Chapter 17
She couldn’t breathe.
She’d been kissed before, but nothing like this. This was more than a kiss. It was as if she’d walked inside a bubble, one that was owned and dominated by Logan Harrison. This was an immersive experience, where her pulse raced and her heart pounded furiously.
She couldn’t breathe, and of course she had to open her mouth beneath his and allow his tongue to cool her heated lips.
She gasped and he swallowed the sound, transforming it into a moan. Reaching up with both hands, she grabbed his shirt as if to keep him there. Or perhaps to keep herself upright because her knees were suddenly weak.
Her ears were buzzing. Her eyelids fluttered and caution wound through her with a faint but insistent voice.
Open your eyes. Don’t succumb.
Why shouldn’t she? Logan Harrison was retaliating, and what strength did she have against him?
Poor defenseless woman that she was.
Where had her reticule gone? Had she dropped it to the floor? No, there the string was, around her wrist. She should strike him with it. He would release her then.
He angled his head to deepen the kiss and her toes curled.
Oh, dear God. She was breathing his air and he was breathing hers. Their hearts seemed to beat in rapid tandem. She made another moan, deep in her throat, and he gently bit her bottom lip.
Her body was heating. Everything was warming. Delight shot through every limb, tingled her fingers and made her insides molten.
If he let her go right this minute, she would fall, she was certain of it.
“Are you ravishing me?” she asked faintly when he ended the kiss.
Swaying toward him, she curled her fingers into his shirt.
“If I am, it’s a mutual ravishment,” he said, his voice rough.
Was there such a thing? Was she capable of ravishing him?
“Shall I walk you to the door, Mairi? Send you home?”
She would have answered in the affirmative if he hadn’t been placing little kisses along the line of her jaw, then her throat, his fingers stroking the back of her neck.
The world suddenly spun, but she wasn’t dizzy. She was in his arms.
He really had to stop doing that.
As if he’d heard her thought, he laid her down. She was on the floor looking up at him.
Her eyes widened as Logan straddled her, taking her gasp of surprise as encouragement to continue unbuttoning her bodice.
Because of where he was sitting, her small hoop was being crushed, not to mention the damage to her petticoat and her silk skirt. She didn’t have time to caution him about the state of her apparel when it was all too obvious he was trying to rid her of it.
“If you’ve any objections to being ravished, lass, now is the time to voice them.”
She couldn’t think of anything to say. A dozen rejoinders should’ve come to mind, but she just lay there looking up at him, more than a little bemused.
She should have screamed, if nothing else. Mrs. Landers would have come instantly to her aid.
“You’re a woman of contradictions, Mairi Sinclair,” he said, rearing back and looking at her. “Your lips are all full and wet, while your eyes are angry.”
Her mouth had lost the ability to form words. Her brain had turned to oats. Only her hands knew what to do, and they reached up and gripped his arms. Not to push him away as much as keep him close.
He bent down, brushed a kiss over her lips, making her want more.
“I think your mind is forming a protest while your lips are urging me on.” He kissed her again, a little deeper this time. “The only thing to do is to keep kissing you,” he said. “That way, you won’t be able to think.”
She noted with a foggy thought that his voice sounded breathless. At least he was capable of forming words. She’d lost that ability at the first kiss, and it didn’t look to be returning any time soon.
“Which is it, lass?” he asked.
The breath was still stripped from her, leaving excitement and mad laughter in its place.
She had no idea what he’d asked her. She needed a little time to consider this overwhelming reaction to his kiss, but when he would have drawn away, she gripped the back of his head and pulled him forward.
She was being seduced.
Oh, that was hardly the word, was it? Ravished was an apt description. Mutual ravishment might be more correct. Yet she suspected if she raised so much as her pinkie, he would have stopped. He would have gotten to his feet, left her lying there on his soft carpet wondering what had just happened.
Still kissing him, she pulled him to her, rubbing her hands from his shoulders to his hips, feeling the solid strength of him. The wool of his trousers was soft to the touch, covering hard muscle and bone.
She told herself to stop kissing the man, get off the floor, clutch her libido and her tattered dignity and back away. Her will, however, wasn’t that strong.
When he finally broke off the kiss, her hand, independent of any wisdom or decorum, stroked over the curve of his buttock. She didn’t look away. How could she, with those beautiful green eyes of his pinning her to the spot?
How she wished he was wearing his kilt.
