“What did I tell you?” he demands.
“About what?” I ask, breathless.
“Provoking me.”
“I’m not—I wasn’t—now, let’s talk this over!”
“Sure,” he says easily, tipping his lap in such a way that I somehow lose my grip and flail helplessly about, as if he’s planned this. “You can talk in between your little squeals and shouts as I spank you.”
I’m so wet between my legs at this point I’m afraid he’ll notice my damp knickers. Excitement skates through me, even as my cheeks flush pink from embarrassment.
“Lachlan!”
“Fiona!”
I let out a little whimper, just before his palm slams against the fullest part of my backside. Oh, hell does it hurt, but as soon as his firm palm connects with my skin, a flare of heated arousal licks at my core, and my heart thunders in my chest.
“Now,” he says in that stern, sexy voice of his. “Let’s make sure we know who’s in charge here.”
“Ah, yes,” I say helplessly, scissoring my feet as a second firm slap to the arse takes my breath away. “You are! I do know this, believe it or not, and never did quite—ow!”
“Mhm.”
“Never thought otherwise!” I pant.
“And yet you still think it smart to tease me, when being in your presence damn near dissolves my resolve?”
“It does?”
He smacks his palm harder and punctuates each word with searing, punishing swats.
“Every. Damn. Time.”
“I-I didn’t know that,” I say, which is the truth, and he pauses. When he rests his huge palm across my heated arse, I close my eyes against the rush of heady arousal that swallows me whole. He runs his palm over my cotton panties, and I realize he’s hard beneath me.
I’m torn between wanting to sing with joy and cry with despair. Why does he fight me so?
He’s muttering under his breath in guttural, broken Gaelic, words I haven’t heard in years, curses and pleas.
“What?” I whisper, still drowning in arousal and desire and wild emotion.
“I can tell how aroused that made you,” he says in a hoarse whisper. “And bloody hell, woman…” his voice trails off and he runs his palm over my bottom again. Quietly, wordlessly, ever so slightly, I part my legs.
His entire body freezes.
“Fiona.”
I close my eyes and open my mouth to speak, but I can’t. I’m skin to skin with the man that I love with my whole being. He flew here on a private jet to ensure my safety. Right this very minute, I can feel his erection beneath my belly, proving that I’m no nameless child to him but a woman.
His woman.
“We’re miles from home,” I finally say brokenly. “No one will ever know.”
I’d give him everything, fucking everything, and he knows it.
As if soothing his own needs, he strokes my arse again, rubbing out the sting of the spanking he just delivered. He groans, and lowers his fingers to my inner thighs.
“Part your legs,” he orders in a hoarse whisper. I’m dizzy and hot, but somehow manage to obey. I’m trembling when I open my legs.
He curses under his breath in Gaelic again. I feel his hot fingers on my inner thighs, and my core aches to be touched, to feel the blessed rush of release. To somehow be connected more intimately with him.
My breath comes to a stuttering halt when he strokes his finger between my legs. Such a light touch, it’s barely more than a whisper of a kiss, gliding along the tiny scrap of fabric that separates me from him. I’m panting, I want him so badly.
“Is this what you need, sweet girl?” he says in a voice I don’t recognize, hoarse with lust.
“Mmm,” I manage to squeak out. “Please, Lachlan.”
He’s circling against the fabric, putting the gentlest touch of pressure right there. I can’t breathe or speak or move. My bottom throbs from the spanking he gave me, my heart hammers in my chest, but my pulse is centered straight between my legs.
“And what would I find?” he asks in a throaty whisper. “If I were to move these knickers aside?”
I gasp when I feel him drag his fingertip along the edge of fabric.
“Are you wet, sweet girl? Are you eager for me to touch you?”
I open my mouth, but it’s hard to talk. My tongue’s too big for my mouth or something, because the only thing I can say is a garbled mess of nonsense. His deep, throaty chuckle makes me smile, and I manage a breathy, “Yes, fucking yes.”
“Christ,” he says, his voice at once soothing and heated. “As if I could ever say no when you ask me like that.”
Time freezes when he moves the little piece of fabric aside. Blood pounds in my ears, and I’m grabbing the blanket in front of me so hard my fingers ache, but then there’s nothing but a chasm of deep, perfect bliss, when he touches me.