Highland Heiress - By Margaret Moore Page 0,67

then his trousers, until he was completely naked except for the wide swath of linen around his middle. The rest of him was bruised, battered, and beautifully nude.

Powerfully, primitively ready to love her.

With a last mental gasp, modesty and the strictures of society reared up in her mind, a distant shout of wary caution that once she let this man possess her, there would be no going back. Her maidenhood, once gone, could never be retrieved.

That what she was giving up, giving to him, was something she could only give to him, and no one else.

Her flash of doubt, her moment’s hesitation, must have shown in her face, for his expression changed and he reached for his trousers. “Go,” he said softly. “Leave me, Moira.”

“No!” she cried, grabbing for his trousers and pulling them from his grasp, her qualms overruled by the need to be with him and to prove to him how sincere she was. “I don’t want to go. I want to stay with you.

“I want to be with you,” she said even more firmly as she yanked her nightgown over her head, revealing her body to him.

“I want to love you and for you to love me,” she whispered as she reached out to take both his hands and draw him onto the bed with her.

“Please be with me,” she said as she brushed the hair from his brow and looked into his smoldering eyes, seeing in them all that she had ever hoped to see in the eyes of a man who loved her. “I want you, Gordon, here and now and forever. I want you to make love with me. I want to make love to you.”

Although his body betrayed his animal desire and their bodies were nearly touching, he didn’t act. “Moira, you don’t have to prove yourself to me in this way. I believe that you love me. I believe that you’ll be true to me, even if we have to be apart for a time.”

He meant it; it was plain in his face. And she was sure he would be true to her, no matter how long they had to be away from each other. She also trusted her own feelings, confident that what she felt for Gordon McHeath was no fleeting fancy, no shallow emotion based on flattery and pride. She had faith that she could rise from this bed right now without another kiss or caress, and they would still be married one day, their union lawful and free of the risk of scandal. He didn’t need to possess her body to know he had her heart.

So the only reason to be with him here and now was…because she wanted to be.

And oh, how she wanted to be! “I believe you, Gordon. I trust you. And if you really want me to leave, I will go—but only because you ask me. Otherwise, I’ll stay, because I want to be with you tonight, Gordon. I want to love you and have you love me. I want something good to remember if things get difficult in the coming days. I want to remember what it’s like to hold you in my arms, to be yours in every way, until we can be married. Will you give me that, Gordon? Will you let me stay and make love with me?”

“I haven’t the strength to refuse. I love you so much and I want you too much,” he whispered as he gazed down at her.

He bent down and his lips covered hers with a gentler kiss, a touch of tenderness and promise. A demonstration of the kind of devotion they would share once the fiercer passion was spent.

With gentle yet insistent pressure he moved his mouth over hers and insinuated his tongue between her parted lips. Her body relaxed, and she felt free of worry and care.

As his tongue slipped into her mouth, he shifted until his hips were between her thighs. She slid her hands over the plane of his back, across the brief expanse of the bandage and over the contours of his buttocks. His body was like a new country whose terrain she wanted to learn and explore, as she had once explored this house. Except that he was much more interesting.

As he leaned his weight on his left elbow, his right hand grazed with agonizing leisure over her body, from the curve of her collarbone over the roundness of her breast and the ridges of her ribs, across her taut