“Do you have your holster on?” she asked.
His bark of laughter should have embarrassed her, but she only smiled at him.
“Well, what else would you call it?”
Instead of answering her, he kissed her again. As soon as his lips met hers, heat shot through her. He kissed like he smiled, with sincerity and purpose, charm and devastation. She loved kissing him, and that was the first sign of danger. When he slowly began to open her bodice, she let him, liking his touch and the soft strokes of his fingers over her skin.
He stopped long enough to pull the tail of his shirt from his trousers. He unfastened his cuffs and then removed his shirt, tossing it somewhere. In seconds, it seemed, he stood, ridding himself of the rest of his clothing.
The Lord Provost, undressed, was magnificent.
Kneeling, he placed his fists on his hips and regarded her.
She felt an absurd surge of delight at being confronted by this naked man. It was like she was two people: the wise Mairi, most often in place, and a new, wilder woman, daring and courageous, who appeared whenever he was near.
Wild Mairi laughed inside, her amusement as unfettered as a Highland wind.
He didn’t move. Nor did he say another word, simply studied her in silence.
“It’s a truss, and as you can see, I’m not wearing it.”
He was long and hard and altogether impressive. She pressed the whole of her hand against him, and there was still more of him left uncovered.
She wasn’t a virgin, but her one and only coupling with Calvin hadn’t prepared her for this moment.
The firelight turned Logan’s skin golden, bathed him in a faux dawn light, as if he were the first man, God’s perfection.
His shoulders were broad and muscled to match the sinewy strength in his arms. His chest was sculpted in a fit of divine inspiration, so magnificent that he took her breath away.
She pressed her hand against the dusting of hair there, amazed that he flinched at her touch.
“Does being the Lord Provost require manual labor?” she asked. “You’re quite fit for a politician.”
“Have a great many politicians stripped bare in front of you?”
“You’re my first politician,” she said.
“But not your first lover.”
She shook her head.
Did he expect her to apologize for that? Or even explain? If so, he was doomed to disappointment. She told herself that giving herself to Calvin was a sign of her love for him. Only later did she realize that she shared nothing with Calvin other than an appreciation for his form and face. His character hadn’t been nearly as attractive.
Or perhaps she had come to that conclusion only after he rejected her, telling her that she wasn’t feminine, didn’t act like a woman should. Nor, according to Calvin, had his family approved of her.
No one looking at her now would approve of her.
But with Calvin she’d never been so wild and abandoned. She’d never wanted to laugh or be wicked.
Perhaps she would just pretend that this interlude, if that’s what she could call it, was happening in a dream. She was not the woman who gripped Logan’s bare shoulders with both hands and pulled him down for a kiss. She was certainly not the woman who opened her mouth to inhale his breath. Or who wiggled beneath his exploring hands as he nearly jerked her dress from her.
Her hoop went crashing into the bust of Aristotle in the corner. Her corset was draped across the top of the desk. One stocking was tossed too close to the fire, while the other went into the coal bin. She wasn’t entirely certain where her shift went.
Neither of them seduced. Nor were they coy, charming, or gentle. They gripped and struggled, pushed, shoved, and wrestled with her clothing until, dear God, she was naked on the carpet in his office, the firelight and gas lamps revealing everything.
No secrets could possibly live in that bright pool of light.
She was losing her mind over this man.
She was not herself, so completely and fully not herself that she decided to embrace the strangeness of the moment and the experience. If she wasn’t Mairi Sinclair, but a woman who’d heretofore hidden herself beneath layers of ambition and duty, then let her spring forth in all her glory, be Athena fully formed and garbed.
But Athena was the goddess of wisdom, never falling prey to passion.
Not once did Athena wish her breasts were smaller or perkier, or that her stomach was more taut. Or that she didn’t have a scar on her knee from a fall as a child or a mark beneath her chin from the same tumble.
Yet from the way Logan was looking at her, he didn’t seem to mind all her imperfections.
As far as his, there were none. He was, quite simply, perfect. He was everything any woman could want in a man.
Taking his hands, she pressed his palms to her breasts, wanting to be touched.
She placed her fingers around his cock, gently cradling it, feeling it quiver in her hands. She’d never known that a man’s member could react so vibrantly from a touch.
“Why not? It’s part of me,” he answered when she said as much. “It’s not a separate entity, like some men would have you believe. At the moment, I’m very much reacting to you.”
