Richard's gaze dropped to her lips, then slowly trailed back up to her eyes. When he spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper, each word deliberate and devastating.
“I want to kiss you until you forget your own name. I want to touch you until you are trembling beneath my hands, until every breath you take is either a plea for more or a moan of my name. I want to learn every sound you make when you are lost to pleasure, every place on your body that makes you gasp. I want to taste your skin until I have countless dreams about the sweetness of it, to feel you arch against me, to watch your gaze change into what it is now.”
Isobel could barely breathe. Heat flooded through her, filling her cheeks, dripping down, and scorching her heart before it pooled low in her stomach. She felt heavy and stiff like a wound-up doll, her nerves burning with anticipation.
A proper lady would have reproached him. A sane one would have long since left this man and run away. But she? She could imagine it all – too clearly, quite vividly. The weight of his hands as they grip her body and roam over her skin, the heat of his mouth, the sensations that would remind her of their kiss but magnified a hundredfold.
She wanted it. God help her, she wanted it all.
“That… that is quite the noble spirit you have, there. But I do not care,” she heard herself say, her voice quiet and breathless.
Richard stared at her, confused.
“You do not care? About –”
“I do not care about being ruined,” Isobel retorted with a too high tone. “I have no intention to marry. After this is over, I will return to Scotland and become a nun. So you need not worry about my prospects.”
Richard stared at her, his expression frozen in shock. For a long moment, neither of them moved, neither of them breathed. Isobel expected questions – she even expected to be scolded or even reproached for making such a terrible decision.
And so she waited, expecting the worst.
But then, he was moving, closing the space between them with two long strides. His hands came up to frame her face, and his mouth crashed down on hers.
This kiss was nothing like the first one. Where that had been uncertain and questioning, this was fierce and demanding. His lips moved against hers with a hunger that stole what little breath she had left, and when his tongue swept along the seam of her mouth, she opened for him without hesitation.
The sound that escaped her was swallowed by him as he deepened the kiss, one hand sliding into her hair while the other wrapped around her waist, pulling her flush against him. Isobel's hands found purchase against his chest, her fingers curling into the fabric of his coat as though she needed to hold onto something to keep her steady.
Every place their skin touched felt like it was burning, and when Richard's hand tightened in her hair, angling her head to deepen the kiss further, Isobel heard herself make a small, desperate sound that should have embarrassed her but somehow did not.
Because he responded to it – a low groan rumbling in his chest that was just as desperate, perhaps even more so, while his arm tightened around her waist as though he could not bear to have any space between them.
Isobel had never known a kiss could feel like this. It was like she was underwater, but still somehow alive, with so much more room to thrive. It felt as though she had lost herself, but had discovered something new in the same breath.
When Richard finally pulled back, they were both practically gasping for air. His forehead rested against hers, his eyes closed, his grip on her still firm, as though he feared that she might disappear if he let go.
“A nun,” he muttered, his voice rough and slightly disbelieving. “You want to become a nun.”
Isobel could not help the small, breathless laugh that escaped her. “At the time I made that decision, I had not yet been kissed like that.”
Richard's eyes opened, meeting hers, and what she saw in them made her heart stutter. Heat, yes, but something else too. Something that looked almost like wonder.
“I am not finished with you yet,” he murmured, and then his mouth found hers again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Isobel felt herself being consumed by sensations, by the heat of Richard's mouth moving against hers, by the strength of his arms around her. Every rational thought seemed to scatter like leaves in the wind, replaced by pure, overwhelming feeling that threatened to consume her whole.
His hands moved from her waist to her hips, pulling her harder against him, and she gasped at the contact. He was so sturdy, muscles twitching and tensing beneath her touch, and she felt what was left of her sanity step further away from her. The sounds she made seemed to drive him even wilder, his kisses becoming more demanding, more insistent.
When his teeth caught her bottom lip gently, pressing into the plump flesh for a moment before soothing it with his tongue, she whimpered, her nails digging into his shoulders through the fabric of his coat.
“Your Grace,” she breathed when he finally released her mouth, only to trail hot kisses along her jaw.
“My name, Isobel. Call me by my name.”
“R-Richard,” she gasped, clinging harder to this glorious man,
He groaned at the sound of his name, the vibration of it against her skin sending shivers down her spine.
