Page 28 of Hit Me With Your Best Scot
“I don’t know you well, Coll,” she said slowly, seeming to choose her words carefully, “but no, you don’t frighten me.”
“What I want of ye doesnae have a damned thing to do with any agreement.” And it wasn’t just the agreement between them to which he was referring. Aye, he needed to wed. But now, at this moment, he wasn’t thinking about a bride or about Aldriss Park. No, he was thinking about the elegant curve of her neck and the sway of her hips and how kissing her wasn’t even close to what he wanted to be doing with her.
“Trouble,” she muttered beneath her breath.
“Beg pardon?”
“Nothing.” Shifting, she began putting cutlery and plates back into the picnic basket. “You. Gavin. Please come take this.”
“Are we leavin’?” the groom asked, shoving the remains of a sandwich into his mouth and rising from the comfortable rear-facing seat of the barouche.
“You are,” she said smoothly.
“I—”
“Ye heard her, Gavin,” Coll echoed, standing up and lifting the basket to shove it into the groom’s arms as heat dove down his spine. “Deliver this back to Oswell House and then ye come back here and get us.”
“But I…” The groom looked from one to the other. “Oh. Och. That’ll take me near thirty minutes, I reckon.”
“It’ll take ye near an hour.”
“Aye.”
Grumbling and stealing looks at Persephone as she leaned back against the nearest oak trunk, the groom set the basket in the carriage and climbed up to the driver’s perch. Then, still muttering, he turned the team back toward the road and vanished behind the shrubbery.
Coll faced Persephone. “It’s quiet here, but nae private enough for my peace of mind.”
She bent to pick up the blanket, folding it over her arm. “This way.”
Pushing out of his mind the idea that she knew a private place because she’d made use of it before, Coll fell in beside her, taking the blanket from her. He wanted to hold her hand, to touch her—she was one book he damned well wanted to read. But hewasa big man, and learning to be more patient would do him good, whether he liked it or not.
But if being inside her lay at the end of this path, he’d manage.
She ducked beneath a tangle of low-hanging branches and then descended to a tiny stream that cut through one corner of the land. An old hay cart with a missing wheel tipped into the water and halfway up the far bank, and she made for the broken back end, where it dug into the hillside.
“How’d ye find this?” he asked, keeping his voice pitched low and noting the patches of wild heather growing around the wagon’s rear wheels. Now if that wasn’t a sign of approval, he didn’t know what was.
“I followed a rabbit in here once. It’s a good place for thinking,” she returned, climbing up to the bed of the wagon and holding her hand out for the blanket. “And I’ve yet to spy anyone else here.”
“They’d have to be following rabbits to find it,” he agreed, noting the hanging trees and wild bushes that had overgrown both banks and left the wagon shrouded from every angle but the one she’d found. Her own private bower, it was.
“I hadn’t thought to use it for this, but I’m never going to be able to concentrate at rehearsal this afternoon if I don’t put my hands on you.”
It crossed his mind that she could be acting, playing the part of a wanton young woman overcome with desire for her protector, but as he climbed up onto the wagon bed with her, he didn’t give a damn. She was an itch, and if he didn’t scratch it, he would never be able to go find himself a wife. Devil take it, he wouldn’t even be able to stand up straight.
She sank to her knees, taking his hand to pull him down in front of her, then wrapped her arms around his shoulders and leaned in to kiss him. God, her lips were soft, and warm, telling stories only of mutual arousal.
Mindful of the old wood planks just beneath the blanket, Coll took her by the shoulders, pulling her closer against him. When he brushed a hand across her hair, moving to remove the pins that held it up in its fashionable tangle, she broke the kiss.
“Do not ruin my hair. I have a rehearsal this afternoon that I’m already going to be late for.”
“Then I’ll nae ruin yer hair,” he returned, slipping a finger beneath the shoulder of her yellow muslin gown and tugging it down her arm. “I cannae say that about the rest of ye.”
“Mmm,” she murmured. “Spare my clothes, but ruin me then, Coll MacTaggert.”
Spare her blasted clothes, when he wanted to tear them off her body. If he’d had a sewing kit in his pocket, he might have been tempted, regardless of her warning. But then she reached around her back to unbutton her own gown, and as she stripped her arms of it, he pulled the material down to her waist, revealing a pair of plump, pert breasts that looked as if they would perfectly fit his big hands. He wasted no time testing that theory.
At the same time, she reached one hand beneath his kilt, encircling him with her fingers and stroking a thumb boldly down the length of him. “Oh, my,” she whispered, her voice not quite steady.
