Unwilling (Highland Historical #2)

just—
    She crested in a wet rush of pure
white fire.  Her rhythmic cries followed the pulses of bliss centered in her
core and were smothered by his relentless mouth.  Her hips bucked beneath him
but he held fast, driving her ever higher until she collapsed.
    The black-clad beast drew back
then, and the expression on his face terrified her.
    Absolute possession. 
    He ripped at the leather buckles of
his armor, rending them with his bare hands, and tossed the chest-piece aside. 
A black tunic with a tear at the shoulder was all that stood between him and
her bare breasts.
    “Wait.”  Lindsay started to drift
back into herself.  The last pulsing vestiges of pleasure still thrummed
through her blood.  Her limbs felt heavy and soft, her thoughts muddled and
slow to take form.  What just happened?  Had her very soul shattered and then
been recaptured?  She needed a moment to recover.
    With a dark and anticipatory smile,
he dropped his head to capture her lips in another searing kiss.  This one left
her feeling drugged and weak-limbed.  Lindsay put her hand on his chest and
pushed against him.  This shouldn’t be happening, should it?  Why hadn’t he
spoken a word to her? 
    “I don’t think—”
    His tongue took advantage of her
parted lips and she lost herself for a few more sensual moments before turning
her face to evade him.
    “I can’t— Ohhhhhh.” 
    He nibbled her ear.  Licked at the
sensitive flesh of her neck.  Rendered her witless with his sinful, relentless
mouth. 
    The cold air on her bare thighs
dumped her harshly back into reality.  He’d pushed her skirts above her knees
and had moved deeper between them.  Lindsay grabbed desperately at her bodice
and found it slick with a dead man’s blood. 
    She was going to be sick.  What had
they just done? 
    With the blood of the freshly defeated
at her feet and the corpses of innocent men strewn about outside her carriage? 
What sort of woman was she to act in such a disgraceful manner?  Surely, he’d
enthralled her, somehow.  Bedeviled her into allowing him the most shameful of
liberties.  She had to stop this.  Stop him .
    “No!” she cried. 
    His head snapped up from her neck. 
Those ebony eyes snaring hers from a face so blindingly compelling she had to
wrench her gaze away.  She was in danger of being spellbound again. 
    “P-please… I—” What should she
say?  Would he kill her now?
    His head dipped toward her once
more, lips angling for her breast as he pushed her skirts higher.
    “Stop,” she commanded, twisting
away from him and attempting to disentangle her limbs from around his strong
trunk.  At least she succeeded in grasping her bodice together.  “I won’t let
you take me.  Do you understand me, Demon?  Y-you cannot.  I’ll die first.”
    His features darkened from
bewilderment to anger in a moment.  With a vicious snarl, he reached out and
grasped her by the waist, hauling her against him. 
    Even knowing what he’d done, exactly
how many people he’d killed, Lindsay had underestimated his sheer strength.  Apparently,
until this moment, he’d been treating her with utter gentility and painstaking
restraint. 
    Not any longer.
    Dragging her out of the coach, he
held her body in an iron grasp even as she wailed and kicked and struggled with
all her might.  Lindsay was glad she couldn’t see the carnage through the fog. 
But the metallic scent of blood hung thick in the air and the demon seemed to
be picking his steps very carefully.
    As he carried her a few spans, the
mist began to dissipate and after an indeterminate time of her kicking at him
and shouting obscenities, a brilliant sunset shone over the river Tay.
    “Put me down!” Lindsay ordered.  “I
demand to be released.”
    To her utter surprise, the demon
complied, dumping her fully into the river and following in after her.
     

Chapter
Five
     
    The harsh chill of the water washed
the blood away and blurred the sharp angles of grey from Connor’s vision.  The
world melted back to the vibrant colors of autumn.  Crimson was the first to
return.  He faded back into awareness while ripping a blood-soiled dress from
soft, pale skin. 
    Woman’s skin.  His woman’s
skin.
    “ Christ! ” he swore as he dropped
her body back into the waist-high water, recoiling as though she were a hot
coal scorching his flesh.  The rent garments stayed in his grip, and he hurled
them to the opposite bank in a fit of temper.