When he kissed her there, she jumped. “Graeme, that’s very naughty,” she managed in a half moan.
“Aye,” he murmured back, and deliberately licked her. While she groaned and writhed beneath his ministrations, he parted her folds and continued introducing himself with his mouth and fingers.
As he slid a finger inside her damp heat she abruptly came, spasming around his digit. His cock jumped in response. If only the rest of their time together was so simple and straightforward, he would never have to let her go.
When she tangled her hands into his hair to tug him up along her body, he didn’t resist. Pausing to circle his tongue around her breasts, he then lifted his head for an openmouthed, tongue-tangling kiss. “Please, Graeme,” she muttered huskily.
With her face flushed, her blue eyes searching his face and her breathing reduced to shallow, moaning pants, he couldn’t have resisted if he’d wanted to. Still standing beside the bed, he used his knees to further part hers, gripped her wrists above her head, and pushed inside her.
Tight, shivering heat surrounded him, and he had to close his eyes to keep a modicum of control. Her slender body trembling, he withdrew and entered her again, with every thrust claiming her for himself. They could call it whatever they chose—answering a temporary mutual attraction, passing the time. It didn’t matter. What mattered was their bodies twined together, their hard, mingled breathing, the deep, hungry, rhythmic coupling. With her he had a partner, a heart to beat in time with his.
As she began to pulse again he came, emptying himself into her, another claim on her. He could tell himself, both of them, that she was already ruined and so it didn’t matter. Except that it did matter, because if she became pregnant he would have another reason never to let her go.
***
Graeme stretched, then opened his eyes when his hand touched nothing but well-rumpled sheets. For a minute he couldn’t remember in which bedchamber they’d spent the night; for the past four they’d alternated even though his bed was both larger and softer.
“I think you’ll have good weather for your fair,” she said from the direction of the window.
He sat up. Ah, his bedchamber. “If I’d realized how much ye like looking oot windows, I’d nae have shackled ye away from them,” he drawled, stifling a yawn.
“In London I looked out my window waiting for visitors,” she returned, padding over to stoke the fire. She’d donned her night rail, which didn’t bode well for more sex this morning. Still, he could be persuasive. “Here, it’s just beautiful.” She sighed. “Dùghlas told me a saying, that if you don’t like the weather here, just wait a minute. The views seem to operate the same way.”
“Aye. The most changeable thing here is the weather. Nae the people.”
“And today I look forward to meeting some more of them.”
After she said that, he closed his mouth over the suggestion that she remain inside the manor house for the duration of the fair. Aye, she would be safer inside, but by now everyone between Sheiling and Loch Achall knew he’d hired an English tutor for the lads, and that her aunt was holidaying with them as well. The cotters who hadn’t met her yet would expect to do so, and he actually wanted her to meet them. If he could do anything to convince her that Garaidh nan Leòmhann was superior to London without him explicitly saying so and getting her back up, he meant to attempt it.
“Just promise ye’ll keep me in sight,” he said, pulling her back beneath the warm covers beside him. “Uncle Raibeart’s nae gotten rid of his houseguest yet, so I’ve good reason to think Hamish Paulk will be aboot today to sour the milk and put the bairns off their mama’s teats.”
“I’lltryto keep you in sight,” she countered. “We both know you’ll be blanketed by eligible females the moment you step outside.”
“And ye dunnae mind that?” For Lucifer’s sake, he wanted her to be jealous. He wanted her to be as desperate for him as he was for her. Instead, she kept talking about the future,hisfuture, which didn’t seem to include her in it.
“What I mind doesn’t signify.”
Well, that sounded promising. “Lass, we’ve been sharing a bed. Of course it signifies.”
“No, it doesn’t.” She tried to shove away from him, but he held her there against his side. “You need to find a bride sooner or later, Graeme, and I need to go see my brother and then return to London.”
“Ye want to. Ye dunnae need to.” He turned her onto her back, so she had to look up at him. “Why would yeneedto go back to that hoose where yer neighbors willnae give ye a single greeting?”
“Oh, stop it,” she snapped, shoving at his chest. “You couldn’t possibly understand.”
“I couldnae, could I?” he returned. “Ye ken I could’ve married if I’d wanted to. But I didnae. I saw…” He stopped, taking a breath, then released her and rolled out of bed, himself. “I’ll go doon and have a bath drawn fer ye.”
He reached for the dress kilt he’d set out for the day’s festivities, but she snatched it away from him. “You saw what?” she prompted, dancing out of his reach.
“Do ye truly want to know, or do ye just like seeing me naked?” he asked, folding his arms over his chest, and feeling somewhat gratified when her gaze dropped below his waist.
“I don’t believe the two need to be mutually exclusive,” she said after a moment, meeting his gaze again. “But since it’s fine for you to decide whether or not Ineedto return to London,” she said, exaggerating the word as he had, “then you can tell me what you saw that’s kept you from marrying some pretty local lass.”
He lunged forward, grabbing her wrist and yanking her up against his bare chest. “Ye think I’m Connell, that ye can play aboot with yer pretty words and get me to do what ye want?” Before she could kick or hit him somewhere sensitive he removed the kilt from her other hand and backed away to knot it around his waist. Getting it on properly could wait until he could lie across it without worrying over being tromped on.
“You are a bullheaded man,” she announced, her hands on her hips.
“And ye’re a bullheaded woman.” Graeme jabbed a finger at her. “I saw my father love a lass so far beyond sense and reason that he shot himself rather than making an effort to take care of her boys, the things she most treasured in this damned world,” he snapped, striding to the hearth and back.
