“Something I never thought I’d do. But I’ll no’ take ye like some tavern wench. I hold ye in too high regard for that.”
Mared closed her mouth. Her brows knit together, and she slowly folded her arms across her middle and shifted her weight to one hip. She glared at him. Gaped at him. He seduced her confession of feeling for him, and now he would walk away? “Have ye any idea how much courage it took to ask this of ye?” she demanded.
“Aye, but I am a gentleman, and one who cares very much for yer virtue.”
He had to be jesting. “Of all the bloody times to fret over my virtue!”
“Mared,” he said laughingly, and put his hands on his waist and regarded her with a smile. “Ye are a bonny lass, but ye are impetuous as hell, aye? I canna allow ye to make a mistake as grand as this.”
The corner of Mared’s mouth tipped up, and she reached for the belt that held his plaid. “Just like a Douglas, is it no’, to determine how grand my mistakes are. And would a gentleman really force a lady to ask thrice?” she asked, wrapping her fingers around the thick edge of his belt.
Payton glanced down at her hand. “Do ye truly know what ye do?”
She rose to her toes and kissed him on the corner of his mouth. “No. I was rather hoping ye might show me.”
The expression in his eyes changed then, and he leaned down, caught her bottom lip between his teeth as his arms went around her. “God save me, for I’ll show ye, then. I want ye, Mared, I’ve always wanted ye. I want the taste of yer lips, the touch of yer tongue to mine. I want to feel yer breath on my skin, feel ye surround me when I am inside ye. I want to fill ye with hope and love and babies, I swear to the heavens I do.”
Mared sighed longingly and dropped her head back as he held her tightly to him, his lips on her neck.
“I just pray ye think twice before taking me to yer bed, mo ghraidh, for I will have yer virtue,” he growled.
“I believe ye will take me to yer bed,” she whispered, bending her head so that he might have better access to her neck.
Payton groaned. He let go his grip of her and pushed the small cap sleeves of her gown from her shoulders. His hands were at her back then, expertly working the row of tiny buttons there. “There will be a wee bit of pain, aye?” he whispered.
“I know.”
“And I will always be a part of ye—have ye considered it?”
“Diah, Payton, do ye always speak as much as this?”
He paused in his work on her gown to grin down at her. “Heaven help us both,” he said and grabbed her up and kissed her with all the emotion she was feeling.
He unfastened her gown with the deftness of a man who’d known many such gowns, and she felt it slip away from her body. His hands were everywhere then, flitting over her arms, caressing her breasts, her hips, her legs, and back. His touch made her lightheaded; she felt ethereal. And she wanted more.
Mared threw all caution aside and grabbed her chemise in hand and lifted it over her head, letting it fall from the tip of her fingers, exposing her breasts. Payton drew a deep breath and reverently cupped them both, feeling the weight of them. He dipped his head to take one nipple in his mouth, flicking his tongue against it, nibbling it with his teeth.
A gasp of pleasure escaped her, and Mared seized his shoulders to keep from falling as he moved his attention to the other breast. She’d never felt such exquisite sensations in her life; desire pooled quickly in her groin.
Desire was so heavy in her that her knees felt wobbly, so Mared lifted her head, peeled his hand from her waist, and stepped back. Payton’s hooded gaze, made dark by his own desire, provoked Mared, and she giggled wantonly. She felt impossibly free and capable of seduction, of enticing a man as strong and handsome as Payton to her. She’d not understood the power a woman might wield over a man until that very moment, and she would bask in it.
He seemed intent on allowing her that. He suddenly grabbed her and pushed her against a bedpost, trapping Mared against it so that he might ravage her breast with his mouth again. But this time, his hands slipped down her waist, over the flare of her hip, and around, between her legs. The sensation of his mouth on her breast and his hand between her legs was breathtaking; Mared arched into him, pressing against him, urging his hands to feel all of her.
She was floating, buoyed by his strength and his determination to have her, the wildly pleasurable sensations overtaking all conscious thought. With his mouth and his hands, he slid down her body, to his haunches, his mouth leaving a hot, wet trail on her belly. Her drawers followed his mouth, sliding down her legs until she was completely bare.
With his hands, he pushed her thighs apart, then kissed them. Mared moaned and held onto his head for support. But then Payton moved slightly, and his mouth was on her sex.
She gasped at the raw sensation. “What are ye doing?” she cried. “Ye’re no’ to do that!”