“If I recall properly, it goes something like this,” he said, and began to move, slowly and deliberately, his eyes never leaving her face. “One, two, three, one, two, three,” he murmured, moving her cautiously but fluidly from side to side. “Ye are the teacher, Ellie. Ye must tell me how I do.”
How did he do? She could scarcely speak at the moment, her heart and body feeling the flow of silent music through them, her mind returning to days long since lost to her, days in which she would dance and laugh and feel a man’s arms around her. How long had it been? Years, certainly. Decades, centuries. A lifetime since she had known a man’s touch, since she had felt immortal.
Liam began to hum, moving her across the room, his steps growing more fluid, the rhythm of his body a natural grace. “Tell me, Ellie,” he said, his voice husky. “Tell me how I do.”
She realized she was staring at his neckcloth and glanced up at the man who had kissed her so passionately, saw the pink scar in the shadows of his face, the intense green eyes, the strong jaw, and thought him the most handsome of men, a prince.
“Well?” he murmured.
“Astonishingly well.”
“That’s right kind of ye,” he said, and suddenly pulled her tightly into his body, twirling her around. Ellen felt her skirts swirl away from her body, a sensation as natural as it was ancient, one that snapped something in her—a need, a desire, she didn’t really know—but Ellen closed her eyes and let her head drop back, unwilling to stop her fall into the bliss of carefree dancing.
They danced to his low hum, Liam an expert now, twirling her this way and that, letting her float along with him, making her skirts swirl wide and full around their legs. It was glorious, magical, transporting her back to a happier time. His arm snaked behind her back; he drew her even closer into his body, so that she could feel the hardness of his torso and thighs, the sheer masculinity beneath his native clothing. Her body hungered for him to hold her, to crush her between his arms.
He must have read her very thoughts; without warning, he suddenly touched her exposed neck with his lips, brushing the hollow of her throat, the curve to her chin, and around to the soft spot just below the ear.
She was dancing in a dream. This felt exactly like so many dreams—intoxicating, dizzying—and Ellen, dancing in her dream, lifted her head, put her hands on either side of his head and drew him to her.
He was Liam.
And Liam said not a word when she kissed him, just lifted her from where she stood, walking with her in his arms as her lips found his ear, her tongue the length of his scar. He moved to the broken settee and let go his grip of her, letting her slide the length of his body to the floor. She could feel his hardness beneath the kilt, the rigid length and width of it, pressed against her groin. It had been so long, so very long…Her body was quivering—the caress of a single finger felt like a thousand little fires on her skin. Every touch of his lips drenched her in an ethereal silkiness.
“God forgive me, Ellie,” he whispered into her neck. “But I want to take ye now, make love to ye. I would show ye how mad with desire ye’ve made me, how I adore ye.”
“Yes,” she whispered, feeling almost delirious now. “Yes, yes, make love to me, Liam…”
Meet Griffin Lockhart, the hero of HIGHLANDER IN DISGUISE, the second novel in the Lockhart family trilogy, and Anna Addison, the saucy, highborn young woman who catches his eye and steals his heart.
“I told ye to dress in something less priggish, did I no’?”
Confused, Anna looked down at her gown. It was a pale blue silk, adorned with tiny pink rosebuds and gathered at her back into a long train; it had cost her father a small fortune to commission. “But I did dress less priggishly!”
With a shake of his head, Lockhart strode across to where she stood. “A man likes to see a wee hint of what is beneath.” He frowned at her bosom, then lifted his hand as if he meant to touch her bodice. Anna froze. He hesitated. She let out a quick sigh of relief.
And then he did it. Just put his hand on the bodice of her gown—dug into her bodice, actually, his fingers curling around the fabric and his knuckles sinking into the round flesh of her breasts. She gasped; he frowned and forced the bodice of her gown down, so that it just barely covered her breasts.
“There,” he said, more to himself, and pulled his fingers from her dress. “Aye, there ye are,” he said again. He had not, as yet, lifted his gaze from her bosom, and in between her shock and the shaking of her knees, she caught her breath and held it.
He stood there like a mute, staring at her breasts for what seemed an eternity, but then suddenly stepped back and away from her as he lifted his gaze to her eyes. “There, then, do ye see, lass? A woman’s bosom is to be politely admired…” His gaze flicked to her breasts again. “No’ hidden away,” he muttered, and abruptly turned away.
Anna released her breath.
“Perhaps ye should bring a slate and take notes of what I tell ye. When ye are in the presence of a man ye admire,” he said, his back to her, “ye’d do yerself well to use such a…bonny bosom to yer advantage.”
“Use it?”