“What?” he blurted.
“If ye willnae fook me, how about a kiss? Surely another kiss wouldnae be so bad? I’ve never been kissed three times, after all, and I feel as if I need something good to wipe away the memory of…” She shuddered slightly, and he knew she was remembering their grisly find.
Kenneth swallowed, afraid all his good intentions were jumping gleefully out the window after his self-control. “I think, lass, that—”
Her arms rose around his neck, her tits pressed against his chest, and he forgot whatever objection he’d been about to voice.
“Dinnae think, Kenneth.” Her expression was uncharacteristically solemn. “Just feel. There’s something between us, ye ken? Do ye feel it?”
He cleared his throat, his arms dangling uselessly at his side. “ ‘Tis my erection, lass.”
Finally, her lips curled, her eyes softened.
“Aye, that too,” she murmured. “But I meant…we are good together, Kenneth.”
Somehow, he knew she meant in all ways. They were good together and would continue to be.
With a groan, he surrendered, his hands clasping around her waist, and his lips claiming hers. It wasn’t his imagination that she rose on her toes to meet him, nor the triumphant whimper in her throat when he kissed her.
When his lips met hers, Kenneth felt as if he’d come home. Here, in the sunlight where they belonged, he could show her the love she deserved.
She was a quick study—their kiss in the passage had proven that. In the back of his mind flashed the realization that if he’d been the first to kiss her, then she truly was innocent.
An innocent, and she was his.
Even if she didn’t know it yet.
The kiss deepened, and when he moved his lips to her jaw, then her neck, she tilted her head to one side, and her fingers wove through the hair on the back of his head in encouragement. “Kenneth, aye! Like— Oh!”
He smiled against her skin, murmuring the sweet words he hadn’t told her yet, telling her of her beauty and joy and grace, and how complete she made him feel. One of his hands rose to cup her tit through the thin linen, and it fit in his palm as perfectly as he knew it would. She whimpered and tightened her hold on him until he rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger; with that, she shuddered and dropped her hands to his shoulders again, as if she couldn’t maintain her hold.
Meanwhile, her pelvis arched against his, rhythmically pressing against his hardness in a way which had his cock—stubborn devil!—rejoicing. She was as hot and ready as he was, and he was a hairsbreadth away from losing all control.
A kiss.
Aye, but a kiss could bring plenty of pleasure, could it not?
Slowly, he backed her up until her thighs hit the bed. His lips still on her skin, he dropped his hold on her tit and placed his hands on her hips.
“Ye trust me?” he murmured.
It was the way her, “Always,” came out sounding like a languid sigh which had his cock straining against his kilt.
But he wasn’t going to take her completely, not right now. Not when there was much about him she didn’t understand, and much he still didn’t know. He was going to marry her, even if she was the daughter of his enemy, and that needed to be resolved. For now though…
“Just a kiss.”
“Aye,” she agreed as he laid her back on the bed, her legs dangling off the edge of the mattress. “A kiss.”
A kiss.
But he didn’t have to say where the kiss would be.
When he lifted his lips from her neck, she whimpered in bereavement. But she damned near shot off the bed when his mouth fastened around one nipple through the thin linen of her chemise, while his hand caressed the opposite one.
He alternated, allowing each nipple some rest as he blew across the now-wet material, knowing ‘twould be cool and hot, all at once. The eager noises she was making told him she was enjoying the gentle torture, along with the way she reached for the apex of her legs, clearly trying to massage away the ache there.
Well, he could help with that. When his palm cupped her curls through her chemise, she moaned in agreement, her hands flopping back down on the bed for a moment before rising to twine her fingers through his hair.