Page 63 of A Rogue in Twilight
She did notcare about consequences or compromise, Elspeth realized as she drew James down with her to the soft plaid rumpled on the floor. She only cared about the moment, the pulse of longing, her need to be with him. They would not be disturbed here, and she wanted this as much as he did. She would think about what to do later—should there be a child. Oh aye, then marriage. But she did not want to think about that either.
Deep inside, she knew what she would do now. Somehow she would marry him, find a way to stay safely with him. Later for all that. The new certainty of it compelled her forward. He loved her, and she knew it for truth. Just knew it.
She knelt, circled her arms around his neck, let her body cleave to his. He streamed his fingers through her hair, cupped her head, kissed her, achingly tender. His lips traced along her cheek, her ear.
“What is this between us?” His lips traced, touched. She closed her eyes.
“Love,” she said. “Not magic. Just us. Just love.” She touched his beard, like fine sand under her fingertips. “And we may do what we will here.”
His sigh became a groan as he soothed his hands over her shoulders, over her night braid, loosening the strands to spill down her back. Shivers cascaded through her. She returned his kiss, felt his heat and hard body through the fabric of her nightgown. She pressed close, felt his heartbeat thudding against hers, and she pulled at his sleeves to strip off his coat. He tossed it aside, its thick warmth adding to the nest that cushioned them as she dropped lower with him.
Now his kisses plummeted deeply through her, made her breathless. She fit her body to his, delicious quivers running through her as his fingers smoothed over throat, breasts. She tightened, tingled as his fingers grazed over nipples, and she arched for more. She felt as if she would do anything he asked.
But would she marry him, truly? The thought made her pause her breath. She ducked her head away, felt sad as he kissed her hair, her cheek, her throat. What if this was the last time she would ever be in his arms? What if he never asked her to marry him again, accepting her denials? What if he went away?
She felt a fool, caught between choices, thinking one way, thinking the other, body and heart wanting this, head and fear for the future wanting something else. Surrendering all that, she kissed him again, hungry for touch, for what was offered in the instant.Take joy from this now, she told herself.
Sliding her fingers through his thick, wavy hair, she leaned back to let him kiss downward, throat and breast, until she cried out softly and slid her hands under his shirt, smoothing over his warm, firm skin, his thundering heartbeat.
He groaned, fingers finding, teasing, lips caressing, and she gasped as he tugged aside her gown to touch his lips, warm and pliant, to her breasts, one, the other, his hand at both. Lightning shot through her and she moved, pleading, melting with urgency, feeling buttery and willing as his lips traced and his hands grazed and raw need pulsed through her.
I love you, I will marry you—she wanted desperately to say it. Yet she held the words back, letting her body say what she held back.
If the vows became real, she would fear for him and what they had.
He lay her back in the thick bed of plaids, matching breast and chest, hip and hip as he slipped his fingers under her gown, finding her deepest parts. She tugged, arched, could not get enough, fast enough, heart pounding, body rocking, begging and seeking more. She felt the hardness of him through his breeches, and ached to give herself to him without thought of what might happen later.
So she let passion replace thought, wildness displace logic, need overwhelm reason. She tugged as buttons and cloth fell away, her hands hot over his skin, his hands rousing over her, slipping into her. She found the length of him, like velvet over hot iron, and she moved boldly to shape him with her hand, skin on skin, heat to heat. He groaned fiercely, lifted to kiss her mouth.
“Love me,” she said, without thought.
“I do,” his voice gruff, breaths mingling, hands skimming.
“I do too,” she murmured, and shifted, breathed out, let her body ask. And soon he found her, slipped inside her just there, and she surged and gasped as she took him into her. His lips covered her cry as she felt a spark catch like flame, and she rocked, rocked like the mindless rhythm of the loom, shimmering and aching as she felt him go deeper, raising thatexquisite fire higher, as he rocked with her in release. And she sobbed out, feeling something precious and something missing all at once.
“I wanted—that with you—” she began breathlessly.
“My love,” he whispered, ragged, brushing back her hair, “now there will be a wedding quick, whether you want it or not. What do you say?”
Sighing, heart thumping, she pulled the generous plaid over both of them, curled with him, still aching, yearning, not sure what to say.
He kissed her lightly. “I mean to marry you, Elspeth MacArthur.”
“If I marry,” she said, “it would be to you.”
“If. Well then,” he said, sitting up. “There is progress.”
“You are a patient man,” she said.
“In love with an infernally stubborn lass, woe be it to him.”
Chapter Sixteen
Good granite wasabundant in Glen Struan, James realized, standing atop a high hill overlooking his grandmother’s house—his house, now. The morning air was fresh, the sunlight invigorating. He took up hammer and chisel and went back to his work.
He tapped away at the stone until another chunk broke away from the stone ledge that ran under the hillside behind the house. The rock broke easily, crusted sedimentary rock and limestone and red sandstone. James felt sure the layers stretched deep inside the string of hills near the house. More tapping revealed veins of granite just below the surface, a much harder composite studded with glittering quartz and smoky cairngorm.
Angus MacKimmie had told him of a quarry in the glen that produced sandstone and limestone, with some granite and trap rock so hard it was not easily quarried. James was pleased to see the variety of deposits as he worked. The granite and basalt in this glen could reinforce his research and theory about the geological makeup of the central Highlands.
