Page 68 of Romancing the Scot
“You are stunning.”
He bent his head and kissed her. A long sensuous, exploring kiss. When he broke it off, Grace was left breathing heavily. His mouth moved from her lips and descended along her throat, over her collarbone, and then to her breasts. Grace closed her eyes and pressed her head back against the wall as his tongue tasted each nipple, his lips and his teeth making her cry out softly from the sweet pleasure streaming through her body.
“Take me, Hugh,” she said. “Make love to me.”
Smoothly, he slipped her chemise down until it pooled at her feet. Sweeping her into his arms, he then carried her to the bed. A thrill raced through her as they sank into linen sheets.
Hugh’s lips kissed her mouth and again trailed down her neck to her breasts. Grace held her breath as his fingers slowly moved caressingly along the inside of her leg. His hand reached the junction of her thighs, and she gasped as his fingers slipped into her sex.
His head lifted, his eyes searching hers. Grace didn’t want to discuss that this was her first time.
“I want you,” she whispered, holding his face, raising herself and brushing her lips against his. “Don’t stop.”
His mouth was greedy when it claimed hers, but his hand was gentle as he slipped in and resumed the erotic play.
Her sex was slick, and his fingers found every point of pleasure, playing her body like a musical instrument as they stroked her flesh. Grace found herself growing short of breath. Her body began to hum with sensations so new.
Grace had never known such sweet torment. She was possessed by him. She gave herself up to the pure pleasure of his hands and his mouth. Her body whirled in a timeless, frenzied state of passion and desire. Her hips moved, rising off the bed, begging him for more pressure, wanting him deeper.
Suddenly, she felt her body carried up as if on a cloud as a summer storm exploded within her. Somewhere in a more conscious world, she heard a woman’s joyful voice crying out. She couldn’t breathe, and yet she fought fiercely to hold him close to her. And then, she was simply sailing through a crystalline sky.
Hugh held her as she descended, kissing her softly. The sensations in her body continued to recede in blissful waves. She lay naked in the sheets, her hair spread around her, looking up into gray eyes that never left her face. He was still dressed as he’d arrived, but she felt the hardness of his manhood pressing against her. She saw the smile etched on his lips.
“You look as if you’ve won a competition,” she whispered.
“I have. I won you.”
The flutter in her heart was loud enough that he had to hear it. She touched his chest. Lifting herself, she pressed her lips to his throat. “I want to do to you what you just did to me.”
A great sigh of satisfaction rose from his chest.
“Not yet. Not tonight,” he said, kissing her deeply before rolling away from her. “We cannot continue this until we’ve had a serious conversation about our future.”
She didn’t want to think of tomorrow.
He sat on the edge of the bed. His gaze washed over her. She didn’t try to cover herself when he ran the tip of his finger from the hollow of her throat and down between her breasts.
“And even after, you can only touch me when I can taste you here . . .” His finger meandered slowly across her belly. “And here . . .” She was no longer breathing as his finger continued downward and slipped once again into her sex. “And here. We’ll make love after I feast on you here.”
She burned as the vision flooded her mind. Her bones had dissolved into liquid, her flesh tingled. Hugh pulled away and drew the sheets up to her chin before kissing her lips.
“We have much to discuss, but not here in the dark when my sister might awaken at any moment. We’ll talk, but for now, go back to sleep.”
Grace, feeling shaken to her very core, watched him as he crossed the room and went out.
* * *
In the early afternoon, the doctor brought Darby back out to Baronsford. To Jo’s chagrin, the blacksmith insisted on being taken to his own cottage to recuperate, rather than at the main house. But if the man thought he could just rest quietly there and not impose, he was mistaken. No one had any intention of allowing that, least of all Jo. She drew up a schedule and soon lines of servants were carrying him meals and seeing to his every need. Jo and Grace agreed that they’d look in on him at least twice each day. Dr. Namby, not to be left out, offered to come back Monday morning to change the dressing on the knife wound.
Hugh heard about all of this when he came back from the lake, where construction was beginning on the dam.
“You’re a hero, Darby,” Hugh told him, visiting the cottage of the injured man. Grace and Jo were already there. “There will be no escaping these attentions.”
His sister was fussing in another room at the far end of the cottage.
As he sat on a stool by the blacksmith’s bed, he watched Grace moving the contents of a basket onto a shelf. The housekeeper told him that the doctor had pronounced the ankle “just a sprain,” and even now Grace was walking about the cottage without the use of the cane.
She glanced at him but looked quickly away. Her greeting when Hugh arrived had been shy, and she’d been avoiding eye contact with him.
