Chapter 7: The Dawn's Need
The deep, silent dark had softened to the quiet gray of pre-dawn. Beth woke not to sound, but to sensation. The solid, heavy warmth of him at her back. The coarse linen of his shirt against her shoulder blades. And the hard, insistent pressure of his cock, rigid and hot, nestled against the curve of her ass.
A slow, wicked smile curved her lips in the gloom. Her body, sore in the most delicious ways, hummed back to life. She shifted slightly, pressing back against him. A rough, sleepy sound rumbled in his chest. His arm, slung over her waist, tightened.
“Lachlan,” she whispered, her voice husky with sleep.
He stirred. His lips brushed her nape. “Mmm?”
She said nothing, just took his hand from her stomach and guided it down, over the plane of her belly, through the tangle of curls, until his fingers met the slick, swollen flesh between her thighs. She pressed his hand there, letting him feel the undeniable, soaked evidence of her want.
His entire body went still behind her. Then his fingers moved of their own volition, a slow, exploratory glide through her folds. He found her clit, already hardened and eager, and circled it once. A jolt of pure lightning shot through her.
“Christ,” he breathed, his voice thick and graveled with sleep. His cock jumped against her.
“You’re wet,” he muttered, as if diagnosing a battlefield condition. His fingers delved deeper, slipping inside her, testing her readiness. He groaned, a raw, hungry sound. “Soaked. For me.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a dark, gratified observation. He withdrew his hand and she felt him shift, his body aligning behind hers. The head of his cock, blunt and searing, nudged at her entrance, sliding through her wetness but not entering.
“Is this what you woke me for, wife?” His brogue was a rough caress against her ear. “This greedy little cunt, hungry again?”
The filthy word, in that sleep-roughened voice, made her clench around nothing. “Yes,” she gasped.
He didn’t tease her further. He hooked an arm under her knee, hiking her leg up, opening her wider. Then he pushed forward, one long, smooth, claiming stroke that buried him to the root inside her.
A shared, guttural groan filled the quiet room. He was so deep this way, so impossibly full. He held there for a moment, both of them panting, adjusting to the overwhelming fit.
“God, you’re tight,” he rasped against her shoulder. “Feel like you’re milking me already.”
He began to move. A slow, deliberate, devastating rhythm. Each withdrawal was an agony of emptiness, each thrust a perfect, penetrating shock. He fucked her with a lazy, possessive confidence, as if they had all the time in the world. The only sounds were the slick slap of skin, the creak of the bed ropes, and her ragged, pleading breaths.
His hand slid up from her hip, over her ribcage, to cup her breast. His palm was calloused, hot. He rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, tugging and pinching until she cried out, the sensation arrowing straight to her core.
“That’s it,” he growled, his pace quickening. “Make the noise. Let me hear what I do to you.”
He bit the curve of her shoulder, not hard enough to break skin, but with a possession that sent a thrill through her. His tongue soothed the sting. His thrusts became harder, faster, losing their morning laziness. She was unraveling, the coil within her winding impossibly tight. She reached back, grasping the hard muscle of his thigh, trying to anchor herself as he drove her toward the edge.
“I can feel you,” he panted, his breath hot. “Clenching. Begging for it. Come on my cock, Elizabeth. Do it.”
His command, the raw need in his voice, shattered her. Pleasure detonated, a white-hot wave that ripped through her, convulsing her around him. A broken, sobbing scream was torn from her throat.
The violent clench of her orgasm pulled his own from him. With a hoarse, Gaelic curse that sounded like a prayer, he slammed into her one final time and held, pulsing as he spilled himself deep inside her. The heat of it seemed to spark a second, smaller quake in her depths.
He collapsed over her, his weight a crushing, welcome blanket. They lay like that, fused together, both shuddering through the last tremors. His face was buried in her hair, his breath coming in great, ragged gusts that stirred the strands.
Slowly, the world seeped back in. The gray light at the window was strengthening. A bird chirped somewhere on the castle walls. The smell of sex, sweat, and dying hearth ashes hung thick in the air.
He softened, slipped from her body. He didn’t roll away, just adjusted his weight beside her, pulling her back against his chest. His hand rested, palm flat and possessive, on her lower belly.
For a long time, they just breathed.
“I have a council meeting,” he finally said, his voice resigned. “In an hour.”
“The mighty King of Scots,” she murmured, her own voice spent. “Late to his own council because he was too busy fucking his English wife.”
He snorted, a genuine, surprised sound of amusement. His arm tightened. “Aye. And they can fucking wait.” He kissed her shoulder. “I chose this.”
The words hung in the air, simpler now but no less profound. She covered his hand with hers. Sunlight, weak and pale, began to paint a thin stripe across the foot of the bed.
“What happens today?” she asked quietly.
His sigh moved through both of them. “Politics. Petitions. Endless talk of borders and taxes and which clan chief’s son insulted the other’s cow.” He paused. “Your name will come up. Frequently. There will be… displeasure. About last night. About you.”
She felt a flicker of the old fear, but it was muted, smothered under the weight of him, the memory of his body and his words. “Will you send me away? To placate them?”
The hand on her belly flexed. “No.” The word was final, a stone dropped into still water. “I told you. I’ll kill anything that comes between me and my wife. Even if it’s a parliament of fools.”
She believed him. That was the terrifying, exhilarating truth. She believed this fierce, pragmatic, unexpectedly tender man would burn his kingdom down for her. The responsibility of that belief was a heavier crown than any circlet of gold.
“Then I suppose,” she said, forcing a lightness into her tone she didn’t fully feel, “I should learn about these cows. They seem terribly important.”
He laughed, a real, full-bodied laugh that vibrated against her spine. “Mo chridhe,” he said again, the Gaelic a soft rumble. Then, in English, “My heart. You will be the death of me and the life of me, all at once.”
Outside, a heavy door slammed. Voices echoed in the courtyard below. The day was demanding its due.
Reluctantly, he untangled himself from her and sat up on the edge of the bed. The fire was out. The room was chilled. He was a silhouette of powerful muscle and coiled strength against the growing light. He looked back at her, his gray-green eyes solemn.
“Stay here today. Rest. The castle is… unsettled.”
It was a command, but a protective one. She nodded, pulling the coverlet up to her chin, already missing his heat. He dressed quickly, efficiently—the warrior-king re-assembling his armor of linen, leather, and wool. He stopped at the door, hand on the iron latch.
“Elizabeth.”
She looked at him.
“What I said in the night… all of it… it stands.”
Then he was gone, the door closing with a soft, definitive thud. She lay in the silence, in the scent of him and their joining, the stripe of sunlight inching its way up the bed toward her. The unlit candle on her writing desk stood sentinel. She thought of the letter she would not send, the life that was now irrevocably behind her.
And she thought, with a calm that felt entirely new, of the cows.