Free Never Forget Me by Marguerite Kaye

skelf.’
    ‘You’ve lost me now.’
    ‘A skelf is a Scots word for splinter.’
    ‘Given that a splinter is something that gets under your skin, you might have a point, Miss Carmichael.’
    ‘I doubt I’d get under anyone’s skin in this old thing,’ she said, holding out her mackintosh and making a twirl, as if she was wearing a ball gown.
    His smile was completely unguarded, a rare thing for Geraint. He pulled her to him, his arm circling her waist, and spun her around again in the tiny stone hut, making her giddy. Her laughter faded when he looked down at her, his eyes dark with the passion she had witnessed earlier.
    ‘You have certainly managed to get under mine,’ he said, pulling her backwards into his embrace and kissing her.
    This time he did not stop. He kissed her, and she kissed him, and it was as if they had not left off kissing in the woods at all. They sank to the hard earth floor in front of the spluttering fire, still kissing. He kissed her eyelids, her cheeks, her throat. Her mackintosh fell onto the ground as he nuzzled the hollow at the base of her neck.
    Lips. Tongue. His. Hers. She could not tell, and did not care. Who would have thought kisses could make you feel like this, melting and on fire at the same time? Who would have thought that so quickly, kisses would not nearly be enough?
    She struggled with the brass buttons on his tunic. Geraint swore and unfastened first his belt and then the buttons, still kissing her. He shrugged out of the jacket. His singlet was pristine white, stretched taut over his chest. His arms were muscled, just as she had imagined them, smooth skin, knotted underneath, like whipcord. The hardness of his body made her shiver, made the tension twist low inside her. She smoothed her palm over his chest, feeling the heat of his skin through the cotton, feeling his heartbeat, slow and certain, enjoying the sharp intake of his breath as she touched him.
    He pulled her to him, wrapping his arms tight around her so that she was pressed against his chest, and she felt the heat of her passion rise another notch. The dry wood on the fire sparked and crackled as Geraint slid his hands over the soft woollen sleeves of her dress, flattening his palms on her breasts in an echo of her own action, making her shudder. Her nipples hardened. He stroked them through the layers of her garments, so delicately it was almost painful. She moaned his name, shocked by the strength of her response, even more shocked by how much more she wanted.
    He managed the hooks and buttons of her gown far too deftly to have been anything but familiar with such impediments. She wouldn’t think about that. The emerald-green woollen dress was worn under a tunic patterned in the new jersey fabric, but Geraint managed to pull both from her shoulders at the same time, sliding them down her arms, leaving her in her camisole. She had always thought it would be embarrassing, to have a man look at her in her underwear. Geraint’s breathing quickened, his eyes darkened as he looked at her, leaving her in no doubt about what he thought. She felt powerful, liberated.
    He laid her down with the mackintosh to protect her, sliding her gown out from under her before stretching out at her side, his legs tangling with hers, half-covering her with his body. He kissed her more languorously this time, deliberately slowing her, when she would have touched him, gently putting her hands aside. ‘Wait. Let me,’ he said. His touch was like the whispered breath of a warm breeze on her skin, fingers and lips. Her arms, his mouth warm on the sensitive skin inside her elbow. Her chest, the valley between her breasts, stroking and licking his way along the lacy frill of her camisole. He cupped her breasts and circled her nipples with his thumb, then he kissed them, his mouth warm, dampening the rayon, making it cling.
    He undid the ribbons of her camisole and pulled it open. His hand on her skin, so much more. How could there be so