MAD, BAD & DANGEROUS TO MARRY (The Highland Brides Book 4)

by Elizabeth Essex

  But there was the solid impediment of her corset. “Your stays.”

  “They still lace in the back,” she instructed on a whisper at his ear.

  His hands immediately tried to make clever with the ties but were easily confounded.

  “Poor lad.” She kissed his lips before she pushed herself to sitting, straddling his waist.

  His mind blanked at the sudden feel of her naked thighs and the bare skin of her bottom pressed against the taut flesh of his stomach. Poor lad, indeed.

  “First, I have to—” pluck at the ribbon that wound around her waist and was tied in a bow at the front. Like a present he hastened to unwrap.

  He sat up, urging her to lean forward so he could look over her shoulder to expedite matters, while she took a more leisurely meander, kissing her way from his lips to his ear lobes and back down the taut sinews of his neck. The feeling was so bloody good that he was having trouble concentrating on what he knew he ought to be doing.

  He ought to be finding her secret places, the hidden swaths of sensitive skin beneath her collarbone. He ought to be rounding her sweet rump in his hands or scooping his fingers under the edge of her stays, touching her there, at the very edge of her nipples, making her skin heat, and her knees clench and her heart beat too fast beneath her pink hued breast.

  But it was his skin that felt new. His knees knocking together beneath him. His heart that beat a wild tattoo within his chest.

  Because she was making love to him. Pressing closer when he leaned back. Taking action when he lost his way and faltered, when his fingers had grown clumsy and made a tangle of the laces.

  “Let me.” She put her cool palms against the heated skin of his chest and pushed him flat on the bed. He lay back and watched with something more than fascination as she put her arms behind her back to slowly and methodically pull out the lacing.

  Her back was arched, and her head tipped back, and he reached up into the glorious copper coils of her hair to pull out the careful pins and let the bright ginger strands cascade through his fingers.

  And there it was, sliding into his vision like a mirage—the unbidden image of something bright and metallic shining in his palm. His lucky penny.

  But the mirage was banished in an instant, when at last the stays were loose, and she pulled the stiff linen garment free and let it fall to the floor with a silent crash that shook him to his bones.

  Because there before him was her delicately formed body, screened from his view by only the nearly translucent linen of her shift. But what he saw of her was exquisite.

  He wanted to hold her, to wrap her in his arms and hold her tight against his naked skin. He wanted it with a hunger that felt as if it might eat him alive if he did not give in, and grip the delicate rounds of her shoulders, and take her nipples with his mouth.

  But lightly. Slowly. Slowly enough to demonstrate that he wanted this slow death by delight, this slow teasing march toward bliss, as much as she. That he wanted this excoriating brush of her peaked, linen shrouded nipples against the bare skin of his chest. That he wanted her with every breath of his body, and every fragmented thought left in his mind.

  She wanted, too. “Oh, aye, Ewan, aye.” Her voice slid away into irregular breathing. “Gie it laldy, indeed.”

  And now he was having as much trouble breathing as she—his breath began to saw in and out of his chest as if he were running a race to the top of the moor. To the top of the world.

  “Aye.” She breathed her urgent agreement into his ear. “It’s like that, isn’t it?”

  It was. But he wasn’t going to waste the breath to tell her so, when he could show her.

  He would show her with his fingers, running down the outline of her body. He would show her with his lips, kissing his way from her fingertips to her shoulder. He would show her with his care and restraint in slowly lowering her chemise so he could at last see what he had mapped in the sacred dark of the bothy last night.

  He kissed his way from her collar bone up the sensitive slide of her neck, to her lips, and then down the other side, going past her collarbone, to the perfect peak of her breast.

  She needed no more encouragement to arch back, to let him kiss and worry her glorious pink nipples into tight, needy peaks.

  “My God, lass,” he murmured against the soft sweetness of her skin. “You make a man glad to be alive.”

  Her face softened, and she smiled—that warm, open guileless smile that slayed him, and shot him clean through with heat and need and torturous bliss.

  His arousal was rude and proud between his legs, and his breath slammed against the cage of his ribs, straining to be let loose. But not yet. Not until he gave her all the pleasure and kindness she had given him. “What do you want most?”

  Her answer was as quick as it was satisfying. “I want to kiss you again.”

  He obliged her by closing the distance between their lips and set his mouth to hers. It leapt between them—the need, and heat and desire—like an arc of electricity jumping between poles, the moment her lips touched hers. He was jack-knifed back into arousal by nothing but the push of her plush lips against his, and the soft breath of her satisfied sigh whispering against his cheek.

  And her hands were everywhere upon him, kneading his shoulders and circling around his neck so she might pull him close. He eased back onto his elbows and allowed himself the satisfaction of letting his hands grip her by the waist. He resisted the urge to pull her against him, forcing himself to wait for her to lay her sublime body flush against his, to press her sweetly rounded breasts into his chest.

  Only then did he allow himself the pleasure of opening his mouth to her kiss, to tasting her heady sweetness, of exploring the plush tartness of her tongue and mouth.

