Quest of the Highlander (Crowns & Kilts #5) - Cynthia Wright Page 0,63

by romantic attachments, at least until I know who I truly am and where I belong. Yet I have tender feelings for ye, Nora Brodie.” He swallowed, wanting to say the word love, but unable to leap that chasm for the first time. “Do ye feel the same?”

Lennox paused, waiting, and the moments seemed to stretch into eternity. At last, she spoke, her voice thick.

“I do.” She reached up to touch him, her slim hand soft against his hard, stubbled jaw, but he saw pain in her eyes. “I… I did not expect this.”

Clearly, she was struggling inside. “What is it, lass?” He felt a powerful need to show her how right it could be between them. “That night we rode away from Stirling, when we lay together and I took your innocence… It was not what it should have been. We can have so much more together.”

A long moment passed before he heard her soft whisper. “Yes. I do want that.”

Every part of him burned for her, aching to taste her kisses, to be inside her, to say with his body what he could not put into words. Smoothing back her curls, Lennox bent to capture her mouth. She parted her lips and returned his kiss, her hands on the damp, bare breadth of his shoulders. He slowly trailed one hand up the curve of her waist, over her ribcage, and then used his fingertip to lightly circle her nipple over the fabric of her bodice. When her nipple tightened, he cupped her breast, feeling her response, determined to go slow and savor each caress, each taste, each throb of arousal. The night when they had lain together in the woods, a blind need had carried them away, but today would be different.

Lennox kissed his way from her mouth down her neck, burying his face in her meadow-scented cloud of curls. “All these clothes ye are wearing,” he murmured, “are in the way.”

Nora nodded, eyes closed. He found the laces of her gown, opening her bodice, drinking in the sight of her pink-tipped breasts, creamy in the soft afternoon light.

“Ye are so beautiful,” he said hoarsely. “I mean to make this everything ye have ever dreamed of.”

Bending, he kissed her again, exploring her mouth with his tongue, feeling her breathing change. And then he tasted salty tears.

Feeling as if cold water had been splashed on him, he lifted his head. “What’s amiss?” he asked hoarsely. “What have I done?”

Now the tears spilled from her eyes, and she didn’t trouble to dry them. “You have done nothing. It isn’t you, Lennox, it’s me. I am what’s amiss.”

“I do not understand.” Suddenly, it seemed he was looking at a stranger, and yet perhaps this was simply what he had sensed for so long, the invisible barrier that existed between them. “What the devil are ye saying?”

Nora pushed herself up to a sitting position. “I have been keeping something from you.” Now she was dry-eyed, determined. “I have been avoiding the truth, wishing it could be otherwise, but I should have told you long ago…that night we lay together in the woods.”

* * *

It hurt her to see the pain and confusion on Lennox’s splendid face, to feel his struggle to suppress the tide of his desire. But she could not keep the truth from him a moment longer, especially now that he had begun to speak of a future for them.

A future! The very word made Nora’s stomach knot, for she alone felt the chasm of secrets yawning between them.

“I’m listening.” Lennox pushed back against a pillow and watched her. “Whatever it is, ye can safely tell me.”

Nora gazed at him, his tawny hair still damp and tousled, his serious, magnificent face darkened by the sun. When she looked at his mouth and thought of his sensual kisses, a shiver of wonder ran through her. How could she bring her troubles into the life of this good man? He had given her his protection, his friendship, and perhaps his heart.

“I wish all of it were different, that I could be the woman you imagine I am.”

A shadow crossed his face, but he made no reply.

Unable to delay a moment longer, she took a deep breath, met Lennox’s green eyes and summoned all her courage. “I was not a virgin when we lay together that night in the woods. I…had been with another man.”

He paled then seemed to gather himself. “I was no innocent either, lass. I can understand if ye have