Page 9 of A Highland Rogue to Ruin

She tried to tug free her hand. His fingers tightened on them, anchoring them.

She’d never been kissed? His gaze darkened, honing in on her virgin mouth like a brigand preparing to raid. He hooked her chin on his thumb and turned her toward him. He had to taste this woman. Just once was all he needed. He never kissed women. Kissing put stars in their eyes for the brigand to turn good for them. But he would kiss her. He’d savor every drop like the reaving bastard he was and give her a first kiss to which no man after him would compare.

God, the way her breath exhaled against his wrist as he brushed a strand of gold off her mouth and tucked it behind her ear, succumbing to the need to touch her. She watched him as if she could sense his mating call, as if she wanted it too—so close, her lavender taunted him to lick it off her skin.

He brushed his thumb across her lips, his calluses debauching the tender flesh. They were as soft as they looked.

“Then I suppose I need to win so I can be yer first.”

He dropped his hand. She picked up the pawn she’d let fall. Rolled it contemplatively between her fingers with manicured nails and skin softened by the finest creams, though he could tell she was flustered and trying to remember the move she’d intended to make. Good, for she’d been about to trounce him hard.

He couldn’t resist a quirk of his lips again. Then she placed it right where he’d hoped she would, right where she was vulnerable to his fatal attack.

He picked up his piece and trapped her king’s only route of escape. “Checkmate.”

Her eyes widened. What color were they?

Those lips parted again. He slid the board aside and his hands along either side of her head to sift into her gold-spun tresses, feeling the silk snag upon his roughened flesh. Hell, he wanted to crash into her, pillage her mouth, but this was her first. He was her first. And somehow, it felt like it meant something.

“If ye nay want this, angel, tell me,” he gruffed.

“To tell ye that would be a lie,” she breathed. “And I nay lie.”

He dragged her to her feet, scooped her into a cradle. Relished how she clung to his neck, how her breasts pressed into him and her silken gown swirled around him like a breeze. Together, they vanished into the privacy of the trees that shadowed this strath between the looming distant peaks, dark silhouettes against the night sky.

…

The man moved like stealth and Brighde’s heart raced. Sagebrush and sea breeze and savory male musk enshrouded her. Where was he taking her? Why did she trust him? Because he’d indulged her game? Because he taunted and teased her with promises of things she’d only dreamed of…

He spun her to a tree, bracing her back with his palm to soften her landing with quick reflexes that spoke of training, laced his fingers with hers, and pinned her hands to the bark over her head.

Their chests rose and fell against each other’s. Fire licked through her blood.

“Look at me.” She did as his deep growl commanded. Watched the intensity in his eyes, nearly impossible to distinguish in the veiling darkness of the trees. “Are ye amenable?”

At that single question, that assurance that he was asking before he took, her head nodded frantically, as if her life depended on this moment. She might never get another one like it. He acted like a brigand, like the demon on his mask, but brigands didn’t ask before reaving.

He rumbled his approval as his hips came flush with hers, as he braced his thighs around hers, and his…sporran…or something firm, came flush with her, filling her every sense with his essence and heat. The hard protrusion dug into her hip as her bosom pressed into his torso, pebbling painfully behind her bodice and stays, so broad and hard a chest it was no doubt a plane of solid muscle.

Heat warred through her, settling low in her belly. Delicious and sinful, making her squirm with need she didn’t understand—

His mouth ghosted upon her ear as he relinquished her hands. All thoughts fled her mind as he slipped off her mask in the blackness, breathing across her heated cheeks. She inhaled the comforting mantle of his scent as he pressed his lips carefully to her ear, her jaw, her nose, working his way around her face as if a sailor charting the stars.

She arched against him and sifted her fingers into his hair, tingling brewing within her for something more.

“Please,” she begged on a whisper. Please douse this burning flame.

A smile creased his lips against her cheek, as if he knew what he was doing to her and relished it. “Since ye asked nicely,” he whispered back, and finally he pressed his lips to hers.

The air left her lungs as he groaned. The din of the dancing and music faded from her thoughts. His body, blanketing her, rolled against her, and when she arched into his touch, her fingers tightening upon his midnight tresses, that feral growl once more rumbled in his throat, reverberating through his chest.

His tongue traced along the seam of her lips, a silent command she understood. Once more, she obeyed, and parted her lips—all too eager for a virgin who should be afraid of being defiled—as his tongue laved across hers.

“Like berries and wine and…lavender,” he murmured, sinking in for another helping. “Dieu aide moi…fok, ye taste so good.”

And then she kissed him back, full of desire to learn, her tongue touching his. Wine. Honey. Delicious masculinity. His fingers sifted over either side of her head, raking through her hair, holding her tresses as if to anchor himself.

She sighed against him like a wanton. Wanted so suddenly to drink from the offering of his mouth. Her body was on fire. Her hands tangled in his wind-tossed locks, her nails scoring the shaved sides of his head as she wiggled against that protrusion against her hip. His tongue taught her what to do. He rolled voraciously against her, one hand releasing her hair and skimming down her side, to her waist, her hip, bracing her more roughly to the tree, over and over, as she reciprocated, a need deep within her overriding all good sense, seeking that friction.