“Good lord, woman, what have you done?” he asked in disbelief as he fingered her sheered locks. Her soft hair curled about his fingers as he carefully brushed his hand over her head.
“I didn’t want my hair to betray us.”
Braden felt as though he’d been slapped in the face with something a lot harder than her rag. Her hair barely reached her thin shoulders. And it was then he noted the tears in her lashes. He cupped her cheek in his hand and ached to pull her close to comfort her. “Maggie.”
“It’s just hair,” she whispered. “It’ll grow back.”
“But it was beautiful hair. Hair a man dreams of holding in his hands.”
Her eyes sparkled in the moonlight as she looked up at him. “Did you ever dream of that?”
Braden answered her question with a kiss.
Maggie moaned at the fierce tenderness of his embrace. Never in her life had anyone kissed her, and the thought that it really was Braden who had finally done so thrilled her more than anything else ever had in her entire life.
O mo chreach, but it was wondrous. This feeling of those strong, beautiful lips on hers as his arms wrapped about her, pulling her closer to his rock-hard chest. It was better than even her sweetest dreams. And her entire body thrummed with the rush of excitement.
He tasted of ale and honey. Of raw, earthly desires, and in that instant she understood why the women had complained so mightily at being deprived of their husbands.
Who would want to give this up for even an instant? She wished she could die right now. Right in this moment of pure heavenly bliss. If she lived to be a thousand years old, she’d never forget the taste of his mouth, the feeling of his arms holding her tight as her senses whirled from the earthy scent of his body.
For this one tiny moment, he was hers. And she reveled in it.
Braden’s head swam at the sensation of her lips beneath his. Her breath mingled with his as her tongue gently explored his mouth. He could tell by her hesitancy that he was the first to ever lay claim to her lips and that knowledge only added to his pleasure.
Aye, she was a spirited and bold lass, one who beguiled him in ways he’d never known.
“Maggie,” Braden whispered against her lips, savoring the feel of those two syllables against his tongue while he longed to savor even more intimate parts of her body. Slowly. Leisurely.
Aye, he wanted to lay her down and make love to her for the rest of the night.
And right now, he could kill the MacDouglas for the absence of her hair. How he wished he had known in time to stop her. Never had a woman done such for him, and all because she didn’t want to betray him.
It was much more of a sacrifice than a scoundrel like him deserved.
Braden trailed his lips from her mouth to her jaw, then down to her neck. He inhaled the sweet fragrance of her skin and drank the moonlight and warmth from her flesh.
She ran her hands over his back, wrenching a groan from him as he lifted the hem of her kilt from behind and found out just what she wore beneath it.
Nothing.
The thought drove him close to madness.
Aye, he would have her.
Now. This instant.
He fisted his hand in the plaid as he licked the gentle hollow of her throat. He both felt and heard her moan as she tilted her head back and gasped for more.
“Am I intruding?” Sin’s voice sliced through Braden’s pleasure, almost instantaneously stifling it.
Damn the man’s timing!
Reluctantly, Braden lifted his head to see Sin standing in the shadows. He narrowed his gaze on his brother, wishing the man had learned a little better timing in his years of warfare.
Unperturbed, Sin met his gaze with just a hint of a smile. “If you want, I could take a quick walk about the church and come right back. That should be enough time to finish the deed, should it not?”
Releasing the plaid to fall back around her hips, Braden gave him a droll stare at the insult to his stamina. “For you perhaps. I, on the other hand, prefer to satisfy my women.”
