Perfect Strangers (The Scots)

The fringe of her long inky hair tickled his upper thighs as she tossed her head back, exposing the creamy expanse of her neck. Her breathing came hard and fast, the ragged give and take matched by his own as he again felt the ripples deep inside her that signaled another, stronger release.

She moaned something, the words slurred and her English accent so thick as to make them momentarily unintelligible.

He was lost. His fingers gripped her hips, pulling her down on top of him, guiding her hips in breath-snatching circles as he arched up into her, finally allowing himself to surrender to his own hot surge of completion.

The contractions went on and on, longer than he could remember them ever lasting before. They drained him dry, leaving him weak and depleted, as though he'd spilled not only his seed into her, but his very lifeforce.

Weakly, Gabrielle collapsed atop him.

And then Connor found himself again doing something he'd never done with a woman before.

He wrapped his arms about her and, cradling her close, their bodies still intimately joined, he eased them onto their sides, facing each other. Her right leg draped his naked hip, her hand rode the slight indentation of his waist. At another time, he might have found the gesture one of entrapment. Now, he did not.

Her head nestled perfectly in the crook that nature

had carved between his neck and shoulder. Dark, fragrant curls teased his neck, their texture and scent a cool, soothing balm to his passion-burnt nerves. Breathing a sigh of raw contentment, he let his eyes flicker shut.

Connor knew the exact moment she fell asleep. It was the instant when her choppy breathing leveled out, when the muscles beneath his palms loosened. Although their lovemaking had left him equally depleted and drowsy, it took much longer for him to surrender to the heavy tug of sleep.

Instead, his mind played over and over the words Gabrielle had murmured at the moment of her release. Without passion driving him hard, blotting out everything else, he could now remember and understand exactly what it was she'd said.

She'd whispered huskily, "Connor, I love you..."

The words both shocked Connor to the core, and pleased him immensely. A strong surge of... something sparked in his blood, a need to shelter and protect that, oddly enough, did not stem from physical desire, but from something infinitely stronger and more enduring.

By her own uncoerced admission, Gabrielle Carelton had lost her heart to him.

And, sweet Jesus, but that changed everything!

Chapter 14

"He was looking at ye again, lass," Ella said as she sidled her mare up close to Gabrielle's. "Should I ask what transpired between ye last night when ye both left camp? Or do I already ken the answer?"

Gabrielle's attention had been focused on the craggy ground that passed beneath her mare's hooves. At Ella's words, her gaze lifted, shifting forward, past the swaying backs of the two prisoners tied securely into the saddles of the pair of mounts positioned in front of her and Ella and behind Connor. The bits of both captives' horses had been tethered to Connor's saddle with a thick length of roughly hewn rope.

Connor's back was straight and proud, his attention focused determinedly forward. The ends of his hair brushed the broad shelf of his shoulder with each jostling stride of his horse. If he'd glanced back at her, as Ella seemed to think he had, there was no sign.

Shifting her attention, Gabrielle frowned at the girl. Perhaps she had meant one of the other men? "What are you talking about? Who is looking at me?"

"Connor," Ella answered promptly and honestly. A sly grin tugged at her mouth. "Who else?" A frown creased the creamy skin between her coppery brows. "I've been thinking on the matter, ye ken, and I cannot remember a time when I've seen me cousin look so... aye, confused. 'Tis the emotion I see in his eyes whene'er he glances at ye. If I dinny ken better, I'd think ye've bewitched him."

"I could say the same for you and Roy Maxwell. The man has barely taken his eyes off you all morning."

Ella wrinkled her nose in disgust. "If the looks he's casting me were daggers, as he no doubt wishes they were, I'd be dead right now. The mon isn't happy to find himself being ill-treated by a mere slip of a lass."

"Most men would not be, Ella."

The girl gave a shrug of her delicate shoulders, as though dismissing the thought, and quickly changed the subject. "Colin told me earlier that Mairghread broke free only a few hours after she was taken."

Her knees gently nudging the mare's side, Gabrielle slowed the horse's pace. She had to squint against the bright March sunlight to survey Ella closely. "Are you trying to tell me—?"

"Aye," Ella replied gravely, and nodded. "I'm telling ye that e'erything we'd set out to do was for naught. E'en if we'd been lucky enough to reach Gaelside, we'd have failed in our mission. Mairghread wasn't there. Apparently me aunt can take care of herself, aye?"

"Must be the Douglas in her," Gabrielle remarked, her attention on Connor's back.

Ella was right, he did keep glancing back at her. She'd been too distracted with her own tumultuous thoughts—hot, vivid memories of their love-making kept playing with drumming persistence in her mind—to notice it before. Until Ella had drawn her attention to the fact. Gabrielle noticed it now, however, and noticed it with her entire being. Her blood warmed and she felt a tingle of awareness fire in her veins.

Her gaze met Connor's for only a beat, yet even in that short space of time, volumes of unspoken words passed between them.