Chapter Nine
One kiss nearly broke Evander’s control. Diana’s mouth was so silken beneath his, so lush. And Evander’s hunger was so very great.
He brushed his lips over hers and grazed them with his tongue. She gave a soft moan of encouragement and opened for him. He deepened the kiss and slid his hands to her waist. His body trembled deep inside with restraint. With want.
She leaned against him, her body pressed against the length of his while her tongue carefully danced with his. Her desire was brilliant, passionate, and fragile with an inexperience that left Evander fearful of frightening her.
She rose on her tiptoes, pushing herself against him, gently bumping where his cock strained against his kilt. He groaned at the delicate pleasure of so slight a touch and his mind spun. Diana’s hand found its way to his chest where her fingers spread in timid exploration. A whimper came from her throat.
Their tongues caressed while they kissed and nipped and searched one another’s bodies with their hands. Evander cupped her bottom and pulled her against him where his cock raged with hard, blatant need.
Diana stiffened. “Stop. Please stop.”
Evander’s body tensed at the interruption, but he quickly let her go and drew back. Diana’s mouth was swollen and red from their kisses. Indeed, his own mouth tingled still.
His breath came fast and everything inside him trembled with frustrated desire.
Diana was not unaffected. Her own chest lifted and lowered with her heavy breath and her eyes glowed with shared pleasure. “I – I’m not…”
Evander’s stomach clenched. She wasn’t ready. Still.
She turned away from him so a wall of golden hair swept between them. “I’m not a virgin,” she said quietly.
Of all things Evander had anticipated Diana would say, it was not this. Not with how her kisses had displayed such innocence, not when she’d been hesitant to touch him.
And then the realization came to him, a douse of cold water to his lust. He reached out to find the softness of her cheek with his hand and tilted her face back to him. “Tell me what happened.” His voice was surprisingly calm despite the anger roaring through him. For he knew what she would say before she even spoke. And it made him want to kill her father.
She kept her eyes downcast. “I chased off all my suitors and refused to marry.”
Evander took her left hand in his right one, and comforting warmth rushed between their palms.
Diana’s shoulders visibly relaxed. “He pushed the dowry higher and higher, but apparently my manners, my demeanor, my feral nature, were so notorious, every man he attempted to wed me to demanded we meet. I made sure they would not want to marry me. My father tried everything to get me to be compliant: starving me, beating me, imprisoning me. He even tried to kill my wolves once, but they fled and hid. I don’t know why he didn’t just kill me.”
Evander rubbed his thumb over their clasped hands. The hurt of her father’s retracted love echoed through him as surely it must her, cavernous and painful.
“He thought if I…” Diana pursed her lips. “If I had my maidenhead taken, I would be more inclined to marry. And so he asked me to meet him in one of the rooms we used for guests. Only it wasn’t him waiting for me, but a determined suitor.”
“Give me the man’s name and I’ll kill him.” Evander snarled the words out before Diana had a chance to finish speaking.
She lifted her attention to him and gave a malicious smirk. “He received his punishment, in addition to a reassurance he did not want to marry me. I suspect he’ll never have children, let alone lay a hand on a woman again.”
Evander grunted. He still wanted to see the bastard dead at the end of his sword. And Diana’s father while he was at it.
“You’re not angry with me?” She peered up at him. “For not being a virgin? I never cared before because I didn’t care to marry, but now, here with you, I do care.”
He stared at her, incredulous. “Why would I be angry with ye, lass?”
“Because I’ve been touched by another man.” She shook her head. “I’m not the woman you’d expected to marry. And now when you touch me, even when I desire for you to, I can’t help but think back when he—” She pulled her fingers from his and cupped her hands over her face. “I don’t want him to haunt me. I don’t want him to win.”
“Then he willna.” Evander gently held her wrists and lowered her hands. She gazed up at him, her wide blue eyes large in her slender face.
“You still wish to have me?” she asked.
“I dinna think I could ever stop needing ye,” Evander said earnestly. “Short of telling me ye dinna want me.”
“I could never say that,” Diana breathed. “You’re so wonderful, so patient and kind and…handsome.”
It was Evander’s turn to blush, given the heat flaring in his cheeks. “I dinna think a lass has ever called me handsome before.”
“But you are,” Diana protested. “The sharp lines of your face.” She traced his jawline, and a path of fire burned over his skin. “The deep emotion in your eyes. The fullness of your mouth, and the way your kisses make me feel.” She touched his lips, and the torch of desire flared to life once more.
“How do I make ye feel?” he asked in a gravelly voice.
“Like I’m burning,” she whispered. “Hot and tingling, as if I might explode. Evander, make me your wife. Replace the awful memories with ones I want to cherish.”
Evander reached out to her. His hands shook. With need, with awareness, with responsibility for what she’d placed on his shoulders. “Tell me to stop and I will.”
Diana leaned into him and pressed a kiss to his lips. “I know you will, and it’s also why I want you so damn bad.”
Diana’s body trembled with a dizzying mix of excitement, anticipation, and nerves. The last weeks had shown her Evander’s patience and kindness. She knew without a doubt if she told him to stop, he would. The earnest expression he gave her, and the sentiment brimming there, promised everything she knew she could trust.
He returned her kisses with a gentler, tamer passion. Defiance flickered up inside her. She was not a weak thing, a victim to be so carefully handled.
She held his face in her hands and swept her tongue into his mouth. He groaned, and the careful kisses deepened into something that didn’t make her feel so bloody fragile.
