He let her.
That was the thing that pulled the air from her lungs more than anything else. It wasn't just the wanting; she had lived with the weight of that for weeks, naming it and keeping it at arm's length through sheer stubbornness.
This was different.
This is Anthony MacArthur.
The man who owned the air in every room he entered, who had rebuilt himself into something unassailable after the fire took everything soft.
Nothing was managed. Nothing was closed off. He offered himself up for her inspection without a single shield raised.
She felt the hitch in his ribs as he breathed.
His hands came up slowly, his fingers spreading across her waist before sliding over her ribs to the curve of her shoulders.
Anthony exhaled slowly, the sound rough.
“Ye daenae have to,” he murmured, his voice low, the burr of his accent wrapping around the words like a promise.
His hands flexed at his sides, fingers twitching as if itching to reach for her but refusing to presume.
Catriona turned, the firelight catching the silver threads in her dark hair, the scars that ran from her collarbone down beneath the neckline of her gown. She didn't flinch when his gaze dropped to them. Instead, she lifted her chin, just slightly, and met his eyes.
“I ken.”
That was all the permission he needed.
His hands were calloused, the skin rough from years of gripping a sword, but when his fingers brushed the back of her neck, they were careful.
Reverent.
The heat of his palm seeped through the fabric of her gown as he traced the line of her spine, slow, deliberate, as if memorizing the shape of her. She shivered, not from cold, but from the way his touch seemed to brand her, marking her as something precious.
Something his.
“Ye're trembling,” he observed, his breath warm against her ear as he leaned in. His lips grazed the shell of it, just barely, and she felt the words more than heard them. “Tell me to stop.”
She didn't.
Instead, she turned into him, her palms flattening against the hard plane of his chest.
The wool of his tunic was coarse beneath her fingers, the steady thud of his heart a counterpoint to the racing pulse in her ownthroat. His scent wrapped around her. Smoke and leather and something darker, muskier, the scent of a man who had spent too long denying himself.
She tilted her head back, her lips parting as his mouth descended, not in a rush, but with the slow inevitability of a tide pulling her under.
The first press of his lips was firm, demanding without being cruel.
His tongue swept against the seam of her mouth, and she opened for him with a soft gasp, her fingers curling into the fabric of his tunic. He tasted of heather ale and something wild, untamed, and when his teeth grazed her lower lip, she moaned into his mouth, the sound needy, desperate.
His hands slid down to her waist, his grip tightening just enough to bruise, pulling her flush against him so she could feel the hard ridge of his manhood straining against his trews.
“Feck,” he growled against her lips, the word a vibration that traveled straight between her thighs.
She smiled, her hips rolling against him without thought, seeking friction. His hands slid up, thumbs brushing the undersides of her breasts through the fabric, teasing, testing.
His mouth crashed back onto hers, hungrier now, his teeth nipping at her lip before soothing the sting with his tongue.She arched into him, her nails scraping down his chest, and he hissed, the sound raw, animalistic.
His hands found the laces of her gown, tugging them loose with practiced ease, the fabric parting to reveal the pale expanse of her skin.
