I can’t believe I thought I didn’t want to marry him,she thought at that moment.
Without breaking their locked gazes, Ewan reached behind him and opened the door. Hand in hand, they stepped over the threshold. He pushed the door gently closed; it swung smoothly on well-oiled hinges, closing with nary asnickof sound.
She expected him to fall upon her, hungry, like their previous kisses had been. Instead, though, Ewan’s pace was languid as he reached up toward her face, cupping her cheek.
“Ewan,” she said softly. A plea.
His smile was soft as he drew her toward him, slowly enough that Ailsa sucked in several anticipatory breaths before their mouths met.
The slow, aching exploration of this kiss echoed the kiss they’d shared at the altar. Ewan brought his other hand up to her other cheek, cradling her. This was the only place they touched—hands to cheeks, lips to lips—and though part of Ailsa urged her forward, to seek more, she forced herself to pause.
If their vows in the chapel had been a public declaration, this was a private one.
Whatever came next, they would face it together.
Gradually, but with inexorable progress, their kiss built. Ailsa reached out tentatively with her tongue to graze against Ewan’s lower lip; he opened for her, welcoming her exploration, then slanted his mouth more firmly against hers. She put her hands on his shoulders, lightly at first, then graspingly, pulling him closer and closer down toward her. His hands wandered, slipping from her cheeks to the slopes of her neck, down over her shoulders and her back.
Through it all, the heat in Ailsa’s body built and built, became a maelstrom of want, an inferno of desire.
When his hands finally slipped down so that one was cradling the curve of her rear, Ailsa found that she could resist the fire no longer.
“Ewan,” she said, the words coming out as a needy whine that would have humiliated her if she were not too far beyond such concerns. “Please. I… I need you.”
His hands clenched greedily on her. He was a warrior, claiming the conquest he’d won fairly. Except she had no desire to fight him. None at all.
“Aye, lass,” he said. His voice was thick and gruff, and it thrilled Ailsa beyond comprehension to know that she—her kisses and her caresses—had shaken his composure. “I’ll show ye what ye need.”
The rebellious part of her wanted to argue. She’d told him what she needed. She didn’t need his guidance in that matter, just his aid.
But any protestations died on her lips when Ewan hiked an arm under her arse and lifted her so suddenly and easily that she let out a surprised squeak.
“P-put me down!” she insisted, hoping he wouldn’t.
His dark chuckle was refusal enough.
“When I’m ready,” he told her.
He crossed the chamber in long, steady strides, and Ailsa absently realized that she’d not even taken a moment to look at this room, the place she would now call home. At present, however, she was too distracted to do so; the way Ewan had lifted her had put her head above his, and she relished the opportunity to kiss down at him, their normal positions reversed.
And it was good that she took advantage of the opportunity while she could, for no sooner had they arrived at the edge of the massive four-poster bed than he tossed her down upon it.
She shot him a disapproving look as she bounced to the center of the mattress. It had hardly been the most dignified landing.
But he grinned at her, rakish and unrepentant.
“If ye’d wanted a gentleman, lass,” he said as his hands went to the buckle of his belt, deftly undoing the leather strap from about his waist. “Ye ought to have looked elsewhere. I’m a Highlander, aye? And I’ll have ye as I am.”
“Brute,” she accused, though the breathless way she said it made it sound more like a compliment than a censure.
“Aye,” he agreed readily enough. “But now I’m your brute.”
It was then that his hands fell away and his plaid, which had been so carefully pleated and pinned for the celebration, fell away in a great swath of fabric.
Ailsa’s mouth went dry even before Ewan reached one arm over the back of his head to grip his shirt, then pull it forward and off.
When he stood before her, entirely undressed, she felt that she could scarcelybreathe.
Surely, not even a god could be built more perfectly than he, she thought as she gazed upon him. He was not elegant or slender, nor unblemished and smooth. Instead, he was cut ruggedly, the crags and valleys of his muscles as they bunched and moved beneath his skin a reminder that his body had been forged as he’d hauled kegs of whisky; as he’d trained and battled to defend his people.
