Page 40 of To Win a Highlander’s Heart

“Everything in my head agrees with you, but having you in my arms feels right.”

Unable to stop herself, she pulled him closer and he buried his face in her hair. She felt the strength of his body against hers, could feel the beat of his heart against her chest, and the longing she’d tried to keep at bay swamped her. Since she’d escaped the English, she’d been alone, had wanted to be alone, until he had come along.

He held her tighter. “Tell me if you want to stop.”

Isolde felt Orrick’s body tighten. He bade her to tell him to stop even as his lips once again found her neck, the sensitive curl of her shoulder, the base of her throat. She meant to tell him to stop as he pushed the edges of her cloak aside then trailed his fingers over her arm and her thigh, gently caressing the hidden flesh beneath her dress. She meant to stop him as he traced lines of hot delight down her chin, across the rise of her breasts.

So much was at stake if they continued. Not only her heart and her virginity, but he might get her with child. Then she would be out in the wilderness trying to take care of herself and an innocent child. His relationship with his clan was also at risk. He’d said Alastair had changed his opinion of her, but many others still had not.

She forced back a groan of equal parts despair and desire as Orrick’s lips covered hers. His tongue teased the seam of her lips. If they continued, they would forge a bond between the MacLeod and Nicolson clans that would forever put them in conflict with her brother. John was not one to easily forgive her past mistakes.

Even those things did not pull her back. She didn’t want to stop him. She didn’t want to stop herself. On a groan of capitulation, she leaned into his kiss, opened her lips, and he delved in, igniting a flame that could no longer be quenched.

His fingers found the clasp of her cloak and released it, sending the garment to the ground before moving to the ties of her gown. A heartbeat later, her dress fell to her ankles and she stood before him in only her chemise.

Despite her state of undress, she had never been warmer. The heat came from within her in unquenchable waves of desire. She removed his cloak and the muslin shirt beneath. Her fingers stalled on the laces of his breeches.

“Allow me.” His fingers quickly unfastened his breeches. His boots followed. “Take off your chemise,” he said in ragged tones. “I don’t trust myself not to tear it from you.”

His words delighted and terrified. She stared at him uncertainly. He looked fierce, almost tormented.

“Hurry.” He stripped off his braies and tossed them to the ground, his gaze never leaving her face. “No second thoughts.” He stood naked before her. Starkly, boldly aroused. “I couldn’t take it if you had regrets now.”

She stared at the man before her. Thick brown hair covered his chest. She followed the V downward, across his flat abdomen, to the silvery wounds that laced his torso, to the thick nest of hair surrounding his rampant arousal. Isolde swallowed and moistened her lips. She should have reservations about what was to come, but she didn’t. It felt right being here with Orrick like this—completely and utterly right. “No second thoughts.”

He reached for her, pulling her tight against his bare flesh. Her naked breasts pressed against the coarse hair of his chest. The sensation was strangely seductive against the smoothness of her flesh.

He held her close and pressed a gentle kiss to the shoulder of her injured arm. “Before I left, Lottie told me she was on her way to sew your wound again, but found you gone. Does reinjuring your wound pain you much?”

“Nothing pains me at the moment.”

With a chuckle, he bent to kiss her neck as he slid his left hand down her abdomen to the thatch of curls surrounding her womanhood. His lips moved farther down, to the top of her right breast, to her nipple. With his tongue, he circled her breast in smaller and smaller circles until he lathed her nipple in warmth.

Just when she started to adjust to the new sensation, his hand moved lower still. Slowly, he rubbed back and forth against the juncture of her thighs, igniting a strange burning need.

Isolde gasped and tangled her fingers in his hair. She swayed helplessly as sensation after bewildering sensation tore through her.

She brought her hands down to caress the corded muscle of his arms, his back, clinging to him as though he were the only solid thing in her world. He was all iron muscles and brawny power. And in this moment, he was hers.

The thought made her bold as she allowed her fingers to explore. Snippets of sensation flickered through her mind—rigid muscle against her softness, the scent of mint mixed with rose, the beat of his heart as it mingled with her breathlessness. She let her fingers trail over the hard planes of his chest, his abdomen, and farther down until she came to his manhood. Boldly, she ran two fingers along its length. He released a guttural sound and eased back. His smouldering gaze dropped to her lips and Isolde felt her body ignite all over again.

“Before we follow this to its natural end, I need to ask you something,” he said, his voice raw with desire. “I cannot put this off a moment longer because as warriors neither of us knows what tomorrow might bring. Today proved that.”

Isolde stepped back and brought her hand up to his chest, atop his racing heart. “What is it?”

His eyes were dark, veiled with passion, yet in them she also saw clarity. “Marry me, Isolde.”

Chapter Fourteen

“Marry you?” Isolde nearly choked on the unexpected words. “Why the sudden recklessness?”

“I wish to bind myself to you, Isolde, because together we are stronger. We are better than we are alone.” The sincerity of his words reflected in his gaze.

Time suddenly seemed to stand still around them even as her blood surged through her veins as it never had before. “We can be together without marriage.”

“I had thought so as well until I kissed you and you kissed me in return. I want more of what we will share tonight, for as long as we have left on this earth.”

Isolde stared at him as her breath came fast and shallow. “Binding yourself to me will mean much hardship for the MacLeods if my brother still harbours anger towards me.”