“Ah, ye are sad,” he said, at her back now, and put his hands on her arms, let his palms glide up to her shoulders, then down to her wrists. “Tell me, lass, are ye the sort of woman who enjoys the hunt but not the spoils?”
Whatever possessed her, she couldn’t say, but she abruptly twisted about and threw her arms around his neck, burying her face in his collar. “Yes! I don’t want him!” she cried into his collar. “I don’t love him!”
“Anna,” Grif said sternly, wrapping his hands around her arms and trying to pull them free of his neck. “I shouldna have—”
“But it’s too late! I think he’s already spoken to my father, and I can’t go back, I can’t refuse him!”
“W-what?” The surprise in his voice trickled into her ear and down to her heart, and rashly, boldly, Anna seized her last opportunity to know the man she loved. She raised her head, grabbed his face between her hands, and pressed her lips to his—hard and unyielding—and then, as tears began to slide from the corners of her eyes, she kissed him softly, her tongue feeling the seam of his mouth, her teeth grazing the flesh of his lips.
Grif’s hands stopped fighting her. They went round her, pulling her into him so tightly that she could barely breathe. His tongue swept inside her mouth; he began to caress her back, her arm, then, coming to her face, he cupped her chin and angled it toward him.
Anna knew nothing but the pleasure of his body against hers as he moved her away from the window, moved her backward, toward the settee. His arm held her easily as he lowered her onto the settee and moved over her. His mouth was everywhere—on her lips, her neck, the swell of her bosom. She could feel his erection hard between them, a pulsing, moving thing that awoke a throbbing in her.
He caressed her breast, molding it and shaping it to fit his palm, his thumb grazing her nipple, sending little pulses of fire down her spine and into her groin. The more he kissed her and caressed her, the more Anna’s body ached to have him. Caution flew out of her head; she could think of nothing, could see nothing but Grif, and in her eagerness she groped at her gown, pulling it up, up, and up, squirming beneath him, moving so that she could feel his hardness pressed against her.
But Grif suddenly broke the kiss and grabbed her wrist, stopping her from pulling her gown any higher. “No,” he said through clenched teeth. “I hold ye in too high regard to ruin ye, Anna,” he hissed.
“You want me, I want you,” she whispered, her fingers moving featherlike across his eyes, his lips. “Let’s not leave it like this, please?”
“No,” he said again, his hand squeezing her wrist. “No.”
His rejection, no matter how justified, and so soon on the heels of what had happened in the arbor of Featherstone, humiliated her, and the days of frustration and fear seemed to all bubble up in her. She suddenly bucked beneath him, shoving her knee between his legs.
With a yelp, Grif let go of her hand, and Anna bucked with both knees, knocking him off of her and onto the floor.
She quickly stood up, shook her gown loose. “Very well,” she said, as Grif lay there, flat on his back, his arms splayed wide, blinking up at her. “You have your blasted gargoyle, so I suppose there is nothing left to say.”
She took a step, but Grif caught her ankle in a vise-like grip. “No’ so fast, leannan. First, for God’s sake, it is a beastie, and second, ye willna leave thus!”
“Ha,” she said, kicking her leg out. “You can’t stop me!”
He gave her a hard yank and a twist that pulled her foot from beneath her and sent her sailing to the floor. She landed with a thud right on her bum, and before she could move, Grif had, by some miracle, popped up and over her, had grabbed her arms and pinned them on either side of her head. “Ye wee diabhal,” he said with a dark grin. “How capricious and peevish ye become when ye canna have yer way.”
“Get off of me,” she warned him.
Grif laughed, lowered his head so that his lips were just a moment from hers. “I’ll get off ye when ye apologize.”
“Apologize! For what, pray tell?” she snapped, and tried to wiggle out from beneath him, but Grif held firm.
“For being so bloody cantankerous.”
“Oh!” she cried, fighting again. “There was never a more cantankerous person than you, and how you could possibly say that of me—”
“Uist, now, lass,” he said, smiling down at her. “I canna kiss ye when yer tongue is wagging so. We’ve a saying in Scotland: Binn beal, na chonai.”
She stilled, looked at him curiously. “What? What does that mean?”
“ ‘The mouth that speaks no’ is sweet to hear,’” he said, and laughed when she shrieked her disapproval as he lowered his head until she could feel his breath on her lips, could smell his skin… she took a deep breath, closed her eyes… but she heard the knocking, and her eyes flew open. Grif’s head was raised; he was as still as the night, his eyes on the door.
The knocking was followed by shouting.
Grif groaned with aggravation and bellowed, “God blind me, is there never a moment’s peace in this town?”
Twenty-seven