And maybe she would walk into that light.
She watched sleepily as Iain brought more firewood in and stoked the dying embers. She was surprised to find that she was shivering. The storm was bringing in cooler air, and she trembled with a sense of foreboding.
None of that tonight. Tonight was about the present, not the future.
Black Cat ventured out the back door but raced back in after being pelted with rain that was beginning to fall more heavily. Iain disappeared outside again. She should get up and make them some sort of meal, but she couldn’t move.
Iain came back in, shaking the rain from his hair. Black Cat hissed and streaked under the settee as a burst of cool air blew in behind Iain. It was a true Highland storm raging outside.
Iain lifted his head, saw her watching him, and paused. “You keep looking at me like that and I’ll combust.”
“Like what?”
“Like you want to eat me.”
“Maybe I do.”
“Bloody hell, Cait. You can’t say things like that.”
“What if it’s the truth?”
Her need was so great that she was nearly shaking. It came from nowhere. One moment she was thinking of fixing a meal, and the next she could barely stand because she wanted him so much.
“And you say I’m incorrigible?” he asked as he came toward her.
She almost wanted to shrink from him because he reminded her of Black Cat with a mouse in his sights. Iain was very, very focused, his gaze fixed on her, his movements slow but determined.
He stopped in front of her, and she placed her palms on his chest. His shirt was wet from the rain and his skin cool, but beneath that his heart hammered against her palms.
“Should we do this the right way?” he asked.
“And what’s the right way?”
“In a bed.”
“I don’t believe the hayloft was the wrong way.”
He grinned and took her hands in one of his. She was manacled and she didn’t care. “Come,” he whispered, and he led her up the stairs to her small room and even smaller bed. They looked down on the bed. “If I keep coming around, I’ll need to get you a larger bed.”
“I think we can manage.”
He sat on the edge and pulled her between his knees. “I’m wet,” he said.
“Aye. Ye are.”
He cocked his head. “Are you wet?”
“Aye,” she breathed. “I am.”
His eyes darkened in desire, and he ran his hands up the outside of her thighs, over her hips and waist, until she was shivering with need. Up and down his hands roamed as his dark eyes studied her intently.
She was unable to make her own hands work, her body so hot that she feared she was burning with fever. She ached between her legs and he’d barely touched her.
His manhood was outlined against his breeches and she had a thought that it had to be painful, pushing against the fabric like that. But the thought was fleeting, gone with the movement of his hands.
Slowly, he pulled up her skirts, inch by excruciating inch. She felt the cool air on her ankles, her calves, her knees. And then his hands were on her bare skin and she sucked in a breath. Her knees were trembling so badly that she had to put her hands on his shoulders to prevent falling over.
“Hold your skirts up,” he said.
