The Sinner

“Twenty times?” Her voice went higher still.

“Have ye changed your mind about this?” Alex asked, his expression suddenly serious. “Just tell me if ye have, and I’ll let ye be.”

“No,” she said. “I just didn’t expect ye to want to do it again.”

“Me not want to?” he said and laughed. Then he got on his knees and started unfastening the blanket from the tree. “It’s stuffy in here.”

Glynis watched the muscles of his back as he stretched to unhook the corners. Besides being able to ask her the most private questions as if he were discussing the weather, the man was completely unselfconscious about his nakedness. But then, he was beautiful.

The blanket fell to the ground, and sunlight washed over him. When he turned, the warm light kissed the skin over his sculpted muscles and glinted off the golden hair on his broad chest. Her gaze drifted downward, and she swallowed when she saw how ready he was to make love again.

“Come, let me see ye,” he said, tugging at the blanket she held to her chest.

She remembered how Magnus ridiculed her, saying her breasts were too small. It was the least of the sins for which he would burn in hell, but the memory stung all the same.

“Can’t we do this without ye looking at me?” she asked.

“Ye aren’t going to be shy now, are ye?” Alex folded his own arms across his chest. “We’ll stop right now if I can’t see. I’ve been looking forward to this for too long.”

“You were expecting me to go to bed with ye all along?” She was horrified.

“Nay, I wasn’t expecting it.” His grin grew wider. “That doesn’t mean I wasn’t imagining ye naked.”

“That’s no the same thing,” she said.

“Of course, I did see ye last night, but the light was verra poor,” he said, making a face.

“My breasts are too small,” she blurted out. Her face was scalding.

“What fool told ye that?” He tugged at the blanket again. “Please, Glynis. I had my hands on ye enough last night to have a fair idea of what your breasts look like. Please.”

It was clear that the man was going to beg until she relented. When he tugged at the blanket again, she let go.

“Ah, lass, my imagination was sorely lacking,” he said. “Ye are as beautiful as the selkies that lure men to their death at sea.”

His words both pleased her and embarrassed her further. “Alex, will ye lie down now?”

Instead, he knelt by her feet and kissed her from her toes upward until his warm lips tickled her knee. Heat pooled in her belly as he moved up her thigh to her hip. By the time he reached her breasts, she was breathless.

He cupped her breasts in his hands. “They are perfect,” he said, his eyes intense on hers. “You’re perfect.”

In the sunlight streaming over them, she watched as he flicked his tongue over her erect nipple. When he took it into his mouth and groaned, she closed her eyes and gave herself over to the sensations spiraling through her.

Just when Glynis thought she could not bear it anymore, he moved up to kiss her shoulder and run his tongue into the hollow above her collarbone. He worked his way along the side of her throat to beneath her ear with his warm lips and tongue. She felt as if she were melting into the ground by the time he claimed her mouth again.

With every stroke of his strong hands, he wiped away another bad memory of Magnus touching her. She wanted him to replace every ounce of unpleasantness and humiliation with pleasure and joy. Oh, God, how she wanted him. She wrapped her legs around Alex’s hips, urging him forward.

“I don’t want to rush this time,” he said against her ear. “I’m going to make certain ye don’t forget me too soon, Glynis MacNeil.”

Not likely. She almost laughed, but then her breath caught as his hand moved between her legs. At first, her muscles went all weak as he worked his magic on her. Then the pleasure became a tension building inside her until she thought that she would burst into pieces.

“Please, Alex, please,” she said, pulling at his shoulders.

He hovered over her, teasing her and kissing her senseless until at last he gave in. A high-pitched moan came out of her throat as he finally slid inside her. At last.

Alex seemed to know how to keep her on the edge, moving just so, slow and deep, until she wanted to pound her fists against his chest.

“Harder,” she said, trying not to shout. “Harder.”

“Tell me ye won’t forget me,” he said, as he thrust deep inside her. “Tell me.”

“I won’t forget,” she said between gasps. “I won’t.”

Not for as long as she lived.

Glynis could tell the moment that he lost control because a wildness replaced his skilled movements. He was pure want and need and full of the same joy that she felt. They came together in an explosion of white heat and stars.

But afterward, as she lay beside him staring up at the blue sky above her, the joy seeped from her bit by bit. She realized that Alex MacDonald could hurt in a way that Magnus never could. She’d cared nothing for Magnus. Nay, she despised him. Before their wedding night was over, she had closed her heart to him.