“Great,” she mumbled.
Above her, angry clouds moved across the sky. Around her, a fierce wind picked up, whipping the branches of the trees around haphazardly.
A crack of lighting lit the suddenly dark sky, and a thunderous boom shook the ground.
She screamed, terrified. She couldn’t walk home in this fiercestorm, it was too far.
Eilidh did the only thing she could. She turned and ran back to the only safe place nearby, Torquil’s cottage. She pounded on the door.
Within seconds, he was pulling her inside. She was dripping wet from the storm. Her hair plastered to her face as a puddle formed around her on his floor.
“Are ye hurt?” he asked, concern lacing his voice.
“Nay,” she answered. “Ye thought ye could send me away, but it looks like someone else had other plans,” she jested.
“I ne’er wanted to send ye away, Firebrand. Ye have nay idea.”
She laughed, and then shivered.
Torquil’s eyes widened. “Ye must be chilled to the bone. Ye for certs are wet to the bone.”
They both laughed and she stripped off her cloak. “The storm came on so suddenly.” She grew serious. “I had no choice but to return.”
He closed the distance separating them. Silence smoldered betwixt them as Torquil caught her gaze. Breathless, she waited.
He cupped her face and brought his lips to hers. She melted into the kiss, grasping at his shoulders as if she were drowning in the loch and he was the only one that could save her. “Stay with me tonight,” he whispered.
That was the Torquil she kenned. The caring man that she had grown so fond of. Could she dare say, the man she was falling in love with?
She nodded, not saying a word as she began to untie the wet laces of her gown. Slipping it off her shoulders and letting it pool on the ground. Then she pulled her wet chemise over her shoulders and threw it to the side.
Torquil watched her with hungry green eyes, dark with passion, as she stood in front of him unashamedly naked. His tongue darted out to wet his lips and she stepped closer to him, lifting the hem of histunic. He pulled it over his head, letting it fall to the floor. Then toed his boots off and shoved his trews down his long, lean legs and stepped out of them.
They stood there for a moment. Taking each other in. Admiring one another. Torquil’s shoulders were wide, the smooth skin of his chest free of hair. He was muscular, but not in a bulky way as her brothers. His tapered waist was small.
His manhood was erect. It looked hard, but soft.
Torquil watched her as she reached her hand out to touch the taut, hot skin of his shaft. It jerked at her touch, and she jumped. Then giggled, and felt her cheeks heat. She ran her finger down the length of him. He shuddered under her caress. Hard as steel, but soft. A contradiction.
Torquil hissed and grasped her wandering hand, bringing her fingers to his lips.
“If ye keep doing that, Firebrand, ’twill be o’er afore we start,” he said with a wink as he scooped her up in his arms and walked to the fire.
She squealed at the sudden, unexpected movement, and wrapped her arms around his neck, as she placed small kisses on his cheek.
He laid her down on the furs laid out in front of the fire. The cool air pimpled her skin, but Torquil was soon there, warming her with his body heat as he captured her mouth in a searing kiss that she was sure was hotter than the flames that burned in the hearth.
The thunder roared as the lightning lit up the cottage. The ferocity of the storm outside matched their frantic kisses, their heated caresses. Their urgent need to be one.
Torquil nudged her legs apart, settling betwixt them. He broke the kiss and trailed his lips down her neck, to her collarbone, then lower, to her breast, his tongue circling her nipple, then drawing it into the warm heat of his mouth. When he let it go with a pop, the cool air caused it to tighten into an even stiffer peak. Torquil blew his warmbreath over it.
She moaned, the feeling unlike aught she had ever felt afore. When he began to move lower, she whimpered. She didn’t want him to stop. But when his mouth reached her most intimate parts, his tongue darting out to lick at her folds, her hips jerked off the furs as she grabbed handfuls of the throw.
If she thought the sensation afore was one she had never felt, this one was not even comparable. As Torquil spread her folds and feasted on her like she was his last meal, her body heated. Coiled. Turmoil built inside her that rivaled the storm outside.
He licked, and sucked, and pushed his fingers inside. In and out, slow at first, and then they built up speed. Her breathing came in quick gasps and the moans escaping her mouth filled the space of the cottage, echoing off the walls.
Her stomach bunched, growing tighter and tighter. Her legs and arms stiffened as she shook her head from side to side.
