Redeemed (Heroes of the Highlands) - By Kerrigan Byrne Page 0,38

more step and she’d be in reach of his blade. Three more and she’d be inside his guard. It would all be over.

He had to act now.

Daroch lunged. He was distantly aware of his sword clattering to the earth as his lips captured Kylah’s mouth and he roughly pulled her shock-stiffened body against his. Her lips were shockingly warm. Pliant and soft, yet utterly still.

Daroch knew she was afraid. Knew she could kill him at any moment and bring his piteous existence to an end. He should soothe her. He should take care with her. But instead he kissed her as though he were Annwn, the hellhound escaped from the underworld to run his prey to ground. He kissed her like he did everything else in his life, with single-minded and exacting thoroughness.

Her hands went to his shoulders and fluttered there like deadly butterfly wings. Daroch’s heat shot even higher and his entire body hummed with lust heightened by the threat of pain and death. It was not unlike the moment he stood at the edge of the cape staring down at the ocean before he dove in. An exhilaration tinged by a fear born of instinct to survive, unmatched in its intensity before this moment. And if it was to be his last, he refused to die without tasting her.

He licked at the seam of her mouth, warning her before he claimed it. Thrusting his tongue into the moist heat behind her lips, he let out a groan. She was here. She was real. And he could touch her. Hold her. Claim her as his own.

The moment the thought manifested in the miasma of lust that had become his brain, Kylah came alive in his arms. She returned his kiss with a desperate, wanton innocence. Wrapping herself around him and clinging to him, her mouth became hot, hungry and timidly inquisitive.

Should he have expected anything else?

He drank from her deeply, tangling his tongue with hers in a dance of wet experimentation and exploration. He was distantly aware that he’d conjured a storm in this moment. The inevitability of its arrival hung thick and heavy in the air between them and the ominous clouds rolled in the distance, promising to unleash the full force of their thunderous power.

They were both out of breath when he tore his mouth from hers. She let out a whimper of protestation and Daroch thrilled to the gleam of firelight on her moist and swollen lips.

Their foreheads touched and for a moment, and they simply shared wordless, panting breaths while soaking in the foreign sensation of touch and taste and the swell of a frightening and demanding passion.

“If ye doona kill me now, I’m going to take ye, Kylah.” He’d meant it as a warning, as a threat, but the fervent need in his voice lowered the timbre to the equivalent of a vocal caress.

She nodded against his forehead. “Just… don’t hold me down,” she admonished in a whisper.

He nodded against hers. “If ye doona watch,” he requested.

She closed her eyes.

He lifted her into his arms.

Carrying her to his pallet of furs, he kicked some loose dirt over the fire, dousing the flames and leaving only glowing coals in the pit. Daroch hoped it would be enough. He wanted some light to see her by and she no longer provided it.

He realized his double standard—his weakness—but it couldn’t be helped.

Setting her on her feet, he pulled her against him again. She kept her eyes closed as her face turned up to his. Her dark auburn lashes fanned across her cheek and he kissed them lightly, touching her lips with a shy smile. A part of him wanted to see the soft, expressive liquid green burn as he brought her pleasure, but he feared that her gaze would cool the heated blood pulsing through his cock.

Her mouth parted, and he took the invitation, sealing his lips over hers and plundering her honeyed recesses with a hunger borne of a hundred years. Her nipples hardened against his chest, but the curves of her body softened and melted into the hard angles of his.

He cupped her precious face in his hands, feeling the delicate skin of her jaw before drawing his fingers down the column of her neck to her collar bone. His hands trembled as he pushed her robes away from her shoulders and let them glide down the lovely curves of her body.

Kylah squeaked against his mouth and pressed her naked skin firmly into his, her