wishing his words true. Forever. “Yours,” he whispered.
He made the word sound filthy. And she wanted it all the more.
She shook her head. “But it is I who is wrapped in your colors.”
His gaze slid down, over her bared breasts, to the fabric pooled at her waist. He reached for it, his fingers running over it for the barest breath before he looked to her, brow furrowed. “This isn’t my plaid. It’s the Stuart tartan, but it is too soft.”
She nodded. “It is cashmere. The dressmaker gave it to me before I left this morning . . .” She paused, not wanting to think of the dressmaker. Of the reason she had been there. For a dress for the theater. For a trousseau.
Not wanting to think of the other woman who had been there. His woman.
Alec would not let her think of those things, however. His beautiful brown gaze captured her. “You knew it would slay me.”
Lily smiled. “I hoped it would.”
He pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “Here,” he whispered to the skin there. “This is what I saw when I entered the room. This shoulder, bare and perfect against my plaid. And you . . .” His lips moved down, over her collarbone, down the slope of her breast. “You . . . beautiful enough to be a Scottish queen.”
He took the tip of her breast in his mouth, teasing until it was hard and begging for everything he would give her, for the licks and pulls at her flesh, even as she knew she should resist. Knew she should be ashamed. But with Alec, nothing felt shameful. Nothing felt wrong. It felt as though this moment—it was her purpose. He was her destiny. She cried out at the sensation and he gentled, worrying the straining flesh with the light graze of his teeth, making her pant his name and beg for more.
He lifted his head. “Is that how you like it, mo chridhe?”
She caressed his shoulders, her hands sliding up to cup his face, to tilt him to her for a kiss. She whispered against his lips, “I like it however you wish to give it.”
He took control of the caress, sliding his tongue deep and claiming her for his own. Marking her. Ensuring that she would never be able to think of kissing without thinking of him. Of now. Of this night.
He kissed her in long, lingering caresses, addling her mind with soft, sinful pleasure until she nearly didn’t notice that he had peeled away the tartan on her lap. And then his fingers were caressing, delving deeper in long, lingering strokes, and she noticed. Clearly.
She writhed beneath his touch, sighing her pleasure into his mouth.
“You taste of peppermint,” he said after a long, lingering lick at her lips. “How is that possible?”
“Sesily.” She sighed, desperate to find thought as his fingers played and tempted, making promises of what was to come.
He raised a brow, humor in his gaze. “Another Talbot trick?”
“I wanted to taste good,” she said, a blush running over her cheeks.
He held her gaze for a long moment as he slid his fingers deep, and she gasped once, twice, before he removed them, bringing them to his mouth as he had in the carriage days ago. She blazed like the sun as she watched him slide them deep into his mouth, as he tasted her secrets, the visual making her ache. “You taste wonderful. No peppermint required.” He leaned in again, licking along her jaw to her ear. “I should like to eat you up.”
Her cheeks flamed at the words, and she thought she might perish from embarrassment when his fingers resumed their movement, dipping, swirling, and then disappearing again, rising to lazily paint the tip of one breast in slow, wet circles. “Shall I eat you up, lass?”
Before she could answer, he moved again, sliding down her body, licking and sucking until she sighed her pleasure and held him to her, aching for more. He repeated the action on the other breast, leaving her awash in need, aching for something she could not name.
She lifted his face to hers. “Alec,” she whispered, squirming on the creaky bed. “Please. Come to me.”
He shook his head then. “I am not done tasting you, love.”
Love.
The endearment was enough to set her squirming again, even more so as he moved her, pulling her legs to the edge of the bed, and—she closed her eyes—spreading her thighs wide. “Lie back,” he said, the words rough and deep