Page 32 of Highland Fire

Her pride, her contempt, her outright denial that he had the power to affect her made him writhe inside.

His eyes raked her coldly. Finally, with studied insolence, he returned to the business of unbuttoning his shirt.

“You led me on in the only way that counts between a man and woman. When I touched you, you melted for me. Deny it if you dare.”

It was his eyes that gave her pause, heated and intense and glittering with an implacable resolve.

Her own anger melted away, and she shivered, whether with cold or apprehension she could not say.

She sensed that the events of the night had knocked him off balance.

What she could not accept, refused to accept, was where it seemed to be leading.

Iain, Lord Randal, had never forced a woman in his life.

There was no need. By all accounts, the Randal had only to crook his little finger and he had his pick of any woman he wanted.

And he didn’t want her. He had made that insultingly obvious. Then what was he up to?

If he was trying to frighten her, he was succeeding remarkably well.

Rubbing her forehead with thumb and forefinger, she said crossly, “I’m horribly cold.

My teeth are chattering. My head aches. I’m still waiting for that change of clothes you promised me.

I think I’m coming down with a bad cause of pneumonia.

Since I am a guest in your house, the least you can do is see to my comfort. ”

He was laughing, actually laughing at her. And his amusement was genuine, she could have sworn it.

“Good try,” he said, “but it won’t work.

You knew it would come to this. You gave me to believe that I could have you.

Do you want to know something amusing?” Suddenly, he did not sound amused.

A distinct edge had crept into his voice.

“You spoiled me for other women. Oh yes, I mean that quite sincerely. Nellie, since you brought her up, had as much effect on me as a dead fish. For some obscure reason, I want only…you.”

He pulled off his shirt and flung it into a corner.

Caitlin’s tongue clove to the roof of her mouth and her eyes widened at the sight of broad shoulders, arms knotted with muscles, the thatch of coarse reddish gold hair across his powerful chest. The thread of a long silvery scar ran from one flat nipple to disappear below the waistband of his trousers.

He was lean and hard, a prime specimen of masculinity.

He wanted her. He really wanted her. The thought curled inside her and gradually expanded, bubbling up, intoxicating her senses, warming her blood. He wanted her and she could not deny that she wanted him.

There was no question that she would yield to temptation. She wasn’t thinking of right and wrong, of consequences.

When he bent to her, she fell back on her elbows. His hands were pressed into the mattress on either side of her shoulders, supporting his weight, preventing her from slipping away. She closed her eyes when his head descended.

His warm breath touched her cheek, his lips brushing over her skin.

One kiss, she promised herself, only one kiss to last a lifetime, then she would put a stop to it.

Then she would play the trump card she had been holding in reserve, and he would let her go.

She didn’t know why tears suddenly came to her eyes.

“ Mo gaol orist ,” she said. “What time is it?”

He laughed softly. “No more talking. No more prevarication. It’s time to pay the piper.”

His lips took hers in a ravishment of gentleness, as though he were testing the waters.

No other parts of their bodies were touching.

He was waiting for something. His restraint wasn’t what she wanted, needed.

If she was going to allow herself only one kiss, she wanted more than this passionless embrace.

Dropping her head back she parted her lips.

He followed her, accepting the implicit invitation.

His tongue pressed between her teeth. When she gave him access to what he wanted, he groaned and moved in closer.

One arm encircled her shoulders, pulling her hard against his chest, flattening her breasts, bare skin to bare skin.

She spread her hands against the tensed muscles in his arms, and he immediately relaxed his hold.

When his hand curved around one lush breast, his thumb grazing the distended nipple to a painful arousal, Caitlin tore her lips away.

“This has gone far enough,” she got out thickly.

He didn’t give her time to think, to say the words to stop him.

“No,” he murmured, and kissed her again.

This time, he held nothing back. He was ravenous, starving for her, his senses suffering from the deprivation of several months of self-imposed celibacy.

He couldn’t turn back now. His kiss implored her not to put him to the test.