  “Aye,” she whispered, and he took that encouragement for the permission it was, to draw up her shift as they kissed, teasing her with his tongue and his teeth, nipping and sucking and tantalizing her with new sensations. With more delight, if only she chose to come and follow his lead.

  She did. She pushed forward as he leaned into the cushions at his back, never breaking their contact. Never letting her lips part from his for more than the time it took to change his angle of approach, or take her lower lip delicately between his teeth, and sweetly bite down with just enough force to send a jolt of unholy arousal careering through his gut. “Greer.”

  Her name was both a groan of entreaty and a plea. A plea for more of the wickedly divine caresses that spanned the divide between pleasure and pain so neatly, he was nearly poleaxed by the force of his response. By the force of his need.

  His need for more of her.

  He widened his knees, and pulled her closer, so that the delicate heat of her body would press directly against his arousal.

  But she was moving faster than he. She spread her knees wider on either side of his legs, and moved against him, while her hands speared through his hair, fisting and tugging the disordered strands. He leaned his head into her palm, and let her roll his head in her hands, trying desperately to exhaust the itchy need for skin to be against skin.

  She kissed him again, filling him full of urgent, insistent need. “Ewan. Ewan, please.”

  His name was like a spur to his own hunger, urging him on. Her clothing was a bunched impediment between them, but he could not bear to set her away from him, even to bare her porcelain, pinked skin to his touch, and to his greedy gaze.

  He crumpled up her shift, and drew it up, up the length of her body, taking his time, dragging the soft muslin slowly across her skin in a precursor to his touch.

  The action broke the kiss, but Greer didn’t seem to object. Her head fell back, and she groaned her approval to the canopy over their heads. Ewan tortured them both by drawing the neckline up in his fist, so the thin material pressed tight against her skin. So he could tongue her breasts again through the veil of the fabric, kissing and sucking and laving her harder, showing her his hunger and need.

  “Ewan,” she called
to him, her breath full of insistence. She was the one to pull the chemise off, to yank it over her head, and collapse against him, so that at last they were flush against each other, skin to skin, heart beating against heart.

  He plied his lips to the hollow under her ear, kissing and nipping his long way down the sensitive side of her neck, learning that a wealth of sensation could be evoked from thorough attention to this lovely swath of skin above her collarbone. All the while his hands were stroking up and down the curve of her waist, his fingers fanning across the sweet curve of her back, his thumbs making light sweeps against the side of her belly.

  He urged her closer, rounding his palms over the taut flesh of her bottom, cupping her sweet arse, and pressing her against his achingly erect arousal. He appeased his fingers’ need to touch her sweet sex by raking his hands through the soft ginger curls at the entrance to her body before he delved into the warm heat of her body. He cupped her, pressing the heel of his palm against the edge of her cleft, rubbing just enough so she gasped, and pulled herself tight against him, and just as quickly levered back, so he could continue to touch her so intimately.

  She made a sound of excitement and encouragement, and tightened her grip on his shoulders, so he spread her legs wider, pushing her open, laying her bare and vulnerable before him. She was light, and heat, and soft slippery need, encouraging him with her breathy sounds of frustrated delight.

  His own heart was hammering away like an anvil inside his chest, when he eased his fingertip along her delicate folds, and was rewarded for his patience with the slick feel of her sex. He slid his finger into her tight sheath, exploring her, watching her face for her reaction, but she closed her eyes, and buried her head against his shoulder, but made not a sound.

  “Greer, lass. My lass.”

  She kissed the edge of his ear, softly gently, and then with more force as his fingers played upon her, and her body began to understand its rhythm. She rocked against the insistent pressure of his hand, enough that her body pressed itself forward, grazing against his cock, straining to be within her.

  He slid another finger inside her, exploring her, letting his thumb graze the nubbin of her desire to stoke the flames higher.

  “Aye, Ewan, please.”

  He wrapped his other arm around her nape, and pulled her mouth down to his, kissing her with all the heat and urgency and need he no longer wanted to hide. He kissed his way along the line of her collarbone, across the hollow at the base of her neck, and out again along the straight line of delicate bone, until she arched her back, and scored his chest with the soft pebbled peaks of her breasts.

  “Aye, lass.” The word was an exhalation of encouragement through his teeth, but he could barely hear it for the sound of his heart in his ears.

  She was there, open and pink and bare and his. Waiting for him.

  He slid his hand out of her and grasped her as gently as possible by the waist, because he didn’t feel gentle. He felt tense and taut, and on the very edge of something bigger and more powerful than desire. He felt as if he couldn’t breathe, and didn’t need to, because his arousal was pushing against the lush, slippery warmth of her entrance, and easing into her sweetly tight body.

  He made himself take a lungful of air, and then another, and he could hear the harsh cadence of his breath, and he tried, tried to go slowly, and ease the way. But he was going mad with the need for her, with the need for the tight friction of her body gripping him in the most intimate way, and the sweet bliss of the joining of their bodies, that he could no longer think.

  He could no longer watch her carefully, or touch her gently, or take his time. There was no more time. There was only now, and the pleasure that ripped him in two when she rocked her hips to seat his cock inside her.

