Gavin began stalking toward her. “Don’t think ye will come away unscathed, Arabella Hughes.”
Arabella bent down for another handful, but Gavin was already running at her. She shrieked, launching one final throw. Mud splattered across his cheek.
He stopped briefly to scoop up a handful of his own. The low slant of his brows promised revenge.
Heart thumping, she turned to run. She’d gone three stepswhen she hit a patch of mud. Her left boot slid sideways, and her arms shot out. Gavin caught her flailing wrist and pulled her toward him with mud-covered hands. She squirmed and squealed, wrenching her arm away, trying desperately to elude his grasp. “Gavin, don’t!” He pulled her closer. “I’m sorry,” she yelped, still trying to pull free.
But even coated in slippery mud, Gavin’s grip was unrelenting. “As am I,” he told her with a wicked smile, one hand closing around her waist. “Because any remorse I might have had for that day is long gone.” He lifted his hand.
“No!” she shrieked.
But he was laughing, slathering thick mud across her cheek. She turned her head, but he only trailed his muddy hand down her neck. “Fiend!” she yelled, yanking one of her hands free and spreading mud across his brow.
“Savage, I think ye mean,” he said low, painting her other cheek, her nose, her ear. “Or perhaps brute.” He grinned, white teeth flashing.
She struggled against his hold, half panting, half laughing. “Let me go!”
“Never,” Gavin promised.
He was using both arms to hold her in place. They were both breathing hard, chests rising and falling, and suddenly she wasn’t squirming anymore. Suddenly, she was staring into Gavin McKenzie’s eyes, a green so deep that she felt as though she could lie down in their mossy banks.
Something changed as he saw the way she was looking at him, all hints of playfulness melting away. His gaze grew hard, the lines of his face carved from granite.
What had he said earlier?
What did ye think all this was, Arabella? A game?
She remained frozen, her lips parted. Whatever this was, it wasn’t a game. The drumbeat of her heart said there was much more at stake. There would not be a winner or loser.
But there was a very real possibility she might break Gavin’s heart.
Or her own.
Pain and longing flashed across his face. That face that was infinitely dear to her.
He grasped her arms tightly. “What do ye want, Arabella?” he said roughly. “What do yewant?”
He’d asked her that before, but this time she knew the answer.
What she wanted was standing right in front of her.
There was fire, desire, a warning in his eyes. Something that said what happened next would not easily be undone. But Arabella didn’t care. Didn’t consider. Didn’t think.
“You,” she said. “I want you.”
His lips came down on hers.
They’d clashed against one another for so long that when they came crashing together, mouths meeting, time seemed to stop. Gavin cupped her face with both hands and his lips were not gentle. But Arabella didn’t want gentle. She wanted the rapture of his mouth claiming hers, matching her passion, her hunger, her need. But with the way his hands moved through her hair, over her shoulders, around her neck it seemed he was more than willing. The way he held her said he was ravenous. Not just for her lips. But for all of her. Her mind, her body. Her soul.
His hand slid down her neck, thumb touching her collarbone. She melted against him, flames dancing behind her eyelids as his mouth traveled over her cheek, finding the hollow beneath her ear. Longing and yearning and desire all twisted together at her center, urging him closer.
And despite the water in her shoes and the mud on her hands, every detail became the brilliant facet of a jewel. The pad of his thumb brushing her jawline. The earthy, silty tasteof his lips. The stubble on his jaw beneath her fingertips. The saltwater scent of his skin. The ravens squawking overhead.
They’d long ago perfected a silent means of communication, able to understand what the other was saying without speaking a single word. And they did so now.
She tugged at the hair on the nape of his neck.I cannot do this without you, Gavin.One of his hands moved to her lower back, pulling her up, closer.Ye could. But ye will not have to.She sighed against his mouth.I love you.He nuzzled her nose, teasing her with his mouth.Of course ye do, lass. Of course ye do.
Arabella let out a half sob, half laugh. Against all odds, Gavin McKenzie, with his irreverent grin, his constant teasing, and his stubborn Scottishness, had worked his way into her heart. He’d challenged, entreated, and emboldened her. He’d shown her the possibility of a future she’d never imagined, a future that had become a consuming ache at her very center.
