Chapter 14 #2
He pulled her closer, until the tips of her shoes bumped against his boots. A gentle nudge of feet until her hands pressed against his arms. Her head tilted back to see him.
“James,” she said softly. A warning.
Where was his honor? His decency? Buried, numbed, hidden beneath an almost paralyzing wonder. Who was she, to do this to him?
He turned her hand in his, marveling at both the differences and the similarities. Each of their fingers was callused, but her hand was small in comparison to his.
The sky above them flashed like lanterns signaling at sea. The storm was above them now. The wind blew his hair about his face, as if in gentle chastisement.
He draped himself over her to protect her from the worst of the weather. She braced her hand against the placket of his shirt, and he wanted to ask her if she did so to keep him at bay. She was safe with him. His thoughts, inappropriate and sinful, would never be translated into action.
But, God, he was tempted.
There were some things, James reasoned, that could not be explained. The source of the wind, the narrow escapes he’d had at sea, the feeling of the Almighty being at his elbow in treacherous conditions. The longing he had for Riona McKinsey.
He’d never felt anything like it before, this absurd desire to be in her company.
His lips twitched into a smile just looking at her, and his heart seemed to lighten in his chest at her answering glance.
He’d never before considered himself an irrational man, but he was acting the fool. Lovesick and besotted.
How could he feel so much so quickly? A matter of days only. His life, once charted, most certainly planned, seemed adrift now. Vague. Amorphous, like the clouds above them.
Why her? Why not a woman of Inverness? He’d been to the town numerous times in the year he’d been at Gilmuir. Why not a woman he spied in the street? An innkeeper’s daughter, an inhabitant of a coach, a woman encountered by chance at the market?
Because as lovely as she was, Riona’s attraction wasn’t her appearance. She was simply herself, intransigent at times, questioning at others, willful and malleable, simple and complicated.
They had blurred the boundaries between them from the moment they had met. Now, he didn’t know where she belonged. More than an acquaintance. Friend? What did he call a woman he wanted but could never have?
A wish unfulfilled.
He took one step closer to her, pressing his hands against the base of her neck and trailing his fingers up to rest at her nape. She shivered, and he almost congratulated her for the freedom and honesty of her response.
Tremble for me. Words he wanted to whisper against her closed lips. And she would gasp and open them, inviting a kiss.
“We should leave,” she said, lowering her head a little. If he moved just so, his lips would rest against her forehead. A benediction of touch, a sweetly innocent kiss that was only a prelude to what he really craved.
But he was civilized, wasn’t he? There were no more clan raids, no more stealing of women. Instead, they were paraded before men in their pretty frocks, wearing demure looks. Men were sent to bid on them surreptitiously with genteel words like dowries and annual income.
He’d lost her before he ever knew her.
Something in him, old and ancient, surprised him with its atavism. He was no longer James McRae, ship’s captain, man of letters and learning, as much as he was the great grandson of the old laird who could ride like a banshee and plunder with the best of them.
He placed his fingers firmly against her mouth, a guard against his wayward lips.
Lightning flashed nearby, startling them both.
In the bright flash she looked too pale, almost frightened of him.
He pulled her gently toward him, curving his body over hers in protection.
Only he knew the desperate desire that surged within him at the moment.
Nature had stripped itself of all decorum, and he was following suit, changing the longer he stood here with Riona only a breath away. What separated them, what protected her, was his will, now whisper-thin and flagging.
His imagination furnished thoughts he shouldn’t have, visions of laying her down on the grass and loving her there.
He would put his hands on her until she grew accustomed to the touch of his palms and fingers on her skin.
Then, only then, would he allow himself the luxury of feeling all her separate curves, the swell of her breasts, the enticing sweep of waist to hips, the long line of her legs.
Giving in to the temptation, he jerked her toward him and tilted his head so that his lips slanted over hers. Her lips were warm and full, falling open beneath his tender coaxing. Then his tongue traced a delicate path across her bottom lip. She gasped, and he was inhaling the sound of it.
She clung to him, her fingers clutching his shirt as he bent her backward even farther. There wasn’t any room between them for thoughts or even regrets.
Damned, he was going to be damned. The last conscious thought he had for long moments.
Finally, they parted, his breath coming so fast that he felt as if he’d run a race. She was as breathless, laying her forehead against his chest.
“Dear God,” he said, the guttural voice unlike his own, the two words uttered in wonder and disbelief. He’d never before been carried away by a simple kiss.
She looked up at him then, her eyes large and wide. Silver in the afternoon sunlight, they sought his gaze and held it.
He should ask her forgiveness. Or explain. But any further words were impossible. He was still reeling from what had just happened.
Riona pulled back finally, her hands trembling where they rested on his arms. She nodded to him as if he’d spoken, or perhaps it was simply an acknowledgment of the power of that kiss.
He caught her hand, brought it to his mouth, slowly kissing her fingertips, feeling her tremble.
“You will make a lovely bride,” he said, forcing himself to step back and away from her.
For a long moment, neither said a word. Finally, she pulled her hand free, gripped her skirts in both fists, and began to run. Either toward sanctuary or simply away from him.