit. He reprimanded me on more than one occasion for going off on my own to the moors. At one point he even threatened to lock me up in a tower at Eileanach if I didn’t heed him. Of course, I didn’t. One day, I found myself on the moors alone riding, that was when I encountered Faye Ross. He’d been at Eileanach a few times before that, with Hamish and Broden, to see my father and mother, I know not what for. I can’t say why but whenever Faye Ross’s eyes landed on me, it was like spiders crawling under my skin. But I simply ignored him,” Phoebe said.
She had loved riding. One of the few freedoms and enjoyments she’d had after losing Alex. And in her innocence, she’d wanted to hold on to that enjoyment for as long as she could, despite her father’s warnings. It was all she had after Alex, after Slade had fallen in love with Sylvia and after Egan had taken on more clan responsibilities from their father. She never found enjoyment from planning dinners, sewing, crocheting, or any of the feminine things her mother pursued. She remembered thinking life had unfairly taken away her wonderful Alex, the least it could do in return was allow her these solitary rides on the moors.
Slade’s hands caressed her back soothingly as she spoke. She burrowed further into his arms and continued.
“When I encountered Faye Ross on the moors, I wanted to ride away, but then decided, out of courtesy, to stop and pay my respects. He told me I was rude for not stopping immediately. He said I was like all Scots, thinking themselves better than the English. I didn’t like him, his words or the way he was looking at me.”
Phoebe paused, when Slade’s embrace stiffened. Tension rolled from his tall, broad frame in waves. But she kept going, resolved to get it all out.
“By the time I realized his intentions, it was too late, I was all alone on the moors with this malevolent creature. I tried to get back on my horse, but he knocked me down and … and forced himself on me,” she said, her voice quivering
The last sentence was the most difficult. She’d never told another living soul except Falcon. She couldn’t continue. Her skin had gone cold, her stomach was nauseous, and her body was shaking. A final exorcism of her past, she thought.
Slade’s arms tightened around her, he was stroking her back and she realized he was also mummering. “Shhhhh … You are safe my love. I promise, you are always safe with me. And you will never have to worry about him ever again.”
If she’d had more presence of mind, she might have asked what he meant, but she found herself wanting to tell Slade why she hadn’t told anyone what had happened.
“After he was done with me, I dragged myself home. I hid from everyone. I blamed myself. It happened because I disobeyed my father and went riding alone on the moors, and I was so ashamed. It was my fault,” she said.
“The only person responsible for Ross’s actions, is Ross,” Slade said.
Phoebe’s gaze flickered to meet his. His eyes glinted fiercely. His body was as tense as a bow string. She questioned the wisdom of putting him through this. But he’d already known, hadn’t he.
“I wanted you to know what happened, before we went any further. I owed you that,” she said.
“This doesn’t make me want you any less, but it does make me love you more, for your bravery. You are a survivor and an extraordinary woman,” he whispered, just before he kissed her forehead.
When she looked up at him again, the intensity of emotion in his steady gaze struck her like a lance through the heart. It connected with her soul. He loved her. Energy thumped inside her stomach even as her own ardor and emotion pricked the backs of her eyes. Slade loved her. She savored the overpowering warmth of its reality. His acceptance and love rebuilt all her broken parts.
“I love you too,” she said.
She palmed his cheeks and her lips found his. It was a soothing, gentle and mouthwateringly sweet kiss. She had laid herself open and bare for him, and he had accepted her and her tainted past. And Phoebe would never stop counting her blessings.
Phoebe surrendered to the pull of the kiss, taking a long, deep, delicious drink of Slade’s mouth. His lips moved enticingly, slowly, and seductively over hers. She gave in to her desire, then the desire became hunger. And hunger became deprivation.
Phoebe kissed Slade as if her life depended on it, as if he was the air and she had been running for seven long years.
His lips became more demanding, and then as frantic as hers. He was firmly encircling her breast, then squeezing her buttocks. Phoebe’s body came alive in a blaze of heat, desire and need as his hands roved, and fondled her. Somewhere in the back of her mind she marveled at the enormous pleasure of their coming together. But there was also tremendous triumph there as well. Triumph that she had conquered her fears. That she had gone through hell seven years ago, and she had not only survived, she was thriving.
His tongue invaded her mouth in deep urgent strokes. His intensity contracted her lower belly and curled her toes, sending her heart and head into a dangerous spin. Her quim craved friction and release, like the delicious release he’d given her each night during the last two weeks. He kissed her earlobe, her nape, and her clavicle. Then his teeth gently nipped her pulse point before soothing the same spot with a lick of his tongue. Pleasure riveted down her spine, eliciting a low groan from her mouth.
Slade hesitated at her jacket’s collar, making a frustrated sound as if the material offended him. “I heartily agree with your request on our wedding night to be without clothes, but we are in a cave,” he said, his voice light with mirth.
