Page 24 of Outlaw Ever After

His strawberry blond lashes so thick, the most beautiful of women would be jealous. Those green gems so familiar. Eyes of deepest greenwood… That hint of refinement, holding back, not pushing for more. It seemed as if everything he thought spilled out his mouth, and yet, covered up much more.

“Promise to only wield my weapons if our home should be threatened—”

Her hands gripped his backsheath.

He ripped it over his head and cast it aside. Ripped open his doublet and shucked it down. He seemed to bask in how she grappled to hold his arms as his manhood pressed hard and bold against her belly. Still not relenting to that carnal rutting all men seemed driven to slake.

“Promise to be a man my parents would have been proud of for ye.”

She nodded. She’d seen that emotion reddening his eyes when he’d withdrawn this ring and placed it upon her finger.

His hands palmed her rear and pressed her into his length of granite beneath his kilt. As if his legs had given out, his back slid down the wall, pulling her with him so she straddled his lap. Settling upon that part of him, and she gasped, the sensation of her weight upon it igniting heat that licked through her blood and burned trails of gunpowder across her skin. Then he undulated beneath her to ease his tension and fuel his frustration, and a whine escaped her throat.

“I nay be worthy,” he continued, sinking back into her lips, “but for ye I’ll be anything .”

She twined her finger in his beard. Felt him shudder beneath her touch as if he needed it, clasping her other around his neck. “Will ye make me one promise?”

“Anything,” he gnashed out.

“Always be honest with me.”

He pulled back an inch, studying her as his chest heaved for air.

He trailed a fingertip over her mouth, plucking apart her swollen lips, trailing down her chin, over her jaw, over the hollow of her neck where a wee fairy kiss sat—a freckle—down between her breasts where her bodice boosted her cleavage and God, she felt fire. Heat pooled in her belly as the ring around her finger burned with his promise.

His calluses snagged upon her calves, her thighs, beneath her pile of silks. His chest rose and fell as if he’d been sprinting. The downy grasses and weeds tickled her ankles and knees. Her hands dragged up his chest to find purchase and hold on. He shivered as his finger traced the curve of her jaw, her neck, down and over the swells of each breast as her chest rose and fell.

“Ye hold all the power, lass,” he gruffed. “Get up and walk away or put me out of my bloody misery.” He cradled her cheek as he wedged his hips up within the crux of her thighs, burrowing there and maintaining control, as if by a thread. It was all she needed to know he’d have care, that he wanted her willing, or nay at all. She wiggled back and forth atop the hardened shaft as a rough groan rolled up his throat and his head fell back.

Those emerald jewels tracked her every blink. He twisted his ring upon her finger.

His promise.

She nodded, then pressed her lips back to his.

…

That moment’s capitulation was all it took for Alex’s blood to ignite. She was letting him kiss her, after what had been forced upon her. She was letting him pop loose her laces. The final shred of his control snapped. He skimmed his finger down her stomacher, dragging the laces from their eyelets. He slipped beneath her stays to cup a lush, perfect breast in his palm.

Her breathing was erratic, tremoring; her lips, welted from his devouring, parted. Her chestnut pools fluttered shut as his thumb brushed over the tip of a nipple.

“Mon Dieu,” she whispered on an exhale and he fell back to her lips, unable to refuse himself another helping of her taste.

She gripped his neck and beard as if she might float away.

“Ye wish to stop, sweeting?” he rumbled against her lips, hand anchoring her hip to him so he could torment himself by the roll of his hips into the barriers of their clothes. “I’ll bloody stop. Do ye understand?”

Except she shook her head. “Ye promised me. I trust ye.”

Her skirts, his kilt, were dragging up. “We’ll go straight to the kirk,” he hissed through gnashing teeth as that secret part of her settled upon his bare shaft thickened and heavy for the rut.

He pushed back and forth through her seam, slickening himself, torturing himself as he palmed her rear and lifted her and aligned his proud salute with her, shuddering to know that the first act of loving either of them would feel would be together, because he didn’t want to turn her away, flatten her on her belly beneath him as he took her like a bull in heat. He wanted to see every emotion on her face, every expression in her eyes, the ecstasy that would part her lips when he gave away his most personal gift for the first time.

He wanted her to see him . Always be honest with me…

Christ, he held still, willed himself to let her do the taking. He leaned into her breast, savoring the peak through her chemise as she exhaled that soft whine that would be his undoing.

“God, so sweet.” His voice, so gravelly.