Well… Her heart turned into a ball of warm, sticky nectar. Who would have guessed that the bond between them was special for Hamish, too? Certainly not Emily Douglas, although even an innocent would notice his appetite for her. "This isn’t what usually happens to you?"
He sighed and ran one hand through his untidy hair. "Devil take it, Emily, I can’t think of anything but you. I spend every moment away from bed wanting to carry you back to bed. You’ve turned me into an utter wreck. I used to be a worthwhile member of society. Those days are gone." He frowned at her, although the glint in his blue eyes belied his intense expression. "Now who’s looking smug?"
She stopped trying to contain her smile. "I suppose I must be." She hesitated before she spoke again, although surely there could be no risk in the admission, given what he’d just said. "I’m quite mad about you, too."
I love you, Hamish.
But she backed away from that ultimate confession. Because gratifying as it was to hear how she turned his life topsy-turvy, desire wasn’t love.
Could it be the pathway to love?
She was too inexperienced to know. But if she had to formulate a theory, she’d speculate that at last her marriage headed in a positive direction. Which made her more determined than ever to become an equal partner when she and Hamish came together.
For a worldly man who had had far too much feminine attention in his life, he looked ridiculously pleased. "Well, I’ll be a Dutchman. Mutual lunacy?"
She couldn’t help laughing. "At least it’s mutual."
"That’s true." He looked thoughtful. "You’d like to make our encounters more mutual?"
Heat stung her cheeks at having to have this conversation, which given what he’d just done to her seemed insane. "I’d like to make you feel the way you make me feel."
He seemed to understand, despite her mixed-up sentence. "I should have known you’d start wanting to order me about."
Once resentment would have honed those words. Now they emerged with an affectionate tolerance that made her want to hug him. "Not always. Just now and again."
"You want to wreak havoc on my innocent body?"
Her lips quirked. "Not so innocent."
He didn’t smile back. "You could be right."
She frowned. "I’m not saying I don’t like what we’ve done so far. I love it."
"I never doubted it, darling." He still looked like he made some abstruse calculation in his head. It was a familiar expression. "But you feel like the recipient, not the giver."
"Exactly."
"That’s not true by the way. I’ve never enjoyed a lover more than you."
Another of those excited little jumps of her heart. Another catch of emotion in her throat. "Thank you."
"You’re welcome."
"So do you mind if we try something different?"
Hamish spread his hands in surrender while a broad smile covered his face. "Mind? I’ll wager I’m the luckiest cove in Scotland."
***
Hamish watched relief flood Emily’s features. She was such an intriguing mixture of confidence and shyness, much more interesting than the prickly, if attractive little termagant he’d once thought her.
Her laugh held a note of surprise. "Really?"
"I’m at your disposal, Lady Glen Lyon. What would you like to do first?"
A wicked smile curled her luscious mouth.
Heat blasted Hamish. Was she thinking of putting that mouth on his prick? That particular fantasy stretched all the way back to his youth, when he’d first noticed that Emily Baylor might be annoying, but she was also deuced pretty.