Her beautiful gray-blue eyes seemed to see straight to his very soul. He met her gaze as rivers of heat coursed through him.
“Oh lord, Kenneth. I… I never knew it was possible to burn with pleasure and desire.”
“Nor did I, milady. I’ve naught felt like this. As if all the delights of the earth were running in me veins.”
She raised a hand to stroke against his chest. “I can think of no other place I would wish to be but here with you. In your arms.” She sighed, a soft smile playing at her lips. “Just as we are.”
She leaned into him and kissed him again, their lips melding, their tongues dancing together.
She tasted like flowers, like hope, like something he had wanted for far longer than he’d ever admitted to himself.
With reverent boldness he loosened the laces of her bodice and just as it had done once before, it slipped lower.
Her breath hitched, but she did not pull away, instead she slipped her arms from the sleeves, allowing the bodice to fall, leaving her bare to the waist. And to his touch.
He bent to kiss the little hollow at the base of her throat, his fingers stroking across the smoothness of her shoulders.
Selene moved against his hand, tempting it lower.
Her warmth and the feel of her against him, the sight of her round breasts with their rosy nubs drove the breath from his lungs. His desire rose higher and, as he felt himself harden further inside his britches, he bent his head to take her breasts. He kissed first one, then the other, smiling as the tips puckered and grew hard, echoing his own wanting.
He toyed with them each in turn, licking and suckling as she arched her back into his hand, her head thrown back, her only sound a series of deep guttural moans as she clutched her fingers in his hair.
Lifting his head, he whispered “Dae ye like this, Selene?” He twirled her nub between finger and thumb, enjoying the sound of her gasps and moans.
“Yes, yes…” She moaned again. “It is heaven.”
He moved a little so he could reach the hem of her gown and slowly raised it above her knee.
The ache of his desire for her grew more intense as his fingers brushed the silky skin of her inner thigh. His shaft throbbed, painful with his need for her.
He rolled so that she was almost underneath him and her hand reached out, moving against his britches, lingering to stroke his shaft through the fabric.
“This part of you is very hard under my hand.”
“Aye lass.” He gritted his teeth. “It is… ye make me hard. The thought of ye is enough…” He groaned as she increased the pressure.
“And this?” She stroked again, almost driving him to madness. “Do you like this?”
He managed a sharp laugh. “’Tis, as ye say, heaven. Yet it is purgatory also.”
“Oh my.” She gasped in a breath, closing her eyes. “I don’t want this ever to stop. I want you to touch me like this forever.”
“’Tis me utmost desire, Selene.” He was on fire for her, every breath taking them both higher, toward ecstasy. His hand slipped further on her thigh until he felt the crinkly hairs of her mound under his questing fingers.
She gasped, bucking against his hand as he opened her, his fingers sliding between her folds. She was all heat and wetness as she moaned and sobbed against him.
But just when the last barrier between them might have fallen, Kenneth stilled. His forehead rested against her shoulder; a tremor of restraint battling the urgent, growing need for her.
“Selene…” His voice was a rasp. “If we continue, there’s nay turning back.”
She cupped his face, desperate, breathless. “I don’t care. I want?—”
“Nay.” He kissed her again, slower, more tender, his body shuddering with his restraint and the unbearable ache of wanting her. “Nae like this. Nae because of fear. Nae because of what just happened.” His thumb stroked her jaw. “Ye deserve more than tae be taken in the shadow of danger.”
She held him close, her embrace as fierce and needy as his own. Yet acknowledgment flickered in her eyes, telling him she wastorn between her desire for him and the understanding of his refusal.
That night of bloodshed and terror was not the night for them to consummate the passion swirling between them.
