“God in Heaven, ye feel good, Glynis,” he said, closing his eyes.

“We can do it like this?” she asked.

“Have ye never been on top?” What in God’s name had been wrong with her husband?

“What do I do?” she asked.

“Sit up. Aye, like that.” He groaned, and Glynis gasped as she slowly sank down on him. As he held her hips to guide her, he said in a tight voice, “It’s like rocking to the motion of the sea.”

Her ancestors must have been sea nymphs. In no time, she was making him blind with desire. He was mindless of anything except the rhythm of her hips and the feel of her tight around his shaft. Her breathing was already ragged when he ran his hand up her thigh and found her sensitive nub with his thumb. It was too dark to see more than her outline. But over the howling wind, he heard her gasps and whimpers.

Then she fell forward and gripped his shoulders as if she were drowning and he was the only one who could save her. Each sweep of her hair across his chest sent tendrils of sensation to his core.

Lightning struck again, and he felt as if it ran through his body. His every nerve and muscle strained and jangled with mounting tension. When her body clenched around him and she cried out, he was lost in the tempest with her. His heart thundered in his ears as he pulled her hips against him again and again. As if in the distance, he heard his voice calling her name as he exploded inside her.

He wrapped his arms around her and held her so tightly that he knew he was crushing her, but he could not make himself let go. He wanted to stay inside her forever.

How foolish he had been to think that they would not end up like this. From the start, it was inevitable. From that first mindless kiss he gave her on the beach in front of her father and all her clansman. From the night he had her against the wall at Duart Castle, and they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Once they met, they were bound to end up lying in each other’s arms like this.

“I didn’t know,” she said against his chest, and he felt the wetness of her tears on his skin. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”

Alex hadn’t known, either. In all his experience, he had never felt a need that strong. Never been so completely lost to passion. Glynis MacNeil had caught him completely by surprise.

CHAPTER 15

When Glynis awoke, the sun was shining in a hazy glow through the weave of the blanket that somehow still hung over them. Had last night truly happened? It must have, for Glynis’s imagination was not as good as that. She understood now why women were willing to take Alex Bàn MacDonald into their beds for as long as he was willing to stay.

She risked turning to look at him. Ach, Alex was handsome enough to make the fairies jealous. She let her gaze travel over every perfect, manly feature—the straight nose, high cheekbones, and strong jaw stubbled with golden whiskers. Even in his sleep, his mouth was curved up at the corners, as if he had a wicked secret to tell ye that would make ye laugh.

Her cheeks grew hot as she recalled all the places his mouth had touched her. Three times he had reached for her in the night and made her feel things she’d never felt before.

She had wanted to know passion with a man. Too late, she realized that she might be better off not knowing the pleasures that were possible between a man and a woman. It would certainly be easier to live without them if she were still ignorant. She recalled the bliss she had felt in his arms and sighed.

Nay, she could not regret the night.

*  *  *

“Tell me about your marriage,” Alex asked.

Glynis turned in his arms, all warm and sleepy-eyed. “Why do ye want to know?”

He shrugged. “I’m curious, that’s all.”

Her eyes, as always, seemed to see right into his lying heart. In truth, he had wanted to ask her about her marriage to Magnus all along. He felt the unfamiliar tug of jealousy over this man who had touched her in all the places he had.

“The two of ye have such animosity toward each other that I figure ye must have cared deeply once.” Alex had learned from his parents how love could turn to hate.

“Hmmph.” She crossed her arms and stared up at the blanket strung above them. “Magnus Clanranald doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”

She hadn’t said that she had not cared for Clanranald.

“Magnus doesn’t like to lose his possessions,” she said. “He thought I was one of them.”

“Why did ye leave him?” Alex asked.

“The marriage took place at my family’s castle on Barra, so I didn’t know what was waiting for me at his home.” Glynis was quiet for a long moment before she spoke again. “His mistress was there to greet him, along with a couple of other verra friendly lasses. Magnus made no effort to hide them—and saw no reason he should. He even let his mistress take my place at the table.”

Ach, it sounded too much like his father. But Alex’s mother fought back just as hard in the bitter war between them.

“Magnus is the worst of chieftains,” she said, her voice hard now. “While my father sometimes makes errors in judgment, he always tries to do what is best for our clan. Magnus puts his own interests before his clan’s, always.”

Alex suspected that the true reason she left Magnus was that she didn’t respect him.

“I tried to protect his own clansmen from him, but I couldn’t.” Glynis brushed a tear away with an impatient hand. “I saw him murder one in a fit of temper and another because the man objected to Magnus’s interest in his daughter.”

Alex cupped her cheek with his hand. “Magnus’s temper seemed fixed on you when we saw him at Duart Castle. Did he ever harm ye?”

“No. He knew that if he did, my father would come with his war galleys full of men,” she said. “Magnus didn’t want the trouble—but that was before I stabbed him and left.”

For all Alex’s sins, at least he’d brought Glynis far enough away to be safe from her former husband.

*  *  *

“Enough of this serious talk.” A slow smile spread over Alex’s face as he leaned over her, and his green eyes danced. “If ye have the strength to make love again before breakfast, I do.”

Letting Alex touch her all over in the dark of night was one thing, but it was broad daylight now.

“Ach, I’m sorry, lass,” he said, frowning. “Did I make ye too sore?”

She was sore, but not that sore.

“We could try other things,” he said, giving her a look so full of sin that it made her pulse flutter.

“I’m all right,” she said, her voice coming out high.

“Then what do ye say, Glynis? In for a penny, in for a pound?” Her breath hitched as he stroked the inside of her thigh. “When ye confess to the priest, the penance is likely to be the same, whether we do it two times or twenty.”

“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.

But this was different. She would have to guard her heart closely to keep Alex from walking away with it. He would not intend to take it—he did not want it any more than she wanted to give it to him. But with every wink and smile, he stole a piece of it. And when he made love to her, he held it in his hands.

CHAPTER 16

Alex could not trust himself with this woman. He felt too much. He wanted too much. This was not like him at all.

After several days of making love to her morning, noon, and night, his desire for her had not slacked one whit. In his pride, Alex had thought he would light up the nights for Glynis and give her plenty of pleasure to remember him by. But each time he made love to her, he was as amazed as the first.