Her answer emerged in jerky gasps, and while he was relieved to learn their pursuers hadn’t caught up with them, he wasn’t reassured. “What’s wrong? Are ye ill?”
“No. No, not ill.” The hand he held trembled, but she didn’t try to draw away.
“Then what the devil is it?” Even as he battled the mists of sleep clouding his mind, he started to get seriously worried.
“It’s…this.”
He was still so dazed and bewildered that even when she leaned in over him, he didn’t understand what was going on.
Then her lips crashed into his, and all rational thought disintegrated to ash.
Her lips were soft, and her scent, warm and womanly, flooded his head, made him drunk on Fi
ona. Riding across the hills, he’d spent hours cuddling her close. That scent had become a familiar torment. It was a lying promise of what could never come to pass.
Now, unbelievably, she’d come to him. He’d never imagined she would.
Masculine triumph gripped him, and arousal so powerful, it verged on painful.
Without thinking—when she kissed him, she incinerated his brain—he lashed his arms around her and dragged her across his body. She fell against him in an ungainly tumble, and her hands clawed at his arms.
Fiona made a faint sound. By all that was holy, he wanted to interpret it as a sigh of pleasure. But it sounded more like a whimper of distress.
No. No. No. No. No.
She was here. She was in his arms. She’d made the first move, for pity’s sake.
But his shocked pleasure at her invitation already receded, even as the weight in his balls became more excruciating than ever. Much as he battled against accepting the return of reality, his mind started to function.
Diarmid knew what a willing woman felt like. Fiona didn’t feel like a willing woman.
Her slender body was stiff and awkward. Her lips were tight and closed, as if she had no idea how to kiss a man.
He reached to frame her face, to tell her she didn’t have to do this. What he found made him feel like taking an ax to the whole world.
He ripped his lips free of hers. “Stop, Fiona, stop.”
More roughly than he should, he shoved her away. He was half-mad with wanting her and with dredging up the willpower to deny her.
To his dismay, she resisted his attempt to put some space between them. Instead she tried to plaster herself against him again. “You want me,” she muttered. “I know you want me.”
He wished to blazes he didn’t. But draped across his lap as she was, she couldn’t miss his readiness, damn it.
“For the love of God, let me go,” he grated out.
“No,” she said in a broken voice.
She was shaking the way she had when he’d saved her from the shipwreck. And not, blast her, with desire, although he’d give up ten years of his life for one minute where he could genuinely believe she found him appealing.
“Aye,” he snapped, struggling to get a firmer grip on her so he could push her off.
In the struggle, his hand curled around one soft breast. A lightning strike of heat sizzled through him.
As she cried out in surprise, he bit back a savage curse. This time, he caught her arms and wrenched her to the side. He staggered to his feet and backed away until he hit the wall behind him.
“Dinna touch me,” he said, holding his hands out to keep her away, as if she had some dreadful disease. “In the name of heaven, dinna touch me again.”
Closing his eyes, he said a silent, despairing prayer for strength. Then he stumbled across to the hearth and stoked up the fire until the blaze turned the room bright. He ground his teeth as he fought the urge to take her anyway. After all, she was no man’s wife. She was free to give herself to him. Hell, the fire raging in his loins proved he was more than ready to accept what she was offering.