She wasn’t wearing a corset, and he discovered he liked that very much.
She bucked against him, and he knew she liked the sensation, so he did it again, then captured her nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
“Max!” she gasped, as he kissed along her neck.
“Oh God, Ember. I have to taste you!”
She arched into his touch. “Please!”
As much as he wanted to unbutton her blouse, pull down her chemise and clamp his mouth against her bare skin, he didn’t have that kind of time right now. So he just lowered his mouth to her completely covered breast, and when she moaned in need and pushed against his lips, he knew he’d made the right choice. He brushed his tongue against her nipple—stiff and perfect under the layers of cotton, and she jerked in response, her breaths coming faster.
One of his hands cupped her rear end, pulling her closer, while the other palmed her opposite breast. She felt so damnperfecthe couldn’t resist the urge to drag his hand down her side, marveling at her waist, then her hip. Unconsciously, he was drawn to her heat, cradling his hardness.
Max had never,everwanted something as badly as he wanted to pull up her skirts and touch that heat with his bare skin. Not in all the years of childhood pain and loneliness, not in the years since then of hard work and sadness.
He wanted Ember with a fierceness he hadn’t expected.
Which is why he needed to stop.Now.
It took herculean effort to pull away from her, to release her breast and straighten, to move his hand off her ass. He managed it, but he was unable to set her completely aside.
Instead, he raised his hand to the back of her head and pushed her against his shoulder, trying to resist the urge to grind his erection against her softness.
Breathing heavily, he gasped, “I’m sorry,” as he stroked her hair, trying to focus on the color, so close to his face. “I’m sorry.”
Her hands dropped from his neck to his waist, then linking behind his back as if she didn’t want to let him go. “If you—” When she broke off, he heard her swallow. “If you do not cease apologizing, I am likely to think you did something worth regretting.”
His lips tugged upward. “You don’t think that me mauling you like that was worth an apology?”
She straightened away from his shoulder; her expression indignant. “I will have you know that was a mutually agreeable mauling.” Her cheeks were flushed, her lips plump, and her eyes bright with desire. Shedidlook like a lass who’d been agreeable to said mauling. “And besides, I have been wondering what you would taste like, and now I know.”
Dear God in Heaven.
“You’ve been…?”
She’d been thinking about him? Had she touched herself, the way he had, and imagined it was his hands upon her?
The way her blush deepened told him he’d likely guessed correctly, but she didn’t drop his gaze.
“Yes,” she said simply.
With a groan of surrender, he dropped a kiss to her lips once more. But although she pressed against him, and although his cock twitched in his trousers again, Max reminded himself this was not the place.
He wasn’t going to make love to Ember in the middle of a machine shop.
“Ember,” he groaned as he broke away, “I’mtryingto be strong here.”
“And I like you all the more for it.” She didn’t look hurt when she grinned up at him, but rather invigorated. “But you cannot deny this is fun.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, and chuckled ruefully as he loosened his hold on her and allowed her to step back. “By far the most fun I’ve had since coming to the Highlands.” And that included all the shenanigans he’d gotten into with Lysander and even that ball.
The ball…
Thatsomethingwas tugging at his memory again, something to do with the color red and the?—
The lady in silver, the one he’d danced with at the ball! She’d had hair the color of Ember’s, and the shoe she’d left behind had been that same bronze.
“So do you want to see what I have been working on?”
