Page 32 of The Madam’s Highlander

He clenched his jaw.

Fortunately, Freya did not appear to notice the slip. She stroked a hand lovingly over the handle of a spade, the wood appeared to have long ago turned gray and split in several places. “We need all the chances we can get to make this work again.”

Ewan lifted the scythe and examined the dull, rusted blade. His side hardly hurt him despite the action, a good sign indeed. If he were careful, he could sharpen the blade to where it needed to be to slice the tender stalks of - of what?

“What will ye grow?” Ewan set the scythe aside.

“Hay.” Freya's tone was quiet with the weight of something he didn’t know. “I tried to do it once on my own before, and it was possible with several servants for only one season before the weather turned bad.”

“Ye dinna strike me as the farmer sort of lass,” Ewan said. He tried to keep from chuckling lest he get a sharp look from her.

“But I strike ye as the madam type of lass?” She put her hand on her hip.

He shrugged. “No' in that outfit.”

She lowered her head and her gaze went warm. “Do ye like it better when I'm naked?”

The hot memory flashed in his mind of her beautifully firm, shapely body. Aye, he did like it when she was naked. He hadn’t been able to get the image from his mind. Every time he saw her, every time he closed his eyes, every time they lay beside each other in the wide expanse of the bed, neither touching the other.

And he’d thought of the kiss. The way she’d tasted sweetly of jam and tea. How lush her bottom lip had been when he’d caught it in his mouth.

An angry wave of frustration washed over him. Where was his discipline? His fortitude? She’d sacrificed everything for him and he’d taken advantage of her in her fragile emotional state.

She watched him from lowered lashes, her cheeks an even deeper shade of pink, flushing down her throat and beneath the clasp of her cloak.

The silence between them was not uncomfortable. No, it was charged with the dance of intimacy, all the words they did not say.

Freya’s tongue flicked out between her lips, moistening them. His gaze lowered, inadvertently taking in her beautiful mouth, that full bottom lip.

He wanted to kiss her. Again.

He started, in an attempt to offer a reply of some sort, unsure of what to say.

Freya put a finger to his mouth. “If ye apologize for the kiss one more time, I'll no' ever kiss ye again.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but she rose on her tiptoes and caressed his mouth with hers. Her face was cold from the chill in the air, but her lips were warm, her tongue hot.

God, her tongue. She stroked inside his mouth, brushing his tongue with her own and setting off an explosion of excitement. Anticipation. Want.

His body prickled with desire and he found his hands curling into her hair, pulling her closer against him. She pressed her body to his, her hips meeting the spot where arousal grew hard and insistent.

Lust pounded through him and echoed in his ears with a steady roar. If his behavior was feral, Freya did not seem to mind. Rather, she matched his excitement with a frenzy of her own.

Her hands moved in a restless, aimless path over his back, his arms, his chest. His abdomen.

A low groan escaped deep in his throat. His hands shifted under her cloak so his palms could glide over her narrow waist and up to her breasts.

His fingertips skirted over the line of her bodice. A swell of flesh met his blind touch, firm and round. Freya moaned and pushed her breasts toward him.

The chaste life he had been so proud of now worked against him, welling against the dam of his control like a raging river. He didn't know how much longer he could fight the torrent of lust, of need.

Or if he even wanted to.

CHAPTER TEN

Ewan's body burned with a fire unlike any other he'd encountered before. He'd been with women in the past, of course. Not many, and only ones who were unwed and not virgins. Women who understood his inability to offer anything other than a solitary night.

Lust had been a basic need fulfilled - an itch scratched until the next time it chafed again.