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He backed her up against the door, and she looked up at him, her nostrils flaring. All the restraint he had forced upon himself for weeks shattered at once. There was no stopping now.

His chest was heaving, his mind blank as he leaned in. Their breath mingled, and her cheeks were flushed, but she didn’t push him away.

Her hands slid up his chest, and the simple touch felt like fire scorching his skin. Her fingers curled around his shoulders, digging in.

He braced his hand against the door next to her head, making sure she had nowhere to go. His other arm snaked around her waist, pulling her close until no inch was left between them.

“Alisdair.”

That single word, breathless, almost a low moan, conveyed all she wanted to say. All he wanted to hear.

He growled deep in his chest, before lowering his mouth to hers.

Fire. That was the word that could describe their kiss. No slow exploration, no timid peck. But fire raging, soaring, burning them alive.

His tongue swept across her lower lip, demanding access that she granted instantly. The moment her taste exploded on his tongue, the last strand holding his sanity together snapped.

He pinned her hard against the door as his hand slid into her hair, pulling softly to tilt her head just right so he could devour her. And devoured her he did.

His tongue explored every corner of her mouth while his fingers tugged on her silky hair. He pulled back to lick her upper lip, then sucked in her lower one. Isla slid her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, moaning softly.

“Damn it,” he groaned.

She was undoing everything he had worked hard to build over the last eight years, every defense, every hard stone carefully placed around him. His breath came in harsh bursts as he cupped her cheek in his hand, his thumb tracing her jaw. One glance at her kiss-swollen lips, and he dove back in.

This time, the heat of the argument had faded. All that remained was a fierce need that consumed them both.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and nibbled on his lower lip, and he snarled. He stepped between her legs, feeling his manhood stiffen, and deepened the kiss. His hand slid down to her neck, then her collarbone, eagerly exploring her skin. If he were to just⁠—

He froze, panting, before dropping his forehead onto hers.

What am I doing? Why can I nae control meself around her?

Fury rose in him like a tempest, and he seized his soul back from wherever it had gone. He clenched his jaw and forced himself to step back, before he claimed her entirely and ruined them both.

Isla felt the shift and dug her nails into his shoulders. She knew what he was doing before he even uttered the words.

“Leave!”

He pushed away from her and took a deep breath in a bid to compose himself.

“Alisdair,” she implored.

His eyes snapped to her, flashing with fury. Not at her, but at himself. “I said leave.”

She gave him that look again, pure disappointment, throwing his failure to be a decent man right back at him.

He swallowed and turned his back on her, the final nail in the coffin of whatever had been brewing between them.

He didn’t speak, didn’t look when he heard the door open and close behind him, and the quick patter of her retreating footsteps.

“Argh!”

He grabbed the cup on his desk and threw it against the wall. And yet her taste lingered on his lips, the brush of her body against his still torturing him.

Days had passed. Mary had left the day after her arrival, and the castle had gone back to its normal rhythm. Yet nothing was the same. He was not the same.

Ever since that kiss in his study, he had not had one moment of peace. Not one moment when he wasn’t tortured by the memory. Not a second when his mind didn’t offer a glimpse of how Isla had felt in his arms. How perfectly she had fit.