Patrick’s heart battered against his ribs while he gazed down at her, the bonnie curve of her jaw caught in slivers of moonlight, her black hair spread out like a nimbus around her face—the face any goddess would envy, and the heavy rise and fall of her bare breasts, their erect nipples reaching for his mouth. His blood rushed through his veins, the way it did before a fight. She intoxicated him, filled him with desire to take her, to fill his days and nights with her, and only her, to make her feel alive every day.
A wave of nerves washed over him, and for an instant he felt like a fresh young lad. He settled himself quickly enough and yanked his shirt over his head.
He wanted to devour her. But one didn’t devour perfection, one lavished in it.
“Ye honor me, lass,” he whispered, lowering his body over hers.
“Oh, Sir Gawain,” she replied softly, closing her arms around his neck and dipping back her head. “You and your dusty old ideals.”
Hell, she made him laugh, even now, when he was thinking about ravishing the throat she offered. “That would make ye m’ crone.”
She laughed with him but pinched him on the side. He caught her wrist and held it over her head while he captured her laughter with a kiss.
He loved kissing her. Her plump lips yielded to him with just enough resistance to make him snap. She matched him in fervor, not backing down when he spread his tongue over hers or paused to nibble her lips before returning like a starving waif.
And to think, she would have kept this from him if he’d decided to leave. She was clever. For he did not think he could live without ever kissing her again.
She groaned into his mouth and he went hard against her thigh.
When she tried to push him off, he feared he’d gone too fast. He rolled off her and to his surprise and delight she rolled on top of him and sat up, straddling him.
Patrick had known from early on that if he’d had his way with her she wouldn’t be afraid. She was like a wild mare, her mane falling around her shoulders, her gaze languid, and her breasts dangling in front of him. He leaned up and took one into his mouth, sucking her and laving over her sensitive bud with his tongue.
When she remained stiff atop him, he realized, smiling on his way to her throat, she didn’t know what to do.
It shook him to his core that this glorious maiden would offer herself to him. What had he done to win a heart such as hers?
“We’re goin’ to have to marry,” he teased lightly while he ran his palms down her back. He cupped her firm, round buttocks and dragged her over the length of his upright cock, awaiting freedom from his breeches.
After a moment of surprise, she smiled and closed her eyes and then moved over him like a burning flame. “We don’t have to marry.”
She leaned down close to his mouth, still moving, rubbing her hot crux up and down him until he thought he would burst. “’Tis not too late to stop.”
She ceased her movements and was ready to swing her leg over him when he sat up, took her in his arms, and switched places with her. “’Tis fer me, lass,” he said, leaning down to kiss her.
When she made no protest, he shifted and tugged at his belt and breeches. She pulled at the laces in the back of her skirt and wriggled free beneath him.
“Will it hurt?” she asked, sounding like wings on the wind.
“Aye, would ye have me stop?”
“Nay, don’t stop. Am I a fool, Patrick?” she bid him, going breathless when he dipped his mouth to her neck.
“I hope so, love,” he murmured and then ran his tongue down the puckered flesh of her breast. “This madness is no’ something I want to suffer alone.”
“Poor rogue,” she cooed, running her soft palms over his back. “How difficult this must be for you.”
He chuckled and kissed her taut nipple then leaned up and looked into her eyes. “’Twill likely be more difficult fer ye.” He pushed her legs apart with his knees. She gasped at the unyielding lance poised above her entrance. “But dinna fear,” he continued in a husky whisper. “I know what I’m doin’.”
But he didn’t. He knew nothing about making love to a lass who meant more to him than a bed, his next meal, or any subsequent empty adventure.
Her naked body swathed in moonlight made him feel untried, unsure, and clumsy for the first time in years.
He would learn her, he thought, resting his rigid body atop her. He would not plunder her but proceed with care and caution to cause her as little pain as possible. He reached his fingers to her lips and glided them to her chin, down her neck, kissing where he touched. He would learn what pleased her. He inhaled her scent and let it stir the scalding cauldron deep in the pit of his belly. His body burned, and his heart with it as he fired a path with his tongue, his teeth, between her breasts—over them, drawn by her firm, erect nipples.
His touch was the perfect combination of skill and raw sensuality. Charlie could do nothing more but be ravished by him, forgetting, for the moment, the thought of his daunting erection so close.
She’d never done anything like this before. She never thought she would. Not only was she lying in the heather muirs with nothing covering her but the moonlight, she was lying beneath Patrick, clutching him to her, eager for every inch of him.
She wasn’t afraid. Not of him. She refused to be afraid of anything tonight.
When he withdrew from her breasts to lick a titillating line down her belly, she fought to control the urge to stop him from going farther. Judging from his path, she suspected where he was going. Mary had never told her anything about this and she’d never spoken to any of the girls from the taverns about what they may or may not have done in their lovers’ beds.
“Patrick,” she asked with measured apprehension, “are you going to…kiss me…there?”
“Aye, lass.” He looked up briefly from kissing her and ran his palms over her thighs. His fingers stopped at the thin leather strips that secured her blade and her sling. He tugged on them and pressed his mouth to her thigh. “I’m goin’ to kiss ye and more.”
She had no intention of stopping him so she waited, trusting his promise that he knew what he was doing.
Continuing downward, he slipped the heavy weight of his ready lance away from her and pressed his lips to the sensitive flesh below her navel, and then spread her wider. Moving lower still, he darted his masterful tongue over her entrance and drew her crux into his mouth. He pulled on her with tender insistence, kissing and licking her intimate folds before returning to the tiny flame that threatened to consume her.
