“Annabel?” he inquired. “Why have you closed your eyes? You’re not afraid of me, are you?”

Thankfully, he saw a glimmer of a smile on those luscious lips of hers. “Is that a question?”

“Yes,” he growled. And then he couldn’t wait any longer: he gathered the delicious body of his almost-wife into his arms. He kissed her until she was trembling in his arms, until they were both near senseless, until her tongue was as bold as his. And then he slowly, slowly rolled onto his back, bringing her with him.

Annabel’s eyes popped open. She had direct contact with his groin now, and he wasn’t quite certain she understood the implications of what she was feeling. Not that his Annabel ever showed any particular signs of virginal innocence.

Sure enough, she obviously knew precisely what she was feeling. She was staring down at him with a little frown between her brows and he could practically see the objections racing through her mind.

“It’ll fit,” he said, pulling down her head for a kiss. “I promise. There’s no need to fear me, Annabel.” Then he slipped between her lips with all the hunger for her taste that he felt in his body, kissed her until she was clutching his hair and kissing him back, and until she’d cradled herself between his legs in a way that told him that they would be a marvelous fit for each other.

He pulled away from her mouth only when he found that his hands had stopped caressing her narrow back and had shaped themselves to the most beautifully round bottom he’d ever felt in his life.

So instead of continuing with that caress, which would surely lead to madness, he rolled her over, keeping one leg over hers, determined to gain control of himself before he touched her again. She was exquisite, this bride of his, even with her smoky eyes closed tight.

He dropped kisses on her eyes and the rosy tilt of her mouth, but she still didn’t open her eyes. “Don’t you want to know what a coney is, then?” he whispered in her ear, giving her a little bite.

She gasped, and opened her eyes. She was a great one for seeing the world blind, this lass of his. “You told me,” she said. “It’s a rabbit.” Her voice was all husky and low, and made Ewan’s groin throb so that he almost lost control again.

He took a deep breath. “Aren’t you a bit more curious about the origins of the phrase?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

He slid his leg down the long smooth length of her legs, and surprised himself by wondering if he truly would be able to stop in time. Surely he would. He hadn’t practiced restraint for all these years to have it desert him when he most needed it. Slowly, reverently, he put a hand on her breast.

The warm curve of it made him almost moan aloud but he stayed rigid, instead watching Annabel, who, of course, had her eyes closed tight. He dared to rub a thumb across her nipple and her body instinctively arched up. Her hand flew to his wrist and she said, her voice shaking, “Ewan!” But she didn’t open her eyes, and he counted that as a welcome.

“Yes, love,” he whispered, keeping his hand—and his thumb—right where it was. Then he let himself kiss her again and desire exploded like fury between them. She was writhing under his hand now, making little squeaking sounds that inflamed his blood. Slowly, slowly, he ran his hand from her breast to her flat stomach, over a hip, down a long sleek leg and finally to the edge of her nightgown, bunched at her thighs.

Her eyes flew open. “What are you doing?” she cried, grabbing his wrist again.

It was time for another kiss. He kissed her until her eyes closed in helpless surrender, until she dropped her fierce grasp on his wrist and wound her arms around his neck. And then, before she could stop him, he ran his hand up the sweetness of soft skin at her inner thigh to…there.

She went rigid. “I thought we weren’t—” she said with a gasp.

“We aren’t,” he told her, at the same time he warned himself of the same thing. “We aren’t. This is just another kind of kiss, Annabel.”

But her eyes were open, and narrowed at him. “I’ve never heard of such a thing!”

“You didn’t learn everything there is to learn in the village,” he said to her, trying to keep his voice even while his fingers were wandering over the softest tangle of hair he’d felt in his life, and his breath felt as it were exploding in his chest.

“I don’t think this is proper,” Annabel insisted. “We’re not—”

She squeaked, and Ewan covered her mouth with his. And in the middle of that fevered kiss, he touched her until her legs relaxed and she cried out against his lips again and again, finally hiding her head against his shoulder and twisting against him.

“But the kiss, Annabel,” he said, knowing that his control was growing weak. Another moment of this and he’d simply roll over and—“Our last kiss, and my gift…”

She mutely tried to pull his head down to hers.

“Nay,” he said gruffly, “that’s not it.”

And then quickly, before those beautiful eyes of hers could fly open and she could leap off the bed, he moved down.

Annabel was in a haze of heat and desire. Against her thigh she could feel Ewan’s—Ewan’s—and though he said things would fit, she had a nagging suspicion that they wouldn’t. But every time the suspicion grew firm in her mind, he would kiss her senseless again and she would forget her worries, lost in a haze of ecstasy.

At least he’d finally taken his hand off her breast, but—

“What are you doing?” she said, surprised by her own ragged voice.

He was lying between her legs and there she was, like a wanton, with her nightgown pulled up almost to her waist. “Stop that!” she cried, trying to sit up, but a huge muscled arm slid up her stomach and held her down. And his other hand…

He touched her there. She couldn’t help it; a whimper broke from her lips. But he could see her. He shouldn’t be in such a position. “Ewan!” she said, trying again for rationality, for decency, for—

She lost her train of thought. His fingers were—

That wasn’t his finger!

“Ewan!” she choked, but he didn’t answer, and his hand was holding her down—well, it was caressing her breast—and there was nothing to do but close her eyes tight and sink into a velvet darkness that had nothing in it but his tongue and the flames licking around her body, sending her arching helplessly against him, trying to cry his name but managing only cries, her voice cut into ribbons by the sweetness of his kiss.

This—this—but she couldn’t remember what it was called. She couldn’t remember her own name. Every sensation in her body was focused on the decadent, rough touch of his mouth.

“I can’t—I can’t—” she managed…and then she shuddered, twisting up against him, bursting into a spasm more intense than she had ever felt before, an all-consuming, raging explosion that had her gasping and crying out, and then falling back, limp, to the bed.

Twenty

Two days later they were trundling along the road in the early afternoon. Annabel had succumbed to a haze of boredom and weariness, and when Ewan decided to ride, she curled up on the seat and fell fast asleep. What woke her was the sensation that the carriage was listing steeply to the left. She blinked, trying to decide whether the box was actually sloping to the side, and then, before she could brace herself, a violent lurch threw her against the wall, followed by shrieking, scraping noises as the carriage slid down some sort of embarkment. The last sound as the carriage settled was the violent snap of a thick piece of wood giving way.