Free Highland Tides by Anna Markland Page B

would never warm her heart the way Braden Ogilvie did, or spark the desire that swamped her whenever she looked at him.  
    He was honor bound to attempt a journey to his own time, and might never find his way back, but she would hold him in her heart forever. A life filled with regret of not having loved him and been loved in return wasn’t for her.
    She wanted him, shaved head, big hands, big feet and—
    Her body heated. “I’ve never seen a man without his clothes on,” she confessed.
    He sucked her neck, sending a shiver of delight into her nipples. “Would ye like to see me naked?” he teased.
    His warm breath on her skin set her afire. “Aye,” she whispered in a voice she barely recognized.
    He stood by the bed, his expression serious as he wagged his finger at her. “But ’tis only fair if I take off my clothes, ye have to do the same.”
    She nodded like an imbecile, unable to speak, afflicted with an insane urge to stretch like a cat.
    He smiled and wiggled his eyebrows, then peeled off his doublet and yanked his shirt over his head. “Ye can touch me,” he whispered.
    Before her parents’ untimely deaths, they’d taken their daughters to Italy. At the age of fourteen Charlotte had set eyes on Michelangelo’s David , and turned away immediately, hot with embarrassment. Augusta had made some rude remark and been scolded by their mother who’d then embarked on a long dissertation about the Italian sculptor.
    Now, it was as if she’d been given an invitation to run her hands over the chiseled muscles of the classic statue. She came to her feet and touched her fingers to his chest. “Smooth,” she murmured, immediately aware of the iron strength of his body.
    He chuckled. “Aye. That’s Daniel’s handiwork. But the hair will grow back.”
    “What color is it?” she wondered.
    “Sort of sandy,” he replied.
    A golden god.
    He looked up at the ceiling and inhaled sharply when she brushed her thumbs over his nipples. She plucked up her courage and risked a kiss on his powerful neck. He growled and took her face in his hands. “Are ye certain ye want to do this, Charlotte? There’ll come a point where I canna stop and I dinna want ye to have regrets.”
    “I’ve never been more certain of anything,” she replied, elated it was true. “I have been waiting for you.”
    “And I for you," he breathed with a wry grin. "A lot longer I might add.”
    A man with a sense of humor. There were few left in Scotland these days.
    He stepped back and traced a fingertip from the middle of his chest to the top of his trews. “The hair will grow back in a line down my belly and—”
    She shivered with anticipation as he unfastened the trews and pushed them and the silk braies off his hips “—ordinarily…”
    He was still talking but she didn’t hear a word. There was nothing ordinary about the rigid maleness jutting from his body. With athletic grace he stepped out of the garments and kicked them away.
    Her certainty fled. He was too big, too much male. She would never be enough for such a man. The ready ease with which he’d removed his clothes suggested it wasn't the first time he'd stripped in front of a woman. Mayhap to him this meant nothing more than—
    Her breath hitched in her throat as she sank back to sit on the edge of the bed.
    He took her hand. “Dinna fash, Charlotte. I ken what ye might be thinking, and ye're right. I’ve bedded other women. ’Twas expected of a young man in my time. But I’ve never been in love. I canna wait to join with a woman who enthrals me, to my wife.”
    Her gaze remained fixed on his male member. “But you’re big,” she said.
    He drew her hands to his maleness. “Trust me. It will add to yer pleasure, and I’ll make sure ye’re ready. Curl yer hands around me.”
    She obeyed, thrilled by the warm silky feel of him, the musky scent. A strange need to taste him seized her. She licked her lips.
    “If ye take me in yer mouth,” he rasped, “ye’ll