His chest was dusted with the same light smattering of hair that she’d seen on his legs where his kilt revealed them, though here it narrowed until it became a thicker trail, moving down over his stomach, guiding her down to where…
She gulped as she dared a look. He stood, erect and defiant.
She felt a frisson of worry at the sight of him; she might not know much about lovemaking, but she knew, at least, that he would beinsideher. But surely that was impossible?
Even so, the fear was far quieter than the want.
Guided entirely by impulse, she pushed up to her elbow, then reached for him with curious fingers. He stopped her before shecould make contact with this new and intriguing part of him, however.
“Not until I’ve seen ye, Ailsa,” he said.
He grabbed her extended hand and used it to pull her to her knees on the bed before him, a position that brought their heights nearly equal once more. His hands went to the laces of her gown and began undoing them with a swiftness that sent a quick stab of jealousy through her. Whose laces had he been undoing that he’d become so skilled at it?
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. He washersnow.
“I cannae tell ye what it meant to see ye wearin’ my family’s colors,” he murmured to her, kissing each inch of exposed collarbone as he loosened laces and tugged at her bodice. “I nearly disgraced myself before the bloody priest.”
“Barbarian,” she chided, her words an approving hum as he kissed across her décolletage. Her hands came back to his shoulders, only this time there was no shirt separating her touch from his skin. She could feel the heat of him, the strength apparent in each corded muscle.
With a satisfied grunt, Ewan pulled aside the final lace and tossed the bodice aside. Ailsa supposed she ought to object—she’d borrowed the garment, after all, and it ought to be treated well—but this was lost when he took advantage of the looser neckline of her shift to reach inside and boldly cup one of her breasts.
She gasped, then cried out as he unerringly gave a little pinch to one of her nipples. The slight bite of pain made her instinctively clench her thighs together against the jolt that went straight to her core.
“As I already told ye,leannan,” he said, easing the shift over her shoulders, down her arms, until she was bare to the waist. “I’myourbarbarian.”
With these words, he leaned her back until she was lying down again. Her hair pins had come loose during the course of their kissing, though she’d not noticed it at the time. Now, however, Ewan tugged loose a few remaining pins that might have threatened to stab her. The gesture sent another jolt of feeling through her, this one laced with something tender.
Laying back like this, hair strewn out around her, and the naked Highlander half hovering over her as he gazed upon her bared breasts with something that looked like reverence, Ailsa felt like a pagan goddess, or a sacrifice in an ancient right.
Never had a sacrifice gone so willingly to the altar, though.
No, not just willing—eager.
“Ewan,” she pleaded when he bent his head to kiss down and across the valleys of her breasts. The day had been long; stubble pricked at her sensitive skin, heightening every brush of his face against her skin. “Please. I need you to touch me.”
“I am touching ye,mo chridhe,” he said slyly.
My heart.
Ailsa’s heart clenched at the endearment, and she forced herself to focus on the physical pleasure of the moment. She could not manage anything more than that.
Not that it was a great hardship to tend to the way her body felt, not as Ewan briefly sucked a nipple into his mouth, the hot, wet suction making her gasp and arch her back.
“See?” he said, as smug as any man had ever been over her reaction. “Touching ye plenty, I am.”
He knew what he was doing, knew that there was a vast distance between what she meant and what he was doing.
He was tormenting her. And, aye, she liked it, but that did not mean she would let it stand.
Emboldened, Ailsa pried her hands from his back, where they’d been tracing over the hard muscles there, and tuggedquickly at the ties that held her skirts in place. Two quick jerks and she was free to kick off her skirts and…
“Bloody heavens,” Ewan growled, his entire body freezing as she revealed the entirety of herself to him. “Ailsa, ye…”
He trailed off. Ailsa felt a flush travel over her as he looked, taking in each part of her as she’d taken him in. She was tempted to cover herself, to hide behind her hands, to give in to bashfulness, but she resisted.
Ewan dragged his eyes up to her face.
“Ye are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he said, his voice thick with sincerity.
