Page 29 of Wanted By the Wicked Highlander

The kiss changed, deepening, losing its sharp edges as she leaned into him. When his mouth finally left hers, an involuntary sound of protest escaped her throat. Something she would think about with intense embarrassment later. But then his lips were pressing against her jaw, her throat, moving slowly along the sensitive line of her neck while his breath came hard and hot against her bare skin.

“Christ,” he muttered against her skin. It was rough, completely unguarded, the voice of Sebastian MacGregor without a single piece of armor left on him.

Alba’s right hand, which had been resting flat against his chest, curled into a tight fist, bunching the thick fabric of his shirt in her knuckles.

His palm slid across her waist, not over the heavy silk of her gown but beneath its loose drape, his fingers pressing firmly against her skin through the thin shifts. His touch was warm and possessive in a way that sent a violent shiver straight through her spine from that single point of contact.

She felt him everywhere. His chest rising and falling hard against her ribs. His hand holding her head. His mouth a brand at her throat. The wall behind her had disappeared completely, leaving only him.

“Sebastian.”

His name left her lips before she could intercept it. His name, barely a whisper in the cold corridor.

He went absolutely still.

Then, slowly, his forehead dropped down to rest against hers.

They stood like that in the dark, their foreheads pressed together, both of them breathing ragged, heavy gasps while the lantern swung gently in a rhythmic arc in her grip. Outside, the rain hit the window with irregular, violent pulses that ignored the timing of things.

Alba refocused on the draft once more—the chill of the stone floor beneath her shoes and the distant, mocking lift of the fiddle music from the Hall.

Her fingers were still buried in his shirt. She had not let go.

Sebastian lifted his head. The dim candlelight caught the dark gleam of his eyes, the hard line of his jaw, the faint unsteadiness in his breathing that he had not quite managed to smooth back into control.

He looked at her directly, unhurried, accounting for everything, except that whatever he found in her face this time did not appear to help him.

She knew she should say something. There were several smart, self-protective things she could say right now that would restore the corridor to just being a corridor, Sunday to just being Sunday, and the two of them back to what they truly were to each other.

She said none of them.

His thumb moved against her jaw. A single, slow, deliberate pass.

Then he kissed her again.

This one was slower. Less desperate, but heavier.

His hand shifted from her hair to the side of her face, his thumb resting along her jawline, tilting her head gently to meet him. She let him do it because she had stopped pretending she did not want this, and there was something almost restful about dropping the shield. About simply being here, in the cold, with the storm outside and the Clan celebrating behind them. His mouth on hers like it had been heading toward this exact coordinate since the road.

When he finally lifted his head, neither of them pulled away. They stayed close, foreheads nearly touching. Her hands lay flat against his chest now, feeling the rapid, heavy beat of his heart beneath her palms. His hands remained near her face, fingers tangled in her hair, no longer guiding but simply present.

“Two days,” she said softly.

She meant it as a reminder. To herself as much as to him.

Two days left until the deadline. Two days before Sunday, before the agreement expired, before she left this castle and headed north to Margaret, putting enough miles between herself and Sebastian for her heartbeat to return to its natural rhythm.

“Aye.” The roughness had not entirely left his voice. He brushed his thumb once, deliberately, across her cheekbone. “Two days.”

She pulled back first. Gradually, her hands slid down from his chest, and she felt the cold air rush into the space between them, filling it, with a sudden reminder that the castle was real, Sunday was real, and nothing that just happened changed a single fact waiting for them at sunrise.

He looked at her, and there was something in his expression she did not examine closely enough; a steadiness, a settled quality.

“Goodnight, Sebastian,” she said. Her voice was steady, and she felt a sharp prick of pride for that.

She turned and walked down the dim corridor toward the staircase, carrying the lantern with her, leaving him standing alone in the darkness. Her steps were steady and rhythmic against the stone, and she maintained that pace all the way to the bottom of the stairs.

Then she paused. She pressed her free hand flat against the freezing brick wall. She stood there in the dark, her heart pounding against her ribs, his name still warm on her tongue, and understood with sudden, uncomfortable clarity exactly what she had meant bytwo days.