Page 11 of A Highland Rogue to Ruin

He let go. Thrust true, gave as much as he had to give. Her eyes fell shut as she cried with sweet pain and pleasure.

Building, building, a blossom sprouting, waiting for the spring rain to shower. His thumb found the sensitive knot of flesh hidden within her netherlips, pressed there as she squirmed and writhed and mewed and begged, for what, she didn’t know, but she knew he was giving it.

“Take it, lass. Take what ye want of me. Give me yer first passion and I’ll give ye everything I have…fok, sweeting,” he grunted huskily through gnashing teeth that gripped her collarbone as if he were barely hanging onto driftwood flowing down a current toward a fall. His thighs slapped hers. His bollocks pounded.

“Please, please,” she begged, a shaky whimper. “I can nay, I want—” Her words were a jumble, a cry not quite turned to tears as she tugged on his hair, dragged on his tunic.

“I ken what ye want… I want ye to remember me for the rest of yer life.”

His thumb pressed harder upon that hidden space. His manhood shocked with each rocking. His lips found hers, devouring, tongues colliding in chaotic frenzy as their bodies undulated and her nails scored his nape and arms and shoulders, slipping beneath his tunic to caress the washboard of his stomach.

“Can nay—hold out—” His broken guttural moan sliced to her core and that precipice, the blossom, finally thrust wide to the rain as euphoria flooded her, turned her limbs languid, filling her with warmth.

She cried out incoherently and gripped his hair and hugged his rear with her ankles. She clenched his cheek against hers as her legs trembled, satisfying, relishing the raking of his stubble, as he ripped away from her grasp, shoved up to his knees, hooked her around her thighs and bucked hard and fast and sure.

A rumble left the cavern of his chest as he buried himself within her. Clenching her thighs so hard they might, too, bruise, his head fell back. His tunic, lopsided in the slants of moonlight, revealed silvery patterns of waves and ships etched into his neck and the edges of ragged welts. His eyes were pinched tight, his jaw clenched, as he emptied himself in firm, stiff jerks, and then all went still.

He collapsed on top of her, catching his forearms on either side of her head to grasp her crown and press his forehead to hers. Chest heaved against chest. Her breasts, bared to him, rubbed sensitively against his haphazard tunic. His fingers were once more knotted in her hair as if they wished to be lost in her tresses. His weight blanketed hers, and his nose brushed hers as if painting a delicate rose, breathing her in.

“I love the way ye smell,” he admitted. “’Tis like home.”

She could feel the thundering of his heartbeat as the nighttime insects serenading them infiltrated the fog in her mind. Perhaps it was hers, bodhrán beaters pounding rib cages. Her idle fingers toyed with his talon, twisting it, rubbing the smooth surface and the sharp point.

So forbidden. Her body felt like the best sort of mush, warm and awakened. She toyed further with the talon, not knowing what came next, but not caring. She lolled her head as he caught his breath on a heavy exhale and dusted reverent kisses across her open neck and jaw, a languid smile warming her lips.

He heaved off her and slipped free of their union, dropped back to his rear, and gathered her hands in his, dragging her up to him. He hoisted her between his thighs, pressing her into the protective cradle of his arms against his chest, burying his face in her hair.

She wrapped her arms around him, too. Pressing her ear to his steady heartbeat and savoring this sliver of perfection in time, knowing by tomorrow it would be only a blink.

…

Tormund swallowed hard, a boulder lodged in his throat. He slipped his talon necklace over his head and over hers, depositing the trinket upon her bare bosom.

“But I didna’ win,” she protested. “’Tis yer brother’s, ’tis special…”

He laid a finger over her mouth to silence her.

To remember him by.

While they’d played their games, one by one he’d broken his rules: kissing her, swiving her. He toyed with his brother’s talon around her neck contemplatively, letting go of this piece of the man long dead, breaking this tiny bond with the past to bond him to another he’d never see again. Then he unsheathed a sgian achlais from beneath his arm. Lifted her long tresses, and sliced a tiny lock away.

He never bedded women. What the hell had he been thinking? He hadn’t been.

He brought the clipping to his nose. God, so sweet—

“Where is she?” a man said in the distance.

Battle sense spiked, he spun the dagger to the ready. James MacDonald. He’d know that voice anywhere. Their heads whipped toward the bonfire blinking from afar through the trees. What the hell was he doing here?

“Spread out. If anyone has touched her, he’ll answer to me,” James continued.

The lass scrambled from his lap as Tormund shoved to his boots, tucking himself back into his trews and checking his weapons under each arm, his body cold where moments ago, she’d warmed it. “God nay, my brother, I…have to go.”

Her what?

“Sakes, he’ll come looking.”

“Breathe, angel.”