Page 35 of The Highlander's Dare
Graham tucked her impossibly closer, wanting to remove the barriers of clothes between them.
“I’m honorable, Clara, even if I’ve been a rogue in the past. I’m no’ wealthy, but I’m a good man, and I’ll worship ye until the day I die.”
She sighed and kissed him gently. “A lady could never ask for anything more.” She slid her hands down his chest, pressing her palms over his heart. “Make love to me, Graham, as though tonight were our wedding night.”
He let out a low growl and swept her up into his arms, carrying her to the bed in the center of the room. Laying her down gently upon it, he stared down at her. Wide green eyes gazed up at him, cloudy with passion and a little bit of fear.
“Dinna be afraid, Clara. I will see only that ye enjoy tonight, that pleasure is the only thing on your mind.”
She smiled, a small, nervous tilt to her lips. Graham covered her body with his, a leg pressed between hers, holding his weight on one elbow while he used his other hand to stroke the hair from her face. They’d bother with clothes later when she was begging him to tear them away.
The candlelight gave a golden glow to her pinkened cheeks. The bow shape of her mouth was redder, swollen from their shared kisses. She was beautiful, mesmerizing, and he could have stood there all night watching her, admiring her.
This woman was his? Forever? How was that possible? What had he ever done to deserve her?
He would be spending the rest of his days trying to prove that he deserved her. A surge of emotion lodged firmly in his chest—love, deep and fierce and eviscerating. He’d never felt this way before in his life.
Graham kissed her, just a soft brush of his lips over and over, holding back the primal need to claim her, to taste her. Tonight, he was going to go slow, savor her; there would be plenty of time later for carnal claimings. Right now was the time for wooing. For easing her innocence into… He swallowed hard, trying to force his thoughts away from all the very unchivalrous ways in which he wanted to position her, to sink deep into her depths.
Clara shifted her leg, her knee resting on his hip, the heat of her core pressing more firmly to his thigh. Sohot…inviting. Even through the fabric, he imagined what she would feel like, soft and wet.
His hand went to her knee, instinct bidding him to glide her gown up over her leg to touch her skin, but he stopped himself. Graham felt like an untried lad. There were so many things he wanted to do, and he couldn’t figure out which one he wanted to do first. Which one wouldn’t scare her? For a man who’d made love at least a thousand times, who knew exactly how to make a woman moan, he was suddenly feeling very inadequate, for he’d never taken a woman’s virginity.
There was a lot of pressure in that. This was not only her first time buttheirfirst time, the first time of many… what was he to do?
“Are you all right?” she asked, concern in her voice.
“Aye,” he croaked.
“Are you nervous?”
He almost laughed aloud. “I want ye to enjoy it.”
“I am. I like it when you touch me. I like it when you kiss me… with tongue.”
Those words alone were enough to fuel him forward. She liked it when he touched her; then, he was going to just keep on touching her. And she liked it when he kissed her using his tongue… Good God help him…
Enough prancing about, it was time to get down to business—and making love was one of his specialties.
Graham swept in, claiming her mouth in the kind of passionate, carnal kiss that she liked, that made her moan and wriggle beneath him. Aye, what had he been waiting for? His Clara liked his kisses. His Clara was curious. His Clara wanted him to touch her, to be wicked with her.
He traced a path over her ribs, palming her breast, the taut peak of her nipple practically piercing the fabric. When he’d tongued her nipple through the fabric days before, it had taken every ounce of his control not to rip away her gown, to press his mouth to her bare flesh, and now he could. He trailed his fingers over her collarbone, skimming them beneath the fabric until his fingertips brushed her sensitive nipple and she gasped.
“Ye like that.”
“Oh, aye.”
With a gentle tug of the fabric, he freed her nipple to his view, taking in the soft, pink, round tip. “Gorgeous,” he murmured and flicked his tongue over the top.
Clara gasped.
“And that, love?”
“More.”
Graham grinned as he teased her nipple with his tongue, drinking in her soft gasps and moans, the way she writhed beneath him, her fist shoved into his hair, back arched. He moved from one breast to the other, tugging on her gown until the next one was exposed to his view. Saints, but she was gorgeous. And her skin tasted like sweet honey. He kissed his way up her neck, back to her mouth, sliding his tongue along hers, his chest flush to her bared breasts, and then he rolled them both until she was atop of him, and he could reach the ties lacing up the back of her kirtle.
“I’m going to undress ye,” he said.
