Page 95 of Highlanders for the Holidays
Before she could catch her breath, he called her name again as he surged inside her, and she went over the edge with him.
* * *
Roderick lay awake watchingthe dark night clouds blowing across a blacker sky and wondering what in the hell had happened to him when they made love. He felt stunned, as if he had been struck in the head or something. He thought that surely the feeling would ease if they made love a second time. Yet he had felt just as stunned the second time. And the third.
She had only let a man take her to bed once before. Why did she choose him? Was it merely to satisfy her curiosity? Because she believed he would do a better job of it than the weak, fat-bellied merchants she knew in London?
He was still awake when the sky turned from black to gray, signaling the coming dawn. An opaque mist lay over the shore, obliterating their surroundings and making it seem as if there was no one but him and Lily in the world. He looked at her face as she slept in his arms, and his heart tripped a beat.
The utterly foolish idea of asking her to wed him flitted across his mind.
With his finger, he brushed a wild strand of flaming red hair from her cheek. She looked deceptively fragile, but she had such a strong spirit. He felt an overwhelming desire to protect her. Just because he succeeded in satisfying her in bed did not mean she wanted anything more from him.
How could he have let this wee elf of a lass, an English lass at that, grab hold of his heart?
Ach, last night was a mistake for so many reasons.
Before last night, he could have been content with a local lass from Skye who would count herself lucky to live near her kin and be satisfied with a strong husband who could protect her. Hoping for something more from a wife was a mistake. His first marriage should have taught him that.
As he watched Lily’s eyelids flutter and her chest rise and fall with her shallow breathing in that dreamlike state between sleep and full wakefulness, he imagined watching her wake each morning. Before last night, he had not thought beyond delivering her to his clan. Now he was imagining a future he knew he could not have. And one she surely did not want.
His wife had found the isolation of the Isle of Skye unbearable, after growing up in the town of Inverness. How much harder would it be for a lass from the great city of London? And he would have to leave her alone for long periods of time. For a Highland warrior, there would always be battles to fight.
And he could not bear to make Lily unhappy.
