He pressed against her again, roughly cupped her face with his free hand. “My clothes are soiled, but they’ll come off soon enough. I’m only pleasantly drunk, no’ enough to interfere with my husbandly duty.” He silenced her attempt to argue with a kiss. This time, a sweetly tender kiss.

And Margot disintegrated.

Everything in her surrendered. He tasted like ale and spice, smelled musky and powerful. Her blood stirred violently in her as he yanked the pins from her hair, let one long tress fall after the other. He claimed her breast with his hand once more, kneading it through the fabric of her gown, his thumb flicking over her hardened nipple.

Arran let go of her hands and slipped one arm around her waist. Lost in the moment between them, Margot let her hands fall to his shoulders as he kissed her and, lifting her off her feet, twirled her away from the wall and stalked across the room to his bed with her. He tossed her down, rolled her over and yanked at the laces of her gown at her back.

She wanted to feel him inside her once more. It felt to Margot as if their estrangement was shedding away from them and an unholy, improbable passion was rising up in its place. He roughly pulled her dress from her, then her stays, then slipped his arm under her belly and effortlessly flipped her onto her back. He pinned her there with his body as his hands freely roamed her, slipping under the silk of her chemise, rough and warm and searching.

His weight was familiar, but his manner was not one she’d ever known. He was wild with lust, wild with anger, and even though he was touching her, he was grunting as if it pained him. His coarse behavior with her was so arousing that Margot was disappearing into nothing but sensation as his hands and mouth moved over her. Her hands sought his flesh. Her mouth sought his. She forgot why she’d come. She forgot everything but the need to have him inside her.

When he pushed her chemise over her head and put his mouth to her breast, to her abdomen and between her legs, Margot groaned with desire, dragging her fingers over his buttocks and his back as he kicked free of his boots and buckskins. He incited a fire the moment he thrust into her, thick and hard, and carried her away on a cloud of physical pleasure so intense that it clawed at her throat, releasing in a soft growl of delight.

They were moving together, his breath hot in her hair. They were each of them desperate to have that primal release of ecstasy...