Dropping the laird's paper to the floor, Henry's boot crushed it in his effort to get to her. Four swift steps, and he had her.
His arms shot around her waist. One reached up along her back, the other curved toward her hip. There was no tenderness. No gentlemanly care. He latched hold of her with all the desperate strength he had and could not hold back from capturing her mouth for his own.
15
Belle could not understand how they had gone from a wild argument to a heated embrace. In one moment, she had been screaming her frustrations at Henry, blaming him for the torment he had struck upon her heart. And in the next, he was taking her in his arms and bestowing further, painful insecurity.
With that pain...oh, there was pleasure.
Belle had not realized how much of their kiss she had missed in the forest, how the injury to her head had dulled her senses and fudged her memory. She had dreamt of it near every night and fantasized of it during the day. She had even taken time in her prayers to beg that such a vision would disappear from her mind just as soon as she spoke vows of marriage to another man.
Until then, it had become her precious and secret treasure. An escape from the enigmatic and confusing Henry of reality, to be replaced with a loving and tender Henry who ruled her body as a lord of desire.
Now, she realized just how faulty her recall had been, how hazy her recollection.
As Henry stormed toward her, she did not think to run. Had the instinct even formalized in her head, she felt sure that her body would not have obeyed. Instead of rebelling against his approach, it bowed like a reed in the wind, fitting to the angles of his shape. His chest came flush upon hers, and his arms wrapped hard and strong around her body. Her skirts gave way beneath his legs, her face lifted to his, and, in the work of a moment, all she could see and feel was Henry. The power of his thighs, the taut solidity of his arms, that little silver scar above his brow. All of it was hers and only hers to witness.
Then he was kissing her.
Unlike with the kiss in the woods, where surprise had led to a moment of hesitation, there was no pause in Henry's lovemaking now. He claimed her mouth with an assurance that he knew he would not be rejected. The pressure was strong, the ownership clear. Belle could only gasp for air under the assault.
How could lips so soft be so demanding? How could a kiss so sensual be at once unyielding?
The pressure against her mouth sent sparks of awareness through her whole body, and every time Henry's mouth softened, tingles ran through her lips as if they protested the loss. The loss never lasted, however.
For every softening, tender moment, there was another of passion and determination.
Henry kissed the way he taught his lessons. He caressed without rush and with infinite patience as if he had nowhere else in the world to be. He tempted with a kindness that had her reaching for more, not shying away in fear. And he seduced her so thoroughly that she was bewitched body, mind, and soul within a single heartbeat.
This was where she needed to be. For all eternity and forever. Kissing Henry Munro. This was why God had formed her, brought her into an alien world of the unfamiliar. All of it she would suffer for the chance to kiss Henry every day of her life, whether it was permitted or not.
And now that she had set free her innermost emotions and fears, Henry had heard them and was telling her they didn't matter. She had laid her heart bare, told him how his back and forth was slowly stealing the air from her lungs, and this was his answer. This was his apology.
He was finally hers.
In this realization, Belle felt her body awaken in Henry's arms. No longer holding back, no longer fearing the newness of a tempting male, she felt her limbs relax and her mind surrender. All she knew was the flesh. All she knew was the sensation.
When one of his legs brushed against her inner thigh, Belle trembled. When he took the back of her head in his hand to capture her close, she gasped a pleasant yelp. When the hot wetness of his tongue brushed over her lips, she could do nothing but open for his invasion.
And then, their bodies were one. His tongue was in her mouth, his taste was down her throat. He was invading her body and marking her, branding her as his woman.
Tentativeness was lost on Belle as she surged into her lover, kissing him back for all she could. Her tongue found his where they danced and clung. Her hands were suddenly full of his shirt, bunched within her grip on his hips.
In a rush, Belle was flooded with a single need. A singular thought that pressed upon her mind like the rushing of a river, undeniable and unable to be ignored.
She needed skin.
She needed to touch Henry's skin.
Breathless, she pulled at the cloth she held. The linen was tugged free from beneath his belt and over the band of his kilt.
Before she could stop herself, before nerves could still her actions, Belle's hands shot beneath the garment and reached up and around.
Heat instantly blazed along her arms, her palms, and her fingers as Henry gasped against her lips. For a moment, Belle feared him to have a fever. Every inch of his skin was burning, every muscle beneath was taut. His back was damp with sweat, and a shiver ran through his body at her touch.
"Belle..." he moaned against her mouth. His body pushed into hers. "...touch me."
"I am..."
