Page 191 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
He looked at her mouth. The set of lips he had wanted for days and denied himself for days and had not stopped wanting, even when he had hidden from her like a coward.
“By sitting there as if ye daenae ken.”
Her breath caught. Hefeltit.
“I do ken,” she said, and the softness of it reached him more deeply than if she had raised her voice. “I only wanted ye to say it.”
That landed hard. He had no defense ready.
The piano had once given him cover. The music had let him empty himself without a witness. Now the instrument sat beneath his hands and beside her body, and there was no shelter left in it.
The tower had become a trap built from every piece of him he had tried to keep separate. The telescope by the window. The piano bench. The night air. Ava in the middle of it all.
He could send her away. He still could. Stand up. Put distance back between them. Open the door. Speak like a laird and husband, and make her obey.
But he did not want to.
That thought broke free from him, and he felt a wave of desire run through him. Before he could speak again, he rose in one swift motion.
Ava looked up at him, startled, and for one second, he saw the question in her eyes. Then he bent, wrapped his hands around her arms, and lifted her from the bench.
She gave a small sound and grabbed at his shoulders. There was no struggle in it, only surprise and the instinct to hold on. Her body settled against him with a trust that nearly undid him right then and there.
He lifted her and placed her on the piano. The instrument took her weight with a low wooden shift as he set her on its closed lid. Her nightgown loosened further when she moved, and his throat tightened at the sight of her pale skin and the column of her throat laid bare for him. He stepped between her knees before reason could return.
Ava’s hands stayed on him.
“Ciaran,” she whispered.
The sound of his name on her lips shattered what restraint he had left. He didn’t think too long before he leaned in and kissed her.
He had done it with caution before, but this time… this time he was not trying to be respectful. His hand came to the side of her neck, then slid into her hair, and he took her mouth with all the want he had kept locked down since the wedding.
She answered him at once, opening for him and drawing him closer with both hands on his shoulders until their touch became urgent. He could feel the heat of her skin through the linen and wool, and could hear the quick rise and fall of her breath. He could also feel her resolve in the way she leaned into him.
The kiss deepened fast.
His other hand moved to her waist, then higher along her side, tracing her curves through the thin fabric. Ava’s fingers tightened around the back of his shoulders, and the small sound she made when his mouth moved to the line of her jaw went straight through him. He kissed the spot below her ear, and her head tipped back against his hand, giving him more access.
The knowledge that she wanted this too drove him harder into the moment.
The piano at her back, the tower around them, the night beyond the window, all of it narrowed down to her body under his hands and her breath breaking whenever he touched her somewhere she had begun to feel too keenly.
He stopped only long enough to look at her.
Her hair had come loose. Her face was flushed, and her lips were swollen from his kiss. She looked at him with the same hunger he knew must be plain on his own face.
And then he bent to her again and sealed his mouth over hers, his hand trailing down her side.
Ava threw her head back as his mouth left hers and moved slowly to her jaw, her throat, and then a spot beneath her collarbone. Her hands tightened in his hair by instinct and then loosened when he moved lower, his mouth tracing the rise and fall of her chest over the thin fabric of her nightgown. His hands slid down to her waist while he kissed his way down with a patience that made her breath stutter. He lowered his head as well, going his knees.
“Yer taste is maddening,” he rasped, his voice reverberating through her and making her shiver.
She realized what he intended to do when his mouth reached her hips. She did not stop him.
He slowly pushed her nightgown upward, and the cool air immediately kissed her bare skin, making her gasp. Before she could form a word, his hands were on her thighs, spreading them with a firmness that left no room for hesitation.
He looked up at her once from where he knelt.
