Page 65 of Highland Crown
She lay back and her strong leg slipped around his waist, urging him on. Cinaed wanted nothing more than to bury himself deep inside her and take what she offered. But his gaze moved along the soft curve of her hips past the perfection of her breasts. Her face was flushed, her lips parted. She was experienced with the marriage bed, and yet her expression was one of a woman making love for the first time. His pleasure would have to wait.
He leaned forward and ran his hand along her cheek and across her lips, sliding a finger into her mouth. He let it trail downward over her chin and throat. When he reached her breasts, he took the time to circle each nipple and watched them rise to his touch.
Her eyes darkened. She watched his every move. Her hips began to stir restlessly.
“Now, Cinaed.”
Instead, he smiled and moved ever so slowly downward until he knelt beside the bed.
“We’ll get to that soon,” he said, and lowered his mouth onto her.
For more than half a decade she’d been married, but the excitement of Cinaed’s play beforehand, the ever-increasing passion, and the wild waves of shared release was a gift that Isabella had never known could exist.
Their lovemaking was intense. Cinaed was like some winged god of carnal pleasure who had traveled from Olympus to breathe life into her and her alone. She was a physician, but what he taught her of physical love could not be found in any text. He knew where to touch her, how to love her, when to tease her. He made her body quiver, shudder, and sing.
She’d lived as a married woman, and yet she’d been in a slumber. Now, she was awakened.
Supremely satisfied, Isabella lay sprawled across Cinaed’s body, her face near the stitches she’d used to close his chest. Within her line of vision, the bullet hole in his arm looked to be healing well. Her fingers inched toward the wounds that had almost taken his precious life.
He caught her hand and rolled her on the bed until she lay on her back, trapping her with his leg across her belly. “Didn’t I exhaust you enough? No thinking of scars or bruises, no worrying about tomorrow or next week. You should rest now and enjoy this moment’s peace.”
Isabella traced the line of his jaw and realized he was asking for the impossible. She worried about him. She couldn’t tell him, but Cinaed held her heart in his hands. She loved him. His proposal had been the most beautiful offer, and if she were a free woman, she would accept it… joyfully. But she couldn’t. Not the way her life was shaped now.
“Can we at least discuss your rescue plan?”
“Nay. You have your training. I have mine. I respect your expertise. You respect mine.”
She rolled her eyes, but she recognized there was no deterring him.
He let his gaze trail down her naked body. “Give me a few more minutes, and I’ll have recovered enough to work harder on distracting you.”
Distracting, he was also an expert at. And she looked forward to his “recovery,” as he’d called it. Isabella reached down and pulled a blanket over her body. Lying naked in a man’s arms was not something she was accustomed to.
He tugged the blanket down below her breasts. She pulled it up. He pulled it down again. She let him win.
“Distractions. Very well.” She rolled against him. “Tell me about this wife of yours.”
“At the moment, I have only one. But she tells me she’s not the one, so my plan is to woo her and charm her and make love to her—”
“Stop.” She smiled. “Here, you proved my point. You don’t know anything about me.”
“But I do,” he said, wearing a mischievous smirk. “I know your belly is quite ticklish. You moan with every stroke. And you have a mole here under your right breast.”
“You’re incorrigible.” She drove her fingers into his hair and forced him to look above her chin and not below. “I’m asking aboutme. By the way, how old are you?”
“I thought we were talking about you.”
“Answer me before I hurt you. And as a physician, I do know how pain is inflicted.”
“I’d like you to try, Doctor.”
“Cinaed.”
“Thirty, at my next… or last… birthday. And you?”
She let go of his hair and stared at the candle. She’d guessed it. She was so much older.
“But before you answer, I’m telling you now that I don’t care about your age. It’s what’s here and here that I care about.” He touched her temple and her heart. “And I’m also quite fond of your breasts. And your hands. And your legs are exceptional. And your bottom makes me want to—”
