Page 24 of This Laird of Mine

After his heartbeat slowed, he pulled back to stare into her face. “Has anyone ever told you that you are trouble?”

Her smile slipped. “Now why would you say that?”

He sat up and dusted the bank’s dirt from his chest. “You sank my boat.”

“I was trying to fish.” Claire shoved back her dripping hair. His gaze followed her movements.

“Fishing is much easier when you are not submerged in water.” His voice was light, and something reckless flickered in his expression. His gaze wandered from her face to her breasts then down to her hips. The thin, wet fabric clung to her body, molded to every curve, and revealed the dusky peak of her nipples.

The warmth of his gaze pulled her in. She shifted closer.

“I had a net,” she said, in her own defense. “I just could not handle the boat and the net at the same time.”

He reached up and captured a soggy tendril of her hair. He coiled it around his finger, and softly tugged her closer. “That boat was my great-grandfather’s. It was over sixty years old. Whatever made you think it was seaworthy?” His voice was gentle, tender.

“I . . . I didn’t think. I just wanted to catch a fish for dinner.” For you. She swallowed roughly against a sudden tightness in her throat.

“Come closer,” he challenged with a smile.

“Why . . . why should I?”

“Because you want to,” he said, his voice thick.

“You don’t know what I want. You don’t know anything about me. Despite the fact that we are married, we are strangers.”

“Yes, we are.” His smile faded and he looked out at the loch.

Loneliness. There it was again, that shared emotion. She had the sudden feeling he was speaking not just about them any longer, but a constant state, and she felt an odd sense of kinship.

“You never let me ask my three questions the other night, Jules. Tell me something about you now, something no one else knows.”

He frowned. “Why? So you can use that information against me?”

“No. So I can feel closer to you, even if it is just for this moment. One thing, that’s all I ask.”

A frown creased his forehead. He wasn’t going to answer her. A heaviness descended over her in the silence that ensued until he said, “My favorite color is green. I once had a pet mouse. I named him Francis, after the saint. While in gaol, I used to imagine I was out fishing on the loch. And when my mother died, a part of me died along with her.”

“Jules,” she said, her voice raw.

He held up his hand, stalling her words. “I don’t know what it is about you. One minute I want to strangle you. The next minute I want to kiss you.”

Before she could stop herself, she touched her lips to his. He hesitated for only a moment before he responded, kissing her back, pulling her closer, letting her in. Even though she had instigated the kiss, she was unprepared for its effect. A wild, indescribable sweetness mingled his breath with hers.

With a groan, he shifted his lips to her cheek, her ear, trailing hot kisses down her neck, weaving a sensual spell, until his mouth locked on hers once more. His tongue traced a hot line between her lips, coaxing, urging them to part.

The moment she yielded, his tongue plunged into her mouth, stroking and caressing. A tingling sensation spread from her arms and legs, gathering at her core, until a strange languid heat flowed through her entire being.

She surrendered to the sensation and to the stormy splendor of his kiss. Her hands shifted restlessly over the damp fabric of his shirt. She could feel his heavily muscled shoulders and forearms beneath the sheer fabric. The sensation made her bold as her lips moved against his with increasing abandon.

When he finally pulled his mouth from hers an eternity later, their breath came in mingled gasps as the powerful, sensual force surrounding them was abandoned. Feeling almost bereft at its loss, Claire surfaced from the blissful abandon where he had taken her, and forced her heavy eyelids to open so she could look at him. He stretched out beside her on the grassy beach, his face hard and dark with passion, his blue eyes smoldering.

Lifting his hand, he tenderly brushed a copper lock of hair off her cheek, and he tried to smile, but his breathing was as ragged as hers. He fingered the locket about her neck. “You wear this always. Should I be jealous?”

“No,” she said tenuously. “It was given to me a long time ago.” He let the topic slide as Claire let her gaze drop once more to his finely chiseled mouth.

“Don’t look at me that way unless you want this to progress further,” he warned her in a husky, tender voice. “If you touch me again, I am not certain I will have the strength to stop.”

Stunned into stillness by the harsh need in his voice, Claire met his gaze, saw the raw desire beating there. Wave after wave of heat washed over her, shimmering with sensuality. She lost herself in the scent of him, the planes of his face, the tension in his body. She took it all in and welcomed the glittering promise he offered.