Then he took her face in his hands and kissed her hard and deep. He leaned over her and felt her nipples brush his chest and knew the welcome openness of her legs. His knee was already between hers. His thighs lowered and she opened beneath him. But he didn’t thrust, though his organ wept from nearness to her.
“Marry me, Clara. Be my bride.” He kissed her again, thrusting his tongue inside her as he wanted to do with his cock. “I’ll see you never regret it. Not once, I swear.”
She pulled back, her hands stroking the hair from his eyes. Her expression was tender, and she smelled of her glorious musk. “You cannot promise such a thing.”
“I can try. I will spend my life trying. For you, Clara.”
He nuzzled her neck and she trembled in his arms. An excess of emotion, she’d said.
“You want this,” he said. “You want me.”
“I do,” she whispered, and his body tightened at the words. “But I will not marry.” While his body went cold, she pressed kisses to his jaw and mouth. She even used her teeth for tiny nibbles that would have aroused him before. Now, he caught her by the shoulders and held her away.
“Clara, you must see—”
“Liam, I told you from the beginning that I would not marry you.” She gestured to the room about them. “You live in a castle. There are men singing drinking songs outside your door. This has been a wonderful adventure for me. One that I will never forget. But you cannot think I will live here. It’s not what I want.”
“Edinburgh is as modern a city as London. More so!”
She nodded, and her smile faltered when she realized he was not smiling back. “Yes, it is, but you don’t live there. You live here.”
“And you despise my home?”
“Of course not!”
“Then it is my people—”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Never say it is me,” he said. “I am between your thighs right now, Clara.” He sank hard against her, and she gasped at the weight of him.
She also scooted back from him, though she couldn’t dislodge him. And damnation, he wanted—he needed—to be embedded inside her. But he didn’t, though the blood pounded a needful rhythm throughout his body.
“Clara—” Her word came out as an angry growl.
“Liam! Nothing has changed!”
“Everything has changed!” he shot back. “Everything!”
He nearly took her right then and consequences be damned. His blood, his cock, his anger all willed him to possess her in the most primitive way possible. No one would damn him. Hell, they were already married, and the men outside were there to make damn sure she was not a virgin in the morning.
But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t look into her eyes now or afterwards if he took something she had not given. So he wrenched himself away. He rolled off her and landed on the balls of his feet beside the bed. Then he stayed there, crouched over his own nakedness, while desire killed any softness inside him.
“Liam?” Her voice was small. She sat up slowly and curled herself into his kilt such that her breasts and groin were covered. As if that would make him want her less! The sight had him gripping the bed, his knuckles white.
“Clara, I am not a man who begs, but I am doing so now. Be my wife.”
She was silent a long time, her gaze holding his, her breath measured to the same tempo as his. And then a single tear slipped from her left eye.
“I’m sorry, Liam. I’m so sorry.”
Tears? Tears! Damnation, she didn’t understand anything! “How can such a brilliant woman understand so little?”
It was a rhetorical question. It burst from him as he shoved away from the bed and stomped to the corner. He grabbed the nearest shirt from a pile there and hauled it on with rough movements. He was acutely aware of her gaze following him. Of the way she sat on his bed watching him as she might a wounded animal.
He spun back to her. “Do not look so tragic. I will not hurt you!”
She frowned at him—a small tuck between her brows—as she tried to understand what was going on. “I have done this all wrong, haven’t I?”
