They didn’t stay in Balanoch long, however, nowhere near long enough for Chloe to thoroughly explore; but frankly, she was more obsessed with exploring the big beautiful man who’d done things to her that made her feel as if she were coming apart at the seams.

They stopped several “leagues” as he called them, from the village, near a copse of oak trees, beside a tumbling stream that widened into a shimmering pool.

When he slid her from the stallion this time, his gaze was tender, his every touch a languid caress, as if wordlessly apologizing for his earlier roughness (which she hadn’t minded a bit!). And when he took her again it was in the sun-warmed pool, after he’d gently washed those parts of her he’d battered. He went slow this time, giving her dozens of hot, wet, lazy kisses, lavishing her breasts with tiny nibbles and caresses. Lying her back at the edge of the pool, slipping between her legs and hooking her calves over his shoulders so he could taste her as he’d told her earlier he would. Lapping sweetly until she was wild for him, then dragging her back into the pool and lifting her astride him. She clung to him, staring into his eyes while he filled her and became part of her again.

And just before she drifted off in his arms, beyond replete, exhausted and sore in places that had never been sore before, she knew that she’d gone and done what she’d been determined not to do: She’d fallen head over heels for the strange, dark Highlander.

The moon was silvering the heather when Dageus finally stirred from his doze. He was sprawled on the plaid with Chloe in his arms, the lush curves of her plump backside pressed to his front, their legs twined together. Had he been a weeping man, he might have wept then from simple pleasure.

She’d taken him as he was. All of him. He’d been wild with the darkness goading him, beyond kindness, his humanity slipping, and she’d brought him back to himself. He’d tried to make it up to her with tender loving, slower and gentler than he’d ever taken a woman.

However he’d taken her, she’d met him and matched him. He’d been right, Chloe was wanton, had a wildness of her own. She’d been ready to lose her innocence, eager to be awakened, to be taught, and he’d relished every moment of it. Relished knowing he was her first lover. Her last, too, he thought possessively. She was a daring wee lass, loving every part of sex just as he’d known she would.