“Tell me what it is you do want,” he said throatily.
She had no words for what she wanted. And if she found them, no doubt they would make her blush. Instead, Isabella rose onto her tiptoes and brushed her lips against his. Hamish stood unmoving, allowing her kiss but not responding to it. Emboldened, she linked her hands about his neck and kissed him again, full on the mouth.
With a groan of longing, he crushed her toward him, slanting his lips over hers to deepen what she had so willingly started. When his tongue touched hers, she gasped at the physical intimacy of it. And at the jolt of desire that shot through her core. His hands stroked her face and hair, careful always to avoid the painful cut on her cheek, and in turn, her hands began to explore his muscular chest, tentatively travelling beneath the heavy wool of his cloak. When she reached his waist, he caught her hands in his.
“Isabella,” he said. He was breathing hard, and his eyes had grown dark with passion.
She understood his meaning. They should stop now, while it was still safe.
But she didn’t want safe.
All her married life, relations between herself and her husband had been safe and polite.
And woefully unsatisfactory.
Now she wanted excitement and the unknown.
She wanted Hamish.
Is he about to deny me?
For as long as Isabella could remember, men had followed her with their gaze, wanting her, desiring her. She had been a worthy prize, bestowed upon the man with the deepest coin chests. But now, she finally understood what people meant when they spoke of passion. She was more than a doll with a pretty face, dressed in fine silk.
She was a woman.
She stood in the circle of his arms and met his gaze, as her breathing slowed to match the pace of his.
“Ye dinna want this. Come the morn, ye will regret it,” he rasped.
“How do you claim to know the workings of my mind?”
She wondered if she should push her hands beneath his shirt and feel the warmth of his flesh. It would take but a moment. And she dared to believe there may come a point where Hamish no longer exerted such willful control of his actions.
Should I take him to that point?
Isabella trembled with growing desire and mounting indecision.
“I dinna claim ter know e’en the workings of myownmind where ye are concerned,” Hamish said simply. “Ye take me from human compassion to frustration and back again, all in the space of a dunnock’s song.”
She reached up and touched those russet-colored curls that had her so transfixed. His hair was coarser than hers, but just as thick. She ran her fingers through it and fancied she caught the scent of fresh air and moorland.
“Is that all?” she asked. She was no longer flirting. She simply wanted to know.
“Nay, ’tis not all.” His eyes darkened again, and a frisson of excitement travelled through her. “I have wanted ye from the first moment I saw ye, Lady Isabella.”
As if they had minds of their own, her hands ran down his arms, tracing the smooth curves of muscle. His body was so different to hers; large and broad and strong. The wildest wind could not topple him.
Whereas Isabella was like a Will-o’-the-wisp, faltering this way and that, always at the whim and mercy of happenstance.
She sagged in his arms and rested her forehead against his chest. He cradled her head in his large hands.
“I didna mean to upset ye,” he whispered.
She wrapped her arms around his waist, anchoring herself to his warmth and solidity. “I don’t know why I am upset.”
The adrenaline and excitement that had chased around her body with such fervor had drained away, leaving her limp.
“I shouldna have embraced ye so.”
