Devil in Disguise (The Ravenels #7) - Lisa Kleypas Page 0,76

with his tongue, licking deep into each kiss. Wild quivers of pleasure went through her, weakening her knees until she had to lean against him to stay upright. As her head tilted back, a forgotten tear slid from the outer corner of her eye to the edge of her hairline. His lips followed the salty track, absorbing the taste.

Keir cradled her cheek in his hand, his shaken whisper falling hotly against her mouth. “Merry, love … my heart’s gleam, drop of my dearest blood … you should have told me.”

Merritt heard her own weak reply as if from a distance. “I thought … in some part of your mind … you might have wanted to forget.”

“No.” Keir crushed her close, nuzzling hard against her hair and disheveling the pinned-up coils. “Never, love. The memory slipped out of reach for a moment, is all.” His hand coasted slowly up and down her spine. “I’m so damned sorry for the way I’ve been trying to keep you at a distance. I dinna know you were already inside my heart.” He paused before adding wryly, “Mind, I did have to jump from a three-story window, with little to break the fall but my own hard head.” Taking one of her hands, he pressed her palm over his pounding heartbeat. “But you were still in here. Your name is carved so deep, a million years could no’ erase it.”

Completely undone, Merritt buried her face against his chest. “This is impossible,” she said in despair. “You shouldn’t have come back. We have no future. I wouldn’t be happy in your life, and you wouldn’t be happy in mine.”

Although the words were smothered in his shirt-front, Keir managed to decipher them.

Softly he asked, “Would you be happy without me?”

Merritt swallowed hard. “No,” she admitted wretchedly. “We’re doomed, separately or together.”

Keir cupped a hand over her head and gathered her deeper into his embrace. She felt a tremor run through him, and for a moment she thought he might be weeping. But no—he was laughing.

“You find this amusing?” she asked indignantly.

He shook his head, swallowing back a chuckle and clearing his throat. “I was only thinking if we’re doomed either way … we may as well stay together, aye?”

Before she could reply, he bent and caught her lips with his, coaxing a response she couldn’t hold back. Nothing was under her control. She was as reckless as a girl in her teens, overwhelmed with new emotions and ready to throw away everything for the sake of love.

Except even as a teenage girl, she’d never felt anything like this.

Keir was kissing her harder now, ravishing slowly, letting her feel his hunger, his need.

Unbelievably long, sensuous kisses … sometimes languid, sometimes fierce … kisses that made impossible promises.

A breath rasped in his throat as he let his lips wander gently over her face. “Merry, lass … I have to tell you what that night meant to me. How beautiful it was … how you quenched a thirst in my soul.”

“Keir,” she managed to say, “we must be careful not to confuse the physical act with deeper feelings.”

He drew back to look down at her with a frown. “I dinna mean when we fooked.”

Merritt flinched as if he’d just dashed cold water in her face. “For heaven’s sake, please don’t put it that way.”

His brows lifted slightly at her vehemence. “How should I say it, then?”

After sorting through various possibilities, she suggested, “Sleeping together?”

Keir looked sardonic. “Neither of us slept a wink.”

“Then … ‘when we had relations.’”

He snorted, obviously loathing that suggestion. “My word means the same thing, and ’tis shorter.”

“The point you were about to make … ?” Merritt prompted.

“Oh, aye. What made the night special was how we talked for hours, just the two of us. The ease of it … like floating on salt water.” A soft distance entered his gaze as he continued. “We were in our own world. I’d never felt that with anyone before, but I knew I could tell you things I’d never told anyone. And when we slept together … that was part of the conversation, only without words.”

Merritt was speechless.

He had to stop saying wonderful, endearing things in that accent, and standing there with that stray lock of gold-burnished hair falling over his eyes … how was a woman supposed to think straight?

She went to him, pulled his head down to hers, and silenced him with her lips. Only as a necessary measure to stop him from talking. Not because she