“Ah, lass, my imagination was sorely lacking,” he said. “Ye are as beautiful as the selkies that lure men to their death at sea.”
His words both pleased her and embarrassed her further. “Alex, will ye lie down now?”
Instead, he knelt by her feet and kissed her from her toes upward until his warm lips tickled her knee. Heat pooled in her belly as he moved up her thigh to her hip. By the time he reached her breasts, she was breathless.
He cupped her breasts in his hands. “They are perfect,” he said, his eyes intense on hers. “You’re perfect.”
In the sunlight streaming over them, she watched as he flicked his tongue over her erect nipple. When he took it into his mouth and groaned, she closed her eyes and gave herself over to the sensations spiraling through her.
Just when Glynis thought she could not bear it anymore, he moved up to kiss her shoulder and run his tongue into the hollow above her collarbone. He worked his way along the side of her throat to beneath her ear with his warm lips and tongue. She felt as if she were melting into the ground by the time he claimed her mouth again.
With every stroke of his strong hands, he wiped away another bad memory of Magnus touching her. She wanted him to replace every ounce of unpleasantness and humiliation with pleasure and joy. Oh, God, how she wanted him. She wrapped her legs around Alex’s hips, urging him forward.
“I don’t want to rush this time,” he said against her ear. “I’m going to make certain ye don’t forget me too soon, Glynis MacNeil.”
Not likely. She almost laughed, but then her breath caught as his hand moved between her legs. At first, her muscles went all weak as he worked his magic on her. Then the pleasure became a tension building inside her until she thought that she would burst into pieces.
“Please, Alex, please,” she said, pulling at his shoulders.
He hovered over her, teasing her and kissing her senseless until at last he gave in. A high-pitched moan came out of her throat as he finally slid inside her. At last.
Alex seemed to know how to keep her on the edge, moving just so, slow and deep, until she wanted to pound her fists against his chest.
“Harder,” she said, trying not to shout. “Harder.”
“Tell me ye won’t forget me,” he said, as he thrust deep inside her. “Tell me.”
“I won’t forget,” she said between gasps. “I won’t.”
Not for as long as she lived.
Glynis could tell the moment that he lost control because a wildness replaced his skilled movements. He was pure want and need and full of the same joy that she felt. They came together in an explosion of white heat and stars.
But afterward, as she lay beside him staring up at the blue sky above her, the joy seeped from her bit by bit. She realized that Alex MacDonald could hurt in a way that Magnus never could. She’d cared nothing for Magnus. Nay, she despised him. Before their wedding night was over, she had closed her heart to him.
But this was different. She would have to guard her heart closely to keep Alex from walking away with it. He would not intend to take it—he did not want it any more than she wanted to give it to him. But with every wink and smile, he stole a piece of it. And when he made love to her, he held it in his hands.
CHAPTER 16
Alex could not trust himself with this woman. He felt too much. He wanted too much. This was not like him at all.
After several days of making love to her morning, noon, and night, his desire for her had not slacked one whit. In his pride, Alex had thought he would light up the nights for Glynis and give her plenty of pleasure to remember him by. But each time he made love to her, he was as amazed as the first.
As he watched the light of dawn break over the hills and cast a golden glow on her sleeping face, his father’s voice pounded in his head.
Beware of a woman who can grab your soul, for she’ll make your life a misery.
Ge milis am fìon, tha e searbh ri dhìol. The wine is sweet, the paying bitter.
And why was he so determined that she not forget him? He’d never cared before. Nay, he hoped that the women he bedded would forget him and leave him alone when it was over. But Glynis had nothing in common with the easy, laughing, overtly sensuous women he usually bedded. Nay, she was not his usual sort at all.
She was the sort his father had warned him about.
It was lucky for them both that Glynis was barren, for he was a lunatic when he was with her. After telling her he was always careful, he kept forgetting to pull out as he should. Hell, he never even thought of it. He had to get control of himself.
When Glynis opened her eyes and smiled at him, he felt so closed in he couldn’t breathe.
“We’ll have to make better time, or I’ll be late getting to Edinburgh,” Alex said, not that he gave a damn anymore about arriving in time to see Sabine.
