Page 19 of Sweet Hellion

She laid her cheek against his chest and held tight. “I miss him, too.”

He tensed when he realized she was softly crying. “Emma.”

“He does not blame you,” she whispered. “Neither do I.”

Her slim arms tightened about him and Rhys found himself wrapping his arms around her. He buried his face in her hair and did something he hadn’t done since childhood: he cried.

“What happened to his body?” she asked in a whisper he almost missed.

Rhys closed his eyes against the pain in his chest. “I dinnae know, lass. I threw myself back into the battle and woke three days later in a Portuguese hospital, the battle over. In the week I was there, Munro never visited.” Anger rose anew at the memory. “I was sent back home to the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh. That is where I met Ewan.”

He expected her to break free of his arms and tell him he was a traitor for leaving his friend—her brother—to be buried in a potters field in a foreign country. Instead, her arms tightened around him. She shifted and he looked down at her. In the faint moonlight, he fancied he could discern a glitter in her eyes. She lifted on tiptoe and he froze when she pressed her mouth against his.

She slid her hands from his back and up his chest. By the time she wrapped her arms around his neck, he was breathing heavily. Blood pounded in his ears.

“Emma—”

“I want you,” she whispered.

Rhys swung her into his arms and carried Emma back to bed, his cock so hard, the swelling bordered on pain. They’d scarcely landed on the mattress before he kissed her. She sucked his tongue into her mouth and he groaned.

Rhys covered one breast with his hand and kneaded her soft flesh. She made a mewling sound that nearly drove him over the edge. She pushed at his chest. His head spun. Had she changed her mind? Emma shoved him onto his back. His heart thundered as she made quick work of the buttons on his shirt then parted the fabric. She unbuckled his belt, and he lifted his hips as she pulled it free of his kilt then tossed it aside. Rhys sloughed off his kilt. Emma pulled her dress over her head.

God help him, even in the pale moonlight he marveled at her beauty. He reached for her, but she pushed his hands away and skimmed her palms down his abdomen. Her fingers grazed the base of his cock. He went rigid and watched as she lowered her head. She dragged her tongue over the tip of his cock.

Pleasure streaked through hm. “Lass,” he began, then broke off when her mouth covered the head of his shaft and she lightly sucked.

Her hand slid between his legs and cradled his ball sac in her palm. She took him deeper into her mouth. He growled and collapsed back onto the bed, arms flung wide. Her mouth slid down, then up again. Down, then up, then down again and yet again. Moonlight shimmered along her red hair. She was so beautiful. Pleasure mounted. He would climax. Rhys swore and tore his cock from her mouth.

“Rhys,” she cried, but he dragged her beneath him and kneed her legs apart.

He fitted his shaft into her channel. She felt like heated velvet, so hot, so wet, and so very, very ready to receive him. She wrapped her arms around him and, with one hard thrust, he filled her.

“Rhys,” she whispered.

He swallowed as she lifted her hips and met his thrusts. Her tight channel caressed him even as he feared to move, lest he spill his seed. She rocked against him in raw, undisguised need. With the state of their arousal, neither would last long. He’d nearly released into her mouth… God, what a mouth.

She rolled her hips forward and grabbed his arms. Unchecked lust flashed through him. He took her in deep, wild plunges.

“More.” Emma wrapped her legs around his buttocks to allow him to penetrate her deeper.

He came hard and with no warning. His seed left him in a rush, flooding her channel. She was so tight around him. He drew a ragged breath, indulging in the last of his release even as the thought niggled that he might have gotten a child on her. He should have pulled free. Yet, even as he acknowledged the thought, he groaned in satisfaction, milking his cock in her heat as he gripped her hips.

She cried out. Her body convulsed beneath him, her skin so pale and milky white in the moonlight. He continued to thrust into her, still hard enough to prolong her pleasure as her climax rose, then fell, leaving her breathless and panting on the bed.

Finally, he slid free from her heat and rolled off her onto his back, half sprawling off the small bed. What had he done? He shouldn’t have taken her…most certainly, he shouldn’t have risked a child. He knew better. Why then, did he burn already to take her again?

At his side, Emma sat up, her red hair spilling over her shoulders to fall down her back like a curtain. He entwined a curl around his fingers. She unexpectedly rose from the bed.

“Good night,” she whispered without turning around.

“Stay.”

She shook her head. “I am but a passing fancy.”

He opened his mouth to demand she stay, but she scooped her dress up from the floor, then escaped, leaving him alone in the darkness.

Sleep eluded Rhys. That was hardly unusual. Tonight, however, instead of cannons, Emma filled his thoughts. Her cloud of red hair. Her voluptuous form. Her slender waist… Why had he been so irresponsible? When Tory implored Rhys to see to his sister’s welfare, he’d hardly been asking him to bed her.