Something beneath her breast was swelling, glowing and building until pressure surged in her throat. She plucked the largest piece from his handkerchief and bit, the buttery tang exploding on her tongue. “Lord, that’s delicious.”
He stopped fighting his smile. “Better than beef tea, aye?”
“Much.” She grinned. Her heart was in significant peril now. Bringing a woman good cheddar was akin to handing her an engagement ring. Most days, she would prefer the cheese.
They snacked for a moment in silence, then Violet swallowed, clearing the joy from her expression. “The ladies’ parlor is just through that door.” She nodded over her shoulder towards the parlor. “They’d hear is if we…”Ye’d scream my name.Her words died in her throat, and by the way his eyes darkened, she suspected his thoughts follow the same lustful path hers had.
Callum paused, then walked past her, and the wintery smoke scent that preceded a snowstorm flooded her senses. He pushed the table closer to the adjoining wall, then turned to her. “On the table, then.”
A filthy fantasy rushed to her mind, imaginary Callum with his lips around her bare nipple, his hips pumping between hers as her body arched off the table. A squeak slipped from her lips and he looked at her with a start.
“Excellent idea,” she croaked, then stumbled over to his side.
The ease with which he lifted her, his broad hands around her waist and chest brushing hers, would make any woman swoon. So when she landed on the unforgiving wood surface and herair escaped in a puff of wind, she forgave herself for being a bit lightheaded.
Callum hesitated, his palms resting at her waist. Despite her height, she wasn’t a slim woman, yet his hands seemed large enough to span her, making her feel delicate and impenetrable. The room had been chilly when she first entered, but now heat poured over her, even as goosebumps lifted across her exposed clavicle and neck.
His gaze heated, then turned pained. “I cannae do what ye want.”
Her blood cooled so rapidly she may as well have been dumped in the lake. She opened her mouth to object, but the words died on her tongue when he dropped his lips to her neck, barely touching her skin as he spoke.
“I cannae pretend I dinnae want this,” he rasped. “Wantye.”
Her thoughts vaporized into a mist of feminine urgency. “Callum,” she managed, but she didn’t know if she was chiding him, encouraging him, or simply reminding herself who this man was.
“Say something, Violet.”
She shook her head. “I can’t think with you so close, saying things like that.”
His eyes searched hers. “Do ye want me to stop?”
She barely had the presence of mind to push a single word past her lips. “No.”
His thumb was moving over the skin of her hip, the soft flesh tingling with each pass over the silk. “If ye want me to kissye—”
Were someone watching—and for the first time she wasgratefulfor the privacy—they would have seen how she threw herself into his embrace, the crush of her body against his pushing the breath from his lungs in a decidedly unromanticoof. But she didn’t care, because his lips were on hers again, his arms holding her tight and safe, a low hum of pleasure making his chest rumble against hers.
“Make it real.” Her words were jumbled against his mouth, so she repeated it. “If we only have tonight, make it real.”
The noise Callum made was almost a roar; she yelped as he put her down on the table again, moaned as his hands swept up her sides, hissed when his palms passed quickly—far too quickly—over her breasts. She was awash in sensation, the scratch of his stubble against her neck, the satin of his lips on her burning flesh, the rasp of his hands as they dragged over her calves, behind her knees.
He paused and leaned back, met her eyes. His were stormy again, lit from within, as one thumb slipped beneath the lace of her garter, his callused skin sending the nerves along her upper thighs racing. “Violet, ye decide ev’ry thing we do.” His brogue was so thick she could taste it, feel it licking her flesh.
“I know.” The words were harsher than she intended, and his brows furrowed. “I trust you.”
She shifted forward so her bottom was almost over the edge of the table, the movement sliding his hands farther up her thighs to the lace edging of her bloomers. Even as she bit back a gasp at the pleasure of his touch on such sensitive skin, something in her mind swam up from the depths with a ghostly reminder.
You trusted Hugh. You trusted Gregory.
She cupped the back of Callum’s head, drew him forward and kissed him, hard, as though the force of their kiss could silence the warning. Callum was different, perhaps because he never pretended to be anything more than what he showed her. He never made her promises he couldn’t keep.
Callum stepped between her legs, his eyes blazing. His hands cupped the top of her thighs, his thumbs stroking up and down the linen that must already be damp.
His expression was not only desirous, but he looked at her as he might a wonder of engineering, the soaring spires of a cathedral, the metal arches of a suspension bridge, a work of art. And when he kissed her, pulling her so close the ridge of his erection pushed against the fabric guarding her sex, his kiss said what he would never put into words, but what she so needed to hear.
She mattered, to him at least. She was worthy.
But he was worthy in return. She wished she’d have more time to prove it to him.
