In this life or one beyond, a man could ask no more.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Rhian kissed Leith.She kissed and kissed him with no thought for stopping. She ran her hand up the broad strength of his chest to the corded column of his neck and into his hair. Only this moment existed—warmth and sensation. Naught else.
Sothiswas desire. This was how it felt to lie with a man and want only him. This longing to mingle flesh with flesh, touching soul to soul and life to life.
Could this be what Moira had felt with Farlan? If so, Rhian had not been fair to her sister. Because this was grand and magnificent. This was beyond irresistible.
How could it be that Leith was what she’d wanted all her life, without knowing?
She withdrew her lips from his, leaving lingering kisses at each side of his mouth, only so she could back off and look at him. A man’s face, his was, heavy with bone and broad in the forehead, with tiny lines carved by laughter at the corners of his eyes. A splash of freckles he must have carried as a lad.
He was no lad now.
He murmured so the sound rumbled up from his chest, “Beautiful, merciful angel, why d’ye look at me so?”
“I can look nowhere else.”
That made him smile, crinkling his gray-blue eyes with delight even before his lips curved. Her smile caught from his, and they grinned at one another like fools.
Such an intimacy, to smile with a man while holding him in her arms.
She’d already glimpsed all of him while treating his wounds. The broad, deep chest patterned with sandy hair, the strong thighs and what lay between them. Now she ached to touch it all. To run her fingers there while kissing him.
Bonded, mouth to mouth. Unbreakably. Forever.
She needed to keep her head. But nay, all hope of that had gone the moment their lips met.
“Am I hurting ye, lying against ye this way?”
“I can feel no hurt. I feel only you.”
He dove for her mouth again, took it savagely this time, hungrily. She rose to meet him, opening, opening to him in a helpless parody of what she wished might happen lower down.
She forgot to breathe. Her mind floated in a golden haze, connected to his mind by their lips. She wanted him naked. Here, in her bed.
He began to laugh. It came to her through his kiss, and when he broke away, his eyes danced.
“Ye want me naked?”
They stared at one another, both realizing at the same instant what he’d said.
Ah, but it could not be. Rhian was a practical woman. A sensible one.
“Aye, so,” he whispered after a moment. “I would grant ye that, Rhian, and aught else in my power to gi’ ye pleasure.”
“And I, you.” It shook her to admit that. But how could she do other than trust him with her heart?
“Ye please me right fine just the way ye are.” His gaze still holding hers, he ran his palm across her cheek and in a caress down her throat. Still lower, he cupped a breast.
Rhian, never a woman for fine trappings, wore a plain woolen gown of undyed gray and a simple chemise beneath. She could feel him, the heat of his hand, right through both layers of cloth.
He traced his lips over hers while he caressed her. Once, twice, thrice. The heat that bloomed between them became so intense that she sat up. Drew away.
“Rhian, forgive me. I thought—”
“Hush.”
