Page 149 of The Laird's Masked Passion

“At everything.”

“That is hardly new.”

His mouth curved against hers. Elspeth kissed him again before he could use the smile as another defense. This time desperation softened at the edges. His hands moved from her face to her waist, holding her not as a possession or responsibility, but as though he had finally permitted himself to believe she might hold him, too.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

There was no measured approach, no warning in the dark intensity of his gaze. One moment Elspeth stood beside the door with anger still warm in her blood, and the next, his hands were at her waist and his mouth was on hers.

The kiss struck with the force of everything they had left unsaid. She caught the front of his coat, dragging him nearer even as he crowded her backward. The wooden door pressed between her shoulders. Colin’s body surrounded her: hard, heated, and shaking with a need he could no longer disguise.

His mouth moved over hers hungrily. There was nothing polished in it, nothing careful except the hands that avoided the healing wound beneath her ribs even while the rest of him seemed driven beyond patience.

Elspeth opened to him. Colin made a rough sound against her lips. His hands swept over her back, her waist, the curve of her hips, gripping as though he needed proof she was truly there. She pressed herself closer until the last space between them vanished.

Papers scattered when he backed her toward the writing table. Neither noticed. The edge struck the backs of her thighs. Colin lifted her onto it with one swift movement, sending a ledger and several folded letters sliding to the floor.

Elspeth’s skirts spilled over the ink-stained wood. He stood between her knees. For one suspended heartbeat, they only looked at each other.

His breathing was ragged. Her pins had already begun to loosen, dark strands falling around her flushed face. Colin’s gaze moved over her, starving and furious with himself for the hunger.

Then she seized his collar and pulled him back to her. The kiss deepened at once. His hands found her thighs beneath the heavy folds of her gown, drawing her to the very edge of the table. Elspeth wrapped her legs around him, holding him there, and the sudden closeness tore a broken breath from both of them.

Colin buried his face against her throat. His mouth moved over the racing pulse beneath her skin, kisses turning rougher as they descended. Elspeth clutched his shoulders, arching toward him when his teeth grazed the tender place below her ear.

The study smelled of leather, smoke, wax, and the faint sharpness of ink. Those were the ordinary scents of Colin’s controlled, disciplined world. Now his maps lay crushed beneath her hand. His chair had been knocked aside. His careful stacks of correspondence covered the floor.

Colin had never seen anything more satisfying.

His mouth returned to hers. He felt the desperation in her now, stripped of every defense. Colin kissed her as if he had spent too long believing she could be taken from him, as if every touch were both reunion and argument.

His hand moved over her side. The instant his fingers neared her wound, his urgency faltered. He drew back enough to look at her. Concern cut through the heat in his face. Elspeth answered by catching his wrist and placing his palm safely above the tender place.

She did not need words. Colin understood.

His forehead dropped briefly to hers, breath shaking between them. Then his hand curved around her waist, supporting rather than pressing, and the raw hunger returned.

He bent her backward over the table. One arm remained behind her shoulders, shielding her from the hard wood. The other gathered her skirts, impatient fabric rustling beneath his hand. Elspeth’s hair spilled over the abandoned papers, catching in the corners of maps and sealing wax.

Colin looked down at her. The sight undid him.

His wife stretched across the table where he planned battles, settled disputes, and wrote orders that made other men obey. Nothing in the room obeyed him now, least of all Elspeth. And he liked it like that.

She reached for him. His control broke.

Colin came over her, his mouth finding hers with bruising need. The table shifted beneath them. An ink bottle overturned somewhere near her shoulder, rolling harmlessly before dropping to the rug.

Her palms moved across his back, and Colin felt the betraying tremor that passed through his muscles each time she pulled him nearer. He tried to master it. He had mastered pain, anger,exhaustion, and fear often enough. Her touch undid him more efficiently than any of them.

His breath broke against her cheek. This was no longer desire alone.

Heneededher.

The truth of it ran beneath every hurried kiss and desperate grasp. He had almost lost her. Robert had placed a blade against the one life Colin could not surrender, and since taking her back, some part of him had remained trapped in that ruined chapel, still watching her stand within another man’s reach.

Her mouth softened beneath his. Her breath mingled with his. The noise in his mind quieted until only the woman beneath him remained, holding him as though she understood every fear he lacked the courage to speak.

Then impatience seized them again. Colin lifted her upright. She clung to him as he dragged her against his chest, her skirts tangled between their bodies and his coat hanging open beneath her restless hands.