Page 31 of Devil’s Highlander (Clan MacAlpin #1)

Cormac laced his fingers through a wayward lock of hair, and Marjorie’s breath caught.

Oh dear Lord. She was half naked. While she’d ranted, Cormac had nearly undressed her.

There was a curious moment of stillness at her back, and then his hand swept over her shoulders. Breath whooshed into her lungs. And like that, anger transformed into desire, raging like a storm-swollen river.

“Cormac, I . . .” She turned to face him. Her gown sagged, and she braced the heavy fabric against herself with a hand at her breast. “I seem to be undressed.”

“Not quite yet,” he murmured, and the sound of his low, rasping voice set something to quivering deep inside. His eyes flicked to her bare shoulders, and awareness burned through her.

She returned his rapt stare, and something in her shifted.

It was as though Marjorie were watching the actions of another woman.

She became desperately curious to know what would happen next to that woman, what that woman might dare.

Perhaps traces of the rumbullion still buzzed through her veins, perhaps that’s what was to blame, but she let her gown slide ever so slightly from her grasp. “Better?”

Cormac exhaled sharply, and she felt its echoes in the heat pooling between her legs. “Not yet,” he said hoarsely.

She let her dress creep lower still, and cool air kissed the top of her bosom. Her breasts tightened until they ached, and the feeling was wicked and sensual. “How’s that?”

His eyes swept down, and he lingered this time, leisurely dragging his gaze along the front of her. “More,” he told her.

The ache she felt in her most private of places spread, until she felt the intensity of it lance deep into her soul.

Marjorie realized then, she wanted to forget.

Marjorie Ellen Keith, self-avowed spinster at twenty-three. Hounded by tragedy, plagued by poor luck and poorer choices.

Just this once, she wanted to feel .

She let go of her gown.

Cormac moaned, and the raw sound of it slammed Marjorie back into herself. No longer did she watch her actions as if from afar. She was completely in her body now, and it clamored for him.

His eyes flew to hers, his look almost angry, vehement with want. He seized her waist and pulled her close. This was the moment. She parted her lips, waiting for his kiss.

He swung her onto the bed instead. The breath left her lungs with a startled gasp as she bounced on the thin mattress. He stared down at her hungrily. “We shouldn’t do this.”

She spread her legs to feel the cool between her thighs, but her flesh there was thick with a damp heat only Cormac could ease. “Lie down,” she told him in a sultry voice that surely wasn’t her own.

He landed on her, tugging down her gown and kissing her hard. The wash of chill air made her heated skin pebble, and the sensation was delicious.

He pulled away to look at her and then he succumbed again, plunging his mouth to hers to take her in a fierce kiss. Blanketing her upper body with kisses, he murmured, “I can’t stop, Ree. I should stop, but I can’t.”

“Don’t stop,” she said, knowing she’d never been more certain of anything in her life. “I need to forget. Make me forget.”

“Aye, I will. I will.” He rolled to his side to fumble with his waistcoat, his boots.

“Cormac,” she said breathlessly. She reached to undo his trews, and he froze, watching her with hooded eyes. “Can I . . . ?”

Speechless, he gave her a slight nod. Marjorie fumbled with the buttons and, feeling uncertain, stopped for a moment, looking at him with a question in her eyes.

“Yes.” He sat up to tear off his shirt, then lay back, angling toward her, offering his hips at a better angle. “You do it.”

It was an order, and it made her feel sinful and naughty, his gruff words heightening her arousal to a maddening pitch.

She hitched her gown down and kicked it off from where it had tangled at her feet, and then scooted down on the bed to get closer to her goal.

He wedged a leg between hers, and the chafe of rough wool on her bare skin shot a fresh wave of aching between her thighs.

“All right,” she murmured, splaying her hands on either side of his hips. She stroked both thumbs close to the line of buttons, her rapt attention on the thick swell in his pants. “I’ll unbutton you, then.”

She traced her finger along the top of his waistband.

“Ree,” he croaked. “What do you do to me?”

She realized her control over him, and it was heady. To have Cormac so close, after so many years, was heady.

“You told me to undo you,” she said, feeling wild and uninhibited. She hesitated for a moment, then traced her finger down the line of his manhood.

His breathing caught, and he fisted his hands in the sheets. “Christ, woman.”

Smiling to herself, she undid his first two buttons, revealing the tip of his manhood. The head of it looked like a ripe fruit, and mesmerized, she traced it with her fingertip, spreading damp along its hard ridge.

