in a storm through her.
Forget propriety. With her mouth still on his, Giselle stepped to the side until she stood between his spread-out legs. Alec’s hands skimmed down her spine to her derriere the way he had before, massaging and pulling her closer until her belly flattened to his chest, her breasts hovering beneath his chin.
She was never going to get used to kissing him, the way it made her skin sing with pleasure, and her insides heat as though being held to a delicious flame. The desire for more made her squirm in his embrace.
“Are ye all right?” he asked. “Is this too much?”
“Nay. I am perfect...I—” But how could she put to voice her desires? “I want—” She swallowed, uncertain what to even ask of him.
“Tell me. Or show me.”
Giselle lifted one of his hands from her behind and placed it on her breast, giving a little shudder of desire when she did. The heavy weight of his palm made her nipple tighten more than it already was. A delicious torment that only seemed to increase rather than ease.
Unexpectedly, he bowed forward, hot breath fanning over the exposed skin of her décolletage, and then lower until his mouth touched the fabric of her taupe day dress, the heat singeing right through to her skin. Giselle’s knees buckled at the sensation, and she let out a little whimper.
“I want to kiss ye here,” he said, “without the barrier.”
She wanted that too and nodded, watching wide-eyed with wonder as his fingers skimmed the neckline of her dress and gave a little tug until her turgid nipple popped free. Pink and hard and an inch from his mouth. Alec grazed his tongue over the peak, and she gasped as liquid heat melted her insides.
My, but that was delicious. And then he did it again, and again. Wrapped his lips around her nipple, sucking gently.
“Oh,” she moaned, knees truly buckling this time, but he caught her, holding her up by her arse.
She had that same mad urge to wrap her leg up around him, to feel the hardness of his body between her thighs as she had in the abbey. The whisky made her worries about her mother run away. The door was locked. No one was coming in.
And if they tried, she’d simply escape the way he’d told her to.
Knowing all of that made it a lot easier to lift her leg until her shin rested on his thigh, to slide it to the side as he elevated her the remainder of the way, until both of her legs straddled his in the chair, and the hardness of something else pressed wickedly to the pulsing heat between her thighs.
Alec’s mouth came back to hers then, in a kiss that rivaled all the others for passion. A kiss that felt very much as though he were claiming her for his own. And Giselle was ready to let him.
This was madness.
And yet, Alec had no desire to stop it. He loved the way Giselle was so eager for his caress. Eager to explore the sensations kissing and caressing brought. The harsh, uneven rhythm of her breathing when he skimmed his lips over her nipple. The way the tiny, pink bud had puckered excitedly against his tongue.
Giselle touched the side of his face. Her fingertips were gently exploring the scars that marred him, and Alec stiffened. Waiting for her revulsion. Expecting her to leap off of his lap in horror. But she didn’t. Instead...she kept going, her kiss deepening as she slanted her head to the side.
The mere graze of her hand on his scar should have sent warnings shivering through him. But it only made his heart beat faster, and that dizzying feeling he’d had when his friends mentioned “love” returned a thousandfold. This woman, this mad and silly woman, was giving herself over to him freely.
That was a realization he had to cherish, cradling it like a fragile treasure. No one had ever made him feel this way, want this way, be this way.
Alec returned her kiss with reckless abandon. To hell with anyone outside the doorway. This was a moment he wasn’t going to miss. A chance to show her how much he cared—though only to a certain physical point, as he’d not leave her with a child. For in the morning, he would ride off, and as confident as he was his bullet would find its way into Joshua Keith, he was also certain that Keith’s bullet was going to