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

He stroked her as if he created her anew with every caress. No more lonely, scholarly, prickly Emily Baylor. Instead she was queen of a new, sensual world.

So this time, when his hands moved to her thighs and gently parted them, she didn’t protest. He traced tormenting circles over her stomach and legs. With every touch, that emptiness at her core became more acute. As she tilted her hips toward him, an incoherent grumble of frustration escaped her.

Finally, his hand traced the hot, wet folds of her sex, and she cried out in pleasure and surprise. When his attention focused on one place in particular, violent sensation crashed down over her. She shuddered and cried out and all her muscles clenched into flaring bliss. Her tumultuous reaction left her shaking and gasping.

When she came back to earth, her nails dug into his brawny forearms and her legs sprawled across the sheets. Modesty became so irrelevant that she had no idea why she’d ever asked him to stop.

"Hamish, what on earth was that?" she asked breathlessly, trying to straighten cramped fingers.

He smiled at her. "That, my darling, was the first of many climaxes. Or at least I hope so."

"Climax?"

"Didn’t it feel like a climax?"

"It felt like… It felt like a mountainside of pleasure slid down to bury me. And you can stop looking so smug."

"But I feel smug. Would you like to do it again?"

She swallowed to shift a swirling mixture of trepidation and excitement. "Again?"

"And again and again."

"I’m not sure I’ll survive."

The gentle mockery in his laugh made her want to snuggle closer. "I’ll save you if you’re in danger."

When she lifted her hands from his arms, she was horrified to see the crescent marks of her fingernails on his golden skin. "I think you’re the one in danger."

He glanced at the scratches. "Wounds of honor."

His grandiloquence made her giggle. "Wounds of lust, more like."

The tremulous, otherworldly feeling receded, but the glow lingered. What an extraordinary experience. Emily felt like he’d combed out all her bones and laid them out in line under the sun.

Except if Hamish was right, it wasn’t so extraordinary at all and he could make it happen again. How…marvelous.

Confusion stirred under her anticipation. "I don’t understand what just happened to me."

He stretched out on his side and crooked one elbow so he could rest his head on his hand. Those bright blue eyes surveyed her with unmistakable approval. "You want me to explain what I did?"

"No." Except while she thought about it, his capacity for drawing such reactions from her body was interesting. She would like to know more. "Well, yes. But not now."

"Then what don’t you understand, you absurd miracle of a woman?"

That melting feeling was back. "Oh, Hamish…" she whispered. "How am I meant to put two words together when you say such wonderful things to me?"

He reached out to play with her tangled brown hair. "Do you like it?"

"You know I do."

More than his astonishing words, the affection in his tone launched her heart on a dizzying swoop. She struggled to remind herself that only one person in this bed was in love, and it wasn’t her husband. But clinging to that thought was impossible when Hamish stared at her as if she was another new comet for him to discover.

Another comet? An entirely new galaxy.

"Stop thinking so hard. I’ve never taken a scientific lady to bed before. I had no idea of the challenges she’d present."

"Too many challenges?"