Mouth sealed tightly to hers, his kiss was both dominating and yet utterly seductive, demanding yet coaxing. When he slipped his hands beneath her wet sweater, popped the clasp of her bra and cupped her breasts, she panted against his lips. There, she thought dimly, oh, yes. He played with her nipples, rolling them between his fingers, tugging lightly, and she could feel her breasts swelling beneath his hands, growing excruciatingly sensitive.

When he drew abruptly away, she cried out, reaching for him, trying to pull him back down on her, but he moved out of her grasp, leaning back on his heels at her feet. Her back arched as she stared up at him, his gaze black in the shimmering moonlight. “Please,” she gasped.

He gave her a feral smile. “Please what?”

She told him. In detail.

His black eyes glittering, he laughed as she listed her many and varied requests, and she could see that her boldness was making him recklessly aroused. A month ago, Chloe would never have been able to say such things, but what the hell, she thought, he’d made her this way.

His laughter was of short duration. As he listened, desire narrowed his eyes and lust drew his chiseled features taut. He peeled away her jeans and sweater, and stripped off her panties and bra, baring her to his hungry gaze. Then he picked her up and tossed her naked over his shoulder, his big palm possessively roaming over her bare behind. He stalked from the circle of stones, walking with her through the night, deep into the gardens. He stopped at a low stone bench where he deposited her on her feet, ripped open the fly of his jeans and shed them. In a matter of seconds he was gloriously naked.

Then the big, fierce Highlander with wild black eyes who was clearly seething with impatience to be inside her, surprised her by dropping to his knees before her. He planted lazy, open-mouthed kisses on the thin, sensitive skin of her hips, and across her thighs. Gripping her bottom with both hands, he pulled her hips forward, his velvety tongue sliding deep, slipping over her taut bud and deeper still.

Her legs buckled and she cried out his name. He didn’t let her go down, but caught her weight, and forced her to remain standing, his dark head between her thighs, his long hair like silk against her skin. Slowly, he turned her in his arms, scattering scorching kisses over every inch of her behind, licking and teasing, his fingers slipping to the wetness between her thighs. Desperate to have him inside her, the minute his grip loosened a bit, she dropped forward to the ground on her hands and knees, and looked invitingly back over her shoulder at him, wetting her lips.

He made a strangled sound, his breath hissing between his teeth. “Och, lass,” he chided, “I tried to be gentle.”

Then he was on her, covering her with his big, hard body, pushing into her.

“Gentle later,” she panted. “Hard and fast now.”

As ever, her sexy Highlander was only too willing to oblige.

Much later, heads close together, hands entwined, they borrowed Maggie’s Jeep, and drove back to Drustan and Gwen’s castle. There they crept into the back entrance, quiet as mice so as not to wake anyone, where they fell into bed and began the loving all over again.

It was nearly noon by the time Dageus and Chloe ventured belowstairs, and when they did—much to Drustan’s irritation—they went straight to the kitchens, evidently famished. He could hear a passel of McFarleys banging about in there, putting together a late brunch.

Drustan shook his head and resumed pacing in the library, scarcely able to contain his impatience. The elderly McFarley butled in, trying to find something he might bring “his lordship,” but the only thing his lordship wanted was his damned brother’s attention.

He’d been up since dawn, and already a dozen times this morn he’d stalked toward the stairs, yet each time Gwen had met him at the bottom and firmly turned him back toward the library.

He’d heard them slip in last eve (as if he’d be able to fall asleep on the night Dageus was to return!) and had begun to rise from bed to go to them then, but Gwen had placed her hand on his arm. Let them have tonight, love, she’d said. He’d growled, frustrated, eager to share his news and discover what they’d learned, but then she’d begun kissing him and his mind had stuttered the way it always did when she used that luscious mouth of hers on any part of him. Och, and the parts she’d used it on last eve!

He glanced at her. She was curled on the window seat beneath one of the library’s bay windows. Rain pattered lightly against the glass. She’d been reading for the past hour, but now she was staring dreamily out the window. Her skin had the unique translucent radiance of a pregnant woman, her breasts were full and tight, her belly heavily rounded with his—their—children. Fierce elation and protectiveness flooded him, accompanied by that never-ending need to be holding her, touching her. As if sensing his gaze on her, she turned from the window and smiled at him. He dropped into an armchair near the fireplace and patted his thigh. “Bring your bonny self over here, wee English.”