Kiss of the Highlander

He squeezed her bottom, kneading and caressing, then one hand slid upward, lingering deliciously over the hollow where her spine met her hips, inching ever upward until he palmed the back of her head and guided her lips nearer his.

“Good morrow, English,” he said, a breath from her lips. The words were delivered in a thick brogue that sounded roughened by too much whisky and peat smoke.

“Let me go,” she managed, angling her face away from his. He’d fitted his erection snugly between her thighs, and a firm hand splayed across her bottom kept her locked precisely where he wanted her. He was rock-hard and hot through the lightweight fabric of her shorts. Expertly, he thrust against the most perfect spot nature had bestowed upon a woman, and Gwen coughed to camouflage a moan. If he treated her to a few more of those cocky strokes, she might have her first real orgasm without even sacrificing her cherry.

“Kiss me,” he murmured into her ear. His lips braised her neck; his tongue tasted her skin with lazy sensuality.

“I am not kissing you. I can understand how you might have gotten the wrong impression, waking up to find me sprawled on top of you, but I told you that I didn’t mean to land on you. It was an accident.” Aw, kiss him, Gwen, clamored a hundred perky eggs. Shut up, she rebuked. We don’t even know him, and until moments ago we thought he was dead. That’s no way to start a relationship.

Who’s asking for a relationship? Kisskisskiss! her babies-in-waiting insisted.

“Lovely lass, kiss me.” He planted a hungry, openmouthed kiss in the sensitive area between her collarbone and the base of her throat. His teeth closed gently on her skin, his tongue lingered, sending chills up her spine. “On my mouth.”

She shuddered as the velvety stroke made her nipples pearl against his chest. “Uh-uh,” she said, not trusting herself to say too much.

“Nay?” He sounded surprised. And undeterred. He nibbled the underside of her chin while splaying his hand intimately between the cleft of her behind.

“No. No way. Nay. Understand? And get your hand off my butt,” she added with a squeal, when he squeezed again. “Oooh. Stop that!”

Lazily, he slid his hand up from her hips to her head, availing himself of the opportunity to thoroughly caress every inch in between. Burying both hands in her hair, he gripped her near the scalp and tugged her head gently back so he could search her eyes.

“I mean it.”

He arched a dubious brow but, to her surprise, he proved to be a gentleman and slowly relinquished his grip. She scrambled off him. Unaware that they’d been lying on a slab of stone that was several feet above the floor of the cavern, she stumbled to her knees on the floor.

He sat up on the slab gingerly, as if every muscle in his body was stiff.

He swept his gaze about the cavern, shook his head with the vigor of a drenched dog casting off rain, then gave the interior of the cave a second, thorough glance. He flipped his long dark hair over his shoulder and narrowed his eyes. Gwen witnessed the precise moment the confusion of deep slumber quit his mind. The seductive gleam in his gaze faded, and he folded his muscular arms across his chest. He glanced at her with an expression both startled and angry. “I doona recall coming here,” he said accusingly. “What have you done? Did you bring me here? Is this witchery, lass?”

Witchery? “No,” she said hastily. “I told you, I fell in through that hole”—she jerked her thumb up in the direction of the shaft of sunlight—“and you were already in here. I landed on you. I have no idea how you got here.”

His cool gaze roamed over the jagged opening, the loose stones and dirt scattered around the slab, the blood on her hands, her disheveled condition. After a moment’s hesitation, he appeared to deem it a plausible story. “If you did not come seeking my personal attentions, why are you so shamelessly attired?” he said flatly.

“Perhaps because it’s hot out?” she shot back, tugging defensively at the hem of her khakis. Her shorts weren’t that short. “It’s not like you have much on yourself.”

“ ‘Tis natural for a man. ’Tis not natural for a woman to cut off her chemise at the waist and doff her gown. Any man would make the assumption I did. You are wantonly clad, and you were draped most intimately across my loins. When a man first awakens, it sometimes takes several moments before he starts thinking clearly.”

“And here I thought it took several years, perhaps a lifetime for the average man’s intellect to kick in,” she said snidely. Chemise? Doff?

He snorted, shaking his head again, vigorously enough that it was giving her a headache. “Where am I?” he demanded.