Page 59 of A Highland Rogue to Ruin

“I canna get enough of ye, my bonny lass. Say ye’re mine, and we’ll find a way…”

“Aye, I’m yers, Torm, I love ye—”

Their mouths crashed back together. His finger shoved with more intensity between her folds as her body began to roll in a rhythm, taking control of the pace while his other hand curled about her nape to hold her steady, as she pushed and pulled against his body, seeking, moaning, taking from him, her head falling back and her tendrils splayed across the water. He couldn’t peel his gaze away from the sunlight glinting off the droplets clinging to her upturned face. Couldn’t live without this incredible sensation of pleasing someone, making them proud, giving to her, needing to be within her.

She couldn’t mean what she’d said, but he loved hearing it too much, and would be damned to ever let her go.

And then she shattered. She cried out as he dragged her lips back to his and felt the heat of her passion as he rode out the sensation burning through her until she hung upon him, spent. Except he wasn’t done with her. Could never be. And ripped his hand free of her welcoming heat, fought with his laces as one of hers joined the fray, an uncoordinated symphony, untethering him from the prison of his braies.

She reached within the folds he tore apart and encircled his heavy cock, her hand and the sensation of water so potent a potion, he dropped his forehead to the side of her neck, burrowed it there as he clenched her body and gripped her hand within his to pump roughly, showing her what he needed, freeing her hand to continue alone as he splayed her thighs, felt her netherlips brush his helm, and together, they sank home.

He growled, pressed his teeth against her collarbone to hold on, where his love bites had marred her pure skin, fingers digging into her muscles toned from riding, thrusting hard and swift. She fell back, throwing herself onto the surface of the water and opening her chest to the sky, crying out with each jolt of his manhood as she held on to his biceps.

Water rippled. Sloshed. His grunts of determination and her lyrical moans echoed off the rocks enveloping them. Somewhere in their periphery, a horse nickered, birds twittered. He trailed a hand between the valley of her breasts to caress the offering, as he leaned forward and suckled a sweet breast through the fabric, relishing how she moaned and clenched his head to her, hooking her legs around him and opening herself to all he wanted from her. She shattered once more and he couldn’t last, couldn’t hold it back any longer.

A rumble tore from his lips as he seated himself deep and rested his forehead to her chest, bucking within her, surging, surging. Sweet, damned relief burning. The ribbons of lust cut through him until he was drained and wrung dry.

They floated like that, as if in a haze. The birdsong slowly infiltrated the fog of his thoughts. At some point, he realized, they’d drifted nearer to the fall, she so languid in his arms he was tempted to never leave this pool where war and bloodshed didn’t exist. Where life seemed simple. No rules. No retaliations.

She was swirling circles upon the shaved sides of his head, tickling the hair that was growing back, and he lifted his head from her chest to see her gazing at him, a warm contented smile upon her lips as she brushed a thumb over his brow.

“Ye will bring me swimming every day, Tormund MacLeod,” she teased, using a grip around his nape to hoist herself upright and into his arms again so that they cocooned themselves around each other. She kissed his lips easily. He dusted one back in return. “I think I like learning how to swim.”

Laughter rumbled, and he cupped her head to his cheek, pressing a kiss to her temple.

“My angel is a devil herself. ’Tis fair to say I enjoy teaching ye. Come. I’ll build a fire.” He lifted her and stood, water sluicing off them in splashes as he waded back to shore with her still linked around his form.

Chapter Seventeen

His sweet angel. His woman. This couldn’t be real, could it?

The endearments had sifted through her mind while they swam, like a breeze rustling seed heads in waves across a field, and now, while he read into her ear from the book she held in front of them.

“…Love they fellow man…” his husky voice reverberated.

She rested her head upon Tormund’s biceps. Enjoyed how engrossed he seemed, perhaps like that scholar he’d once been. If they could make something permanent between them, would this be them in several years, still tucked aside each other reading by a winter’s fire, perhaps? Or on a loch in a summer’s breeze? His MacLeod tartan smelled of his musk and the faint hint of horse leathers. She toyed with his talon around her neck, and felt his other hand span her belly to caress it reverently, as if he, too, was well aware of the ramification of their feasts upon each other’s bodies, and wished to protect it.

“Love thy fellow man,” she repeated what he’d read. “If only the world would take heed.” The recipe for living a full life was laid out in these words, and it was a wonder the man savoring it with her had lived so violently.

“Ye’re humming,” he said, sucking her lobe between his lips to kiss.

She nestled more tightly against him, her languid smile brightening. “Mmm, I’m happy.”

A callused finger pushed another bilberry between her lips from what they’d collected in his village, the bag he’d brought that lay splayed open beside them. Sweet crispness erupted on her tongue. The afternoon sun had sunk low and cut through the trees in golden slants as the waterfall rushed and the horses grazed and the fire crackled nearby, radiating heat onto their undergarments laid out to dry beside it.

She reached out and plucked a few berries from the bag, bringing them over her shoulder where his waiting lips relinquished her ear and found her fingers, eating them. She felt him chew against her. Sift his nose across her shoulder.

“Confine thyself to the present… Let the wrong which is done by man stay there where the wrong was done…” He continued reading as she turned the page.

“If only men could let go of the past, instead of retaliate, and fight, and never let their anger die.” She sighed. “The world would be a nicer place. Like our paradise here. His words are truly eloquent.”

Tormund’s hand upon her belly stilled. Had she said something? She rolled over in his arms, her hair tangling further, setting aside the book so that his mantle tangled about her hand. The evening sun bronzed his chest and illuminated the patterns upon him. His hand found hers as her breasts and stomach pressed against his belly, their fingers linking, twisting around his tartan…

Their hands looked an awful lot like a handfast.

She inspected it, when he twisted it more tightly about their hands.

“Any lass of mine would become a target,” he said. “She’d become the retaliation of which ye speak.” He cleared his throat. “And a MacDonald lass—”