Page 24 of A Virgin for the Vicious Highlander
“Why do ye find me voice soothin’?” he asked in that rolling-thunder growl.
It did not soothe her at all. Instead, it had the opposite effect, stirring up a feeling that was not quite nerves, or anticipation, or fear, or intrigue, but a heady blend of all four. And in her stomach, butterflies were fluttering wildly to get out.
“Are there any more blankets?” she asked, changing the subject as she realized that she had veered too far into reckless territory.
“Ye’re still cold?”
She squirmed against the feelings that welled up at the sound of his voice, trying to wriggle free of them, as well as the cold that seemed ingrained in her bones. In doing so, she accidentally moved closer to him… and froze as her leg grazed white-hot flesh, unsure what she had touched.
“Careful,” he whispered, closer to her ear than she had thought he was. “Ye shouldnae writhe like that.”
Her eyes closed at the sound of his baritone, a tremor running through her. It made no sense. How could she want to be closer to a dangerous man like him? How could she be so cavalier with her virtue, lying with a naked man who was not her husband? And how could his voice have such… control over her? It was just a voice, yet it played upon her body like an enchantment.
“Aye, well, I’m nae comfortable, so I’m makin’ meself comfortable,” she protested breathily, needing to claw back some of the control. “Ye should roll back over to where ye were, then me writhin’ willnae trouble ye.”
“Ye dare to give me orders?” His powerful arm came up and wrapped around her waist, pulling her against his hard chest.
For a moment, she could not breathe at all as fantasy and reality collided with a shuddering impact. She had imagined what it would be like to be held in those arms, and now that she was, it was not a disappointment.
His upper arm was as big as her head, his broad chest dwarfing her, making her feel so safe and warm that if they had been outside in the snow like that, she would not have felt cold at all.
Cecilia, what would yer aunt say!
Alarm bells rang in her head, and she tried to wriggle free of his grasp. He held her fast, needing to exert very little strength to keep her close to him.
“Oi!” she objected. “Ye shouldnae be touchin’ me, Laird Moore! Unless, of course, ye want me story about ye blemishin’ me purity to have a lick of truth to it. Ye refused to become even mefakebetrothed, so dinnae think ye can have yer way with me.”
He dipped his head, his lips a breath away from her shoulder. “Are ye warm?”
“What?”
“Are ye warm now?”
She paused. “Well, aye, but that doesnae mean?—”
“Then cease yer chatterin’. Ye asked for more blankets—we dinnae have any, butthisis how ye survive the cold,” he replied gruffly, his mouth teasing her—not kissing her skin, but eliciting a crackle like tiny bolts of lightning that sparked between his lips and her flesh.
She writhed again, her eyes widening as her buttocks grazed something else. Something within the hazy region that her imagination could not fill in with any detail. Something hotter than the rest of his furnace-like body. Something harder that made him growl in the back of his throat as it brushed against her backside.
“Lie still,” he rasped. “Keep provokin’ me and ye might find that yer wee made-up storydoesend up havin’ more than a lick of truth to it.”
She wriggled more vigorously. “I’m nae provokin’ ye. I’m tryin’ to get out of yer grasp before ye boil me alive.” The more she writhed and strained, the more she wanted him to hold her tighter. “Ye’re goin’ to crush the wee pup if ye’re nae careful!”
But Murdoch, of course, had an answer for that. Not with words, but with action.
His hand slid up her stomach and the center of her stays, curling around the puppy that lay asleep against her chest. He picked it up and set it down on the farthest edge of the blankets, the puppy barely stirring at the movement. The little creature just slept on contentedly, unaware that he was supposed to be an excuse for Cecilia not to get any closer to Murdoch.
As Murdoch moved to set the puppy down, more of his body had curved around Cecilia, and as he drew back to his original position, he pulled her back with him. She arched her back to try and put a sliver of distance between them, but the backward tilt of her hips pushed her buttocks further against something they should not be touching.
“If ye keep doin’ that, ye’ll leave me nay choice,” he murmured, his deep voice turning husky.
“Nay choice? What do ye mean?”
He ran his hand over her stomach and rested it on her hip, grabbing the soft flesh there. “I’ll have to ease yer undergarments over yer hips and down yer thighs until ye’re bare to me. I’ll slide me fingers inside ye, make sure ye’re readyfor me, and when I ken that ye are, I’ll sink into ye. I’ll plunge meself into ye again…” He pulled her hips back, letting her feel the part of him that she could not picture. “… and again… and again… until ye dinnae have breath to chatter anymore, only to scream me name. And when I’m done, when I’ve tired ye ‘til yer head is spinnin’, ye’ll have nay trouble sleepin’.”
If Cecilia had thought she was breathless before, then she had not known what it meant to have her breath truly stolen away. Not just her breath either, but her sense of reason, her defense of her virtue, her dislike for the man lying behind her, and every instinct that told her that this man was dangerous.
Her head was already spinning, her body not just tingling but burning with a sensation she had not experienced before—an all-consuming simmer of the senses, heightening her curiosity and lowering her inhibitions. In truth, it was like being drunk without imbibing a drop.
