God in heaven, was she so innocent in the ways of a man and a woman that she thought...?
Aye, he realized as he gazed down at her, that was exactly what she drought. He was torn between two equally strong urges; the first was to laugh, the second was to prove exactly how his "...?" felt like when it moved inside her!
"Nay, lass," he said finally, when he had breath enough to speak. "Soon, but not yet. 'Tis what I'm preparing ye for."
"Preparing me for? You mean there's"—she gulped hard—"more? You can make me feel better than this?"
She stared up at him with an innocent sort of amazement; her dazed expression and the hungry look in her eyes combined to warm a heart Connor had thought long ago frozen over.
"Aye," he murmured, "maun more. Relax, lass. Let me show ye."
Gabrielle did as he bid. She tried to relax. Tried, and failed. Her senses were soaring too high for that. A strange, burning sort of tension had settled deep inside her muscles, pulling them taut with white-hot anticipation.
Connor's hand started moving again.
She closed her eyes, arched her back, reveled in the tidal wave of exquisite sensation that washed over her. His strokes were long and deep and sure as he caressed her in places no one had ever seen before, let alone touched in such a gloriously intimate way. Her hips moved with the tempo he set, then her thighs tightened around his forearm, urging the pace quicker.
A choppy moan whispered past her lips when Connor dipped his head and whisked her nipple with his lips. Shaggy strands of black hair fell forward over his shoulders as his tongue made teasingly warm, moist circles around the rigid, rosy peak of flesh.
Gabrielle clutched at his upper arms, her fingers digging into his skin as she felt the muscles in her stomach, and lower, convulse with exhilarating pleasure.
She tried to pull him down atop her, wanting to feel the hard length of his body covering her, but he stubbornly refused. Instead, the strokes of his hand quickened, and he did something with his thumb that made all the sensations that had come before seem infinitesimal by comparison.
The tension that had flooded through her now centered, the crux of it focused on the juncture between her thighs. Another alien but highly pleasant sensation pooled inside her, gathering quicker than a wild sea storm.
"Dinny fight it, lass. Let yerself go," he murmured encouragingly as he quickened the pace of his hand to a dizzying speed.
The first spasms crashed over Gabrielle like waves breaking over rocks. She cried out in surprise and pleasure as the fierce undertow of sensation dragged her downward, threatening to drown her in its fiery wake. Her cry melted into a husky groan as her body convulsed and vibrant strokes of color exploded behind her tightly closed eyelids.
Her groan mingled with Connor's own as he slipped his hand free and levered himself on top of her. With his free hand, he guided himself into her.
"'Tis sorry I am to cause ye pain, lass, but 'tis the way a maid becomes a woman. Just a sting, I promise ye. The pain will not last."
In one long, sure thrust, he shattered the restrictive barrier of her maidenhead.
Gabrielle gasped. Her fingernails bit into the flesh on his shoulders and her body went rigid beneath his.
She felt perfect, so very tight and wet and warm. Despite his body's burning desire to move inside her, Connor stilled, waiting with more patience than he knew he possessed for the shock and sting of the necessary pain to pass.
The pressure on his shoulders eased. Her open palms stroked his back restlessly. Her index finger traced a thick scar located just beneath his shoulder blade, a scar he'd acquired years ago on a decidedly unsuccessful midnight raid against the neighboring Kerrs.
Gradually she began to move tentatively beneath him, as though testing to see if more pain was in store. When there was none, the movement of her hips swiftly became bolder, more insistent.
Connor gritted his teeth, biting back a groan as he began gradually to move inside her. She met him thrust for hungry thrust, and the way her body milked his pushed his self-control to the limit. If he didn't slow the pace, and slow it soon... och! no matter how good his intentions, he would not be able to last long.
Her legs entwined with his and her hands strayed downward. Over the small of his back. Lower. She sighed like a contented cat as she drew him deeper inside her still.
"Ah, yes, again," Gabrielle murmured, her voice as soft and amazed as the expression he found himself looking down into.
The muscles in Connor's stomach clenched when he felt her shudder beneath him, her inner muscles tightening spasmodically around that most sensitive part of his body.
His hands curled into white-knuckled fists around broken twigs, damp leaves, and the scratchy hem of the kilt. He picked up the pace, driving into her, his need for fulfillment suddenly so intense that his vision went blurry around the edges.
In a blinding rupture of sensation, the tension in his body gathered, then, when it was almost unbearable, burst.
Connor groaned her name as he thrust his hips forward, burying himself inside her as deeply as he could go.
Again.