This time, Catriona kissedhim.
It was a kiss to banish her past. A kiss to banishhispast. It was a kiss to expel anything that would come between them. It was a kiss of passion and plunder.
Suddenly, her back was thrust once more against the accommodating trunk of an ancient tree. Her husband’s tongue was in her mouth, his lips moving over hers. This was not just a kiss but a claiming.
An affirmation she was his.
And he, too, was hers.
Her fingers sank into the thick strands of his hair. Every part of him seemed a miracle. And she wanted to revel in him, to rejoice.
The man she had believed would never kiss her had broken. Or perhaps, he had healed. Whatever the case, she would not question it. She would only accept it. Take it.
Takehim.
His tongue was in her mouth again. And she was braver than before. This time, one of her hands left his hair. She slipped it between them and found his hip and then traveled across his thigh. Her hand connected with the rigid length of him, his breeches the only impediment to what she wanted.
He made a low sound, his tongue licking deeper into her mouth, the pressure of his lips increasing over hers. Encouraged, she cupped his staff. He was thick and rigid and long, and now that she had experienced her wedding night…wedding morning…she understood what it meant. So too, she understood what her body’s reaction indicated. She wanted him inside her, filling her, bringing her to pleasure.
Everything else had fallen away. There was only hunger, raw and pure and primitive. There was only need and want, and along with it the undeniable sensation of rightness. The knowledge nothing between them would ever be the same after this night.
But he had brought her to this spot for a reason.
He had married her for a reason.
Duty and obligation had a place. But tonight, for the first time, he had shown her he regarded her as more than a mere marriage of convenience. He had shown her he respected her. That he cared enough to bring her here. To kiss her, at long last giving her the last intimacy he had withheld from her.
But she wanted more from him.
“Take me here,” she whispered against his lips.
“No,” he denied, but he did not withdraw his mouth. Nor did he make any effort to extract himself from her embrace.
She realized something else. He was trembling. The strong, menacing Earl of Rayne was trembling in her arms. Emotion vibrated in the space separating their lips. Their eyes were locked. In the darkness, everything seemed heightened. Her heart thumped so loudly, she wondered if he could hear it. Their breaths mingled. The night air around them was heavy and thick, sweetened with the scent of late-summer blossoms.
“You do not want me?” she asked, though the evidence of his desire for her grew beneath her hand. She dared to curl her fingers around him, to stroke.
“Catriona.” His voice was harsh. “I am not going to take you in the dirt.”
None of this had been part of her plan. But she could not shake the feeling that if she did not push him, he would retreat and withdraw from her for good. That her chance to keep him would vanish.
His anguish still seeped into her as if it were a tangible thing. Was it guilt which trapped him, or was it love? Or was it a combination of the two, weighed down by a heaping portion of fear?
Whatever the answer, she wanted it gone.
“We are not in the dirt. We are in the trees.” Gently, she pressed her lips to his.
She was a novice, it was true, but surely they could find an accommodating patch of grass? They need not lie on the gravel path. Perhaps lying was not a requirement at all. Perhaps the massive trunk against her back would do.
He kissed her back for a moment before tearing his mouth away. “No,querida. This is not right.”
“Yes, it is.” She caressed and kissed him again, gratified when his hips jerked, thrusting himself into her hand.
On a growl, he caught her wrist and moved her hand away. His breathing was harsh. Ragged. In the paleness of the moonlight, his eyes were almost onyx, burning into her.
But he did not break free of her as she feared he might. Instead, he gazed down at her, as if she were a cipher he desperately sought to comprehend. “Cristo. What do you do to me?”
If it was even a hint of what he did to her, she could well understand his plight.
