Page 71 of Enchantment of a Highlander

Not when everything in her cried out for this.

Her fingers threaded around the back of his neck where his braid hung like a thick rope. His skin was warm, firm, and very, very real. She clutched herself to him.

This was no dream.

He caught her face in his hands and stared down at her. Shadows consumed most of him, but she could make out the glint of his eyes, the line of his lips.

“I shouldna be here,” he rasped. “But I canna stay away.”

She wanted to draw him closer to her, impossibly close so every part of him touched every part of her.

“I want you here.” Her voice strained with passion.

His hand slipped behind her head and held her firmly. He lowered his face to hers so the warmth of his breath teased her lips.

“Ye want me?” He said it with ragged, broken hope.

She wanted to tell him she’d feared to never see him again, that she’d wept until she fell asleep, that she’d regretted her ridiculous request for him not to touch her.

But instead of saying any of that, she merely nodded.

It was enough.

His mouth came down hard on hers. His lips were cold from his ride and his jaw prickled with unshaven whiskers.

Never had anything been so delicious.

His hands slid down her back and clutched her to him. She wanted to let herself melt into his kiss and tangle her tongue with the one gently teasing her lower lip.

He gave a low murmured groan.

His tongue ran along the seam of her mouth and she opened her lips, eager for the heady, delicious stroke.

A low growling groan rumbled deep in his chest, a ravenous, primitive sound that gave her an exciting prickle of goosebumps.

His body was impossibly hard against her, solid and so wonderfully real. Her fingers ran restless down his back, sampling and reveling all at once.

His tongue swept against hers, hot and starved and full of a promise that made her legs stop working.

Everything about him was hard and cold, save the soft heat of his mouth.

A gust of wind swept against them and sent the leaves of the forest stirring, though she barely registered either.

“I’m so sorry,” she said between frantic kisses. “For staying away from you.” Her mouth brushed over his. “For acting as though I didn’t want you,” she murmured against his lips. “When I did.”

He caught her face in one hand, the rough pad of his thumb pressed to the center of her heated lips. “I know.” His gaze drifted to her mouth and he swallowed.

Celia’s breath caught against the quickened beat of her heart. “I want you,” she said. “I want this.”

His thumb slid down her chin and dragged her bottom lip lower, parting her mouth. “I know.”

The warmth of his mouth enveloped hers and his tongue grazed hers, seizing her in a kiss from which she never wanted to escape.

A thrill of desire charged across her skin and throbbed with delicious heat between her legs.

All the fears fled her mind. Nothing would get in the way of her desires. Not this night.

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