She closed her eyes and bit her lower lip as passion seized her. Her body went taut. Her back arched involuntarily and her hands clenched fistfuls of his hair while he drank from her. She cried out, unable to stop herself from doing so. This was truly happening. She was about to give up her virtue to a rake. Aye, he might be the most honorable man she’d ever met, but when it came to women, his armor needed polishing.
She wanted to be the woman to do it.
She had to. She was in love with him despite every nerve in her body screaming to use caution. She didn’t want to lose him too.
His teeth scraping against her sent fires down her spine. She couldn’t imagine how scandalous this was. It made her smile and spread her thighs wider.
His tongue swept over her and flicked across her swollen bud. She grew hotter, wetter, wild for more.
When she thought she might weep with need, he rose up on splayed palms and tilted his hips. She could see the intensity in his glittering eyes when the tip of his shaft pressed against her moist entrance. He pushed, entering her with slow deliberation.
A sharp pain stabbed her and she gritted her teeth. He saw her discomfort and gathered her into his arms. “Ye drive me mad,” he whispered across her ear. The power of his gaze when he stared into her eyes made her weak and willing, but when he began to move inside her again she moved with him.
Soon only the painful throb of desire remained.
Instinctively, she raised her knees and coiled her legs around his waist.
He groaned and thrust deeper, watching her as he claimed her. He retreated and returned with long, languid strokes that pulled cries from her parted lips.
He lifted her to the clouds, floating with her on wings made of passion and intimacy. She closed her eyes and held him as waves of ecstasy washed over her, freeing her from every other thought but one. Him. She ran her palms down his powerful arms, the flare of his corded back, and lower to his taut buttocks straining at his powerful thrusts. Eyes closed, she moaned, delighting in the way he filled her.
She took his deepest plunges and writhed beneath him as blinding, uncontrollable spasms of pleasure coursed through her. She tossed back her head, unfamiliar with the view from this precipice. It was a land of dark, tantalizing temptation. She didn’t know where it would lead and she didn’t care. His body felt too good. With one final cry, she let herself fall over the edge.
He caught her in a burst of radiant color. She dug her nails into his flesh and held on as her body convulsed, tightening and relaxing around his thick cock.
She heard a tight sound from him and looked up in time to see him lost in rapturous ecstasy as he drove himself into her quicker, deeper. Finally, he sank into her one last time, filling her to the last drop.
She became aware of his weight almost instantly. His muscles trembled against her flesh. She basked in the feel of so much man in her arms. She held him while they breathed into the other’s neck.
Oh, how could anything feel so exhilarating? How could she feel so happy she feared she might drift away on the next breeze? Especially after her night with poor Mary? It had to be the rush of emotions Patrick had just pulled from her that made her want to cry now.
He must have sensed the well of emotions roiling within her. Lifting his face, he gazed down at her. “What is it, lass? Did I hurt ye?”
She shook her head and rested in his embrace when he rolled onto his side and gathered her in his arms. Was she truly changing his world? What did it mean? Had he been jesting when he mentioned marriage? Oh, what was she to think?
She wouldn’t ask him. She didn’t want to ruin what they had just shared by seeming needy. She had no idea how she should behave. She’d jumped over the cliff and now she didn’t know where she was. Would he seek her out again? Would she surrender to him again?
“What troubles ye, Charlie?” He ran his fingers across her jaw, angling her face to his. “Tell me.”
“I was just remembering Mary.” It wasn’t completely false.
“Aye, the days to come will be difficult for her.”
“I must help.”
“Aye, Angel.” He kissed her forehead. “I know.”
She didn’t want to do it alone. For the first time in her life she wasn’t sure if she could bear the responsibility by herself. “Patrick?”
“Aye?” he whispered.
“Can we stay here for a little while longer?” She didn’t want her time with him to end.
“We can stay fer as long as ye want.”
Charlie wanted to stay wrapped in Patrick’s arms forever but they had to get back to the house by morning. She wanted to be there when Mary and the children woke up.
When Patrick stood up to dress a little while later, she basked in the sight of him, fully naked, clothed only in moonlight. Pale luminescent light danced over his muscular arms and the sculpted hills and valleys of his tight abdomen. A light dusting of hair spread across his chest. His legs were long, with well-muscled thighs and shapely calves still encased in his hide boots.
She did her best to keep from staring at that part of him that had been inside her, but hell. Blinking at it now, she marveled that he’d managed to impale her to the hilt.
The dull ache between her legs testified that he’d managed it all right. And well.
He caught her staring while he tied his breeches and smiled. She blushed then realized that he was staring too.
Blazes, she was bare. Instinctively, she drew her arms up and covered her breasts.
“Dinna hide yer beauty from me, lass,” he said, his voice a mellifluous sigh as he bent to take her hand and pulled her to her feet. He drew her close and kissed her, setting her nerve-endings on fire all over again. “If it were up to me, I’d never have ye dressed again.”
She smiled against his lips. She felt the same way about him. But they had to get back. Dawn was about to break and begin the day. Duff would be arriving soon to help Patrick bury Robbie. At the thought of it, her eyes grew moist again. She withdrew from his embrace and reached for her skirts.
Patrick watched her for a moment and then moved to tie the laces of her corset. His breath fell softly on her bosom while she gazed at him, taking in the length of his thick downward lashes, the straight, noble lines of his nose.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t tell her not to cry. He didn’t try to convince her that all would be well. He simply let her mourn, her tears falling on his deft fingers. When he finished with her laces he pulled her in again and kissed the folds of her hair, then, “Are ye ready to go back?”
She never wanted to go back. They had to bury Robbie. Where was Hendry? Who had captured Elsie’s heart? Patrick would soon be leaving to find Kendrick’s body. She didn’t want to face any of it. But she nodded and swiped her tears away. “Aye, I’m ready.”