The Raider (Highland Guard #8)(47)

Mind blowing.

About the best damned thing he’d ever felt. And with every stroke it got better. Hotter. Even more incredible.

The role of tutor was not one Robbie had assumed before—preferring experienced women in his bed—but he found himself reveling in it, enjoying her soft moans of awakening as if they were his own.

He liked knowing that this was new to her. That she’d never let a man kiss her like this before. That he would be the one to inflame her passion for the first time.

He felt an unexpected wave of tenderness that gave him the strength—even when other parts of his body were urging differently—to go slowly.

Just a kiss, he told himself. Nothing he hadn’t done countless times before.

But he was fighting new sensations of his own. Kissing her was…different. It wasn’t just that she tasted incredible, that her lips were about the softest damned things he’d ever felt, that the tentative stroke of her tongue against his had made him as hard as if she’d licked his cock, or that he felt like he was burning up and drowning at the same time, it was also the sense of peace that came over him. Real peace. For the first time in a long time—hell, he couldn’t remember the last—the restlessness inside him eased. At that moment, he knew he was exactly where he was supposed to be.

He felt a pleasure so engulfing it seemed to drown out everything else. All he could think about was how soft her cheek was in his hand, how she smelled like rosewater, how good she felt pressed against him, and how he could go on kissing her like this forever.

If only he weren’t so hot. If only his blood weren’t roaring through his veins and his heart weren’t hammering in his chest. If only those soft little mewls of pleasure weren’t reaching down to grab him by the bollocks and giving him a tug. If only her hands weren’t on his shoulders, her nails digging into the muscles, a visceral marking of her growing pleasure. If only her br**sts weren’t crushed against his chest and his c**k weren’t throbbing hard against her stomach. And if only her hips hadn’t started to move.

Aye, especially that. The tentative press, the sweet grind, the slow circling of her hips against the part of him that he was doing his damnedest to ignore set off something loose inside him. The faint voice in the back of his head that wanted to make her his turned to a loud roar. The knowledge that she wanted him as much as he wanted her snapped whatever rein he had on his control.

Rosalin hadn’t meant it to happen, but when it did, it felt so inevitable—so destined—that she wondered that it had taken so long.

The magic and wonder, the sense of stunned shock, she’d felt the first time his lips had touched hers was nothing to the perfect myriad of sensations that crashed over her when he kissed her, really kissed her.

She felt enveloped in heat, drowned in the heady taste of whisky, and possessed by emotions she didn’t fully understand. Fierce emotions. Poignant emotions. Intense emotions that made her breath catch, her heart jump, and her body feel as if it were melting into a pool of heat.

She’d been kissed since that first time, but never like this. Never so thoroughly, in a way that took her breath away. Never with such all-encompassing need, such possession, such skilled seduction, and such tenderness.

That was the biggest surprise of all. That this fierce warrior, this ruthless enforcer, this man who stormed and pillaged his way across the countryside, could kiss so tenderly. That the soft strokes of his mouth and tongue could entreat and not command. That this man of incredible strength could be so gentle. She would never have believed it. But here she was half-kneeling on her bed, half-cradled against his chest, being kissed as if she were the most precious thing in the world.

His hand cradled her jaw, the big callused fingers that could grip the hilt of a sword with such deadly purpose caressing her cheek with the gentle stroke of a mother to a newborn babe, as he coaxed her mouth open to the deft plunges of his tongue.

Deft and slow, and knee-weakeningly sweet. The shock she might have felt at the intimate invasion was blunted by the sensation of utter rightness. There was nothing more natural or perfect than the warm slide of his tongue against hers.

Each stroke seemed calculated to draw her in deeper. To make her shudder and moan. To make her want more. She couldn’t stand it.

But clearly he was in no hurry. He seemed maddeningly in control, maddeningly content to go on kissing her like this for hours.

But something was building inside her. Something she didn’t understand. Something hot and powerful and anxious. Something that with every wicked stroke of his tongue became more imperative.

Her moans became more insistent. The tentative circles of her tongue turned bolder and more demanding. She sank into him, pressing her br**sts against the warm, rock-hard shield of his chest. And good lord, was it an impressive chest. She could feel every hard ridge, every steely slab, and every rock-hard bulge. She’d always admired his body, but there was something vastly different in admiring from afar and being plastered up against all that strength. He was big and powerful, and having all those muscles wrapped around her made her feel hot and heavy, and want to get closer.

Especially—the knowledge pooled between her thighs—that long, thick part of him that she could feel hard against her stomach.

She moaned and clutched. Pressed and rubbed. And still it wasn’t enough. This feeling that had come over her wouldn’t go away. It seemed to only grow stronger. The more he touched her, the longer her kissed her, the more she felt him against her, the worse the need became.