Chapter 14
Talia placed a hand on his chest. She could hear it now—her fingers rose and fell—his erratic heartbeat, his sharp intakes of breath.
With pupils focused and lips barely parted, it was not obvious that he was arrested by the tremors that blighted a man on the brink of passion.
His breathing carried over the gush of the fountain, soft at first, like an infinitesimal whisper, then it grew labored.
It was horrifying, a man unfettered by the charms of a sex whose power stemmed from titillation. It was even more horrifying how a man masqueraded as something he was not with such efficiency.
If she wasn’t used to his deception, if she hadn’t been so hesitant, she would never have seen through him. Rather than feel intimidated by the obvious gap in experience, she felt emboldened.
An experiment was what she needed. It had been a day after her meeting with Amber, and the ominous word ‘love’ floated in her head with the ease of a bird and the heaviness of a buoy.
She could not love Darragh, and she did not love him, so what was the justification for why that kiss was so mind-boggling that it consumed her both during and after the act? Physical attraction.
That kiss had awakened a fire in her belly that she had considered beneath her until that afternoon. Kissing another equally attractive man would just prove that the heat she had felt was not dependent on the man himself, but on her own biology.
Just as she splayed her fingers across his cheek and he jerked forward, Darragh burst into the room.
There was no denying it; she was irrevocably and undeniably attracted to him. Her eyes traced his rolled sleeves up to the crook of his elbow, then slid to the deep plunge of his shirt, which exposed dark tufts of hair. She had felt that chest beneath her palm, those tufts of hair.
Her heart beat erratically in her chest. She could not hear a thing other than the fast, heavy thuds, so when Darragh’s mouth moved, she could only guess what he was saying.
“Get off her!”
She felt a hand uncoil around her waist. She had not realized Ewen had placed it there, nor must Darragh have been aware of it. His gaze followed that hand as he took a heavy step forward.
Ewen took his time rising, but she was rooted to the spot, as if petrified.
“Laird McGhee, it is a pleasure to finally meet ye,” he said too coolly for someone who had just been caught in an uncompromising position with a man’s ward.
“How dare ye come into me castle and attack me ward!” Darragh looked ready to pounce on him, holding back only because of some moral scruple.
Ewen was smaller and would undoubtedly lose, were he to attack. Darragh had muscles, where he had thick velvet jackets. Darragh had sweat and grime, where he had perfumes.
“If someone else had discovered ye, ye would have been forced to wed.”
Ewen did not cower beneath his ire. “Isnae that me purpose here? To marry her?” he asked defiantly.
“She would never be forced to marry the likes of ye.”
“Why nae?”
“If ye daenae want to get in trouble, ye should get out.” The brooch at Darragh’s shoulder caught the light, glistening as if in agreement.
Talia wanted to protest, but her voice failed her.
Ewen’s lips pressed into a thin line. So that was how Apollo looked when angered.
He bowed over her hand. “It’s been me pleasure.” Then he left.
It was only then that Darragh looked at her.
She was not dressed in any of the garments he’d bought for her, only a plain white shirt that went up to her ears and a nude colored skirt.
The shirt had a crescent cut above the bust, as if to draw attention to her chest. Her skirt cinched at the waist and flared around her hips.
She had pinned a blossomed sprig of hawthorn above her breast; she did not think he noticed.
His eyes raked over her with an intensity that made him look more threatening than Ewen, narrowing on her chest, which was now heaving. The feeling was back: the flush, the perspiration, the self-consciousness, the desire.
“Ye had nay right to ruin this.” She wanted to wrap her legs around his waist.
If he had been worried about her, it was long gone now. He looked as though he’d accepted the role she’d played in her near defilement, the charade of guardian and innocuous ward forgotten.
“How can ye be so na?ve?” She wanted his hand in her hair. “Why would ye think it wise to be alone with a man like that?” Around her neck. “What if I hadnae come just now?” On her breasts. “Would ye have let him kiss ye?”
She desired him in every way, but felt a strong need to antagonize him. “And more!”
Whatever restraint he had left seemed to have snapped. She backed away. His fury burned through her courage. She became like a cowering puppy, unable to stay still in the presence of its master.
