Juliana watched him more in curiosity than trepidation as Elliot poured another measure of single malt into the goblet. He lifted it to her and trickled whiskey across her collarbone, the amber liquid trailing down to her bared br**sts and abdomen.
Juliana gasped. “Elliot, my gown…”
Elliot barely heard her. He leaned down to her, licking the whiskey from her skin, following it to the heat between her br**sts. He tasted and drank, closing his mouth over her breast to suck.
He left marks where his teeth and tongue had been, decorating Juliana’s bosom. She’d have to wear higher-necked gowns now, but Elliot didn’t care. She could wrap herself in a sedate package that she unwrapped only for him.
He licked her clean, slowly easing her backward onto the table, until she lay on the tabletop, her small bustle squashed to one side, her skirts rucked up.
He upended the rest of the goblet, lifting it high so the whiskey splashed down on her. Juliana squealed, then laughed.
She stopped laughing when Elliot leaned on top of her, licking, tasting, kissing her lips before moving back to lick every droplet from her br**sts.
He paused at her ni**les, light pink brown against her creamy skin. He scooped up the droplets there, then closed his mouth over each nipple in turn.
Juliana clung to the edge of the table, her legs parted around Elliot’s hips, a wild feeling building and building inside her. She felt it most between her thighs, but the hot tingling under his mouth made her almost as insane.
His eyes were half closed, his brows drawn in concentration. The hand over her right breast was scarred and hard, the back of it crisscrossed with scars and sun-streaked hair.
Juliana stroked the hair on his head, liking how the bristly ends caressed her fingers. He was more beautiful now, she decided, after being banged about and repaired, than he had been in his untouched youth.
Elliot raised his head, his eyes a flash of hot gray. His next kiss pressed her hard onto the table, Elliot coming full length on her.
He kissed her thoroughly, every stroke of his tongue, every caress of his lips deliberate, taking. Juliana chased his tongue with hers, wanton and not caring.
Just when she thought he’d back away, perhaps help her dress enough so they could go upstairs, Elliot pulled her upright by the wrists. He took her all the way off the table, standing her against him, while his hands went to the back of her skirt.
“I want this off,” he said. “All of it. I can’t touch you with this stupid bustle in the way.”
Juliana fumbled with the catches that fastened her bodice to her skirt, overskirt to underskirt, skirts to bustle.
The bustle itself Elliot loosened with impatient jerks to the hooks, and Juliana knew she’d be sewing them back on again later. He dropped the wire form to the floor, where it settled with a clatter much as Hamish’s bagpipes had.
Next came the drawers; easy to unbutton and slide off. Now Juliana was bare, in her dining room, exposed by the light of the few candles. She still wore her stockings, white silk tied with silk garters, and her favorite beaded slippers.
Elliot set her on the table again. His hand went to his waistband, and he unpinned the yards of tartan that wrapped his waist, to reveal himself hard and fully extended beneath.
He spread the plaid on the table behind Juliana and lowered her onto it, then he scooted her hips to the edge of the table, positioned himself, and slid straight into her.
Chapter 10
Again the sensation of rightness filled Elliot, rising over even the excitement of the sex. Not that entering Juliana’s heat and moisture didn’t pleasure him. Mindlessly so.
She was desire and goodness, and she smelled of her glycerin soap, a touch of French perfume, and a woman wanting. The sight of his c**k disappearing inside her, her wiry red hair damp around him, made Elliot’s blood and body scalding hot.
Juliana’s eyes grew heavy with passion, her br**sts rising with her quickening breath. She had such beautiful br**sts. Creamy and pale, her areolas like silk.
Juliana clung to him with fingers and thighs, their bodies twined and locked. Elliot was safe at last, in his haven inside her. If he could stay here always, he’d be well. Everything he’d done in the past would be erased, and there’d be only Juliana.
He rocked inside her, loving how her face softened in pleasure, how her hair tangled across his kilt on the table. She was spread for him, delectable, naked, his Juliana. He’d thought of her so many times, imagining doing just this, but the reality was a hundred times better than the fantasy.
The reality meant he could feel her around him, every texture and the temperature of her skin, and scent her longing, which drowned out every thought in his brain. He could taste her lovely skin, the smooth warmth of her areolas; hear the pretty noises she made that meant she found pleasure in what he was doing.
Every sense brought a different delight, but the whole of her was more beautiful than anything he could ever have imagined.
Cold suddenly poured over him, but it was only the sweat on his roasting-hot skin, the shaking deep in his body that meant release.
Elliot didn’t want release. He wanted to hang on, to be held in the cradle of Juliana forever.
He groaned, unable to stop what his body wanted to do, sorrow that it was over mixing with shuddering joy. He pulled Juliana to him as soon as he spilled his seed into her, and wrapped his arms around her, holding her as she clung to him.
“Elliot,” she whispered.
One word, quiet in the candlelit room, but it was enough.
Juliana was never sure how long they held on to each other. Her head rested on Elliot’s strong shoulder, and his heart drubbed and bumped beneath her ear. She kissed the skin beneath his lower lip, tasting salt.
He held her with arms that shook but would not let her go, or let her fall. Juliana wasn’t sure how she knew that, but she knew.
One of the candles hissed as burned wick fell into the wax, and rising wind outside rattled the old casements.
Other than that all was silent. Juliana felt like a fairy-tale princess in this old, false castle, and the knight who’d brought her here was showing her a world she’d never known. Locked away in his palace, she’d learned more in the last two days than she had in the first thirty years of her life.
Elliot’s body was as solid as the foundations of this house. And yet, she sensed his fragility. He could crumble at the right touch to the right place, just like some of the walls in this old place. Juliana had to make sure that the touch never came.
The passage outside the dining room suddenly filled with noise. An impossibly loud bang and crash of glass sounded, followed by pounding footsteps, then a shrill voice shrieking in Punjabi, and a man’s bellow.