When a Scot Ties the Knot (Castles Ever After #3)(12)

He nodded. “You have your life, and I’ll have mine.”

Maddie felt dizzy, as though she were standing on the edge of a precipice. She took a deep breath, gathered her nerve . . . then jumped.

“Very well, I accept. We can be married as soon as it’s practicable.”

“Practicable?” He laughed. “This is Scotland, lass. There’s no need to wait for banns or be married in a kirk.”

“But you promised no one would suspect the truth. That means you must appear to be fond of me, at least at first. I think if you were truly my Captain MacKenzie, and we’d waited all these years to be together, you would want me to have a proper wedding.”

He closed the distance between them.

“Lass, if I were truly your Captain MacKenzie, and I’d spent years at war, yearning for the one woman I wanted to hold more than life itself . . . ?” He touched a lock of her hair. “I wouldna wait another night.”

She swallowed hard. “Truly?”

“Aye, truly. And I would have done this an hour ago.”

His head tipped to the side. His gaze dropped to her lips. And then his mouth did the strangest thing.

It started drawing closer to hers.

He couldn’t be—-

Oh, Lord. He was. He was going to kiss her.

“Wait.” Panicked, Maddie put both hands on his chest, holding him off. “Your men, my servants . . . they could be watching us.”

“I’m certain they’re watching us. That’s why we’re going to kiss.”

“But I don’t know how. You know I don’t know how.”

His lips quirked. “I know how.”

Those three little words, spoken in that low, devastating Scottish burr, did absolutely nothing to ease Maddie’s concerns.

Thankfully, she had a reprieve. He pulled back and peered at her hair. He looked like a boy marveling at clockwork, wondering how it all worked. After a few moments, she felt him grasp the pencil holding her chignon.

With one long, slow tug, he eased it loose and cast it aside.

It landed in the loch with a splash.

His fingers sifted through her hair, teasing the locks free of their haphazard knot and arranging them about her shoulders. Tenderly. Like she’d always imagined a lover would. Sparks of sensation danced from her scalp to her toes.

“That was my best drawing pencil,” she said.

“It’s just a pencil.”

“It came from London. I have a limited supply.”

His thumb caressed her cheek. “It almost put out my eye. I’ve a limited supply of those, too. And it’s better this way.”

“But—-” Her breath caught. “Oh.”

He bracketed her cheeks with his hands, tilting her face to his.

Her pulse thundered in her ears. She stared at his mouth. A wave of inevitability washed over her.

She whispered, “This is really happening, isn’t it?”

In answer, he pressed his lips to hers.

And Maddie went still. The lightning bolt of sensual expertise she’d been hoping for didn’t arrive. She was glued to his face, staring at his cheekbone. She had no idea what she was supposed to do.

Close your eyes, ninny.

Maybe, if she was very still and paid close attention, her idiocy wouldn’t be obvious. Perhaps he could teach her to kiss, in the same way the sky taught the loch to be blue.

It was a stupid risk, kissing her this soon.

Logan realized it the moment his lips met hers and she went rigid in response. Bloody hell. If this embrace went wrong, he could scare her off and his grand plans would be over before they began.

That meant his challenge was plain.

He had to make sure this kiss went right.

“Hush, mo chridhe. Softly now.”

He brushed his lips over hers in brief passes, with all the patience and tenderness a man like him could muster—-which wasn’t a great deal. But before long she was responding in a shy, sweet way. Her lips brushed his, too.

The same hands that had flattened against his chest to hold him back now clutched at his lapels, drawing him closer. Her lips parted beneath his, and he swept his tongue between them. A small sigh eased from the back of her throat, encouraging and sweet. He explored her mouth with slow, languid strokes.

And then his patience was rewarded, when her tongue touched lightly to his.

Holy God. His knees almost buckled.

Yes. That’s the way of it.

She had the idea now, his clever little minx. When he explored, she yielded. When he took, she gave. And she did the same in return.

Logan could have stood by that mirror--finish loch and kissed her for hours. Days. Weeks and months, perhaps, while the seasons changed around them. There was something different to her. A taste he couldn’t quite name, except to decide he’d never known it in a kiss before. A bit of spice, a bit of sweet, and all of it warm.

Whatever it was, that teasing essence had him wanting to kiss harder, probe deeper to chase it. As if he could bring it into himself and make it his own.

But he didn’t want to frighten her. After one last, lingering brush of his lips to hers, he lifted his head.

He’d forgotten that she was still standing on tiptoe, balanced on that rock. As he released her and stepped back, she swayed toward him. Their bodies collided with a dull unf. Softness meeting strength.