“Good . . . God.” Cormac moaned and hitched his hips as though in pain. “You’ll kill me.”

Each button she opened revealed more of him, smooth and dark in the candlelight, until his pants were loosed about his hips and his erection was stiff between them. She reached out to stroke him, amazed at the size of him, at the silken smoothness.

“So wicked you are.” Eyes narrowing, he pulled Marjorie back up to him. “I’ll kiss that wicked smile from you, woman,” he said, before parting her lips in a slow, deep kiss.

Their kiss grew frantic, hands twining in hair, skimming along legs, clutching at arms and shoulders. A feral urge overcame her, and with it a hunger so powerful it blinded her, blotting out her reality.

She welcomed this darkness. For one night, she’d jettison her life of empty solitude. She’d reject her virginity as meaningless; virtue was for naught. She was and would remain a spinster. Her maidenhead was worth nothing without a husband to take it. And the only husband she wanted was Cormac.

Her hands were restless, kneading his waist, his hard shoulders, and the tensed muscles of his arms. She pulled away to kiss along his jaw.

She whispered in his ear. “I can’t touch you enough.

” He sat up, trying to gain the upper hand, and she pushed him back onto the mattress. “No. I want to watch you.”

They shucked off his trews, and he groaned, seeming to grow stiffer and larger, if that were even possible.

Joy bloomed to life in her breast, mingling with her arousal.

She felt mischievous and freed, and she wanted to laugh.

And then she shifted, realizing she wanted to do more still than that. “Lie still, Cormac.”

“Och, woman, what are you—”

She kissed down the hard plane of his chest, down his belly, and he groaned in surrender.

His erection jutted between her breasts, and it set her legs to trembling.

Bracing herself over him, she kissed lower and then paused, amazed to be so close.

An urge struck her, and she thought surely she was the most corrupt of sinners, because she wanted to kiss him there .

She leaned down to taste the very essence of his manhood.

“Not yet,” he growled, startling her. He grabbed her, swinging her up and onto her back.

He crawled over her, and she instinctively wrapped her legs around him.

With a low laugh, he ran his hands along her arms, spreading them up over her head.

His eyes devoured her face, her breasts. “Look at you, like a wanton.”

“Now, Cormac.” Some primitive instinct told her relief was near, and she arched her back, eager to feel the hard length of him brush against her.

Finally, his erection grazed her, so large and heavy at her cleft, and she gasped with the pleasure of it.

But then he shifted away, and she moaned her displeasure. “Now, Cormac. Please.”

“Easy, lass.” He nipped at her neck, rained kisses down her throat, until he reached a breast. He brought a hand down to cup it, stroking and kissing her softly, teasing around the edges until she thought she might scream with want. “This is about you. All for you.”

He took her nipple in his mouth, and ecstasy like none she’d ever imagined rocked through her.

He moved to the other, sucking hard, until she felt the pleasure of it pulse all the way down to her womb.

He pulled away. “I’ve dreamt of this, Ree.

” The feel of his breath on her damp breasts brought them to exquisitely tight peaks. “Dreamt of you.”

She knew she should be pleased, but for now his words were meaningless. All she understood, all she knew, was this maddening want. “Then take me,” she said, her need for relief grown urgent.

She swiveled her hips higher, desperate to rub against him. Finally, he rested his weight between her thighs, and she thought she might weep with delight.

“Cormac,” she gasped. “I know what it is, between a man and a woman. I want us to . . .”

Reluctantly he pulled his mouth from her breast and brought his face level with hers. Cupping her cheek, he stroked her lower lip with his thumb. “What is it you want, Ree?”

“I want you.”

He kissed the corner of her mouth. “And so you have me.” He kissed the other corner. “But I told you. This is only about you. I’ll not take your virginity”—she began to protest at once, and he silenced her with a finger to her lips—“but I will do something else for you.”

A moment’s disappointment skewered her, thinking he might not want to lie with her. But it was replaced just as quickly by titillated curiosity. “Do what for me, Cormac?”

Cradling her body between his legs, he knelt over her, making her feel as though she were an altar he bowed before. He stroked his hands down her torso, lingering over her breasts, and then caressed slowly downward until he reached the apex of her thighs.

He shifted, settling lower on the bed. Gently, he parted her legs, idly stroking his thumbs along the top edges of her inner thighs. “I’ll make you come.”