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Being out in this weather was crazy, but she didn’t seem to see anything odd in it.
The rain had turned her soft honey-coloured hair to sleek, dark gold and droplets of water clung to her lashes and her cheeks, but she didn’t seem to care. In fact, he would have said that she relished being so close to the elements. He’d never seen her happier.
And her response intrigued him because he knew no other woman who would have been so comfortable in such filthy weather conditions.
She was half-wild, he thought to himself, watching as she scrambled over a gate and started up the grassy slope. The wind crashed across her path, trying to turn her, but she was graceful and sure-footed as she ran, and Ethan could do nothing but follow, exhilaration mingling with exasperation.
She scrambled over the outer walls of the castle that were now no more than a few ruined rocks, and climbed across some uneven ground that led to the ancient, crumbling fort.
‘We have to climb up.’ She raised her voice to be heard above the wind and he followed her and then stopped, suddenly understanding why she’d brought him here.
Furious red streaks were splashed across the sky, as if an artist had just taken a brush and angrily thrown paint at a canvas. The grey, threatening outline of the ruins loomed from the rain and mist and beyond that stretched the sea, boiling and foaming with fury as the wind and the currents fought for supremacy.
‘You can imagine it, can’t you? The Vikings landing there?’ She steadied herself, pointed down to the beach, and then lifted her hand to anchor her hair, which was blowing wildly. With a shift of her feet she balanced herself against the wind as she stared across the west of the island. ‘They must have looked up and seen this castle and been afraid. They must have wondered whether to turn home and give up. When I stand up here in a storm I can feel the history of the place so strongly.’
He couldn’t take his eyes off her profile. ‘You’re as bad as Fraser.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with being interested in your heritage.’ She turned to face him and smiled. ‘Was it worth the climb?’
He dragged his eyes away from her and stared at the ruins and then at the sea. He’d never seen a wilder, more atmospheric place. ‘It was worth the climb.’
‘This place is at its best when the weather is bad.’
He laughed and shook his head. ‘You’re crazy, do you know that?’
‘Am I?’ The wind gusted and she grabbed his arm for support. ‘If we drop down to just below the ruined tower, it’s sheltered. We can sit there and watch the sun come up.’
Ethan stared at the sky. ‘I don’t think there’s going to be any sun,’ he muttered, but he followed her across the patch of grass, over some stones and down again until they were sheltered by a large wall.
‘Do you have any idea how old this place is? They reckon it’s one of the earliest castles, although it’s been built on over the centuries, of course.’ She ran her hands over the grey, uneven bricks and looked through the tiny slit window. ‘When I was a child I used to come up here with Logan and play warriors. He used to be the invading army and I used to be the one defending the castle.’
He could imagine her doing exactly that, with her hair streaming down her back, her chin lifted and her eyes blazing as she and Logan argued over who was in charge.
‘Did you cover him in boiling oil?’
‘No. Buckets of ice-cold water. My aim was brilliant. He used to complain like mad.’ She stepped towards him and took the front of his jacket in her hands. ‘You were brave last night with Fraser. You acted like an islander.’
Her face was so cl
ose that her cheek almost brushed against his. Ethan clenched his jaw and kept his eyes ahead because he knew that to look at her now would be too great a test of his self-control. And then she moved her head fractionally and he felt her touch her lips to his, and he just couldn’t help himself. He was drawn to her in the same way that he’d been drawn to her on that very first day. He looked. And fell. Deep, deep into her stormy blue eyes that held both warning and invitation.
He issued his own warning. ‘I’m not an islander.’ There was so much that he still had to tell her and yet suddenly he couldn’t remember any of it with the heat and awareness devouring them both like a greedy animal.
Her mouth was so close to his that he could feel her breath mingling with his. ‘But you could be, Ethan. You could be.’
He was surrounded by her. The scent of her. The sound of her. The feel of her. His insides locked with lust. And in those tense, sexually charged few moments they both knew what was going to happen.
He was seeing it in her eyes and he knew that she was seeing it in his. And suddenly all the reasons that he shouldn’t be doing this were eclipsed by all the reasons that he should.
He lifted his hand and cupped the back of her head, drawing her face towards his. ‘It’s got to be here,’ he growled hoarsely, ‘and now.’ He was driven by an urgency that he didn’t understand and she obviously felt it, too, because she pressed closer and lifted her face.
‘Yes. Now.’ She met the hot burn of his kiss and struggled with the zip of his coat just as he reached for her clothes. There was no gentle fumbling. No smiles or laughter. Each was deadly serious, intent on the other, eyes clinging and hands brushing in a feverish determination to discover flesh and be together. His mouth still on hers, he stripped her of her coat and then grabbed the hem of her strap top and slid it upwards.
She lifted her arms in acquiescence and he broke the kiss just long enough to jerk the top over her head. He looked, just for a moment—saw high, firm breasts and nipples darkening to a peak—and then looking just wasn’t enough and he touched.
This time his hands were on bare, warm flesh and he held her against him, feeling the perfection of her slender body against his.
‘Ethan … Ethan …’ She murmured his name against his lips, pressing forward, boldly encouraging him. He felt her quiver under his hands—felt her skin sleek and soft as his fingers explored and discovered. She gasped against the relentless assault of his mouth and then he felt the scratch of her nails over the bare flesh of his chest and the nip of her teeth on his jaw. Only then did he realise that she’d ripped at his clothes with the same feverish desperation that he’d stripped her. His shirt hung open and her hands were on his chest.
