“Well, I don’t.” She darted under his arm and started around the boulder, but he caught her around the waist and hauled her back.
“Ye are my wife, like it or no,” he said, towering over her. “So ye may as well like it.”
“I don’t like it,” she said. “Not one bit.”
“Ye lie, Sil,” he said, his eyes hot on hers. “Ye like it when I kiss ye. If ye have forgotten already, I’ll have to show ye again.”
Ian pulled her into his arms and proceeded to kiss her senseless. Every argument faded under the assault on her senses. It was as if she had been starving for his kisses without knowing it. Now that she had discovered what she craved, she had to taste it, touch it. She wanted to swallow him whole, take him inside her, and never lose him.
She clung to him, unable to get close enough.
“I want to feel you,” Ian said, pushing back her cloak.
Wherever he touched, his hands burned her skin with a heat that drew her ever closer. He dropped his head and pressed his lips to where her pulse was beating madly at the base of her throat. She sucked in her breath as his hands covered her breasts.
“Ahhh,” he breathed. “Your breasts were made for my hands.”
He dipped his head lower, running his tongue in the valley between them. His lips were warm and wet on her skin. When he took her nipples between his fingers and thumbs, pure lust shot through her body and down her limbs, like whiskey on an empty belly.
Her head fell back against the boulder as she let the new sensations take her. When she felt the moist warmth of Ian’s mouth on her breast, she started. He found the nipple through the cloth and flicked his tongue over it, and it felt so good she didn’t want him to stop.
When he sucked her breast into his mouth, she felt it down to her toes. She had a fleeting sense of embarrassment when she realized she had groaned aloud, but it was soon lost in the swirl of sensations Ian was pulling from her. She was panting by the time he released her breast to move up her throat with hot, wet kisses.
“Ach, I love the sounds ye make,” he said against her ear. “I want ye beneath me, Sileas. I want to bury myself inside ye and bring ye such pleasure that ye cry out my name.”
He kissed her until her lips felt swollen. When he pulled away, cold air chilled the heated skin beneath her clothes, leaving her with a physical longing for the body that had pressed against hers. She felt stunned, disoriented, and too aware of her body. Her breasts tingled, she felt wet and achy between her legs, and her fingertips itched for the silky feel of his hair and the rough cloth of his shirt.
“See, ye do like my kisses,” Ian said, looking altogether too sure of himself. “And I promise ye, ye will like it still better when I take ye to bed.”
She ran her tongue over her dry lips. “That doesn’t mean I’ll like being wed to ye.”
“It’s a verra good start,” he said, with a gleam in his eye.
“Ye are a vain man, Ian MacDonald,” she said, and turned her attention to straightening her gown.
She felt Ian go still and looked up to see his gaze fixed on something behind her. Holding a finger to his lips, he nodded in the direction of the road. She turned around and saw twenty men heading up the road toward them. Judging from the blades she could see, they were prepared for trouble—or to cause it.
At the front of the group, was none other than Hugh Dubh MacDonald.
She felt Ian’s tension in the taut muscles of his body as he leaned against her, pressing her into the boulder.
“They’re coming for Connor,” he said next to her ear, as the group started around the bend in the road.
“God, no,” she whispered. “What can we do?”
“ ’Tis quicker to Tearlag’s along the cliff path.” He spun her around and gave her a quick, hard kiss. “I must warn Connor and Duncan. Wait here, and I’ll come back for ye as soon as I can.”
“I’m going with ye,” she said. “Ye might need me.”
“No, you’re staying here. I don’t have time to argue.” He started to leave, but halted. “Damn it!”
She turned to see what had caught his attention. Four of Hugh’s men were settling themselves down at the side of the road, instead of following the others.
“What are they doing?” she whispered.
“Hugh has remembered we used to take the goat path,” he said in a hushed voice. “He’s left these men to cut off Connor and Duncan’s escape by this route.”
When she looked up at him, Ian’s jaw was set and his eyes cold-blue steel.
“Come,” he said, taking her hand. “I can’t leave ye here now.”
CHAPTER 14
Ian stepped onto the log as if he were going up a doorstep instead of walking off a cliff. When she told him earlier that she wanted to go with him, her only thought was that she didn’t want to be separated from him. But fear gripped her belly now.
Ian stood sideways on the log and held his hand out to her. “Hold on, and we’ll cross together.”
Despite the chill in the air, her palms were sweaty. She wiped them on her cloak before reaching out to take his hand. The hand that enveloped hers was dry and warm and reassuring. Gingerly, she put one foot on the log.
“I don’t know if I can do this.”
