Page 10 of A Highland Rogue to Ruin

Suddenly, he ripped his lips away and rested his forehead to hers.

She gazed into his face, his eyes closed and long, dark lashes splayed shut. That hardness jutted harder against her hip.

“Tell me to stop, lass,” he growled, forehead digging harder into hers.

Her grip only tightened on his hair, his shoulders. She mewed like a kitten enjoying her first cream as she once more touched her lips to his. “Nay.”

He groaned and sank back into the kiss, tugging her hair to improve his access, while his other hand dragged up her gown, grasping her bare thigh, his thumb so close to her crux she could scarcely breathe. Yet moments later, he tore away…again.

His eyes opened this time, so close, pinning her with intensity, still masked. She wanted it gone. The nighttime was their mask. “Send me off. I have no right to take more.”

He…wanted to bed her! She slipped free his mask, letting it fall. He jerked his face away but she guided it back, unable to see him clearly but wanting to feel him. “Let me in. Let me have this. Just once—”

His mouth crashed to hers as if a cord had snapped. A pillaging, as their tongues danced around the flames of desire. She arched toward his thumb that was dangerously close to debauching her and grabbed him around his waist to pull him close to her center. She’d never defied. Never strayed from the good path. But just this once, it felt so reckless, so forbidden, and she wanted a secret just for her when she returned to her cloistered life.

He withdrew his thumb, and her skirts tumbled back into place. She couldn’t help the whine of disappointment that seeped from her throat, except he scooped her into a cradle and lay her down on a bed of downy pine needles, splaying out her hair with a fan of his arm. Popped loose the lacing up her stomach. Peeled open her bodice as she lay before him, as moonlight slanted through the trees, distorting his face. How she wished she could distinguish his features.

Carefully, he trailed his fingers over the swells of her breasts, under the hem of her chemise, back and forth, making her skin tingle and butterflies flit in a storm within her. Her chest heaved, those firm lips of his softening, parting, as he inspected his progress—

She shivered with need as his fingertip skimmed her nipple. Jumped at the sensitivity of his touch.

“Mon bel ange…ce que tu me fais,” he breathed gruffly, as he freed her breasts to the night air.

Her heart might explode at the tenderness of his words. His beautiful angel? How had he become the feared warlord he claimed to be if his childhood had been steeped in books and studies and monastic life? He was a mystery she wanted to unravel, as he unraveled her, but when his body came down atop hers, her thoughts evaporated like drops on hot coals. The weight of him felt magnificent. His lips once more greeted hers, but this time, they trailed over her jaw, subduing nips at her tender flesh down her neck, over her collarbone, stoking heat within her belly and stirring those butterflies into a melee of flutters and shivers. A need to squirm, to move, to satisfy the ache growing betwixt her thighs ran through her as his mouth closed on her breast.

Kneading, suckling, he warmed her to his touch, relaxed her to the exciting sensation as he dragged up her skirts once more to fluff around her waist in a pool of white silk.

He smiled against her skin as she tried and failed to strangle a moan in her throat, and his thighs spread to either side of her knees and squeezed them together, further subduing her while a callused finger scraped deliciously up her thigh, to her center, finally, blessedly, touching her.

“Please,” she choked, not knowing what she begged for, but knowing only he could douse the flame.

“Mon cher ange,” he whispered, as he thrust his finger within her untouched folds pinched tightly together with his legs around hers, as his other hand knotted in her hair. “Je ne te mérite pas.”

I nay deserve ye.

His poetry washed over her ears in waves of sweetness as he sullied her body, as he growled his praise when she gripped his shoulders, nails digging into him, squirming with need, when he unclenched her legs and wedged them apart with the same knees that moments ago had held them captive. Cool air touched her bare center as his finger thrust more purposefully, as she found herself grinding down upon him for more of the sensation, while he muttered what might be curses or oaths against the breast he suckled, when she wrapped her legs around his back to hold him close, to feel everything.

“No going back if I stake this claim,” he husked. More stakes. “Tell me what ye want from me. Be plain.”

She caressed his cheek gently, felt a ragged welt beneath her fingertips that she couldn’t see upon his jaw. Trailed her fingers over his shoulders, down his sides to his belts, where she dared to slip the leather from the buckle, never once removing her gaze from his.

“Have my body, as I’d have yers,” she whispered shyly.

He thrust back on his haunches, ripped his tunic hem from his trews. Their fingers fumbled together as they fought open his laces, as he shoved them down and his heavy manhood jutted free. He took her hand like a ruffian and gripped it around his shaft, pumping it over his thick, velvety flesh while continuing the magic his finger evoked within her, so hard and hot it was the most wondrous and forbidden thing she’d ever done as he collapsed upon her again, hissed against her skin, relinquishing her hand wrapped upon him to brace himself.

How was she bringing this massive warrior to his knees? It only emboldened her, made her root for his face pressing into her neck to steady himself so she could join their lips again. She felt the thickened flesh, felt herself writhing to meet it when he pressed his helm between her netherfolds. He held steady, heart hammering against hers, as he shoved up on his elbow and gazed down into her face, and pet back her hair carefully, as if his broad hands threatened to break fine porcelain.

A final confirmation? Her heart might hammer out of her chest if he didn’t follow through. This was a moment’s capitulation, a sweet release. And she cupped his anguished face. And nodded.

“Before I return to my life trapped by James’s fears, for they’re stifling me, and just once, I want to be that woman a man loves”—

Hard. Swift.

Her head fell back and a cry surged from her throat as he surged within her on a feral sound she couldn’t describe. The sting, the stretch, the raw claiming as he seated himself deep. He shuddered over her and captured her lips once more to swallow her shock, rested his forehead to hers as if so lost, he couldn’t hold up his own weight, filling her.

“Christ, my bonny lass. Christ.” As if unable to control himself, his heavy girth stretching her in ways she’d never known possible, he pinned her to the ground, anchored that fist in her hair and exposed her throat for him to nip and suckle as if starving and she the feast. His other hand gripped her hip and the crux of her thigh, opening her to him.

She squirmed with heat that might consume her if she didn’t, tugged upon his hair and bruised his arms with her clenching. “Sakes, I can nay…I need…just give me…”