“Hmm,” he pretended to consider, his voice low, a dangerous purr against her skin. “You taste sweeter.”
“Flatterer,” she accused, but the huskiness in her voice betrayed her, her words catching on a small hitch of breath when his mouth brushed upward to the tender line of her throat. He smiled against her skin, pleased at the evidence of his effect on her.
Her hands slid into his hair when his lips found hers, and she melted into him with a willingness that sent a hot thrill through his veins. He set the tray hastily aside, no longer interested in anything but her, and bore her back into the pillows. The mattress dipped beneath their weight, and he followed her down, covering her body with his own.
His hands roamed with new familiarity, mapping the graceful lines and soft curves as if he were learning a language through touch alone—one he intended to master. His palms skimmed over her ribs, the warm swell of her breasts, his thumbs brushing the peaks until she gasped. Her hips shifted beneath him, seeking more, and he chuckled low in his throat.
“I want to know what makes you gasp,” he murmured, letting his lips trace a languid path down the slope of her neck, “what makes you moan …” His hand drifted lower, over the silk of her gown bunched at her waist, sliding beneath to find her heat. “And what makes you whisper my name like a prayer.”
“You insatiable rake!” His spitfire gasped, “You already know all those things!”
His wolfish grin was a slash across his face. “Hm, I’m the type who likes to ascertain the extent of my knowledge. Surely you understand, my tigress?”
She opened her mouth to say something, but all that came out was a low mewl, instead. Her breath came faster as his fingers found her slick and ready, stroking in unhurried circles until her back arched, pressing her against him. He drank in every sound she made—the stifled gasp, the tremulous sigh, the choked whisper of his name on her lips; each one feeding the deep, aching need that coiled low in his belly.
This time, when he slid inside her, it was not with the frenzied urgency of the first joining, but with exquisite deliberation. He sank into her slowly, watching her face as pleasure flickered there—wonder first, then heat, then something softer that gripped at his chest.
His hips rocked into hers in a steady rhythm, his hands framing her face as he kissed her between breaths, tasting her moans as if they were wine. The morning light peeking in through the blinds gilded her skin, painting her in warm gold, her hair a fiery spill over the pillows.
She touched him too. Not with the shyness of before, but with a growing boldness, her palms mapping the planes of his back, the taut muscles of his shoulders. Her nails bit into his skin when he shifted his angle, and her cry in that moment made his control falter.
“Ewan …” she breathed, and he buried his face against her neck, inhaling her scent, his own breath ragged.
Each thrust was a discovery anew, each sigh from her lips a revelation he had a feeling he would never tire of receiving. He had bedded women before, but never like this. Never with the sense that he was not just possessing a body, but touching something unguarded, something fiercely precious.
When her release came, it swept through her with a gasp and a trembling that he felt to his very bones. Her arms locked around him, holding him there as though she could keep him from leaving even after the world righted itself.
He found that he liked the idea of that immensely, too, and found himself captivated by the changing expressions that crossed her face—wonder, pleasure, vulnerability, trust. It was as if he were seeing her for the first time, yet also as if he had known her forever.
CHAPTER 19
When they lay together afterward, catching their breath, he marveled at how differently he felt. With other women, the act had been a release, a momentary pleasure quickly forgotten. With Samantha, it felt like coming home to a place he had never known existed but had somehow always sought.
“What are you thinking?” she asked, tracing the line of his jaw with gentle fingers.
“That I’ve been a fool,” he admitted, capturing her hand and pressing a kiss to her palm.
“In what way?”
“In thinking that keeping everyone at a distance was the way to avoid becoming like my father.” He met her gaze steadily. “Perhaps it was precisely that distance that made him so cruel.”
She nodded slowly, her eyes full of understanding. “Loneliness can harden even the kindest heart.”
“And yours?” he asked, suddenly needing to know. “Has it hardened after what Adam did to you?”
Pain flickered briefly across her features. “I thought it had. I convinced myself I was better off alone, that loving someone only led to humiliation.”
“And now?”
Her smile was tinged with sadness, but also with hope. “Now I think perhaps the greater humiliation would have been never risking my heart again.”
He pulled her closer, overwhelmed by a surge of protectiveness that surprised him with its intensity. “He never deserved you.”
“Perhaps not,” she agreed softly. “But his rejection led me here, to you. So perhaps it was a blessing disguised as heartbreak.”
Ewan considered this, struck by the generosity of spirit required to view such pain as ultimately beneficial. “You’re a remarkable woman, Samantha Wildingham.”
Her eyes widened slightly at the use of his surname, as if only now fully realizing that it was her own as well. “It still sounds strange to my ears.”
