“Yet you resist the call because I could be hurt?” Standing straight, she lifted her breasts in her palms, squeezing her nipples, which were already hard pebbles of sensation. Out in the dense forest, she was exposed, but the tortured look on Cain’s face and the tenting out of his kilt made her feel deliciously wicked. Her body remembered the peaks of pleasure they had enjoyed and wanted more.

His hand was openly stroking his jack where he stood, his eyes ravishing her so that she nearly felt his caress. Watching his strong hand wrap around himself made an ache grow low in the crux of her legs.

“And if ye get with child?” he asked, his teeth gritted.

“Then we will battle through it all together, Cain. You cannot tuck me away in a little box. It will become my coffin.”

His breath came out ragged. The distance between them that delayed their touching was tantalizing. Standing in the silent forest of greens and golds, naked, her hair sliding against her shoulders and back, the ends teasing the slope of her backside, Ella felt free like she had never felt before. She slid her hands down her body, and his gaze followed her fingers along every curve and valley. She stopped at the juncture of her legs, dipping her fingers there.

“Daingead!” The word came as a growl as Cain yanked open his belt, dropping his kilt. Within two strides, he was upon her, grabbing her up against all his hard muscles. His strength thrilled her, and she pressed into him, his massive jack between them. Fueled by their worry and anger, they clutched against each other, limbs entangled, fingers biting gently into each other. His mouth moved on hers, and she met him with her own brutal kiss, her lips already parted as she delved into him. Hands everywhere, stroking and teasing, Ella moaned into his mouth.

Her body was flushed, as was his. “The water,” she rasped at his ear as she gently bit upon the lobe. With a lift under her arse, Cain fit her, straddled intimately, around his waist as he walked them to the water’s edge. She hugged him tight, his body heat keeping her warm as he walked them into the loch, the cool water lapping at her thighs.

Breaking the kiss, Cain looked down her body as they clasped each other in waist-high water. “Bloody hell, Ella, ye are like a golden water nymph.”

She looked down to see that the last rays of sun shone across her skin, casting her in dying sunlight. Her nipples were peaked with the coolness of the water, her pale breasts felt full and heavy under his gaze. She held his shoulders and lifted, bringing herself up so that he could suck a nipple into his hot mouth.