He should go now. He’d forgotten to keep his eyes on her face, and they’d dipped to the low bodice of the dress. He’d seen her wear ball gowns cut even lower, had managed not to ogle the swells of her chest when she wore them, but that was before he’d touched the soft flesh of her breasts, kissed them with his lips. That was before he’d been alone with her in a bedchamber, before he’d thought she might be dead or injured, before he’d thought he’d never see her again.
She raised her head, her eyes a deep green in the firelight. He meant to take a step back, toward the door, but instead he took a step toward her.
“Ewan.” The word came out on a strangled sob, and then she launched herself at him, running into his arms. He caught her, lifted her, buried his face in her sweet-smelling hair. She enveloped him—her arms about his neck and her legs about his waist. Her soft body, so warm and generous, pressed against him with a desperation he understood very well. Her hands pulled fervently at his hair, and he lifted his head, claiming her mouth.
He was home. He, who had never belonged, never had a place to call home, belonged here in her arms, his body pressed to hers. He slanted his mouth over hers, kissing her deeply and still unable to take his fill of her. He moved, stalking across the room until he pushed her against a wall. Now his hands were free to cup her face, pull back, and look into her eyes.
“Yes,” she whispered, looking up at him.
He wasn’t aware he’d asked a question.
She turned her head, her mouth grazing his palm, brushing kisses on the inside. “Yes,” she said again. Her hands on his neck tugged, lowering his head so their lips could meet again in that frenzied dance of heat and lightning. “Yes,” she said as her lips met his with a bruising need he knew well and could no longer keep in check.
“Yes,” she said when his hands slid down, pushing the dress off her shoulders, so his lips could plunder the skin there.
“Yes,” she cried when he cupped her breasts, his thumbs circling the hard points of her nipples through the fabric.
“Oh yes,” she moaned when a hand slid up her bare thigh to curve around her plump bottom.
The question of whether or not to take what she offered had been answered, but how to take it still remained. Ewan was no gentle lover. His lovemaking, if one could call it that, had always been rough and wild and a little savage, but he could hardly take a virgin up against a wall or shove her face down on the bed and lift her skirts.
If he was to be her first, he would have to do this right. Reluctantly, he slid his hand from the smooth skin of her rump and lowered her to the ground. She clung to him, her kisses fervent and distracting. She made him forget his good intentions.
For once he wished he’d listened to Rafe’s talk of women more. Rafe would have known what to do, how to seduce and tease, how to be tender, how to ease her pain. He had no idea what to do. Perhaps if he—
Her hands slid from his hair to his coat, shoving it off his shoulders until it fell to the floor. He couldn’t help but think of her garments falling to the floor. If he had her naked, he would forget all of the rubbish about gentleness, push her hands over her head, and thrust into her until she screamed his name in ecstasy.
He clenched his fists to ward off the image, and her hands slid down his back, leaving a hot trail of fire behind. And just as he steeled himself to that sweet torture, she pulled his tails from his trousers and ran her hands up the bare skin of his back.
He made a strangled sound, and she looked into his eyes, her own sparkling with mischief. “Yes,” she whispered, sliding the linen shirt up and over his head. He allowed it, allowed her to strip him because he needed her hands on him. He didn’t expect her to step back and give his chest a perusal worthy of a rake prowling a line of wallflowers. Her gaze slid from his shoulders to his pectoral muscles to his abdomen and then to the bulge in his trousers.
She licked her lips and took a shaky breath. “Oh yes,” she murmured.
Ewan’s control shattered. He took her wrists in one hand, pinned them to the wall above her head and ravished her mouth. She met him, kiss for kiss, thrust for thrust, nip for nip. He needed this, needed her with a desperation that terrified her. It wasn’t just her body—though God knew he adored her lush body—it was the feeling he had when he held her. He didn’t know what to call it. Didn’t know what it was, but he felt warm inside. His chest ached, his lungs burned, his heart clenched almost painfully. And yet, there was nowhere else he wanted to be.
His hand slid to the bodice of the dress. He wanted to drown in the softness of her body, bury himself in the silky heat she offered. When he couldn’t free her breasts, impatience reared a head and he tugged hard.
“No,” she breathed.
He froze.
She looked up at him. “This isn’t mine. Unlace it in back.”
He released her hands, and she twisted around. He pressed her against the wall as his thick fingers fumbled with strings and tapes and tiny little clasps.
He thought he would never touch bare skin, would go mad with need for the feel of her, when the dress suddenly slid down, revealing a very thin chemise underneath.
And nothing else.
His breathing sped up as he realized he had no stays, no petticoats, no more layers to breach. One hand fisted around the waterfall of her hair, and he moved it away from her neck and the bare scoop of flesh at her back. He kissed her there, felt her shiver. His lips moved her to her spine, and he kissed each ridge of it until the thin fabric of her shift impeded his progress.
Her hands were splayed on the wall, her cheek turned toward him, but now she pushed away slightly, her hands going to her heart. Her back still to him, her eyes locked on his, she made a sharp movement, and the chemise went slack. She lowered her arms, and the fabric fell away. She stood before him, naked, skin burnished by the glow of the fire, an offering even a saint could not refuse.
God knew Ewan was no saint.
Twenty-one
The cool air brushed her skin, but Ewan’s gaze was enough to heat her flesh. She could feel his eyes rake over her, making her skin tingle as he studied the hills and valleys of her back and buttocks like a general surveyed a battlefield. Lorrie wanted to be taken. She knew all the reasons she should not allow this, but now she also knew life was short. She was safe. She would return home to her father and mother, but everything might have ended so differently. She didn’t want to look back on her life and know nothing but regret.