THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

Finally, she looked into his eyes. “Duncan, I want to trust you. I want it so much I ache for wanting it. I just don’t know if I can.”
      “Oh, lass.” She was asking that he earn her trust, prove himself, which seemed only fair given her previous experiences—Lady Kathy’s tale—and himself railing in fury after she’d given all.
    He decided the first step should be seeking permission and not simply taking, though he had the right. “May I kiss ye, lass?”
    When she kept her gaze fixed on his silver collar but nodded, he murmured, “Then come.”
    He led her into the shadows of the barn. She offered no resistance as he cradled her in his arms. Aye, she did want to believe, and he desperately wanted her to.
    Under the eaves and surrounded by the sweet scent of hay he cradled her neck and lowered his mouth to hers. To his surprise her lips were responsive. When he gently increased the pressure, her mouth opened to him.
    He inhaled her sigh as he ran his tongue slowly into her lush, wine-flavored interior. When her tongue began to play across his, his heart soared.
    She did want him despite her verbal protests. He backed her against a pillar.
    As he pressed his need to her belly, she surprised him again by groaning and sliding her fingers into his hair.
    It was all the encouragement he needed.
    When Duncan’s hand crept up her ribs and slowly stroked her left breast, Beth’s heart pounded a rapid tattoo in response.
    Her sense of self-preservation started chiding, “You really should be putting a stop to this,” as soon as his thumb started circling her nipple, but God, she’d missed the feel of him, the taste of him. She had no doubt she really should stop him now before he...oh, yes.
    His other hand had cupped her buttocks and brought her into intimate contact with his arousal. As he kissed her senseless, he bent his knees and gently slid his swollen phallus up and down against her. She groaned. As she tried to collect herself, his mouth started travelling down her neck and settled onto the swell of her breasts.
    Nuzzling, he murmured, “Ye be delicious, Beth.” Within a heartbeat he’d opened her gown’s laces and exposed her breasts to the moonlight. As he laved the tip of one very excited nipple she wondered at his obvious pleasure in suckling, not that she minded. Incredibly, it caused something deep within her—-no doubt, her womb—to contract with need. She groaned again when he turned his attention to the other side, leaving the first breast to chill in the soft breeze, which only underscored her nakedness. God, everything he did felt so good, his every move so gentle, yet persistent and hungry.
    When he left her breast and slid his tongue down her ribs she wanted to shout, “No, go back,” but then he surprised her by kneeling before her.
    “Umm, Duncan...”
    She lifted his face so she could see into his eyes. Like highly polished silver, they glowed. “What are you—-“
    “Ssh, my lady. I need pay penance, aye? So dinna deprive me of this.”
    His hands gently slid from her hips to her ankles before gliding under her skirts and up over her calves. They settled just above the back of her knees. He watched her as his callused fingers slowly circled and stroked her now quaking thighs.
    “I do like the feel of ye skin, my lady.” He pushed aside the fabric of her gown with his chin and licked the interior of one thigh. “‘Tis silk fine yet tastes most sweet.” She pressed her back to the pillar, fearing her legs would buckle and pressed her hands against his shoulders.
    Without doubt she shouldn’t be allowing him such liberties. No, she really shouldn’t. She should still be holding him at arm’s length, demanding he apologize every hour on the hour, but my, oh my, how he could play her like a fine violin. And truth be told, she did love him despite his sometime caustic ways. And he had apologized, profusely, and she was in fact married to him...
    His broad callused hands crept to her buttocks as his lips and tongue slowly kissed and stroked their way up to the junction of her thighs. Feeling his pouf of breath ruffle the curls at her apex, she gasped.
    Her common sense now railed, “ Enough! Someone could come in here at any moment, ” but she didn’t want him to stop. She wanted to feel what he was about to do. Wanted it so badly she could have screamed.
    Duncan licked just once through Beth’s curls, felt her nub tremble, and looked up. Her head now rested