He savored her mouth, nipping, licking, penetrating with his tongue until her neck lolled against the crook of his arm, giving him access to her throat and breasts.

Her nipples were stiff and swollen, peeking up at him like succulent berries.

He milked them with his mouth, working first one then the other with his teeth and tongue to drive her pleasure higher.

She whimpered and brought up one knee to ease the ache he had started in her loins.

Rand recognized that involuntary feminine gesture and the blood began to pound in his ears.

His hand slipped inside her damp shirt, divesting her of it and her jacket in one smooth movement.

With his lips pressed fiercely to hers to stifle any belated protests, he turned to her trews.

Shoving them down over her slender hips, lifting her effortlessly, he tugged them over her ankles and dropped them on the floor.

Caitlin shuddered, lost in a realm where no logic existed.

Pleasure such as she had never known seemed to burn away every conscious thought, every feminine inhibition.

He rained wild kisses over her face and throat, then worked on the aching peaks of her breasts as he had done before, nipping, licking, feeding on her engorged flesh.

When he was sure he had reduced her to mindlessness, he pulled back to look at her. He watched his hand caress the smooth line of her shapely legs, watched her belly quiver as his fingers splayed out and slid higher to encompass the creamy globe of one breast.

“Look at me,” he commanded.

When she raised those fans of dark lashes and gazed up at him with desire-drenched eyes, he smiled knowingly and allowed his fingers to dip to the dark nest between her legs.

His fingers slid over her, separating, probing, barely penetrating.

She moaned and lifted her hips slightly, offering herself to him.

Mine, he exulted, and he knew that he would never give her up to any man.

In spite of everything, he still wanted her.

But how different were his feelings now.

Before he had found her with Daroch, he had wanted to cherish her, protect her, shield her.

Jealousy had unleashed another side of his nature, something dark and primitive that he had not previously known existed.

He had never felt this way about any woman.

His fingers pressed into the folds of her femininity, discovering her wetness.

She was ready for him, and this excited him more.

She whimpered, and made to draw her legs away but he followed, stilling her movements with the press of one powerful leg.

He knew that he would explode if he didn’t release himself from the confines of his trousers.

His hands went to the buttons of his waistband and deftly undid them.

The press of that hard, silky shaft against her thigh jerked Caitlin from the sensual fog that clouded her mind. Her eyes slid to the swollen sex that sprang up from the bush of fiery curls at his groin, and her legs tightened against him.

“No, you can’t—we mustn’t,” she whispered.

Rand groaned. She had turned skittish on him at the worst possible moment. He had to have her. He ached to spread her glorious legs and bury himself deep inside her. He came up on his knees and reached for her.

“What is it, love?” he asked hoarsely. He could hardly breathe, let alone talk, but he knew he had to soothe her fears. “I’m a big man. I know it. But your body will soon adapt to the fit of mine. There’s nothing to fear.”

She made no move to stop him when he carefully insinuated one hand between her legs.

The slick heat at the junction of her thighs drew him like a bee to nectar.

Her sweet scent inflamed him past bearing.

His chest was rising and falling; his breathing was harsh. He groaned when his fingers found her.

“Rand, I—” She cried out, but his kiss washed the words from her tongue, and his fingers worked her rhythmically, robbing her of coherent thought.

He eased her legs apart and knelt between them. She was so tight, so small, he knew he was going to hurt her. “I won’t hurt you,” he lied, soothing her in the age-old way of a man with his mate. “And if my seed takes, I won’t abandon you. I’ll take care of everything.”

She reacted to the threat of pregnancy as if he had immersed her in a bath of icy cold water. She gasped and spluttered and slapped his hands away. She was so humiliated, she wanted to burst into tears.

Sexual frustration was beginning to work on his temper. “Now what have I done?” he demanded roughly.

In that moment, she truly hated him. He knew nothing of the slurs and slanders she had been made to endure.

The blot of illegitimacy had followed her all her life.

That he would father a bastard child on her without a ripple of conscience!

That he would wish such a thing on an innocent child!

She would rather die an old maid or enter a nunnery.