“Are you?”
Her smile was no doubt laced with pride. Why shouldn’t she? He trembled in her hands, and his eyes darkened as she stroked her thumbs down his length.
He frowned, tracing his fingers just below her throat.
“You’re still bruised.”
“It doesn’t hurt,” she said. Reaching up, she pressed her fingers against the furrow between his brows. “You’re very intimidating when you’re irritated, Lord Provost.”
He lifted her until she sat up. Then he looked at her back, her arms, inspecting her.
“Are you certain this doesn’t hurt?” he asked, flattening his hand against her chest.
She shook her head.
She didn’t want him examining her. Instead, she wanted his fingers on her breasts. Or his mouth there.
“Or this?” he asked, stroking the bruise on her arm.
“No, Logan,” she said.
She cupped his face with her hand. She, who dealt in words, was speechless. His green eyes sparkled with rage and the set look on his face was formed by anger. Not at her, but at the men who’d injured her.
A strange time to feel so protected, naked on the floor before his library fire.
She got to her knees, wrapping her arms around his neck, leaning into him.
“It’s all right, Logan. Truly.”
“I would not cause you pain, Mairi.”
She closed her eyes. Where a moment ago she was adrift in pleasure so intense she felt as if she might faint, now her heart was filled with tenderness for this man.
“You couldn’t,” she said, sitting back on her heels. “Unless you dress and leave me. I imagine that would be painful enough to encourage me to write another broadside.”
A corner of his mouth lifted in the beginnings of a smile. A Logan smile, full bore and accompanied by sparkling eyes.
“No last minute protestations? No screams for mercy?”
“Help me,” she whispered, lying back and pulling him with her. “I’m being ravaged by a barbarian.”
A golden bear who kissed the smile off her face, then lowered his head to her breasts, paying homage to each of them as if he’d never seen breasts before and was overwhelmed by the sight.
A month ago she’d been looking forward to a life of celibacy, and now she was being ravished.
She smiled.
She should castigate herself for being here, for welcoming him into her body, but she felt good instead of guilty. This felt right. His fingers and mouth placed her on the edge of bliss and his whisper nudged her over until she tumbled, laughing.
The second time they loved was sweeter, slower. His hands were no less talented and his mouth had learned her curves. His lips hesitated before touching her nipples, as if he knew how much she wanted to be suckled. He breathed against her throat, murmured her name at her temple, and drove her slowly mad.
Her hands clenched his shoulders, trailed from his waist to his hips to his buttocks, smoothing over his muscles in mute appreciation. She had thought him impressive clothed, but naked he was a work of art.
When she said as much, he laughed, flipping her over onto him as if she weighed no more than a feather.
“And I can see why you wear a leather harness,” she said.
He laughed again, took her hand and placed it between them.
“Are you certain I’m not a disappointment?” he asked.
She shook her head, amused at his question. It was the first time he’d ever indicated that he was less than supremely confident. That it centered on his manhood surprised her, because it quite simply was magnificent.
She could have played with him all day, testing the limits of his resolve and his stamina. She wanted to stroke him from his testicles to the mushroom shaped tip, walking her fingers around him.
Even shocking him by bestowing a kiss there.
The hiss and pop of the dying fire were sweet accompaniments to her soft moans as she lifted herself over him, talented in this act in a way she’d not expected.
She lay over him, watching his shadowed face. No one else had eyes like his, so intent, so dangerous. She rose up and then lowered herself to him, daring him to stop her, to protest her domination. He smiled, the expression surging into the core of her just as she lowered her body. She filled herself with him, feeling both daring and afraid at the same time.
His face changed and he put his hands on her hips, gripping her tightly and pulling her to him.
“Mairi,” he said. Just her name, but it was summons enough.
It simply felt right to keep her eyes on his as they pushed each other to bliss, only closing them when she was overcome by pleasure.
Then she was crying out, answering him with his name as he surged into her, filling all the empty spaces.
She collapsed onto his chest, her knees on either side of his body, her hot cheek pressed against his. Pressing her hand against his chest, she felt the pounding beat of his heart, a match for hers. He stroked her back, let his hand fall to cup her buttock.
She’d never felt anything like what she’d just experienced with him. Even more confusing, she’d never known that such passion existed.
Sinking down into his kiss and his arms, she slowly returned to herself with a feeling too much like regret.