He rose and limped forward on his cane. His gaze traveled over the tall rock wall, toward the mountains and the setting sun obscured by pink and orange clouds, but his full attention locked on this mesmerizing woman.

Gwyneth.

He passed her name through his thoughts a hundred times a day. He wanted to say her name, whisper it into her ear. But that would imply an intimacy they didn’t share.

In that moment, the sharp urge to kiss her burst through his defenses. Her small yet full lips were dark-pink and moist. Last night he had dreamed of kissing her, and a lot more—removing her clothing, stroking his lips over every inch of her soft skin, sliding fully into her tight, wet depths. He had wakened hot and aroused as he had not been in years.

“What would you do, m’lady, if I kissed you?”

Her wide-eyed gaze flew to his, and she stepped back.

Aye, retreat if you ken what’s good for you.

He was strong enough to resist her allure, but he didn’t want to. Not anymore. Damnation, he’d tried. But each day she stole more and more of his attention, until finally his nights were filled with those heated dreams, and his days with scorching fantasies. He was a chief with no interest in leading at the moment.

Slowly, he moved toward where she stood with her back to the wall. Arms crossed, she watched him warily for a moment as if he were going to attack her. She didn’t know him very well at all, did she?

He propped his cane up, placed his arm on the wall beside her and leaned casually, close to her. Closer than was proper. Her womanly essence sent his thoughts scattering. “Gwyneth, I wonder, have you ever had a kiss that near took your breath away?”

Her cheeks reddened even more.

“I confess, just the thought of kissing you the way I would like does that to me.”

She swallowed hard and stared at the ground, then at the gate as if she might make a mad dash for it. But she didn’t. “Oh, you are…unseemly.” Her whispered chastisement sounded more breathless excitement than offended shock.

“Aye. That I am. I have sinful thoughts about you at night, in my bed,” he whispered.

Her breath came out in a rush against his throat. Heat and chills chased over his skin and his erection tingled and tightened, hard as the stone wall.

He exhaled against her forehead. “God help me, Gwyneth, I want to taste your skin.” Kiss you, lips to ankle and back again, lick you in dark, forbidden places. Get drenched by your desire while you surround me and hold me tightly so deep inside you. Wrap yourself around me and moan my name.

“Good heavens,” she whispered.

“Are you wanting that, too?”

She didn’t answer.

He pressed a kiss to her forehead, then drew back slightly. “Gwyneth?”

She glanced up, her normally light eyes turned dark, her lips parted. Though it might be sacrilege, he thanked Heaven for female lust. She slipped her hand around his neck. Taking that as the signal he needed, he captured her lips.

She tasted of salvation and damnation at once. No woman had ever lured him to forget who he was…forget his past, his future, and fill him with the need to have her no matter the cost to his soul.

She was more delicious than the sweetest comfit. She was honey and cream he wanted to lap up like a famished cat. He hardened so fully, dizziness snatched his equilibrium. He could not help but pull her to him, his hands at her waist dropping, caressing her derriere through the petticoats, no farthingale to hamper his progress. His fingers ached to tug up her skirts, to caress the softest skin, wet, hidden female places.

Alasdair’s kiss was unlike anything Gwyneth could’ve expected. Never had anyone kissed her in such a fierce-tender, devouring way. The shameless movements of his tongue, flicking into her mouth, shocked her and awakened her to each tiny detail of him. He tasted faintly of lemons, delicious and tangy, and she savored him.

A moan rumbled from his throat. “Mo dia.” A curse or prayer, she wasn’t sure which.

Tingling heat covered her body and moisture gathered between her legs. By the saints! This was worse—far more sinful than anything she’d ever done, because she exulted in it. The sheer sumptuousness of his mouth obliterated all else.

Her aching nipples rubbed the hard muscles of his chest. And his hands, good lord, the places he caressed. And then she felt him—his aroused shaft stroked her belly, pressed firmly against her, as if begging to be inside. She ached. His kilt and her own threadbare skirts were almost as nothing between them. Instinct urged her to pull him down to the ground, atop her. Inside her.

She gasped, shocked at her response to him. What her father had said was true—she was a harlot, easily seduced when the right words were whispered in her ear. And Alasdair knew the perfect ones.

She jerked away from him.

In the gloaming, his face was flushed, his eyes black as midnight, his breathing unsteady. She had always thought his eyes had a sensual, lustful look about them. Now, that was multiplied a hundred times. Undoubtedly, he was a man made for the bedchamber. A man who knew everything about seducing a woman and rendering her helpless under his lascivious spell. A woman such as herself would be doomed in his presence.

“I must go.” She ran back toward the door of the castle.

***

That night, the soothing rhythm of Gwyneth’s clear, animated voice mesmerized Alasdair, as it did his clan. Days ago, she’d started telling Rory and one of the other lads a story of great adventure, but within a few days she’d lured all the children. And now the bigger part of his clan, young and old, had gathered around her in the great hall after supper to hear these fantastic tales they’d never heard before—obviously English, or perhaps she’d made them up herself to amuse her son.

Her descriptions of the unusual landscapes her characters passed through and their funny adventures were indeed spellbinding.

What he’d found even more enthralling was her kiss. It was a good thing she’d pulled away. He might have taken her there, against the stone wall, with no protest from her. Indeed, she had been an active participant, tugging him closer, teasing his tongue with her own. Saints! A passionate woman was a wondrous treasure. Thinking of how she had kissed him with a hunger that increased his own now made him hard with need.

It had been far longer than he wanted to admit since he’d been with a woman. He’d smothered his natural desires beneath his grief and his duty of leading and overseeing the clan. Apparently, his desires were awakened in full now and demanding release. But he could not pursue this with Gwyneth. He could not dishonor her.

He turned away from the sound of her seductive voice and strode upstairs onto the battlements. The cool night wind blew his hair back from his face. He released a pent-up breath and drew the fresh air in deep.

The high-pitched skirl of bagpipes echoed through the darkness from the village. Beautiful and haunting, the hymn reminded Alasdair of his father’s funeral. The pain and confusion that came with becoming the clan’s new laird was something he had finally overcome. But the grief he had not forgotten. Of course, all his life he’d known he would one day be laird, but he had not expected to be so young, twenty-three, when it happened.

He had promised himself he would avenge his father’s murder, but he hadn’t been able to. He hadn’t told all of his clansmen who the murderer was. They simply blamed it on the MacIrwins, Donald in particular. Not long after his own father’s death, Shaw had been killed in a skirmish with the Kerrs.

The matter was finished, but it didn’t seem so. Donald, along with Baigh’s two grown sons, had been with him that day. Accomplices. No, Alasdair didn’t want revenge against them, but he considered them the lowest of common criminals.