Page 41 of To Win a Highlander’s Heart

He stepped towards her. “We’ve overcome obstacles before.”

She took a step back. “The English will place a bounty on my head after what I did to them at Dunvegan.”

Orrick took her hands in his. “You did not make Lieutenant Collins swear to leave you in peace when you made him promise not to return to Dunvegan or attack the MacLeods again.”

“It was more important to protect your clan,” she said in a voice that was no stronger than a whisper.

“If you become a MacLeod, then that promise also extends to you.” Orrick gave her a hopeful smile.

“Will Lieutenant Collins honour his promise?”

“We must hope he is a man of integrity.” Orrick’s smile faded.

A breathless moment passed and then another as she considered Orrick’s proposal. His features were calm, confident, as though believing she could not deny his request. Then, drawn to him by a will stronger than her own, Isolde took the two steps that would bring their bodies together again.

She felt a flare of warmth move through her as Orrick’s strong fingers closed around her own. In the space of a heartbeat, all her reservations melted away. The loneliness that had been ever-present in her life since she’d first held a sword and marked herself as different from other women fell away. Orrick wanted her to be his wife, his partner, however long or temporary that might be. Their lives would be joined. The thought brought as much fear as exhilaration.

“If I marry you, I must ask one thing of you,” she said as his smiling lips descended towards hers.

After a thorough kiss, he pulled back. “Anything.”

“We must go to Scorrybreac and seek my brother’s blessing. There was a time in the past when my brother and I were close, despite our differences. I need his approval.”

Orrick’s brow arched. “His approval is important to you after he exiled you?” he asked, his voice soft, and with no judgement.

She nodded. “Even with the promise by the English to stay away from Dunvegan, our joining will make the English an enemy of the MacLeods. If I have my brother’s approval to the marriage and if he forgives me for my past misdeeds, then he and his clan will not abandon the MacLeods in a time of need.”

“Then tomorrow we go to Scorrybreac.” A smile returned to his lips. “Tonight we have all to ourselves,” he whispered against her cheek as he placed the lightest of kisses along her jaw. When his lips touched the corner of hers, she turned her head to receive his kiss.

Warmth pooled in her belly and arousal flared as she drew him more deeply into her mouth. With her free hand, she trailed her fingers down his shoulder, across his back, until she urged him closer against the softness of her body, fitting the evidence of his arousal tightly against her thigh.

He shifted them both along the cave floor towards the bed. At the edge he broke the kiss and stepped back, going to retrieve the bundled pelt she had dropped earlier. Together they unwrapped it and removed the contents, setting them aside before they stretched the thick, sewn pelts across the moss and feathers.

On the opposite side of the bed, the warmth of Orrick’s gaze caressed her. “Not only are you a powerful warrior, you are a beautiful woman, Isolde. A rare combination. What a fortunate man am I.” In the soft glow of the torchlight, he came around the bed to stand before her.

“I am the lucky one. I thought I would be alone forever.”

He pulled her to him and she gasped, then closed her eyes, overcome by the startling sensation of his warm skin against her own. He brushed his lips across hers before he slid his mouth down her neck, across her shoulders, then farther down until he reached her breasts. He nuzzled them slowly for endless moments before his lips closed over her taut nipples—first one, then the other.

She moaned softly as he increased the pressure of his warm and languid caresses, pulling her into a dark, whirling storm of pure desire and need. She tangled her hand in his hair, feeling the thick, cool silk slide through her fingers. Her legs felt weak beneath her as she drew in the heated, minty scent of his skin.

“Orrick,” she called, uncertain what it was she asked for, but she knew she longed for more of this dizzying arousal.

His mouth left her breasts, and still she trembled with the vibrant awareness of his body so close to hers. With a physical effort she forced her eyes open and looked at him. What she saw made her heart ache. In the glow of the firelight, his face was hard and dark with passion, and yet there was as much tenderness in his eyes as longing.

A sudden yearning took hold of her, fired her desire and her boldness. She slid her hand over the rigid muscles of his chest, watching as they flexed instinctively in passionate response to her touch. His reaction—heady, earthly, erotic.

She trailed her fingers over his arms, his neck, and shoulders, following each touch with her lips. His skin was like satin, and heat radiated from him, spreading through her, pulling her into a place without thought, without time, where all she knew were the waves of sensation and fire cresting through her body, and the desperate need for more.

And, for the first time in her life, she allowed herself to free her mind from control and caution. She wanted to touch him, to feel the full length of him against her skin, let her desire take her to places she had never imagined.

He lifted her in his arms and settled her on the pelt, then joined her a heartbeat later. Driven by need, she caressed Orrick’s back and hips and buttocks, savouring the firmness of his muscles beneath her hands. Each touch, each kiss sent all rational thought further from her mind until she could only feel something wild and primitive building inside her, racing through her veins, seeking an unknown release.

Orrick must have felt it too if the rapid rise and fall of his chest were any indication, but his response was not filled with the same breathless urgency that pulsed through her. Instead, he took his time, brushing her hair away from her neck with agonising tenderness to press kisses along her collarbone, her shoulder, her breasts. With each sweet kiss, the reality of the world faded until there was nothing left but the two of them, the shadows of the cave, and the stillness of the night.

Orrick slid his hands to her waist, holding her captive, a sweet prisoner, as he cradled her body against his own. Nothing had ever felt more right. His hands moved down to cup her buttocks, the roughened texture of his palms flaring against the satiny softness of her flesh. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply into the tumbled mass of her hair, as though savouring her scent.

“With you, I feel whole,” he whispered against her hair. “That piece of myself I left back in the West Indies has slid back into place.”