Page 58 of The Highlander’s Improper Wife

Her cream slicked his easy slide into her slippery passage.

Smooth muscular contractions pulled him deeper into her body. Then she shattered. She slammed hard onto his hips. Pain rippled through his wound. He bolted up and gulped air.

She cried out and scrambled from his lap, falling arse first onto the mattress. “My lord.”

He bolted upright. “On your knees.”

Caroline stared. Taran pushed to his knees. Pain spiked from his wound, but he grasped her hips and roughly turned her buttocks towards his pelvis. She twisted and looked at him from over her shoulder. He froze at the sight of her wide eyes.

His fingers dug into sweet, feminine flesh. He wanted—needed—to dig deep, fuck her clear to her core, but he forced a slow breath, then leaned forward and gathered her into his arms. He kissed the worry from her brow. Trailing lower, he rained kisses over her cheek, then brushed his lips to hers. When he opened his mouth over her jaw, her head tilted to the side.

He gently bit her neck, then flicked his tongue against her fluttering pulse and whispered, “Trust me.”

Caroline relaxed and repositioned on her hands and knees. Taran stroked a hand over the arch in her back as he moved behind her. He caressed her hip, then palmed her arse.

Slipping his fingers lower, he traced the seam of her buttocks until he reached the damp heat of her pussy. He played at her entrance until she whimpered, then he slipped in his finger into her tightened core. Caroline drew a ragged breath and pulsed against his hand. He smiled and inserted a second digit, curling into her passage. Heated honey flowed from her.

There was no doubt this was his Aphrodite. She responded to him without reservation. This wasn’t a refined lady of society. She was his lover—now his wife. Pressure squeezed his chest. She may never want to admit to her night of masked seduction, but he vowed he would draw her out, make it safe for her to love him as she had that night. He started at having thought the word love. Aye, she would love him.

In the dim firelight, with her eyes downcast to the bed, he pulled his fingers from her body and slipped them between his lips. He closed his eyes and let the tang of her arousal bring back the memory of the first time he’d tasted Aphrodite.

Raw emotion stole over him. He grasped his cock, slid between her thighs, and fucked his wife the way Aphrodite would demand.

* * * *

Caroline wrapped her arms around herself and stared out over the railing of the lady’s bedchamber balcony at the mist cloaked darkness. But for the ache in her arm, nothing—not even her wedding day—seemed real. Perhaps it was the remnants of the laudanum which had been administered a few hours ago. Even the half-moon cast an eerie light that belonged to a nether land, foreign to her world.

She closed her eyes in an effort to recall Taran’s voice as it had been in the carriage when she had been Aphrodite, the feel of his arms around her, strong, demanding. Instead, the gentle touch and whispered words of their wedding night filled her mind. She’d glimpsed the passion he shared with Aphrodite, yet his ardent kisses and fierce thrusts had revealed desire for her. His wife.

A tear slid from her eye. With every breath she drew and every beat of her heart, she loved him. Leaving would plunge a knife through her chest. But she would survive. Caroline bowed her head. But she wouldn’t survive life with him once he discovered the truth—and he would. She’d glimpsed that future last night when he sent his sister away. She grasped the railing, glad for the chill of the wrought iron. Had she only known—

“What the bloody hell are you doing?”

Caroline whirled at the sound of Taran’s voice. He was halfway across the balcony. Despite the limp in his left leg, he stalked towards her as if he meant to throw her over the railing. She cast an involuntary glance at the other balcony.

“By God, I will redden your lovely bottom if you move even an inch.”

She riveted her head back in his direction. A cool breeze caught the edge of his robe, fluttering the silken fabric around his thighs. He stopped in front of her and grasped her wrist.

“My lord, your leg.” She shoved at his chest, wincing at the dull pain that throbbed in her shoulder.

“Damn the leg.” He scooped her into his arms. “I will not give you another opportunity for mischief tonight.” Taran strode across the balcony, through the anteroom, and back into his room. He laid her on the bed, then braced a knee on the mattress and flattened his palms on the bed on both sides of her head. He stared, eyes dark. “Unless of course, your mischief includes me.”

Memory of when he’d locked her and Fiona in the room, leapt to mind and she swallowed.

He brought his face to within an inch of hers. “Do not move. Stay here where you belong…in my bed.”

“Are you always out of sorts in the morning?”

Taran made a noise deep in his chest like a growl, then shimmied off the bed and limped to the hearth. He grasped the poker leaning against the brick, gingerly bent on his good knee, and pushed aside the screen. He poked the embers until they glowed red-hot, then picked up two split logs from the small pile to his right and laid them on the coals.

“A wife jumping from a balcony is enough to get any man’s ire up,” he said as if speaking to himself. A moment later, a small fire blazed. Taran looked over his shoulder at her. “Have you not spent enough time on that balcony for one night?”

“I spent little time on that balcony, if you recall.”

“You are a reckless woman. But that will now end.”

A strange calm settled over her. “Reckless, like your sister?”