Page 55 of The Devil Wears Kilts
“I’ll do ye one better.” Bending, he scooped her up into his arms and carried her over to his big, soft bed.
As he set her down in the center of the plump mattress she tangled her fingers into his hair, pulling him down over her. Ranulf sank down onto his hip beside her, keeping her lithe body wrapped in his arms. He fought the sensation that he wasn’t close enough to her, that he had to be inside her immediately, to satisfy his own need, to claim her for his own. He would. He would, but for both their sakes he would go slow. The last thing he wanted was to frighten or hurt her.
But then she grinned up at him and tugged at his cravat. “Who in the world tied this?” she asked with a chuckle, pushing his chin sideways as she worked the knots loose with her gloved fingers.
Both actions served to remind him that she wasn’t as delicate as he’d previously thought. “Poor Ginger,” he returned. “My valet. He said he nearly lost both his arms because of yer stubbornness.”
“My stubbornness?” she repeated, finally pulling the cravat free and tossing it off the bed.
“Aye. He said he would have let go of that bucket crank after twenty minutes last night, but he couldnae let ye best him.”
She chuckled. “Poor man.”
Taking advantage of the momentary conversation, he rolled onto his backside and sat up to yank off his English boots and drop them to the floor. “I know what my valet was thinking, then, but what about ye,leannan? And give me yer feet.”
“I don’t remember thinking much of anything,” she mused, lifting one foot to put her ankle into his waiting hand.
He pulled off her low-heeled walking shoe and set it beside his boots. “I doubt ye’ve ever thought nothing. Were ye worried aboot me, lass?”
She handed over her other foot. “I hadn’t seen you in a week. I thought that after you went to all the trouble of acquiring a house and hosting a dinner and being so…”
“Gentlemanly?” he suggested, though he didn’t feel at all gentlemanly at the moment.
“I was going to say open-minded,” she countered, sitting up to help him pull his shirttail from his trousers. “It was wrong that someone else’s poor behavior might convince you to leave London. I didn’t want you to go.”
“That’s very nice to hear,” he murmured, and captured her gloved fingers in his. “I want to feel yer hands on me, Charlotte.”
She nodded. “So do I.”
“Yer blisters?”
“I’ll manage.”
That made him grin. “I certainly hope so.” Bending over her hand, he opened the wee pearl buttons and carefully pulled off the glove. “Good?” he asked, lifting his gaze to find her studying his face.
“Good. The other one, now.”
He helped her remove it. The moment he did so, she pushed up the front of his shirt and brushed her palms lightly across his chest. The tickling featheriness of it made him shudder. When she ran curious fingers across his nipples, he drew in a hard breath, took the ends of his shirt, and pulled the thing off over his head.
“You look like a Greek carving,” she mused, her fingers warm and unsteady against his skin.
“Nae. A Scottish one.”
Charlotte laughed, the arousing sound nearly causing him to burst the seam of his trousers.Sweet Saint Andrew. Twisting to face her again, he drew her muslin sleeve down her arm. Slowly Ranulf leaned in to kiss her bared shoulder.
She tasted faintly of lemons. Did she have freckles she was trying to fade? He hoped she wouldn’t do such a thing; in fact, he would enjoy finding and kissing every freckle on her fair skin. As she curved her neck to him, he ran his lips across her ear and the pulse at the base of her jaw, then down her shoulder again, pulling down the front of her gown as he went. The top of her breast, the soft, perfect curve, the stiff pebble of her nipple.
“Ranulf,” she gasped, wrapping her hands around his forearms.
Still toying with her breast, he looked up at her. “Do ye wish me to stop?”
“No. Definitely not. But you don’t look terribly comfortable down… there.”
“Oh, I’m nae. Strangled, more like.”
“Then let’s do something about that,” she suggested unevenly, sliding her hands down his ribs to his waist.
Ranulf grinned, kissing her exposed breast. “I’d be a fool to argue with that. But dunnae hurt yer hands. I’ll do it.”
