Page 58 of Love with a Scottish Outlaw
When she reached up and touched his forehead, he inhaled and couldn’t seem to breathe again.
“I wish I just could soothe these lines—”
He shuddered as she skimmed her fingers on his suddenly hot flesh.
“—soothe your soul from tormenting you.”
He closed his eyes, unable to bear looking at the beauty shining from within her like a beacon that called him home.
But such a light should warn him away, as if he were a frigate heading toward the shoals of disaster. She’d grown to mean too much to him. His thoughts of her were wild and dangerous, of the life they could have together if her memory never returned. It was a fantasy, impossible, but now that there was no more need to punish her father—Duncan had to trust in God’s justice now—could he focus on clearing his name?
But even that wouldn’t allow him to be with a woman who wasn’t his, whose family would never accept a marriage between them after what he’d done to her.
Catriona now cupped his face with both warm hands. He’d been cold and dead inside until she’d come to him, confused him, made him want things he shouldn’t have.
He gripped her wrists in both his hands, intending to remove her touch. But she dropped her hands to his shoulders, slid them along the width, then down across his chest. He held her wrists helplessly, unable to stop what she was doing to him.
He hadn’t been touched with gentleness, with innocent curiosity, in a long, long time. Her touch tormented him, aroused him, then inflamed him with a need that suddenly felt overpowering. He hated himself for craving it—he wanted to hate her for inspiring it. He should frighten her away.
He gripped her wrists harder, forcing them behind her back. This arched her against him, hip to hip. He pulled her closer, so that her breasts tormented his chest. He needed her to keep away from him, because he was no longer certain he trusted himself.
Instead, she looked at him boldly in the near darkness. “Ye want me to be afraid, but I’m not,” she whispered.
He gave her a little shake, leaning down into her face. “Ye should be. I am no tame suitor.”
“I would be disappointed if ye were.”
“Your brazen talk will bring ye trouble someday.”
“Not from you. Ye’ve been nothing but good to me.”
Good, he thought bitterly. “This isn’t ‘good,’ how I hold ye now, how I’ve kissed ye, how I want ye.”
“I want ye, too, but I know I cannot give ye anything, not with my past an impenetrable darkness. I am a risk to hurt ye.”
He let her go, disgusted with himself. Instead of retreating, she slid her arms about his waist and clung to him.
“But oh, Duncan, ye make me feel such wondrous things. My body feels like a candle flaring to life only when ye’re near.”
He closed his eyes, struggling hard for control, when her breasts, round and soft, pressed into him, her warm breath fanned his neck. He felt her gentle hands beneath his coat, exploring his back.
And then he crushed her to him, kissing her hard and open-mouthed, her head pressed into his shoulder. He kissed her as if he could devour her, bring back hope and peace, all the things he’d denied himself. He touched her body as if it were his, created only for him. A possessive urgency made him pull her away from the entrance and into the cover of the trees. She moaned as their legs entwined together. He cupped her ass and held her against him.
“That,” she whispered, “what I feel beneath your plaid. Is that what I do to ye?”
“Do ye remember being with a man?” he asked, thinking he’d heard no word of a husband, but suddenly uncertain.
“Nay, but I’m not blind to what animals do.”
Squeezing the globes of her ass, he leaned down and gave a gentle bite where her neck met her shoulder. “I feel like an animal,” he said hoarsely.
She laugh softly. “I make ye feel wild, now do I?”
He kissed her lips again, let his hands roam from her hips around her torso and up to cup her breasts through her stays. “Aye, wild.”
She gave a little gasp and then a groan. “I am so shameless. I wish my clothes could be gone so ye could touch me there.”
“Nay, I’ll no wish for that. I’m a weak man where ye’re concerned, lass, and ye mustn’t forget it. But . . .” He let the word trail off, even as he reached down and began to bunch up her skirts in his hands.
