Page 143 of Highland Spy

He searched her gaze with his hazel eyes and once more she found herself studying the flecks of green and black in them. “Say ye’ll stay.”

Everything in her arched toward him the way flowers bend toward the sun. “Yes,” she said with finality. “Yes, I’ll stay.”

• • •

After all this time, after all the torment he’d inflicted upon them both, Connor had Ariana.

The skin beneath her sark was warm against his hands, her words a soft breathy note in his ears, the touch of her lips sweet honey on his mouth—and yet he almost did not believe any of it for wanting it so badly.

She would stay.

She would be his.

The desperation pumping in his chest shifted then, from the desire to persuade to the desire to possess—to claim what was his.

Ariana must have felt it too, for her kisses became greedier, bolder—a flick of the tongue, a tug of her teeth across his lower lip, the tease of her fingers along his lower stomach.

Connor gave a low, hungry growl and pulled her against him.

He remembered his painful desire for her at Urquhart—it was nothing compared to the desire to reclaim what he’d once had and too quickly lost. It thundered in his veins with a force he could not, and would not, deny.

Her body was all firm curves beneath the crumpled fabric of her sark. The plaid she’d clung so tightly around her fell away in a wisp of tartan—a barrier willingly dropped.

Only one more stood in his way.

He tugged on the voluminous undergarment. Up, up, up, until her shapely legs appeared, the curve of her hips, the dip of her waist and swell of her breasts, and then her beautiful face. Her eyes were full of the quiet adoration they’d once held when regarding him.

His body ached for release, but he refused to succumb to the blatant desire as he had last time.

This time would be different.

Connor let his gaze wash over her, claiming her first with his eyes. He wanted to touch every part of her with every part of him, his hands and mouth and tongue, until he was so overwhelmed he fell to his knees before her. His fingertips drifted over her smooth shoulders and down to the swell of her breasts, where the pink nipples stood tight and eager.

He glanced up at her face to see her watching him in quiet study beneath heavy-lidded eyes, and let his fingertip drag across her nipple. She drew in a soft breath and drew her tongue over her lips.

Taste.

He wanted to taste her.

Slowly and purposefully, he leaned forward and ran the tip of his tongue along the underside of her breast before moving upward toward her nipple. A graze, a tease.

Her whimper told him she’d enjoyed it, and his cock lurched in greedy reflex.

He wrapped his right arm around her bottom and tugged her closer, so the flat of her belly lay against his chest.

And her breast was directly in front of his mouth. He opened his lips and drew in one pert little bud.

Ariana gave a soft moan. Her hips rolled forward against him, her body acting on instinct.

With flick after deliberate flick, he coaxed several more moans from her before switching to her other breast. Her hands found his shoulders and her fingers clung to him.

“Please, Connor…” She spoke in a breathless voice, and he knew she would be slick and ready were he to graze a finger between her legs.

Only it wouldn’t be his finger.

He released his hold on her until her back touched the wall and he could see she was supported.

His breath came deep and ragged with his low level of control. Everything in him wanted to rip off his kilt and shove himself inside her like some rutting brute.