Page 107 of All Scot and Bothered

When the immolation passed, she collapsed back onto the blankets, unaware that her shoulders had left them. She struggled to regain her breath, trembling and shuddering with the aftermath of ecstasy.

She waited for Ramsay to climb up her body and take his pleasure, but he didn’t get higher than her belly.

Wiping his mouth, he rested his head just below her ribs, the scruff of his cheek abrading the tender skin there. His arms plunged beneath her and he found a perfect place to release his weight and lounge upon her as she suspected they each fought to regain their senses.

Cecelia stroked through hair gilded by moonlight with soothing fingers, unable to form words as of yet.

And truly, there was nothing to say.

His lashes skimmed her skin with languid blinks, though his heart pounded somewhere in the vicinity of her nether regions.

How could she have thought him cold? Or empty? When the silence between them was so full?

He was a man who didn’t comprehend the complexitiesof the human emotion with his mind, but his body did with interest. How had she not seen it before? He was a creature of instinct. Of primal, primordial blood that belonged to this feral land. And he’d locked that part of him away for so long, he no longer knew how to connect with it in his conscious mind.

Because it could control him.

Poor Ramsay. Cecelia gave a flushed and pleasured sigh, patting him on his shoulder before tracing the shell of his ear with fondness. He had so much to learn about connection, and communication, but wasn’t this an oh-so-excellent place to start?

“Never lose yer soft places, woman,” he commanded tersely.

“I shan’t,” she promised with a yawn, thinking it would be the easiest vow she’d ever made. “Ramsay?”

“Aye?”

“Don’t you want to…” She swallowed, suddenly shy. “I mean, shouldn’t we possibly…” She lifted her hips, unable to say it.

He rose to his elbow, his eyes two azure beams of fire that stripped her lungs of breath. Though when he shook his head, he befouled the moment. “I canna tonight,” he bit out. “I will ravage ye, Cecelia. Ye’ve siphoned my control and reduced me to a rutting beast and it’s best if I doona come anywhere near ye with my—”

“Oh for the love of my giddy aunt!” she laughed. “Stop treating me like I’m some sort of virginal damsel who will break beneath your attentions!”

He reared back even further, frowning down at her. “But… ye are—werea virgin. I took that from ye.”

“I survived,” she shrugged, the movement of her breasts snagging both their notice.

His because… well, breasts.

And hers because she realized she was dressing down a man while completely naked and spread beneath his torso.

“I hurt ye,” he rasped, though it washisgaze that contained a wound. “Ye should have heard the sound ye made.”

Cecelia shrugged again, this time distracting him in purpose. “Oh tosh, I’ve made more distressed sounds getting dressed in the morning.”

He tilted his head to the side in that way he was wont to do when befuddled.

Cecelia took pity upon him. “My corset hurts me, my boots hurt me. Riding sidesaddle hurts me. Every time someone offers me a more judicious portion of food, it hurts me. I am a woman, Ramsay, I am used to pain. The loss of one’s virginity only happens once and I’m certain it’s worth the cost. I’m even more certain I’ll bear it better than most. Now.” She wriggled beneath him. “If you please.”

His golden brow rose over eyes alight with myriad things, most chiefly a mystified sort of surprise warring with a boyish mischief. “If I please… what?”

“Oh, don’t make me say it,” she pleaded.

A dark chuckle overtook him as he lowered his great body to nuzzle into her hair. “Ye confound me, woman,” he purred into her ear. “Tell me what ye want, and I’ll give it to ye.”

“I want you.” Cecelia turned her head, sifting her fingers through his hair as she returned her breath against his ear. “And you can have me, Ramsay,” she offered gently, reaching in between their bodies to stroke his hard length over his trousers. “In whatever way you want me. I can take it. I can take you. All of you.”

Her words were like a spell, summoning forth something dark and demonic he’d kept chained in the deep place he hid from the world. He grew impossibly larger beneath her fingers, stretching to an intimidating size.

A sound reverberated from low in his chest, and all sense of control drained away in an almost tangible rush.