The Knight (Highland Guard #7.5)(7)

Even his face had changed, though not from any scars. Unusually, James’s face bore no marks of the warfare that had consumed all of their lives. Rather, the boyish good looks had hardened. Become sharper. More dangerous and ruthless. He was handsome, but that wasn’t the word that came to mind when you looked at him. He was imposing. Fierce. Determined. From his size, to the piercing dark eyes, to the set of his square jaw—that was what she saw. But somehow it only added to his appeal.

Indeed, he looked more like a ruffian than a lord or knight. He wore no fine wool surcoat or tabard emblazoned with the arms of Douglas over his mail. Actually he hardly wore any mail at all, only a coif under his helm to protect his neck. Otherwise his armor consisted of a basic black leather cotun and chausses dotted with bits of steel, more suited to a Highland warrior than an important lieutenant in Bruce’s personal retinue. But heavy armor did not lend itself to the agility and speed required for the quick style of attack that James was becoming famous for—modeled on the Norsemen who had terrorized Scotland’s shores years ago.

As a youth, James had been somewhat fastidious in appearance, and though the English had dispossessed him of his lands and robbed him of his lordly robes, essentially forcing him to live like an outlaw in Ettrick forest, vestiges still remained. He always smelled clean for one. Beneath the cool brace of the wind on his skin and the warm scent of leather, she could detect the fresh hint of his soap. And the black hair that had given rise to his epithet might be longer, but it was still neatly trimmed and combed—except for that one wavy, untamed lock that fell across his forehead. He was freshly shaven as well, though the shadow of his beard was already dark a few hours later. She could feel the rough scrape as he kissed her.

And God, how he was kissing her. The stroke of his tongue in her mouth sent shudders of sensation rippling through her. She could taste the spiciness of the cloves he liked to chew on.

She whimpered as he deepened the kiss, pulling her closer and holding her more firmly against him. Their bodies locked. The thick slab of his erection pressed insistently against her belly, and her body responded with a swell of heat between her legs. He wanted her, and the proof of that want, big and hard against her, made her quiver.

The first time she’d thought the fit impossible. He was too big, and she was too… innocent. But he’d proved her wrong. The memory of the initial pain was a distant one, fading beneath the far greater memory of pleasure. Pleasure that he would give her again. But it wasn’t just the pleasure she craved, it was the closeness. She wanted to feel joined to him again. Wanted to feel him inside her—filling her—forging the bond that bound them together forever.

James fought to take it slow as control quickly spiraled away from him. He wanted to give her more pleasure than she’d ever dreamed of, for God knows what she did to him was beyond his wildest fantasies.

Just the press of her body against his was incredible. The soft crush of her br**sts against his chest, the gentle sway of her hips to his groin…

She drove him wild.

A flood of heat washed over him, and he pulled her closer, deepening the kiss. Her hair slipped from its binding, pouring over his hands like a silken waterfall and filling his nose with the heady scent of the roses she used in her bath water. She always smelled good. Like a hot apple tart pulled from the oven, he couldn’t resist inhaling and drawing the sweet scent deep into his lungs.

But it was her response that undid him. The circling of her tongue, tentative at first, and then bolder as she met his determined strokes with her own. The soft whimpers of pleasure that quickened and grew more insistent. The gentle sway of her hips against him that turned into a base grind. Every primitive instinct in him had been stoked to the point of no return. Like a boat headed over a waterfall, there was no turning back.

Seton and Boyd were going to have to wait.

She was making erotic little gasps deep in her throat. Her hands clutched wildly at his arms and shoulders, his muscles flexing with restraint underneath.

A haze descended over him. All he could think about was the woman in his arms and the incredible sensations she wrought in his body. Nothing else mattered.

His hands filled with the soft flesh of her bottom, her legs, her br**sts. God, those br**sts! She had the most spectacular br**sts of any woman he’d ever seen. Full and round and topped with the rosiest tips. He cupped the soft, ripe flesh, running his fingers over the taut peaks until she arched into his hand.

They were both breathing hard, and he was perilously close to spilling in his braies, but he was determined to make it better this time. The first had been a frantic fumbling, a frenzied, youthful explosion of long-repressed lust and passion. Yet amazingly, despite the initial pain, he’d managed to give her some pleasure. This time he wanted to give her everything. The lass was born for lovemaking.

He forced himself to slow and lowered her to her knees with him, breaking the kiss only long enough to tear the plaid from his shoulders and spread it on the ground behind them. For now, nature’s bower would have to do, but one day he swore he would give her the fine bed with the silk linens and bed hangings that she deserved.

When he returned what the English king had stolen from his family.

Something must have flickered in his gaze.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

He gazed down into her upturned face, into the big blue eyes soft with passion, the flushed cheeks, and kiss-swollen lips, and felt a hard lump of emotion in his chest.