“Ye will never see him again.”
“Who are ye to decide who I would or wouldnae share me bed with?”
Wrong move.
He was on her before she could catch her breath. His hands were on either side of her face, cradling her possessively. The heat from his palms traveled down her neck to her chest, which felt ready to combust.
Aware that her breathing was growing ragged, she broke away and glided across the room. The distance did not mute her in any way.
“It’s me duty to find ye a husband,” he said somberly once he had calmed.
“And where are the husbands ye’ve so dutifully tried to find me this week? Ye’ve thrown out anyone I liked—”
“So ye like that cunt!”
She realized she didn’t have an answer to that.
She knew nothing about Ewen except that he kept excellent hygiene and a deck of cards in his breast pocket.
She had not asked about the number of children he wanted, how he felt about a wife who worked, his financials, or his disposition to moving across the Highlands.
He had never talked about his family or any living relatives.
She did not know about his living situation, whether he shared quarters with an obscene number of relatives or not.
Everything she knew was presumed on the basis that he dressed and spoke eloquently.
They had never gotten to speak about themselves, always so enamored by each other’s presence that their privacy never came up.
It dawned on her that she knew more about the man standing across from her, down to his taste and his ridged abdomen, than she did a man whose proposal she would accept.
Loath to admit she was wrong, she said, “Aye, I do. He makes me feel like a woman. He makes me feel good.”
Darragh could not speak his mind, as his mind was disposed to ordering her to get on all fours so he could fuck her if she wanted to feel like a woman so badly.
He gritted his teeth. “So ye were just finishing when I came in?”
“Aye!”
White-hot anger rippled through his veins, intensifying as the air around him turned to mist. She had wanted that man, had leaned into him, placed a hand on his chest, let him touch her waist, her knee, and he would have taken advantage of it. His desire had been almost palpable.
“I cannae trust ye around any man anymore.” As he said that, Darragh realized he had also meant himself.
His cock had stirred to life the moment he had walked into the room.
He had only seen her at first: the way her breasts strained against her dress, her sylphlike frame, the body that had haunted his dreams for the past four days.
And now she was within arm’s reach, and all he wanted to do was ravish her.
He willed himself to walk away, cut their conversation short. The longer he was in her presence, the more he remembered the kiss, the more her scent permeated the air. But his legs moved of their own accord. Each step brought him nearer to her.
He crossed the distance between them until she was backed against a wall, flushed and panting.
“Ye fear they will take advantage of me like ye did? Quite the hypocrite ye are.”
That was it, the acknowledgement that rattled the box of desires he had kept stowed away for years. What happened next, she had no one to blame but herself.
Her pupils were blown as she watched his mouth hover over hers. Her skin burned beneath his touch, and it was like adding fire to an already burning furnace.
He wanted her. He wanted her like a caged man wanted freedom. He wanted her like a madman.
Their mouths hovered like two magnets repelling each other. The push and pull was not in vain; if their lips brushed, he wasn’t sure he would let her go again.
His mouth fell on her jaw, unable to handle the suffocation that would be her mouth. She tilted her head back, offering better access. He labored over it, drinking her in at first.
She tasted sweet and warm, like a fresh tart baked just for him. When she gripped his shirt and raked her hand through his hair, he understood that she wanted more, so he obliged.
The distance from her jaw to her ear was about five kisses, and what it cost him was a fistful of hair. Her grip tightened as he licked her lobe, her throat vibrated beneath his palm, and she squirmed as if to get away. He could not have that.
His hands gripped her hips and anchored her to him, then he decided that wasn’t enough, that he would like to use his hands. So he lifted her and wrapped her legs around him.
He felt the gasp as he had placed his palm against her throat. Her legs wound tightly around him, pulling his hard erection against her. His cock jerked against the fabric.
With his hands free, he grabbed her waist with his right hand and cupped her breast with the other. Her nipples poked through her dress with razor sharpness. He toyed with one, pinching and twisting it, and she trembled beneath him.
His tongue traced the curve of her neck, right to the crevice where her clavicles met her ribs. She sagged against him, and he opened his eyes.
She was moving against him, taking her own pleasure. It sent a thrill through him to see her using him. He wanted to be used.