“Do you mind?”
He shook his dark auburn head. “It’s exciting. I’ve never held a woman in my arms, not knowing whether she’ll bite me or kiss me.”
She’d already done both, and she saw in his face, he shared the same thought. Her eyes narrowed on him. “Just remember that.”
More of that devastating fondness lit his gaze. She found him madly attractive, but she also liked him more than any man she’d ever met. Dio l’aiuti, she even liked that she couldn’t turn him to her will.
A woman might dare to consider herself Fergus Mackinnon’s equal. She’d be a fool indeed to think herself his superior.
“You’re such a bully,” she said, without meaning a word of it.
A wry smile curled his lips. “Face it, lassie, you love it when I push you around.”
“Only when you’re right,” she retorted.
He laughed aloud at that. “Aye, well, isn’t that all the time?”
Before she could summon a suitable response, he dragged her into his arms for a kiss that promised passion. She could hardly wait.
Chapter Eighteen
The sun was sinking low behind the Cuillins on Skye when Fergus left his father’s luxurious hunting lodge. As his pony ambled homeward, Marina rested in his arms, soft, warm and sleepy.
Pleasant exhaustion weighted his limbs, and his mind was at peace in a way it hadn’t been since he met the lassie who leaned against him with such trust. Sweet memories of the day filled him with wellbeing.
Knowing he was this splendid woman’s only lover moved him at a profound level. When he’d first seen her dishing out orders from that carriage window, he’d decided she was difficult and prickly—if damned attractive. But today she’d turned to him with such beguiling eagerness and generosity, that he’d come to recognize that her essence was passion.
Passion for her art. Passion for her life. Passion for…him.
He’d never known a day of such extraordinary joy.
His arms tightened, and with a drowsy murmur, Marina stirred from her doze to twist her head and kiss the side of his neck.
He’d taken her again after a long and thorough seduction that left them both shaking with need. Again he’d experienced that incandescent intimacy as he thrust inside her. As laird, he was used to being alone. Leaders often were. But when he held Marina, he found a home.
It had been a perfect day. Until now.
Reluctantly, he drew the pony to a stop. “I cannae go back to the castle holding you in my arms, lassie. Or the world and his wife will ken just what we’ve been doing all day.”
She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. “I almost don’t mind, if it means I can stay here like this.”
He’d wondered if having given him so much today, she might take fright and retreat behind her defenses. Instead she’d surrendered with wholehearted completion.
It made Fergus feel like a king. It made him feel unworthy of her.
“You will mind in the end,” he said, wishing he could face the world and proclaim this woman as his. But he’d sworn to keep her safe from talk.
Dear God above, the agony of pulling away from her at his peak had come close to tearing him apart. Some forbidden, wicked part of him longed to flood her with his seed and know he’d planted his child inside her.
But he’d given his word to preserve her good name, and the Mackinnon’s word was an iron-clad guarantee.
The sheer animal pleasure of what they’d done to one another during this unforgettable day overwhelmed him, and he buried his face in her silky hair. The second time he’d taken her, he’d lingered to release it from its pins, so it lay like an ebony cape around her bare shoulders, offering glimpses of that pretty bosom whenever she moved.
Och, what he’d have given then to possess an ounce of her artistic talent, so he could capture and keep that image. Even with only fallible human memory to rely on, he’d remember Marina’s melting dark eyes at that moment until the day he died.
He
inhaled, so when he was alone in his bed tonight, her scent would linger in his nostrils. She smelled of sexual satisfaction, and crushed flowers, and a musky hint of sweat. A bouquet fit for paradise.