A Time for Everything by Ann Gimpel Page A

thing of beauty,” he crooned, dipping to kiss her closed eyelids, her lips, and her throat. “Ye should see yourself, all rosy and panting. Now be still and trust me. Can ye do that? I’ll lead you higher still.”
    Because she couldn’t talk, she just nodded, trying to suck air into her lungs. Angus said something in another language then. He closed his mouth over hers, kissing her deeply, his tongue probing her. Though she didn’t think it possible, Sam felt arousal growing again. She’d never cared if she came more than once before. Suddenly, between his tongue in her mouth and a tiny circular movement he was doing with his cock, she felt heat glowing between her legs. Her nipples felt like live coals pressed against his chest.
    He drew himself out ever so slowly, letting the tip of him play about her opening. Then he moved back inside her equally slowly. She locked her legs around his hips, rocking against the slow, inexorable rhythm. Her back arched like a bow. He moaned against her mouth. She felt as if every nerve ending was on fire. She knew she’d come again if only he’d move faster.
    It was as if he could read her thoughts. His rhythm shifted. The pause at the top of his stroke grew shorter and then shorter still. She felt him swell inside her, touching places no man had even come close to before. She met him stroke for stroke, wide open to him, wanting him to plumb her very soul. His hands reached under her, gripping the globes of her ass. He understood just the right angle because when he pulled her against him, it took her over the top. Somewhere in the midst of her orgasm, she felt him release inside her. She heard herself screaming, “don’t stop,” as her hips strained against him. “Never, never stop.”
    “Dinna fash yourself, lass,” he panted, smiling down at her. “I never will.”
    She must have passed out in his arms. When she opened her eyes, shadows lay around them.
    “Are ye awake, my love?”
    She nodded, happier than she could remember being in her life.
    “And can ye stand a few more moments without clothing?”
    “Sure. I’m not cold.”
    “Aye, then.” He helped her to a sitting position and then to her feet. “Come stand next to me, Siobhan. And repeat after me.”
    “Why? What are we doing?”
    “Ye wish to be wed, do ye not? After what we shared, we must wed or ’twill be an affront to the goddess.”
    Sam looked about her stupidly, expecting a priest to step out from behind a rock pile. “But—”
    “I told you. I am a Druid. An Arch Druid, in truth. I married us while we were joined together. There is but one more part of the ceremony.”
    Sam waited.
    “I must tell you first, Siobhan, so ye do this thing with wide-open eyes. This is a Druid wedding. ’Twill bind your soul to mine for all eternity. Are ye willin’?”
    She felt her lips curve in a smile. “More than willing.”
    He sang words that flowed over her and through her in a language she’d never heard before. At times, he asked her to say something in the unfamiliar language. She thought the words would tangle on her tongue but they didn’t. When he was done, she felt something open deep inside her, like a vault holding profound mysteries. Somehow, she knew that place had always been there, but she’d not understood how to find it.
    Sam took a deep breath. And then another. She felt different. Though he’d not explained it—at least not in English—she understood at a bone-deep level that she stood on sacred ground, in a special place, bonded with a man who would love her through the rest of her days.
    “Do ye feel it then?”
    “I’m not certain what I feel, except that we’re meant to be together.”
    He smiled. The warmth from that smile could have illuminated worlds. “Aye, that we are.” He bent and picked up his plaid and her pants.
    The sun was nearly down. She understood how chilly it was once she drew her clothes around her. Suddenly she felt nervous. “The servants—” she