Page 79 of Taken By the Heartless Highlander
His mouth covered hers again, and he kissed her with renewed urgency as she shuddered against him.
They were crushed together, her hand working over his flesh. It took only a moment for his tongue to push against hers as a soul-deep groan was wrenched from him. She felt his length pulse in her hand, and he found his release, his head falling back, his face turned up to the canopy above them.
“What ye do to me,” he muttered.
With a growl, his hands gripped her waist and he lifted her up, flipping their positions until her back was pushed up against the thick trunk of a tree.
He sank to his knees, pushing her skirts out of the way completely. She thought that he might use his fingers to send her wild again, but instead, he buried his head between her legs. She felt the soft lapping of his tongue against her most intimate flesh.
“Oh god,” she gasped as she felt his tongue pushing inside her, and her pleasure returned full force.
Her hips punched forward as her hands came to rest in his hair, and she found herself writhing into him over and over. Her back was pressed against the tree as her leg came up to hook over his shoulder.
Finally, after the pleasure built so much that she could barely breathe with it, she fell over the waterfall’s edge, plunging down into the depths of need and desire she had never known existed.
* * *
Noah watched Keira righting her clothing as he allowed his body to come down from the heights that she had induced within him.
He was overwhelmed by what they had shared and unnerved by his inner need for her. He still did not feel sated—it seemed to him that he would never be sated when it came to this woman. She lit something in his flesh, and he could not escape it.
She was kneeling down to wash her face in the pool's clear waters and as she stood back up, glancing over at him, her cheeks were still beautifully flushed.
He did not wish to break the quiet calm between them, but knew that they had to talk about what they would be to one another. He almost feared the answer.
“Have ye reconsidered?” he asked slowly, watching her walk back around the edge of the pool. She looked like a fairy princess, reflected in the rippling surface.
“Reconsidered?”
“The marriage.”
“Haveye?” she replied.
“I’ll nae reconsider, lass. This is for yer own safety. If we wed ye will be protected.”
“Ye keep sayin’ that. Ye keep tellin’ me that ye’ll protect me, but ye also said we must live separate lives. What exactly is it that ye’re protectin’ me from?” Her eyes were not angry now, she seemed confused and hurt as she waited for his reply.
Noah looked at the quiet forest all about them.
The world seemed simple here. He could forget his dark past in this place. It was so calm and peaceful.
He turned back to her, guilt and fear warring within him at the thought of telling her the truth.
He thought of the empty space above his fireplace, his mother’s empty chair, and the many decisions he had made in his life because of what his father had done.
It was that thought that made his resolve return once more.
“I’m dangerous for ye,” he confessed finally. “Me faither was a monster, and me maither paid the price. I willnae risk the same happenin’ to ye.”
Keira frowned, approaching him with gentle steps.
“Yer faither?” she asked. “What did he do?”
“Ye dinnae need to ken the details, just ken that he was a cruel man and dinnae deserve me maither’s love.”
Her expression was sorrowful as she took that in, her eyes focused on a point far in the distance.
“Ye are askin’ me to agree to a life of solitude because of somethin’ ye willnae even tell me about. How do ye expect me to understand when I ken nothin’ of yer past?”