  She gasped, and went still, and he kissed her open, gasping mouth, and kissed her tightly shut eyes, and pressed his care and concern and love against her pleated lips.

  He was babbling again, crooning the harsh Scots into the delicate shell of her ear, kissing and stroking her to stoke the embers of her pleasure back into flame.

  But it was working. She drew in a deep shaky breath, and then another, and kissed him back, just a little. And then a little more. And then more still when his hands stroked up her sides to cup and fondle her breasts.

  He pushed her away from him so he could see—see everything from her flushed face, all the way down the pale, pinked slide of her body to the triangle of golden ginger hair that hid the joining of their bodies. So he could see her crush her lower lip between her teeth. So he could see her nipples crest into tight, pink peaks. So he could see the softening of her belly when she finally relaxed, and began to move against him.

  And then he wanted to see it all, and feel it all, as she slowly began to undulate in a sweet, sinuous motion, sliding her body against his, sending him rocking against the hard edge of his pleasure, over and over, and over again.

  He grasped the glorious round globes of her sweetly rounded arse, and quickened her pace, helping her move, adding force and strength to the dance of her body upon his. “Aye, Greer, aye. Just like that. Just like—”

  Like that.

  Heat and light and pleasure and pain and bliss burst behind his eyes and blinded him with the bright force of her love. And he was gone.

  Freifräulein Greer Douglas

  Schloss Berend

  Köpekestrade

  Dresden, Saxony

  16 November, 1791

  My Dear G,

  It is with the heaviest heart that I must inform you that my grandfather passed away Tuesday last. He slipped way in his sleep, as only the righteous can do, but his loss is immeasurable, though he left the estate and all his affairs in such precise shape that there was, and is, nothing more for me to do than follow his excellent example.

  I have accordingly returned to Crieff, but there is no account for you and your family to cut short your travels to return—his wishes were for a simple funeral and burial, which have been accomplished, thought simple is not exactly the right word to covey the sheer number of people from all of Crieff and the Highlands who came to pay their respects to such a great man. I carry him in my heart, and on my hand—his ring, an onyx signet with the seal of Crieff, weighs heavily on my hand, reminding me of who and what I ought to be—a person like him, fair-minded, kind and patient in all things.

  And so I urge you to carry on your travels with the knowledge that he delighted in being read your letters, and that your happiness in exploring the world gives me comfort and ease as well.

  With sorrow, and some fresh joy, I sign myself for the first time,

  Your Crieff

  His Grace, Ewan Cameron, Duke of Crieff

  Castle Crieff

  Perthshire

  Scotland

  18 December, 1791

  My dearest Crieff,

  My heart is heavy for your loss, and there is nothing more I wish than that I were there in person to offer you some solace. We send you our most sincere condolences. We mourn the passing of your grandfather with you ~ my papa, in particular, feels the loss of his friend and neighbor most particularly. Papa has told me, with tears in his eyes, of the day long ago when your grandfather and he decided upon the pledge between us, and swore to raise us up, one for the other. Oh, how glad I am that they did. How glad I am for their care and carefulness in making us fit for one another. In that spirit, I will promise to continue my travels as you wish, educating myself and learning all that I can for Crieff and Dalshee and our future life together.

  Always, your Greer

  Chapter 28

  Ewan awoke in the night to find the room as dark—as his grandfather used to say—as the Earl of Hell’s waistcoat. The fire burned low, giving enough glowing light for him to take stock, and wonder at the impropriety of bedding his lass under her father’s roof.

  No matter—it was her roof, too. And they were well and truly betrothed—she had chosen him just as surely as he had chosen her. It only rema
ined for them to decide how and when to go about it—how long they would wait in the hopes that his muzzy brain would heal enough for his memory to return. Or not.

  Hell mend him, but he wanted it more than ever—because he wanted more than anything not to disappoint her.

  Ewan reached toward the clock on the small table next to the bed to see the time, to calculate the hours that he might spend holding her before daylight forced them to face the future. But instead of the clock, his hand found a packet of letters tied with a faded velvet ribbon—letters addressed in a familiar hand. So familiar, he was prodded up and out of the warm bed, and closer to the fire to decipher the direction written in a firm hand across the back page of each and every letter—Lady Greer Douglas.

  This he knew as well, these slanting letters, this carefully memorized direction—Dalshee House, Perthshire, Scotland. He could see his own hand before his eyes, dipping the quill into the ink, touching it to a second paper set to the side, so he might not make a blot. He could hear the scratch of the nib against the paper. He could all but feel the quill in his hand.

  He carefully untied the packet and unfolded the first one he came to read—Dearest Greer.

  One by one, letter after letter, he read them, going back to the drawer to find more letters—hundreds of them—before returning to the fire and building it up so he could continue to read. To learn and remember and see the scenes unfolding from his memory. The stony grey and lush green of Crieff, the stormy passage across the Channel, the dusty lanes through the French countryside, the beautiful house on the Rue Malebranche. Ancient Rome and Renaissance Florence and sunsets over hill forts in the Italian countryside. A sunrise over the Italian lakes. The dark medieval stone arches of St. Andrew’s and St. Salvador’s College.