Page 52 of The Guardian
He laughed, then added for good measure, “Alex is not the sort of man to stay in one woman’s bed.”
“I don’t think ye are in a position to criticize Alex, when ye can hardly claim to have been living the life of a saint yourself.” Sìleas picked up the pan and slapped it down so hard the table rattled. “That helps settle the mixture. I’ll wait to cook it ’til they’re home.”
Ian leaned into her. “I’m living a monk’s life now, if that’s any comfort to ye.”
“Ach, such a sacrifice,” she said, as she moved ingredients around on the table for no purpose he could discern. “What has it been, all of a week?”
He moved behind her and took a firm hold of her hips. Ah, she felt good against him.
“A week seems a verra long time,” he said as he nuzzled her neck, “when every moment of it I’m wishing I had ye naked.”
He kissed the side of her neck and felt her pulse racing beneath his lips. She drew in a sharp breath when he pressed his throbbing erection against her buttocks.
“I’d love to lay ye back on the table here,” he said, as he ran his hands up her arms.
“Shhh! Someone might come in and hear ye.” She sounded scandalized, but she shivered at his touch.
“No one else is at home,” he said, nipping at her earlobe. “ ’Tis just you and me.”
Her breathing changed when he slipped his hands around her ribs and stroked the underside of her breasts with his thumbs.
“I’m thinking that the first time I make love to ye ought to be in our marriage bed,” he said. “But if ye say here on the table, I’m a willing man.”
Sìleas wiped her hands on her apron and made a show of pushing at his forearms. “Let me go now.”
This was no serious resistance. When Sìleas told him no and meant it, she hit him with a skillet and stood over him with a blade in her hand.
He blew on the back of her neck and was rewarded when a “mmmm” escaped her lips. Her skin was soft and creamy as fresh butter and smelled of cinnamon and honey. Needing to taste her, he ran his tongue along her skin above the edge of her gown.
He cupped the soft fullness of her breasts and had to squeeze his eyes shut against the surge of lust that filled him. Oh, God, how he wanted her.
When he found her nipples, she made a low sound in the back of her throat that drove him mad—and he was determined to hear it again. As he rolled her nipples between his thumbs and fingers, she dropped her head back against his shoulder, and her breath came fast and shallow.
He tried to catch his own breath. She was like soft wax in his hands now, hot and molding to his touch. This time she was going to let him get under her skirts, he knew it. Heaven help him, he was going to explode right here if she kept moving against him like that.
It was time to take his wife upstairs. At last. Just as he was about to lift her off her feet to carry her up, he noticed a mark on her neck.
It was a white line, barely visible. A scar.
He ran a finger over it. “What’s this from?”
She went rigid. When she tried to jerk away from him, he held her in place.
“How did ye get this?”
“ ’Tis nothing,” she said. “Let me go, I mean it now.”
He pushed the edge of her gown down an inch or two for a better look. The scar continued down her back, out of sight.
She turned around in his arms and rested her palms on his chest. Looking up at him from under her lashes, she said, “I want ye to kiss me.”
His gaze locked on her full, parted lips, and he was sorely tempted. But why was she so desperate to divert him? When she slid her hands up around his neck and leaned against him, it was damned hard to resist her.
He brushed her soft cheek with his thumb. “What is it that ye don’t want me to know?”
She pressed her lips into a thin line and narrowed her eyes. Her brief game of seductress was over. A shame, that. But something here didn’t sit right with him.
Each time he had kissed her, things had gone well—very well—until the moment he began unfastening buttons or hooks. As he thought about that, it came to him that this was the first time he’d seen her with her hair up.
