Page 39 of Taming the Scot
But he disagreed, wholeheartedly, for her hands came to rest on his chest, making his heart beat a little faster, and she was leaning up on tiptoe, her eyelids falling shut. He was certain something very good was about to happen.
Bronwen was a lunatic. An addle-brained madwoman.
Which was completely fine with her because her lips were brushing over Euan’s, and his scent surrounded her in a cocoon of warmth and desire. Why had she fought this for so long? They could have been kissing the last quarter of an hour.
His hands slid around her waist and over the small of her back, gently urging her to him until their bodies were flush. Every inch he touched sent a thrill of anticipation coursing through her.
Aye, she did want to kiss him. Had thought of little else since she’d escaped him in the garden, since she’d tried to pack and run away, and since she’d agreed to stay a little longer. When she’d sung in the parlor, she’d put every bit of the passion thrumming through her veins into the song, just as she was doing now—funneling it into this one kiss.
A kiss that was going to need to last her a lifetime because she promised herself it would be the very last one that they ever shared. One to erase the desire pounding through them. One to remember each other by.
She tasted him, exploring his lips and teeth and tongue. Her hands roved over his muscled chest to his broad shoulders, then his neck and then her fingers were threading into the softness of his hair. He was so strong, and in his arms, she felt safe, protected. The man could charm the fleece off of a sheep in one instant and take down an enemy in the next.
What she wouldn’t give to be able to do this every day for the rest of her life. Hide in corners and steal kisses. But alas, she had nothing of value to offer this family other than herself. When it came to nobles, there was much more required. And the few baubles she had left in the world were in her cousin’s hands for safekeeping, but even they, though priceless to her, would mean nothing to anyone else. Not to mention if the they married the debt she carried from her parents would be transferred to him. Then there was the danger Prince and his brutes presented. It was just too great, and she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if they came after Euan or any of his sisters.
Bronwen couldn’t forget that Prince had killed her parents so he could get to her. Her history would only add an infamy to her name and Euan’s and he would not want to mar his spotless reputation. Of that, she was certain, after all, he had hired a governess to learn how to act properly.
She was a nobody. A nothing. What did she have to offer a man like Euan?
This had to be the last kiss for these reasons. He needed a wife who could be all of those things she wasn’t.
Euan groaned softly in the back of his throat. He leaned against the wall in the alcove, tucking her impossibly closer. Frissons of desire skated over her limbs, and she wanted to sink into his skin. His legs spread enough that her feet fit between his. And goodness…it felt so good to be this wickedly close. How could she pull away?
She didn’t want to. Despite everything that her brain told her—shouted for her—to disengage, move away, leave Drum. At that moment, it felt as if by following those orders, she’d be tearing off a limb.
“Bronwen,” he murmured against her mouth, sending a thrilling shiver through her. A hand slipped from her back over her ribs and then to her shoulder and neck to cup the side of her face. That calloused little scratch of his palm against her cheek was everything she wanted.
He slanted his head, deepening the kiss, his fingers threading lightly into her hair, threatening to upset the balance of her coiled knot. And she didn’t care—she wanted to rip out her pins and ribbons and let him do whatever he wanted with her hair. Tresses could always be fixed, but this…this was a one-time thing.
“Ye intoxicate me,” he said.
Bronwen opened her eyes briefly to see his gaze, so close, so heady, staring intently into hers, and a little whirl of something delicious spiked in her belly.
Oh, this was mutual intoxication. But she could barely find her voice to say that, and so she murmured, “Mmm,” and then sucked gently at his lower lip. Euan groaned, his hips thrusting forward, and she felt something hard there, pressing to the softness of her core, and another thrill threatened to make her knees buckle. Their mouths connected once more, and Bronwen thought she might ascend to heaven.
“I want ye,” Euan’s heady words were whispered against her ear as he kissed his way down her neck to her collarbone.
As good as it felt, as much as she wanted to splay herself wide and allow him to take her to the heights of which his kiss and touch promised, there was a tiny thread of prudence left inside her that made her hold back.
“Nay, Euan,” she managed to say, her fingers curling into her chest, belying what she’d said. She wouldn’t be his lover, and yet she didn’t want to let him go.
But that was one thing she must remain vigilant about. This was one kiss. That was it. No more.
“Why no’?” he asked, skimming his mouth back up the column of her neck to find her lips.
“Because…ye must find a wife.” Those words were so hard to say. Even uttering them felt like she was rubbing salt on an open wound.
“What if I do no’ want to find anyone else?” His hands splayed on the small of her back, his thumbs circling her waist, holding her in place.
That startled her enough that her hands fell from him, and she backed away, feeling the instant chill of air between them and wanting desperately to sink back into the warmth of his embrace. The pleasure of his kiss.
“Do no’ say that. Ye must.”
“Why?”
“Because it is your duty.”
Euan ran his hands through his hair, glancing away from her. There was a flicker of frustration in the knit of his brows, but he said nothing.
