“Would you let me make love to you?” she asked.
Oh this is a dream! It had to be a dream.
Surely, his little blossom wouldn’t...
His thoughts scattered as she loosened her hold on his waist and stepped around him.
Good Lord, she was beautiful. More so than she’d ever been before.
His gaze darted over her glistening body taking her in all at once. Her damp, russet hair curled around her impish, freckled face. Her creamy, bare shoulders sparkled from the droplets of water that caught the rays of the sun.
But most of all, he gazed at her bare breasts, at the tight, taut peaks that begged for a lover’s kiss. A lover’s touch.
And at that moment, he wished the water wasn’t so deep, for it cut her right at her navel and he wanted to see more of her.
“Maggie,” he breathed. “What?—”
“Shh…” She placed a finger to his lips. “Don’t say anything lest I change my mind.” Her gaze raked his body with a hungry, almost desperate look. “And I don’t want to change my mind.”
Braden knew he should turn her away. It would be the noble, decent thing to do. But then, he had never been noble or decent.
And before he could decide anything, she reached out and ran her hand over his chest, across his own taut nipple, dragging her nails ever so gently over his flesh. A thousand chills erupted through him as his body burned from the inside out.
Why was she doing this?
Why would she want a man like him? It made no sense to him whatsoever.
She moved her hand from his lips, then dipped her head to where she could draw his nipple into her mouth and suckle it ever so tenderly.
Braden moaned from the pleasure her tongue and lips gave him. And then she did the most unbelievable thing of all, she dipped her hand beneath the water and cupped him in her hand. That gentle, hesitant touch of her fingers against his shaft went deeper than the physical. It touched him all the way to his unrepentant soul.
Dizzy and on fire, he was past the point of rational thought. All he could think of was finally sating the deep hunger that had incessantly gnawed at him since the moment he’d seen her defying him at the kirk’s door.
How he wanted her. It was beyond his understanding and it was a desperation so profound that it shook him all the way to his heart.
Cupping her face in his hands, he tilted her head up to where he could claim her lips with his own.
She sighed into his mouth as she continued to stroke his swollen shaft with her hand.
Reflexively, Braden’s body arched against her palm and fingers, letting her have her way with him as he tasted the pure heaven of her mouth.
Maggie feared she might faint as her head swam from the taste of him, from the silken feel of his rigidness under her fingertips. Never had she imagined what a man would feel like. Braden was so strangely soft and hard at the same time. Like velvet stretched over steel.
Aye, she wanted this man. And if this was the only way she could have him, then she would take it.
For this moment in time, he was hers, and she would love him the way she’d always dreamed of loving him.
With the whole of her heart.
There would be no holding back. No timidity.
She would never want any other man to touch her like this. To kiss her. Hold her. Braden was the only man she would ever burn for. To the devil with her fears.
Braden picked her up in his arms and waded with her back to the shore. He placed her down on the plaid she had stretched out on the bank for them.
“You had this all planned, didn’t you?” he asked with a light, humorous note in his voice.
Maggie nodded.
