Page 99 of The Scot Who Loved Me

Soft, wet, suckling noises drove him mad. His cock began to swell.

Anne rubbed her body full against his. Silk against silk. She hummed, a languid music of pleasure until her mouth found his. He had to touch her hair, to see it falling gracefully. Black silk it was. He tunneled his fingers through it, slow and careful, feeling the wealth of his life right here. It was good to love a woman who reveled as much in understanding his heart as she did in pleasuring his body.

He’d revel in a lifetime of pleasuring her.

A loud cough on the other side of the pedestalfroze their kiss. Anne jerked back, a hand on her mouth.

“It’s time tae begin.” The whisper-hiss was Aunt Flora’s.

Anne’s eyes sparkled like emeralds in the shadowed alcove. Unmoored hair fell around her shoulders, as much of it up as down. She set a hand over his heart, where the Wilkes Lock key was tucked.

“I am with you. Always,” she said in a kiss-drenched voice.

His heart was maddeningly light and pure—even if other parts of him weren’t.

“And I with you, lass. I give you all that I have, all that I am.”

Their words bound them, a tie no man or woman could destroy.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Hands clasped, they sped down the hall to Lady Denton’s study. Anne—his Anne—laughed like a carefree maid when he pushed open the door. A body could think they were off to finish what they’d started in the alcove, not take Jacobite gold. No lights guided them, save the slivered moon’s mean offering and a lamp in the mews. He reached into his pocket for the Wilkes Lock key. Silver glinted in his hand.

He breathed a prayer,Letthis key be true.

By the mantel, the scrape of flint sounded, and a flame jumped to life. Anne lit a taper on a four-stick candelabra and was about to light the other three.

“No light.”

“Not even one?”

“I’ve go’ the moon to help me,” he said, dropping to one knee.

“Sounds like you colluded with the heavens.”

Footsteps padded over plush carpet. Anne crouched beside him, a sigh of silk and lavender.She was the fey creature who’d rescued him from Marshalsea, her face awash in shadows. With her hair half-fallen, she resembled a woman who’d just tumbled from an assignation of clothed sex. Theirs very nearly was.

“Thank you,” she said. “You are brave and strong, Will MacDonald. This couldn’t have happened without you.”

He swallowed hard. Her adoration was a gift. Words laid at his feet, better than Jacobite gold. To be the man she needed.

“You were doing a fine job without me, lass.”

“We both know this would have been much more difficult without you.”

An honest admission. He reached for her hand and kissed her fingertips, the back of it, a knuckle, then turning her hand over to kiss tender flesh where her pulse throbbed.

Her sharp inhale was gratifying.

Anne pressed against him, her forehead touching his. “Later,” she whispered.

“Later.”

The promise uncoiled them to finish their job. Otherwise they’d combust, gold or no gold.

Anne bunched petticoats about her knees and pushed off the ground. Her silhouette of slender calves in pretty shoes almost undid him. She opened the window casement.

“Get ready,” she whispered hoarsely.