Page 52 of Wanted By the Wicked Highlander

He looked down at her mouth.

He had spent days not looking at her mouth with a discipline that had cost him more than any military campaign he had ever run; and he had absolutely no discipline left now. It had entirely run out somewhere between the sound of her laughing in the amber light and the feeling of her frantic heartbeat against his ribs. What remained in its place was the plain, unmanageable truth that he was done disregarding.

He brought his hand up from her waist, moving slowly. He gave her every opportunity to step back, to turn her face away, or to say the word she had been throwing at him in various forms for over a week.

His fingers traced the sharp line of her jaw. His thumb rested on her cheekbone, gently tilting her face up that tiny fraction of an inch.

She did not step back. She did not turn away.

Instead, her fingers curled tight into the front of his shirt.

Sebastian closed the remaining distance and kissed her.

It was not the way he had kissed her in the corridor; that first time had been hunger finding its outlet after days of accumulated pressure. Fast, overwhelming, and barely controlled.

This was different. This was entirely deliberate. His mouth moved over hers with a thoroughness that was not born of desperation, but absolute intention to learn the shape of her, the warmth of her, and the breathtaking way she kissed him back when she finally stopped pretending she was not going to.

She did kiss him back.

She did it completely, without the half-second of resistance the corridor had carried, and without the sense of something being wrongfully overcome.

She surrendered to it. Her body leaned fully into his strength, her hands slipping their iron grip on his shirt to slide upward against his chest, her mouth opening beneath his with a soft, involuntary sound that charged through him like an blowing current and swept away the last of his restraint.

He pulled her closer. His arm around her waist drew her against his frame until there was hardly any space left between them. The full, radiating warmth of her radiated from his chest to his ribs, reaching the low, hard ache that had been building in him since the road.

His other hand moved into her hair. His fingers spread against the back of her head, tilting her face to deepen the kiss. She let him. He could feel her give in to his touch, the firm quality of a conscious choice. The awareness that this was not a surrender but a mutual decision moved through him with a force entirely alien to anything he had known before.

She tasted of sweet berries.

The storm raged against the stable’s roof. The iron lantern swung in its slow arc. Siobhan had finally settled, whether from Sebastian’s earlier efforts or from the simple fact that neither of them was paying her any attention; she stood quietly in her stall with her ears relaxed, breathing in slowly.

Sebastian, however, was not certain the crisis had passed at all.

He lifted his head. Not far, just enough to breathe. His forehead came to rest against hers in the shadow, his hand still curved protectively against her jaw, his thumb moving once in a slow arc across her damp cheekbone. Her warm breath brushed his mouth, matching his own rugged breathing.

He looked at her.

Her eyes were shut tight. Then they opened slowly, meeting his at a distance that felt like no distance at all. Whatever he saw in them under the shifting amber glow of the lantern was beyond words, and he did not try to find any.

The rain hammered on. Neither of them spoke.

His hands were not entirely steady.

A faint, uncharacteristic tremor possessed his fingers as they moved along the sharp curve of her jaw and down the smooth line of her throat. Her pulse leaped beneath his touch with a frantic speed that perfectly matched his own.

He had been steady in bloody battles. He had been steady with a cold blade pressed to his throat, with fire roaring at his back, and with his own brother’s blood drying on his hands. He was not steady with Alba MacLaren’s breath against his lips in a dark stable while a savage storm made the rest of the world irrelevant.

Her head was tilted back slightly, her eyes shut tight, fingers clutching the thick wool of his shirt. He pressed his lips to the warm curve of her throat, feeling her exhale—a long, slow release. His hand moved from her jaw to the back of her neck, fingers sinking deep into her loose hair.

She made a sound against his temple. It was soft, raw, unguarded.

His other hand found the small of her back and pulled her closer. She came to him without a shred of resistance, her body leaning fully into his, her forehead dropping heavily against his shoulder. He could feel every single point of contact.

He moved his lips slowly along her collarbone.

She went completely still. That moment stirred something smaller, quieter, and infinitely more fragile in her.

His mouth slowed. His hands stayed exactly where they were but stopped their movement, going completely still against her back and her hair, simply remaining present.