Page 105 of All Scot and Bothered
Cecelia wasn’t given warning, or time to protest, so she kept her hands locked about his neck and buried her face into his shoulder.
He knelt with her in his arms, only breaking the kiss to settle her onto the makeshift pallet of blankets.
A self-conscious wave threatened to douse her ardor, and she instinctively lifted her arms to cover her body, curling in upon herself. Strange explanations bombarded her tongue, apologies for the roundness of her stomach, the length and girth of her thighs, and the unsightly dimples at her knees. She couldn’t seem to lend any of them voice, as they threatened to choke her.
To make matters worse, Ramsay didn’t join her on the blankets. Instead, he sat back on his haunches and gazed down at her with those features carved from stone.
She reached for him, feeling suddenly needy and unsettled. “You don’t have to look,” she said. “Just come here.”
“How can I not look?” he asked her as though she’d gone mad. His growl had deepened another impossible degree, to that of a Gregorian monk at prayer. “I didna know such perfection existed.”
In that moment Cecelia didn’t care if anything subsequent proved to be folly, she merely realized she was falling for this strong giant brute, with all the subtle grace of a landslide. Plunging artlessly into love with him even though every logical thought told her she should not.
Logic didn’t belong in this mysterious Scottish forest.
Only this. Only them.
“Christ,” he panted. “Ye are a goddess, Cecelia. Ye should be wooed in a gilded bed, not on this pile of blankets.”
She rose and locked her arms around the back of his neck, stopping his mouth with a desperate kiss. She opened her lips, this time not in submission or invitation, but for the purpose of her own exploration.
His blankets and furs on the ground were more than comfortable, but now that she was without her wrapper the evening summer air chilled her to her core.
She shivered and pulled him closer.
And then he was upon her, covering her with his body like a blanket of sensual need. He pressed her into the earth, kissing her with fervent urgency. His restless hands upon her. Touching her everywhere. Discovering her with rough and masculine delight.
Cecelia’s legs parted of their own accord to make room for his bulk. His loins pressed against her sex, separated only by his trousers. The intimate pressure turned her hot all over and he ground against her with a wicked roll of his hips, all the while trading deep velvet licks into each other’s mouths.
Her hands found the buttons of his shirt and released them one by one.
Ramsay ripped his mouth from hers and stared down at her with intent eyes, darker than she’d ever seen them. Dark as midnight and magic and the depths of the sea.
“God,” he said with a halting breath, trembling as though the weight of his own body might prove too much. “If this be a dream… I swear to Christ…”
“This is no dream,” she promised, tentatively reaching into his shirt to brush the mounds of his shoulders with hesitant hands. “Though I’m not excited for morning to come.” Her fingers drifted lower, sweeping through fine gold hair to find the hard disks of his chest. Lord but he was solid. Heavy and hewn from some other clay than most men.
He crouched over her like a giant cat intending to spring at his next meal.
But she was already caught. Already imprisoned beneath him and ready to be devoured.
A fingertip traced at the waist of his trousers and he pulled away, capturing her hands in his own. “Let me taste ye first,” he crooned. “Once ye release me, I willna be able to stop myself.”
“You?” she teased, pushing sparkle into her eyes. “The paragon of willpower?”
“Not anymore,” he grieved. “Not when it comes to ye.”
His full mouth began a maddeningly slow journey down her body, stopping in the strangest places to brush hot kisses and sample her skin with his curious tongue. He nuzzled into the hollow between her jaw and her ear. Nipped at her clavicles. Lingered over the downy trail between her breasts.
He did stop there to cup the orbs once again, tracinghis tongue over the white skin to circle the pink ridge of an areola before opening his lips over the peak of her nipple. He stroked and laved in a hot spiral, until Cecelia arched her back off the ground with a hungry moan.
Her hips rose of their own accord, begging for his attentions.
Taking a moment to pay equal courtesies to her opposite breast, he charted her curves with impatient hands.
Her belly quivered as he stroked it, and she squeezed her eyes shut. For a man to whom she’d attributed so much coldness, he certainly could evoke trails of fire on her skin with his skillful fingers.
She’d heard tell of substances so cold they would burn. She wondered if Ramsay’s passion was thus. Invoked from a place so bleak and lonely it sought her warmth, but would only leave her singed and wounded in the end.
