His thumb started rubbing the peaked mound and, besides losing its meaning, everything disappeared—turned to sensation, to fire, to yearning.
Her head fell back with a sigh as she held his bare shoulders. Deft fingers unclasped her cloak, and it bunched on the boards, leaving her in a lacy nightgown.
Cinnamon eyes meshed with hers, drinking, seeking. “I cannot offer you marriage,” he rasped.
She had this impulse of scoffing at his scruples, not because they were funny, no. But because she had kicked hers through the window the second he snapped the door shut.
“Neither can I.” It aired as a faint breath.
His gaze burned hotter on her when a side-smile drew his sculpted lips. Agile, his muscled arm laced her by her waist to lift her from the ground and carry her to an empty stall. Unwrapping his tartan, he threw it on the fluffy piles of hay disposed there.
For the second time in her life, Catriona looked her fill, enraptured by his rugged beauty. His fierce hand shot out to her nape and brought her obedient mouth under his in a hungry kiss. With a muffled moan, she laced his neck with both arms and clung to his naked frame. His smart fingers unbuttoned her neckline and in seconds her nightgown fell in a whisper on the hay. And they were skin to warm skin, again, as it should.
“It’s impossible to stay away, Emily,” he mumbled, his stubble rasping her skin everywhere.
“So don’t,” she replied as her own lips tasted him where they could reach.
He made her lie on the tartan, and it was softer than her mattress. His strong body covered hers as she received him, cradled him with arms and legs. Her bosom revelled in the roughened chest, her legs grazed his hairy thighs, her fingers merged in his luxuriant hair; the scent of him, green woods and man, infiltrated her nostrils. Their lips joined with pure starvation. They kissed with eagerness. Then they kissed with urgency. Kissed with thirst. Then with lust as they became more and more carnal. For long moments they devoured each other like there was no tomorrow.
There was not, in fact.
His ever-greedy mouth descended along her neck to nip the curve with her shoulder. And lower. And lower, where he clasped one breast with his mouth and his hand held the other possessively. She responded with moans, with her fingers raking his hair, with
her head falling back in pure delight.
His stubble trailed further down until his shameless lips clutched to her between her legs, fairly to consume her, unbridled, with lascivious insistence. He savoured all of her, heedless of what he was doing to her, to the heat spreading and singeing her, to the eruption that taunted and threatened. He took her to the verge of insanity, smearing her moist flesh with savage intent. The outburst came, inevitable and total. Her spine arched as a long moan escaped her throat.
Returning over her, he braced his arms at her side, eyes piercing hers. “I’ll possess you, Sassenach,” he growled. “Because you’re mine, and will always be.”
No time for her to answer as the tip of him met her, and she opened in extreme need for him to fill her. He entered her and sat to the hilt, simply to stop, as if careful not to hurt her.
But the beginnings of another orgasm flourished in the depths of her.
“Move, Fingal!” she demanded, pulling him with her legs.
“Wait…you need time to—”
“Move, for pity’s sake, I am—”
And he did. Deep, hard, true.
Her deflagration came twice as intense as the first, spreading waves and more waves of pleasure through her body. His flesh inside her was the most indescribably delicious thing she had ever experienced.
“Damn it, woman, you’ll turn me to dust!”
He let go, thrusting fast, erratic, in between harsh grunts, unforgiving pushes. He touched something in the bottom of her, wrenching one more ragged orgasm from her, before exploding with a mindless growl as he emptied himself to his last drop.
He fell on her, panting, to find sanctuary in the curve of her neck.
When his breath had gone back to normal, he fell on the tartan and pulled her with him. They lay entwined for a long time.
Fingal wanted to flog himself for his weakness one minute. On the next, he wanted to yell his exhilaration from the top of Ben Nevis itself, only to rush back and take her again. And again. All in one single breath. The same she stole with her unreserved passion.
With this woman on simple mounds of hay, he felt as if he lay in the most lavish bed of the most lavish palace of the most far-fetched folk tale ever told. He wanted nothing else. Except the woman, that is.
The one who would be gone in mere hours.
The one from whom he tried to stay away.