The next kiss deepened, slowly at first, then with rising hunger. His lips coaxed hers open, his hand sliding up her back to cradle the base of her skull. Her fingers fisted the fabric of his shirt, needing something to hold on to as the world tilted.
Their bodies moved closer, his arm locking firmly around her waist, drawing her flush against him. She could feel the shape of him—solid, warm,dangerous.Her senses were aflame, her mind fading like mist in morning light.
She wasn’t thinking. She wasn’t pretending.
She wasfeeling.
He kissed like he fought: intensely, with focus and fire, as though the moment itself could devour them both.
And in that moment, Elizabeth stopped caring about what was proper. What was expected. She only knew that she had never been kissed, and she’d never imagined she could belike this.
But she also knew it had to end.
Her knees trembled. Her breath came in shallow pants. She pulled back just enough to speak, though the words came out hoarse.
“I… I should go.”
His eyes were glazed, unreadable. His chest heaved with breath. He didn’t move to stop her, but his voice was low when he finally spoke.
“Aye. But ye’ll come back.”
There was no arrogance in the statement. No triumph. Only quiet hope, frayed around the edges.
She couldn’t answer. She didn’t trust her voice.
She turned and fled.
The moment she stepped outside into the hallway, a single tear slipped free and rolled down her cheek. She didn’t know what it meant—guilt, confusion, regret… or something far more dangerous.
His kiss had awakened something inside her. Something wild and ravenous.
And now, she wasn’t sure if she could ever put it back to sleep.
Chapter Sixteen
With Elizabeth’s taste still on his lips, Alasdair could not focus on anything.
He tried. God knew, he tried.
He rose at dawn, sword in hand, and went at the fencing dummy with vicious precision. He trained until his arms ached and sweat poured down his back. He went hunting with a party of visiting lords the next day, riding hard through the brush as if sheer speed might shake her from his head.
It didn’t.
Even the whisky didn’t help. He drank with Lord Penrith and a few others after supper, swallowing mouthfuls of aged amber fire, but all it did was blur her face into something even more sensual.
In his mind’s eye, she stared at him across a darkened room—chin lifted, eyes glittering with defiance. Her mouth, flushed from his kiss, parted slightly in surprise.
He could still feel her in his hands. The weight of her, delicate but strong, leaning into him when their lips met. The warmth of her body pressed to his. The way her hands had clutched his shirt like she was afraid he might vanish if she let go.
He’d felt it too, that same desperation. That ache beneath the surface that had nothing to do with lust, and everything to do with something far more dangerous.
She’d run. Of course she had. But she hadn’t slapped him. She hadn’t scolded him. She’dkissed him back.
Alasdair stared out at the darkened landscape beyond his study’s window, a glass of whisky forgotten in his hand.
The fire crackled behind him.
His whole life, he’d known how to keep things locked up. Emotion. Memory. Need.