“I could leave my shift on?” she said breathlessly.
And then they were both eagerly tugging at the jacket of her riding habit. She was happy to get rid of it, for it was constricting her quickening breaths. Buttons popped, snapping against the ground. And as she removed her stays and petticoats, remaining in her shift, stockings and half boots, Slade yanked off his coat, waistcoat and shirt, remaining in his hose, boots, and breeches. The latter had a very prominent bulge, making her heart pound even faster than it already was.
Intensity glistened in his eyes, almost frighteningly, as he watched her watching him arranging the discarded clothes into layers on the sandy ground.
The firelight burnished the toned muscles of his arms and taut stomach in a way that compelled her to reach for his biceps, chest, then stomach. His skin burned her like the heat of a furnace as she stroked, the inked viper on his arm mesmerizing.
Then he was pressing her down on the layers of clothes, his gaze raw, almost anguished in its reverence, causing her to shiver with desire.
His mouth dipped to her breasts, covered by the thin shift. He licked, sucked and gently rolled her nipples between his teeth, one after the other. The erotic sensations he drew from her created a frenzied need in her belly.
“Do you know these have tormented me since the lodge?” he murmured, his breath hot against her areola.
Her head whirled, forgetting for a second how to speak. “I … ah … no … didn’t,” she whispered, breathing heavily, feeling like she wanted to do everything with him all at once.
He planted kisses on her stomach through the thin fabric, then kissed lower and lower. Her eyes widened in surprise when Slade lifted her hem and dipped low between her legs. His devilishly dark eyes focused on hers as the backs of his knuckles grazed her inner thighs then brushed the most sensitive spot of her body. Oh. Dear. God. Her eyelids momentarily dropped. She whimpered, recalling the pleasure his fingers gave during her baths.
Slade shoved his hands under her derriere, effortlessly lifting one of her legs over his shoulder, then lowered his head between her thighs. The bunched soft material of the shift at her waist blocked most of her view of him. When his soft lips and tongue opened her intimate flesh up like the petals of a rose, Phoebe gasped at the blistering pleasure. It slowly dismantled her piece by agonizing piece. She moaned and writhed as her entire world incinerated into a million tiny free-floating constellations.
CHAPTER 59
Slade grinned, when his wife’s body came apart from the ministrations of his mouth and fingers, despite the fact that his own body was stretched as taut as fiddle strings. If he wasn’t inside her soon, his control would snap. His body was on fire. He’d never been so desperate or wanted anything so much. Nor had he ever wielded such a powerful control over his own urges before. But he did it for Fifi. Yet, as lust threatened to undo him, so did a killing rage towards Ross. He would take particular pleasure in meticulously gutting Ross, very soon.
But for the moment, Fifi’s pleasure was the only one he was concerned with.
He divested himself of his boots and breeches, all the while watching Fifi, a thin sheen of sweat on the glorious skin of her face and inner thighs. Her skin glowed like a goddess emerging from firelight, her luscious limbs shapely, long and beautiful. Even covered by her thigh high stockings and boots, they beckoned his ravenous eyes and greedy touch. Now he understood why she kept her boots on.
He came to her, kneeling beside her. She reached for him, palming his cheeks, and he leaned into her touch like a relaxed but primed lion seeking warmth from his lioness. Her touch like a life force he needed to survive. With his hands spanning her waist, he slowly maneuvered her to sit on him, straddling him as he lay flat on his back.
“I know how you crave control,” he said, sure there was an anticipatory wolfish grin on his face.
Her cheeks flushed as she positioned herself more comfortably, while he had to resist the urge to flip her on her back so he could lick each and every inch of her dewy body.
His painfully erect shaft made a tent with the delicate material of her shift as her luscious round derriere shifted on his pelvis, straddling him. The apex of her shapely thighs opened up provocatively, and her delicious breasts teased him mercilessly, mere inches from his mouth.
He suppressed a hungry groan, wanting to take each of their peaks in his mouth and suck. Too weak to resist, he did just that, eliciting a moan from her.
“I believe I’ll like being on top,” she said, with a half-lidded smile of wonderment.
He took wicked delight in her smile. And deep inside he thrilled at the fact she trusted him enough to be audacious with him.
“I suspected you might,” he said, his voice gruff with desire.
He reached for her under the delicate, diaphanous shift. His hands roved her smooth upper, then lower body, cupping, massaging, and squeezing. Fifi’s skin was soft and inviting. Her eyelids dropped, giving in to her pleasure as he fondled, feeding his craving.
Despite an untamed urge to thrust deep inside her, he stilled. There was incredulity in her sweet vulnerable face as he thumbed her sensitive spot. It beguiled, transfixed, and held him in its thrall as his fingers worked with rhythmic intent, until she came apart again.
He lifted his upper body so he could kiss her mouth. Their tongues tangled and tasted each other with dizzying effect.
