“I cannot sleep,” he told her. “My mind is too full.” As well as another aching part of him. But this was no rowan copse out on the hillside. Would she truly give herself to him here under her own roof, with the others within hearing distance?
While still he wondered, she reached out and her cool fingers found his forehead. “No fever yet.”
He asked, his voice a taunt, “Never tell me you were lying up in that loft thinking about me?”
“Yes.” The word whispered between her lips. “I feared you might be unconscious, delirious, or cold.”
“So have you come to keep me warm?”
In answer, she slipped into the bed.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jeannie had never before had a man in her bed, had never wanted one. No sane woman should, she told herself fiercely even as she eased her body between the blankets and against Finnan MacAllister’s. Oh, she might have imagined it back in Dumfries, tried to conceive what it would be like. Nothing she had ever imagined compared with this.
And she would defy any woman to keep away. Had she not tried to argue herself out of this while lying in Aggie’s cot up in the loft? As well try to keep wasps from a honey jar.
This particular bed was too small for the both of them. And Finnan MacAllister was not in any way a small man. She found herself lying half on top of him, and the sensation was…
Stunningly wonderful.
Full contact she had from her breasts on down, and she could feel all of him, hard muscle and more.
“I would not hurt your arm—”
“Jeannie,” he breathed and swallowed the rest of her words as his mouth captured hers in a wild demand.
And oh, she had craved this, the heat and sweetness of it, the claiming. His lips molded to hers, and his tongue invaded her, making his desire more than plain. She melted like tallow when the candle is put to flame.
Take me, she begged him in her mind even as his tongue caressed hers intimately and his hands, already moving, spread their heat through her night dress. He should not be using that arm, she thought quite clearly, an instant before all rational thought flew away.
His hand slid from her shoulder downward and, as if in answer to prayer, paused to cup her breast. Fire raced through her from his fingers, a potent conflagration.
He broke the kiss, and his breath whispered over her lips as he spoke her name again. “Jeannie.”
She moaned and gave him little kisses, rained them upon him. She caught his lip between hers and sucked it in. She wanted him inside her so much she could barely breathe.
No one had ever told her a woman could ache for the taste of a man, or for the feel of him hard between her legs. But every part of her cried out for him now.
Following her desire, she let her hands move also, stroked the muscles of his chest, fingers trembling with delight. Daring in her need, she continued to trail her touch downward. He lay more than half undressed, chest bare, stomach bare except for an interesting and tantalizing pattern of hair. Her fingers encountered no barrier until they met with his trews. She explored the laces, her fingers intelligent in the dark, and untied them with an agility she might never have imagined.
He moaned then. Even as she slid her hands around him in a deliberate caress, he made a sound deep in his throat and kissed her once again.
And oh, he felt hot, so hot, the burning brand of desire. Like a woman drunk with delight she slid fingers that seemed suddenly too small for the task up and down the length of him. His whole body jerked in response.
Now she broke the kiss and began to withdraw from him. “I am sorry. Should I not—?”
“Do you not dare stop.” The growl of the words made her shiver. She caressed him still more deliberately, sliding her palm up and down the great, hot length of him.
“What do you want, Jeannie MacWherter?”
Must he ask? It had to be more than plain. A woman did not present herself at a man’s bedside, did not caress him, unless she ached for the act. But for some reason he wished her to say the words.
She would beg, if she must.
“You. I want you.”
“What do you want of me?”
