With agonizing slowness, he pressed his lips to the back of her neck.
Her skin was every whit as luscious as he had imagined, warm and velvety smooth.
He inhaled sharply at the contact.
Helplessly, he kissed her nape again. The precise place he had ached to touch when he had unlaced her corset.
And then he noticed it—
Isolde was holding still.
Too still.
Awake-still.
Bloody hell.
Shame and disgust roiled through him.
Carefully, he pulled away from her, rolling to his back, a hand pressed over his eyes.
How many times had he vowed that he would not take what she did not freely offer?
And yet the second he could, he stole a kiss. A kiss she had not wanted or granted him leave to bestow.
As usual, his intelligent wife was wise to be leery of him and his intentions.
Somehow, someway . . . he had to control the Kraken of his desire. To wait until her ardor matched his own.
Patience.
He had to be patient.
To that end, he slipped from the bed box.
She said nothing.
He studied her as he stood beside the bed, a corner of the drapes held in each hand, intending to shut them again. Isolde’s eyes were closed, as though she slept. But the flutter of her eyelids and shallowness of her breaths betrayed her.
Do better, he adjured himself.Be better.
Quietly, he drew the bed curtains closed and left the room, dressing quickly in the second bedchamber before going downstairs.
But once there, the restless longing in his blood would not subside.
Outside, blue sky and sunshine dominated—a rarity on the west coast of the Highlands.
Surely, theSS Statesmanwould return for them. Perhaps in as soon as a couple of hours, depending on where the ship had waited out the storm.
Needing to burn off his excess of energy, to quell the ache of his longing, Tristan tugged on his own boots, still damp but serviceable. He found a cap for his head—his hat having been lost at sea—and set out to explore the island. Perhaps there was another house on the opposite side? Briefly, he considered waking Isolde, but she had held herself so still—clearly not wanting his company after his indiscretion—that he discarded the notion.
Though the sun shone, the wind tugged at his hat and whipped his coat behind him. He climbed a gently sloping hill, heather and moss spongy beneath his feet, to survey what he could.
Standing atop the rise, he spun in a circle. The island was decidedly small—scarcely a mile end-to-end, he would guess, and only half as wide. The whole of it was covered in heather, gorse, andmachair—green grassy fields—not a tree or tall bush to be had.
On the mainland, the mountains of the Rough Bounds rose, acottage here and there dotting the rugged shoreline in the distance. But no village. And certainly no roads leading inland.
As it had been for millennia, the ocean was the preferred highway of the Highlands. And the only source of rescue for Isolde and himself.