His voice was ragged as he broke the kiss. “Put your hands on me,” he said needing to feel more of her.
Her passion-infused gaze partially ebbed.
“Tell me where …?” she asked, her tone breathy but uncertain.
“Anywhere. Everywhere. Just touch me, my love,” he rasped.
She palmed his shoulders and chest, from her slightly parted lips and the subtle shift in her smile, he could tell she liked the contact as much as he did. She raked his tight pectorals and abdomen with her fingernails. The pleasure so agonizingly sweet, he would die a thousand deaths to feel her. She sparked his already aroused and barely restrained body. A savage part of him took pleasure in the pain as her fingernails dug a little deeper.
Slade held her hips above his and positioned himself at her opening holding his breath while his heart pummeled his rib cage like a wild animal. His breath rushed in and out of his nostrils even as control threatened to slip.
She eyed him, sensing his hesitation. “It’s all right,” she whispered, her breathing coming as fast as his.
With painstaking slowness, he inserted himself halfway into her wet, inviting heat, the pleasure indescribable. His hips roared for him to thrust. But he stilled, feeling the sweat forming on his brows, letting her get used to his size. His need to protect her from pain was stronger than his own urgent lust. He dared not move, he dared not breathe, his eyes searching hers for signs of discomfort.
“My sweet?” he asked, his voice tight with restraint.
Before he could act, she took control and moved, tentatively at first, then fully impaling her body with his.
“Dear, God,” he growled, shocked and breathless, at the pleasure of being fully inside her, unlike anything he’d ever experienced before.
Their fit was glorious. Perfect.
Her lips parted as if registering their connection. Then a slow smile lifted the corners of her sweet mouth. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen as she discovered her own pleasure. He couldn’t speak, his body burned yet momentarily frozen, struck by the sheer awe of her.
The pleasure aglow in her half-lidded gaze confirmed he wasn’t ruining this. Slade grinned. His fear of hurting her dissipated.
He carefully and meticulously rocked his pelvis back and forth.
“Oh. My.” Her whisper was hoarse, her eyelids lifted with disbelief, and astonishment, and her little smile signaling a bit of excited devilry. Encouraged, he increased his thrusts. Tentatively at first, then more surely. His pleasure increased exponentially when Fifi started to move as well.
He’d never been this aroused or held himself back this much. But it was glorious, and he wouldn’t have had it any other way. The pressure at the base of his spine had reached excruciating proportions, yet he maintained his pace, sacrificing his own need for release for her pleasure. He learned what angles and thrusts pleased her by the erotic moans and little hitches in her breath.
He held her sultry, half-lidded gaze as his hand slipped between their bodies to thumb her sensitive spot. The male pride inside him wanted her addicted to the pleasures he could give her. He slowly and methodically paid homage to her quim, raising his upper body to take her mouth in a slow seductive and possessive kiss.
Then it happened. His brain and body suspended its pleasure as her moans turned louder. Her core squeezed his shaft with a staggering grip. As she found her release, his own thrusts turned hard and erratic. Slade saw stars when his own climax came. He danced weightless among unchartered constellations for endless seconds as heat rushed out of him and his seed spilled into her.
CHAPTER 60
Sometime later, Slade and Fifi lay on his discarded clothes near the fire, he on his back and Fifi on her side. The way she was snuggled next to him was adorable, her head on his chest and one of her legs sprawled across his thighs. One arm lazily encircled her waist, while his other hand gently flexed a particularly bouncy curl of her gloriously disheveled mane, which spilled over his upper body.
Fifi’s unguarded posture warmed his heart. “I like seeing you so at ease. It’s quite a contrast to our wedding night,” he said in a soft and slightly amused tone.
She lifted her head, sending him a smile he could only describe as intimate. “My body realized what my heart already knew,” she said.
“What did your body realize?” he asked, curious.
“It can trust you.”
The immensity of her revelation struck him, given what she’d suffered. It made his chest squeeze tight with an achingly sweet warmth.
He lifted his head and kissed her forehead, inhaling her familiar scent. “When I first encountered you at the manor, I wondered why you weren’t married yet with bairns of your own,” he said.
Slade was about to add he now understood why, when she spoke.
“After Ross’s attack, I vowed never to marry. But now I think perhaps … I just hadn’t found the right man, until you came back into my life,” she said.
“Oh, my sweet love,” he whispered. A jolt of warmth squeezed Slade’s insides.
He moved on top of her, bracing his weight on one arm, so as not to crush her. He captured her lips in a slow, melting kiss. Her body’s response was immediate. She threw her arms around him, pulling him further down.
And as his body hardened again and he proceeded to seduce his wife a second time, Slade reveled in one indisputable fact. They had conquered Fifi’s fears.
At dawn the next day, after they ate the dried food from their saddle bags, they set out under a pale sun for Saint Mary’s Church.
