“Don’t you worry about it.” He hooked a finger in the top of her chemise and drew it down, fitting his palms to her breasts. Her nipples puckered in response, sending a hot streak of sensation down lower.
His lips grazed hers, then his tongue flicked out and teased the seam where they met, slick and sweet with the flavor of creamy sack posset. “It must be the ghosts of men going up to Prisoner’s Leap,” he murmured against her mouth, and she couldn’t tell if he was jesting or not. “They won’t bother us in here.”
“D-do you believe in ghosts?”
His shrug conveyed a mixture of amusement and frustration. “Right now I believe in finishing what we’ve started.”
She twisted away from his kiss. “What if it isn’t ghosts on those stairs, but someone much more real and frightening?”
With a strangled groan, he stepped from the kilt at his feet, then bodily picked her up. He walked to the bed and plopped down, sitting her on his lap. “Like who?”
Fear mingled with bawdy thoughts of what she felt against her thigh. “Mrs. Ross, maybe? What if she only used the sack posset as an excuse, and she was really up here as part of a plot, but we surprised her—”
“A plot?” He shook his head decisively. “Mrs. Ross wouldn’t hurt a midge.” He reached to the bedside for his goblet of sack posset, taking a healthy gulp as though to prove he was sure it wasn’t poisoned. “She cared for me as a bairn. Why should she want to do me harm?”
“She cared for your mother more, and she’s less than happy with the way you ignored her all those years.”
“She was, true enough. But she knows now that it wasn’t my fault. I cannot believe she still holds a grudge.”
“How about Annag and Duncan? They surely do.”
Trick’s clever fingers pulled the pins from what remained of her bun. “I seriously doubt Annag and Duncan are hovering behind that door.” The gray day had delivered on its promise, and rain slashed against the small window set deep into the wall. “It’s the storm you’re hearing,leannan.”
“Niall, then? He’s been passed off as the duke’s younger son. If something were to happen to you, he’d inherit it all. The dukedom, Amberley, Duncraven…”
In the midst of combing his fingers through her loosened hair, Trick stopped and stared at her, his jaw slack with disbelief.
“No, I don’t believe that, either,” she admitted with a sigh.
A flash of lightning brightened the window, and he smiled. “Listen.” His gaze captured hers as the answering thunder rumbled. “It’s naught but the storm. And a storm I’m feeling inside, right now.”
He claimed her mouth once again, and in seconds she forgot the mysterious footsteps, caught up in a storm herself.
His lips opened, his tongue meeting hers, circling hers in a way that drove her wild. She tasted the tiny chip on his tooth, her hands on the sides of his face, her fingers tangling in his hair. One of his hands cradled the back of her neck while the other crept under her chemise, caressing her legs with a skill that sent a shudder ricocheting through her.
He worked the chemise out from under her, and she wiggled farther onto his lap, loving the feel of his skin against hers, reveling in the heat of the hard length of him beneath her bottom. She shoved a hand into the placket of his shirt, gripping his shoulder. The warm skin felt good, but she wanted more. One-handed, she loosened the laces, breaking their kiss to pull the shirt over his head.
With a sigh of contentment, she smoothed a palm across his bare chest. He groaned in return, urging her legs apart with his fingers. One hand delved between them while his other arm curved around her shoulders and he cupped a breast. Above and below, he played her body, his fingers doing an intimate dance that made her quiver and squirm on his lap. Closing her eyes, she threw back her head and surrendered herself to the feelings.
She wanted more, more. A finger worked its way inside her, teasing her to madness, and still it wasn’t enough.
“Now,” she whispered. “I want you now.”
“Look at me, lass.”
Her eyes fluttered open to meet his gaze. She’d never seen anything so intense and compelling in her life. “I want you,” she breathed again.
He ripped the chemise over her head and, in one smooth motion, twisted her off his lap and onto the mattress. Then he was lying atop her, skin to skin, heavy and warm and exciting beyond anything she’d ever imagined. Instinctively, her legs came up to cradle his hips, and he raised himself, poised to enter her. She felt him there, against her, and let out a little mewling sound of need.
“Now?” he asked.
“Now.” She held her breath, still uncertain yet wanting him more than she’d ever wanted anything. As he slid home, she braced for the pain.
Nothing.
Well, not nothing exactly. She felt stretched, and filled, and where their bodies were joined was a feeling so urgent that a whimper escaped her throat.
“Are you all right?” he whispered.
