His gaze slid down, over her bared breasts, to the fabric pooled at her waist. He reached for it, his fingers running over it for the barest breath before he looked to her, brow furrowed. “This isn’t my plaid. It’s the Stuart tartan, but it is too soft.”

She nodded. “It is cashmere. The dressmaker gave it to me before I left this morning . . .” She paused, not wanting to think of the dressmaker. Of the reason she had been there. For a dress for the theater. For a trousseau.

Not wanting to think of the other woman who had been there. His woman.

Alec would not let her think of those things, however. His beautiful brown gaze captured her. “You knew it would slay me.”

Lily smiled. “I hoped it would.”

He pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “Here,” he whispered to the skin there. “This is what I saw when I entered the room. This shoulder, bare and perfect against my plaid. And you . . .” His lips moved down, over her collarbone, down the slope of her breast. “You . . . beautiful enough to be a Scottish queen.”

He took the tip of her breast in his mouth, teasing until it was hard and begging for everything he would give her, for the licks and pulls at her flesh, even as she knew she should resist. Knew she should be ashamed. But with Alec, nothing felt shameful. Nothing felt wrong. It felt as though this moment—it was her purpose. He was her destiny. She cried out at the sensation and he gentled, worrying the straining flesh with the light graze of his teeth, making her pant his name and beg for more.

He lifted his head. “Is that how you like it, mo chridhe?”

She caressed his shoulders, her hands sliding up to cup his face, to tilt him to her for a kiss. She whispered against his lips, “I like it however you wish to give it.”

He took control of the caress, sliding his tongue deep and claiming her for his own. Marking her. Ensuring that she would never be able to think of kissing without thinking of him. Of now. Of this night.

He kissed her in long, lingering caresses, addling her mind with soft, sinful pleasure until she nearly didn’t notice that he had peeled away the tartan on her lap. And then his fingers were caressing, delving deeper in long, lingering strokes, and she noticed. Clearly.

She writhed beneath his touch, sighing her pleasure into his mouth.

“You taste of peppermint,” he said after a long, lingering lick at her lips. “How is that possible?”

“Sesily.” She sighed, desperate to find thought as his fingers played and tempted, making promises of what was to come.

He raised a brow, humor in his gaze. “Another Talbot trick?”

“I wanted to taste good,” she said, a blush running over her cheeks.

He held her gaze for a long moment as he slid his fingers deep, and she gasped once, twice, before he removed them, bringing them to his mouth as he had in the carriage days ago. She blazed like the sun as she watched him slide them deep into his mouth, as he tasted her secrets, the visual making her ache. “You taste wonderful. No peppermint required.” He leaned in again, licking along her jaw to her ear. “I should like to eat you up.”

Her cheeks flamed at the words, and she thought she might perish from embarrassment when his fingers resumed their movement, dipping, swirling, and then disappearing again, rising to lazily paint the tip of one breast in slow, wet circles. “Shall I eat you up, lass?”

Before she could answer, he moved again, sliding down her body, licking and sucking until she sighed her pleasure and held him to her, aching for more. He repeated the action on the other breast, leaving her awash in need, aching for something she could not name.

She lifted his face to hers. “Alec,” she whispered, squirming on the creaky bed. “Please. Come to me.”

He shook his head then. “I am not done tasting you, love.”

Love.

The endearment was enough to set her squirming again, even more so as he moved her, pulling her legs to the edge of the bed, and—she closed her eyes—spreading her thighs wide. “Lie back,” he said, the words rough and deep and outrageous.

She blinked. “Aren’t you going to . . . ?”

“Taste you,” he said, his massive hands sliding up her legs, over the soft skin of the inside of her thighs, setting her heart to pounding as his fingers moved higher and higher, until they were a wicked promise at the junction of her thighs. He stared at her for a long moment, until she closed her eyes from the heat of his gaze.

Finally, he pressed a kiss against the soft skin of one thigh and said, “You are perfect here—not that I should be surprised. Slick and wet and desperate for me, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know,” she said, suddenly afraid of what he was about to do, of what he was about to make her feel.

He growled at that. “You are. You are the most perfect thing I’ve ever touched.” He pressed a kiss to the soft skin of her thigh. “You humble me with your body.”

Unable to stop herself, she lifted herself to him, aching for his touch. “It is yours,” she whispered. “All of me. I am yours.”

He growled at the words, turning to nip the inside of her knee before lifting her leg and settling it, shockingly, wonderfully, on his shoulder. “You have it wrong, love. It is not I who owns, but you.” He pressed a kiss to the curls that hid the heat of her. “Your lips taste like Scotland,” he whispered at the core of her. “But here, you taste like heaven.”

And then he was kissing her in that glorious, secret place, and she was gasping her shock and pleasure, and doing as she was told, lying back as he licked and sucked and reveled in her. She sighed his name, her hands moving to his head, fingers sliding into his hair. “Alec,” she whispered. “I am yours. Forever.”

The words seemed to unlock him, to make him wild and desperate and wicked and wonderful; a growl came deep, the vibration against her core making her just as wild. Just as desperate. Her fingers clenched in his dark curls, and she did not hesitate to hold him to her, to move against him.

His hands slid beneath her, lifting her, holding her to him like a banquet, and she cried out as he licked, finding all her secrets, giving her everything she’d ever desired. “Yours,” she whispered again and again, and finally, as he drove her higher and higher, he ripped the word from her on a wild, loud scream.

He lifted his head at the sound, leaving her there on the precipice of something glorious. He pressed a soft kiss to her thigh, licking in little circles until she looked to him, meeting his magnificent gaze as he stared up the length of her. “You stopped.”