The Raider (Highland Guard #8)(49)

God knew she was beautiful, with a lithe, sensual body that would make any man weak with lust. But he’d felt lust before and this raw craving, this bone-deep yearning, this all-encompassing need was like nothing he’d ever experienced. It came from a place so deep, buried so far inside him, he hadn’t known it existed.

The feeling drowned out everything else. He didn’t care who she was or why she was here. None of that mattered. All that mattered was that when she was in his arms he felt…

He felt something. Something strong and powerful and right.

The soft cries of her pleasure were still echoing in his ears as he started to work the ties of his chausses and braies. Sweat gathered on his brow as he held himself stiffly to the side, trying not to crush her with the full weight of his body.

She lay under him, soft and achingly sweet, her body weak and pliable from her release. So ready. His fingers were still damp from her slickness, from the proof of how ready she was for him.

He had to grit his teeth against the urge to sink inside when his erection bobbed free and the cool blast of night air hit the hot, turgid skin.

He didn’t need to fist himself in his hand to test his readiness—he was so close he might explode.

He levered himself over her, settling himself between her thighs. Every instinct urged him to throw his head back and plunge inside.

She wouldn’t stop him. She wanted this as much as he did. He could see it in her eyes.

He stilled. And there, through the pounding in his heart, the red haze of lust roaring through his blood and the desire throbbing hard between his legs, he heard something. A tiny voice that should have been drowned out by the primitive roar. A voice he told himself to ignore and that made him want to shout with pain and frustration. A voice that told him this was wrong. That no matter how much she wanted this, or he wanted this, he couldn’t take her innocence.

But God, he wanted to. He wanted to so badly his body shook from the effort not to make her his.

She wasn’t his and never could be. And Robbie apparently had more honor left inside him than he realized.

The small questioning tilt of the head that she gave him was the last shove. He wrenched away with a vile curse and turned away from her, as if that might clear his head and allow him to think.

But he wasn’t thinking. His body was in too much pain. Every inch of him was throbbing with anger and frustrated lust. His heart was pounding so hard he couldn’t breathe.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

She tried to put a comforting hand on his shoulder, but he wrenched away, even the small touch too much to withstand in his present state. Seated on the edge of the bed, he bowed his head, willing the fire to stop roaring in his blood. But it wouldn’t quiet. It was pulsing and hammering, needing someplace to go.

He needed to get out of here. Standing, he hastily refastened his clothing. He didn’t dare look at her reclining on the bed in near-ravished disarray, knowing that the mussed hair, flushed cheeks, and swollen lips would be too much for him to resist. “I’m sorry,” he managed curtly. “That should never have happened.”

Ten

That should never have happened, Robbie repeated to himself more than once over the long night. The harder question, and one he didn’t want to ask himself, was how it had. He didn’t lose himself in lovemaking like that. Ever. He was always in control. Always aware. Hell, he could be sucked deep in a lass’s mouth, coming hard, and still be thinking about his next mission. But one minute he’d been kissing Rosalin Clifford, and the next he was almost inside her. He hadn’t been thinking about anything else.

Robbie…

He forced himself to shut out the memory. But he’d never forget the sound of his name on her lips as she broke apart. That soft, sensual plea would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Bloody hell, what was wrong with him? How could he have forgotten who she was? She was his hostage, under his protection, and “Despoiler of Innocents” wasn’t a title he was eager to add to his long list of sins. Even if she was Clifford’s sister.

After waking Seton and instructing him to stand guard outside her door, Robbie sought the cold embrace of a winter’s night, as much to chill his blood as to clear his thoughts. He passed the two men he’d left to guard the main gate and headed into the forest.

Robbie’s expression didn’t invite conversation, and they didn’t ask him where he was going. He didn’t know. But the dense, bone-chilling mist that had descended among the trees offered a strange comfort. The sharp brace of the cold air seeped in, penetrated, and eventually eased some of the tension coiling in his body.

Lust he knew how to remedy. A warrior spent too much time away from women to bother being shy about taking the edge off himself when the need arose, so to speak. It was the other emotions coursing through him, the equally fierce and intense emotions, that wouldn’t be sated by a few hard pumps of his fist.

His desire for this woman went beyond lust. It had been strong enough to make him forget who she was—hell, he probably would have forgotten his own damned name, if she hadn’t yelled it—and completely lose control. It had penetrated the haze of detachment that usually surrounded him when he was with a lass and made him feel things he’d never felt before.

But that wasn’t what really concerned him.

He might be ruthless and merciless on the battlefield, but he’d always been a considerate bedmate. Yet even in his most youthful dalliances, before Wallace had raised his sword and Robbie had dedicated his life to the fight for Scotland’s freedom, he couldn’t recall ever being so gentle or tender with a lass. The reverence, care, and protective feeling that had come over him when he kissed her—that scared the hell out of him.