Page 31 of When a Highlander Weds a Hellion
“Are ye trying to seduce me?” she asked, her gaze narrowing.
“Most assuredly,” he said with a wink. “Is it working?”
“Of course nae,” she replied primly, though he could see she was fighting a smile.
An idea suddenly occurred to him of how he might actually get his willful wife to engage in a game of seduction with him. “I must try harder, then,” he said.
“Och! Dunnae bother. It dunnae matter how hard ye try, ye kinnae seduce me.”
“Nay?” He cocked his eyebrows.
“Nay,” she said smugly.
“Do ye care to wager?”
She frowned. “What sort of wager?”
He thought of earlier when she had unknowingly grabbed his hand for reassurance in the great hall, and an idea came to him. “Every time ye touch me, I get one kiss.”
“Bah!” She waved a hand at him. “I will easily nae ever touch ye. What sort of wager is that? I dunnae win anything.”
“Ye win the satisfaction of kenning ye bested me.”
“’Tis nae enough,” she announced like a true shrewd bargainer. “If I have nae touched ye in a sennight, ye will spend the next sennight with me questioning yer clan about the raids upon my family. And then we will discover the truth.”
“’Tis a bargain,” he agreed, swallowing the triumphant grin of his victory.
Katreine awoke slowly, feeling cozy and groggy and not wishing to open her eyes. In fact, she wished to go back to sleep and recapture the dream she’d been having. She couldn’t remember the specifics, but she’d been happy in the dream.
“Ye’re touching me, lass,” came Broch’s voice, so near that his warm breath fanned her cheek. Her eyes flew open, and she gasped. She lay face-to-face with Broch, their noses nearly touching. His piercing blue eyes were locked upon her. He had a smug smile on his lips, and she realized, to her horror, she was indeed touching him. She had her leg draped over his and her arm around his waist.
She jerked her arm and her leg back to the sound of his chuckle.
“I’ll take my kiss now.” His tone was uncompromising but oddly gentle.
She did not like the way her heart stuttered in anticipation. This wager had been a bad idea. “It dunnae signify if I’m sleeping.”
“Tsk, tsk, Katreine. I did nae take ye for the sort of lass to nae keep a promise.”
He gave her a knowing look for one bated breath, and she was sure he must have known of the vow she had made to her father. But that was impossible. She stared at her too-handsome husband and a keen wish to discover whether he was as honorable as she’d thought previously or a deceptive Blackswell at heart strummed through her. And then what? What would she do with what she learned? Even if he was a good and honorable man, that certainly did not mean his family was of the same nature. She could never live with them or simply dismiss what they had done.
Suddenly, Broch’s fingers trailed light as a feather down her cheek and his desirous expression stilled her. “Forget what it is ye’re agonizing over for just one kiss, lass. I vow one kiss will nae decide yer fate.”
The man could persuade a warrior to set down his sword in the middle of battle, he was that forceful. Despite knowing this, she still found herself nodding and saying, “I stand by my vows.”
His large hands took her face and cupped it, and it felt as if her entire body filled with wanting for this man. His gaze became as soft as a caress. “I hope nae,” he said, and her mouth parted with the shock that hedidknow of her promise to her father. But before she could respond, he captured her mouth with his. His hands left her face and circled her waist, dragging her toward him in a hard embrace as his lips went from tantalizingly light, persuasive kissing to fiery possession.
Shock waves roiled through her at not only the hunger and need of his kiss but of the way her body was responding to him. Yearning pulsed deep within her at her core, and her breasts became heavy and aching. Her heart beat too fast, and her blood rushed through her veins as if it could not move quickly enough from her heart to the rest of her body.
His tongue twined with hers, and a moan escaped her as his hard staff pressed into her stomach. She could not seem to stop her reaction to him. She pushed her pelvis against him, asking him to touch her without saying the words. His fingers slid from her waist to between her legs, tracing the sensitive skin with such gentleness that she wanted to weep from the pleasure and scream with the need he was invoking.
When his fingers went to the part of her that throbbed the most, she grasped his shoulder, digging her nails deep into his skin. Her mind was a loud whir of breath, and heartbeats, and rushing blood. She could not think beyond the slide of his hands down her thighs as he removed her underclothing and the way his strong fingers parted her core with such gentleness.
She cried out when he touched a place on her she had not known existed, and then he seemed to know exactly what to do. He moved with the precision of an expert hunter, stalking her with little circles that made her need grow to a frenzy until she thrashed her head back and forth, needing some sort of release. “Please!” she begged.
Without a word, he gave her what she had not known she needed. His fingers became as frenzied as her yearning, making everything within her coil and feel taut to the point of breaking, and then she did break. She shattered into a thousand blissful pieces as wave after wave of warmth and pleasure poured through her and unwound the coil Broch had created.
His powerful body came between her legs, his thighs spreading hers, and she was certain then that he was going to seal their marriage as she knew he wanted to, needed to. And she felt she did not have the strength nor the desire to stop him. She wanted him. It was treacherous: she wanted a man who was the son of her enemy, brother of the murderer of her sister.