Her fingers swept down his strong neck and over the broad lines of his chest where he was impossibly firm and powerful. Evander’s hands made their own careful way down her waist, his caress light and slow. Giving her a chance to stop him.
His touch burned through the silk of her gown. Everything pounded with a heady lust, desperate to feel his naked skin – first tested with her hands, and then…her body.
Evander sucked Diana’s lower lip, kissed her, and trailed the pleasure of his mouth down her jaw to her neck, where the brush of his lips sent decadent shivers cascading through her.
“I want to see you,” Diana said, her voice throatier than she’d ever heard it.
He drew back and pulled the leine over his head. His muscles flexed and squeezed beneath his skin with the movement, while the firelight played across the chiseled lines of his torso. Diana’s eyes widened in appreciation. He was even more powerful under his clothing than she assumed he would be.
She reached out and skimmed her fingertips over his chest. His skin was warm and soft atop the hard muscles jumping at her touch. He watched her exploration with hooded eyes. Encouraged, she continued over his chest, her fingernails lightly trailing over one nipple. Evander’s breath caught and his stare intensified.
He found her desirable, as he’d said. But words were one thing. This – the way he watched her as if she were his entire world – this proved so much more than words ever could. Diana kept her eyes fixed on him, on his reaction, and traced her fingers over the corded muscle of his stomach.
Evander’s body flexed at her touch. God, the man was made of stone. She stopped near his navel and drew her touch down the narrow strip of dark hair leading into his kilt. Diana licked her suddenly dry lips. “Will you take this off?” she asked.
He put his hands to his belt and hesitated, as if seeking additional confirmation. Diana nodded and held her breath.
This part of a man she’d seen only once before. It was a part she thought she’d never want to see again. At the last minute, fear pulled at her and she shot her stare to Evander’s face, watching it rather than the spiral of the kilt as it fell to the floor. As if understanding, he held her gaze and did not reach for her. In fact, he didn’t even move. He stood frozen under her observation.
Finally, slowly, her eyes lowered. First to the safety of his broad chest, then to his tight, flat stomach, then to the cluster of dark hair, and finally to where his phallus rose thick and hard, bobbing slightly in time with his heartbeat.
She looked up at Evander again, confirming it was him. Of course, she knew it was, but the racing of her pulse told a different tale.
She put her hands on his chest while keeping a safe distance from his hips. It was Evander’s skin against her hands, his kind heart beating a frenzy beneath her palms, his powerful body he would never use to hurt her. His powerful, beautiful body.
She sampled him with her hands, slowly easing her way to the thatch of hair. The coarseness of it met her fingertips. Evander’s jaw clenched. In fact, his entire body went rigid. Diana flicked her attention to the length of him jutting out and carefully curled her hand around him, finding the skin in her hands burning hot and smooth as silk, yet hard as bone.
Evander gave a strangled groan. Diana’s heart skipped, not with fear, but with excitement, curiosity. Women spoke of great pleasure from their men, and the hungry pulse between her legs recognized that promise.
Diana released him and tugged at the ties of her dress to unlace it herself, as she’d done so many times before. Only never with someone watching. Evander stood in place, not moving, his stare fixed on her face. Was he afraid of frightening her again?
Truth be told, she was afraid she might frighten herself. What if she could not go further, if she found she could not go on?
Her fingers shook as she pulled free the laces until the dress gaped enough for her to slide it down her torso and over her hips. Evander curled his hands into fists at his side. It was the only movement he’d made.
She caught the hem of her chemise and drew it over her head. Her knees were too soft and her heart thumped so loud, she wondered that she could even hear Evander breathe out a long, slow breath.
“Diana.” He spoke only her name, but the tension in his voice, the deep, rumbling timbre of his lust, told her exactly what he meant in that one word. He found her beautiful.
She shifted forward so their skin whispered against one another. His heat teased against her, drawing her to him. This time she did not fight the attraction. She pressed her body to the warmth of his soft skin and kissed him.
Their hands were on one another, touching – their mouths followed, tasting. The thick hardness rising between them did not leave her frightened. Because this was Evander, the man who touched her with care. With love.
She wanted this.
His touch dipped low over her stomach. It was her turn to gasp, especially when he found the seam between her legs and gently slipped one of his thick fingers inside. Her world spun around. Tingles of pleasure spiraled from her core. She wanted more. She needed more.
She needed Evander.
“Now. Please,” she whispered in a breathless voice she did not recognize as her own.
“Are ye sure?” Evander asked with a ragged breath. He trembled slightly under her hands, and she realized the restraint he exercised must be considerable.
Evander lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed. It was so romantic an act, she might have otherwise found it amusing. But here, in the quiet intimacy of her room with anticipation charging the air, it was perfect.
He laid her on the bed, where the wool of the plaid blanket rasped against her sensitive skin, and covered her body with his. Each movement was slow enough to give her the opportunity to tell him to stop. She knew with certainty she would not.
He watched her carefully and she nodded.
“Ye do it,” he said hoarsely. “Guide me into ye.”
Diana’s breath caught. He was giving her the control, making this completely her choice. She curled her fingers around the hot silken hardness of his phallus and drew him to her. The swollen head rested at her entrance. Excitement sizzled through her. Excitement, but not fear. This thing she had so worried about, that she had never thought herself capable of being subjected to – she now found herself anticipating. For it was not about the act, but about the man.
She stared up into Evander’s green eyes, losing herself in the draw of lust and beauty and love, and pulled him into her.