The Highlander's English Bride (The Lairds Most Likely 6)

"I didn’t frighten you, did I? You won’t believe me, but I came out here with good intentions. Once we started, I lost my head. You’re…"

He spread his hands, and she realized that even with his unexpected poetic bent, he couldn’t find the words for what they’d experienced. The magic they’d summoned was beyond description.

"No, I wasn’t frightened. That was a wonderful first kiss, Hamish. Thank you."

He smiled, and her poor aching heart cramped in longing. For renewed physical pleasure, but even more, for him to love her as she loved him.

What would it take to earn the love of a man like Hamish Douglas? Did she have a chance? His mother had thought so. From the first, she’d been convinced that this was a love match. That was back in the days when Emily could barely speak a civil word to her new husband.

Emily straightened her shoulders and told herself she’d do her best to win his heart. She had his desire. It was a good start.

Chapter 21

Hamish regarded the chaise longue in his study with contempt. The "longue" part of its name was a foul lie. If he lay down, his legs would wave off the end.

He wasn’t sleepy anyway. During his time at the tower, he’d become used to staying awake most of the night, so he could stargaze. This morning, he’d tumbled into bed after dawn and slept like a log until Emily turned up on his doorstep.

Emily…

His surfeit of sleep wasn’t at the root of his restlessness. Unsatisfied desire was.

He’d imagined he couldn’t want his wife more than he did. He’d been wrong. When he’d kissed her, she’d been a wonder, sweet and passionate and more responsive than any woman he’d known. The instant he took her into his arms, good intentions went up in smoke. One taste of those lush lips, and he drowned in carnal hunger. When she called a halt to an encounter that rapidly spiraled out of control, he’d been an inch from tossing her down on the ground and seeking his pleasure.

Once his brain returned to working order, he was grateful that she’d stopped him. For her first time, she deserved better than a quick tumble in the open air. And his pride insisted that she came to him, fully aware of what she did. His turbulent past with Emily had beaten down his arrogance. He’d give half his fortune to hear her admit she wanted him. If she placed no more conditions on their union, he’d hand over the other half without a qualm.

He was too conscious that he was a mere floor above her. If he lay down in this room, he’d only stew in his frustration. So he did what he’d done every fine night since he’d holed up in this tower, hoping to heal the scars that his failed marriage had scored into his soul. He took off his shoes, picked up a lantern, collected a notebook, and climbed to the roof. While all the time, his animal self shrieked that he was heading in the wrong direction.

***

For once, the beauties of the night sky didn’t hold Hamish’s attention. He couldn’t shift his mind from the softness of Emily’s lips, her salty honey taste, the beguiling little sounds she made as he kissed her. His hand didn’t want to grip a pen and record his observations. It wanted to cup Emily’s luscious breast and shape the perfect curve of her rump. He didn’t want to focus his mind on planetary orbits. He wanted to lose it in the delights of seducing his wife.

After an unproductive hour, he released a weighty sigh and turned away from his telescope. The only stars he could see tonight were the ones he’d found in Emily’s eyes. He’d kissed her with lingering enjoyment before he abandoned her to her solitary bed, and she’d looked at him as if he set the sun in the heavens.

Only as he stood did he notice that he wasn’t alone under this glorious clear sky. "Emily…"

She perched on the parapet near the steps, wearing something dark. As she rose and ventured toward him, he realized that she’d put on one of his jackets. She must have one of his shirts on under that. A line of pale material showed beneath the black.

He bit back a groan. The shirt covered her to her knees and revealed the sweetest calves and ankles he’d ever seen. Her luxuriant dark hair was loose and tumbled around her shoulders. The lantern’s frail light turned her into a creature of mystery and enchantment.

"I couldn’t sleep," she said softly.

"Neither could I."

She might trust him, but when she came to him half-naked in the middle of the night, she tested his willpower to breaking. If the angels had a scrap of mercy, she’d stay where she was, well out of reach.

The angels weren’t feeling in a generous mood. Emily approached, to stop an arm’s length away. Hamish braced as if for a blow and told himself he’d lived for eleven long months without claiming her. What was one more night of longing? Or even a hundred?

Except her presence made abstinence bite so much deeper. When she was a whole country away, he’d endured his futile desire because he had no choice. With only a pace separating them, it became impossible to keep his hands off her.

But Hamish was horribly aware that so close to achieving his goal, he was at the greatest risk of losing everything. If he broke her trust, if he pushed her beyond what she was willing to give, if he frightened her with the magnitude of his craving, she could just as easily hie back to London and consign him to a lifetime of loneliness. So while every cell in his body urged him to seize her and carry her downstairs to the empty bed, he kept his hands by his sides.

"What are you working on?"

How to woo a skittish wife. "I might have found a new moon for Saturn."

He sounded brusque. Hamish didn’t want to discuss heavenly bodies, when the only heavenly body he gave a rat’s arse about was Emily’s.

"Hamish, that’s wonderful."