He laid his hand over hers, pressed his lipsto her palm, and lowered their hands.“You’re an extraordinarywoman, my lady owl.I knew it the first time I saw you, watchingyou race your horse along the shoreline through my spyglass.”Hegrinned.“The two of you were flying.”
“Can I ask you something?”she said, breakingthe silence that’d fallen between them.
“Does your question begin with why?”heteased.
The apples of her cheeks pinked.“Part of itdoes.”
“Ask away.”
“You told me on the ship you meant what yousaid to me at the lake when you kissed me and…”
“Asked you to marry me?”
She nodded, her cheeks flushing darker.
“I meant it.”Roark cupped her chin and heldher gaze.“I still do.”
“Then why haven’t you kissed me again?”
When Roark remembered to breathe, he took aslow, deep breath in and let it out with a ragged sigh.“Because,”he told her, “when you leave here, leave me, it will be likesevering a limb.If I kissed you again, it would be like cutting myheart out.”
“Oh.”
Roark stared into eyes as green and facetedas cut emeralds, eyes reflecting the same recognition and desirecoursing through his veins since the moment he’d spied her racingher mare on the beach.
“Ah, damn.”He pulled her to him.“Eitherway, I bleed out.”At least this way he’d die with the memory ofher lips on his.Lips that met his for a hot, hungry kiss.Herhands clung to him as desperately as he held onto her.He suckedhis breath in as she slid a leg over his lap and groaned as shestraddled him.
Clasping her to him, he slanted his mouthacross hers, his hunger growing with the warm, wet, taste of herlips on his, the feel of her full breasts pressed against hischest, of her taut backside moving in his hands, the slightfriction of her breeches rubbing against his, causing his cock toswell and grow.
He broke their kiss, running both hands backthrough her hair and gazing into her eyes, heavy-lidded withdesire.Roark may not have been the womanizer Leif and Donald were,but he’d known a few intimately, including the older, experiencedwidow of a neighboring laird.Yet not a single one of those womenhad made his heart swell even bigger than his cock.
Until Alina.
Swaying back in his arms, she smiled at himthrough lowered lashes, shy and sweet and so damned sensual thatRoark closed his eyes with a growl.What he wanted to do was layher down in the straw and make her his.To claim her, body andsoul.Yet he was honor-bound to get her back to her father, safeand sound.And virginal.He touched his forehead to hers, hisbreath as ragged as his voice.“I cannot.We cannot.”
“I know.”Her voice was a raw whisper, herbreath a soughing sigh.“I know.”
He hugged her to him.“You have no idea howmuch I wish it were otherwise,” he whispered hotly in her ear.
“Oh,” she said, leaning back with a shakysmile.“I have more than an idea.”
A quick, short whistle brought them both toattention.“Someone’s coming,” Gare said, shutting the door Roarkhadn’t heard open behind him.“Pretty sure it’s Leif.”
Roark grit his teeth as Alina scrambled offhim, her gaze lingering a moment on the visible bulge in hisbreeches.She pushed her hair back and smoothed her tunic as Roarkstood, and then she slipped a lead rope around Ash’s neck and gothim to his feet.Roark opened the gate and loosened the stays ofhis breeches.
When Leif entered the stables, Alina wasslowly walking the foal back and forth along the open area betweenthe rows of stalls while Smokey jumped and ran circles around them.Roark was raking a pile of straw in the brooding pen and Gare wasmilking one of the nanny goats.
“My father sent me to check on the foal,”Leif said in the Northern tongue as he leaned against the gate tothe pen, ogling Alina’s trim backside with a wolfish grin.
“As well as on us, no doubt,” Roarkadded.
“No doubt,” Leif said as Alina turned thefoal around.“Especially her.”
Alina lifted her chin as she approached Leif.“I’ve told you and your father many times I won’t try to leavehere.I’ll wait for my father to come for me.I’m always underguard, and besides, where would I go?What would I do?I don’t knowthe land or the language and I have nothing to pay or bargain withfor passage on a ship.”
Leif reached out and twirled a lock ofAlina’s hair around his finger, making it impossible for her tomove away from him.“A sweet thing like you,” he said.“You haveplenty to bargain with.”
“Leave her be, Leif,” Roark growled.“Now.”
