He closed his mouth on one and drew. Her back arched from the pleasure, her bottom grinding against him. He raised his face and grated, "Still, lass. You canna know what you're doin' tae me."

She stiffened. "Am I hurting you?"

"Aye. Terribly." His face was solemn, deadly serious when he said, "You usually do."

When she didn't relax, he cupped her other breast and suckled.

"But I don't want to hurt you," she said between panting breaths. She meant it—she didn't like the idea of him hurting, and hated that she caused it.

Against her wet nipple, he rasped, "It will no' much longer."

Cool air on her legs. His palm rubbed its way up her thigh, well past her garters and higher…. She stiffened in his arms and pushed at his hand. He lowered it, but still caressed her thigh.

"I need tae touch you."

"No!"

He put his lips to her earlobe and flicked his tongue against her.

"Oh!"

His hand inched higher. "Let me touch you there."

"I can't. You'll be cruel to me."

"Never," he bit out.

"You were before."

"Cruel? I was no' tryin' tae be. But you are now." His brogue was growing thicker.

"I am not!"

"If you knew how much I want my fingers against you…You've got me at your mercy, Anna. I'd give anythin' right now." He pressed his face down against her breasts, nipped at the peaks, making her shoot up in his arms before he soothed her back down. "Name anything."

He wanted this that badly? "Anything?"

"Right now I'd give my land, I'd sell my soul."

"Only touching? Nothing more?"

"I'll only do what you want me tae."

She was about to be embarrassed. He should be vulnerable as well. "Then I-I want to feel you, too—without your trousers—"

In an instant, and amid a fierce groan, he set her beside him. He looked to her and then nodded to his groin. When she stared helplessly at his erection straining against his trousers—how exactly did one begin this?—he twisted loose the waist fastening. He seemed to be preparing for something as he glanced around to snag a seat cushion. He placed it behind her, then eased her back, hooking the hems of her skirts with his thumbs and raising them to her waist. Again a palm against her thighs, massaging her resistance away.

Her chest was bare—his should be as well. She unbuttoned his shirt, and just when she'd finished, he guided her hand past the loosened waist of his trousers, inside them…until she fully touched his erection skin to skin. He closed his eyes and shuddered, and it pulsed in her hand just as all the muscles in his chest and torso contracted.

She was overwhelmed by how hot it was, how hard and big. He groaned deep, then roughly pushed her palm lower until she cupped him. Another foreign word hissed out like a curse.

Just as she flung her head to the side, looking away in embarrassment and amazement, she felt the most peculiar sensation. His fingers skimmed the slit in her pantalettes.

When he'd removed the locked grip on her hand, she placed her palm around his erection and was squeezing him, nervous. Just when she thought he'd finally feel her, he took both sides of her pantalettes and ripped. She sputtered, outraged, until she felt his fingers brushing over her sex. She moaned and her head fell back. The pad of one finger traced her. He would feel how wet she'd grown….

"Anna," he said with a growl. She tried to close her knees, but his hips had found their way between them. "Do you know what this does tae me? Tae feel you so wet? I've dreamed of this." His eyes caught hers, preventing her from looking away even when he said, "Tonight I'll taste you," just as his finger eased into her.

Taste? She moaned low in her throat, adoring the surprising feel of his finger, of the filling sensation, only comprehending she was still squeezing him when he bucked against her palm. With every push of his hips against her hand, his finger delved into her at the same time. When she realized he was doing this on purpose, as if he were imagining his hardness pressing inside her or forcing her to imagine it, she stroked him hectically to make him go faster.

He leaned down and put the tip of his tongue against her breast, flicking the crest, wetting one, then the other. She watched enthralled, never ceasing her hand on him. Then another, new feeling. Somehow he touched her inside and then rubbed and teased another part of her with his thumb. This made her breaths shallow, made her legs fall open.

"Yes, spread your legs wider for me."

She did, because he wanted it but also because the instinct was there. She needed to be open to him. She needed to say things to him, lurid things, thanking him for the wondrous acts he was doing to her, telling him how much he was pleasing her. She'd never felt such gratitude to another….

"Anna, I lose my mind when I'm with you."

"Yes!" she said, completely understanding. She couldn't call up a single reason why he shouldn't be resting between her legs, fondling her sex, with her skirts up to her ears.

"You want me tae," he said, as if he didn't quite believe it.

She nodded eagerly, not knowing what she was agreeing to. Just wanting to agree with anything he was saying since he was giving her so much.

His languid eyes widened, and in seconds he'd freed himself completely, looming above her, never slowing his fingers on her sex. He hung there, heavy and thick and magnificent, the muscles of his chest and stomach sharp as they tapered down, and all she comprehended was that she had to have her hand back on it.

She grasped him, and he threw his head back and yelled out. The strength of his reaction made the building tension inside her suddenly spike. "Oh, Déu!" she cried.

He faced her again and grated, "Come for me. I want tae feel you."

She moaned as her hips rolled against his clever fingers. Reason was lost. The tension exploded. As she arched her back, she heard his heavy breaths, felt them on her tight nipples, felt him drawing out her pleasure. Her body squeezed the finger inside her, needing it. She went wild, her hands on him everywhere.

When his touch became languorous, circling her, seeming to revel in the wetness, she opened her eyes, found herself still slowly stroking him.

"I wanted all of you, but I canna hold on. Will you help finish me for now?"

Whatever that meant. When she nodded, too content to do more, he raised her until she sat up against the side of the coach, then shrugged from his shirt to spread it over her dress at her lap. "Take me again." At once, she did.

He put one hand against the coach wall above her to lean over her, then fit his other hand around hers, his large fingers encircling hers and his manhood in a crushing grip below them. Tightly, shockingly so. It would bruise, possibly even break right there beneath her fingers….

Then he moved his hand, and her hand, along the length just as his hips pumped forward. He swore in a deep, broken voice when his hips met their hands, his gaze never leaving her breasts, her neck, her face.

Annalía watched, bewildered, as their hands moved forward and then slammed back once more. The pressure increased.

His breaths were ragged. Low, tortured sounds broke from his throat. "Arch your back," he ordered and she did. He leaned down to suckle her, only freeing her to grate, "Anna, I'm about tae come—" His mouth returned, but this time his teeth pinched her nipple, and she cried out with pleasure.

The coach skidded to a stop.

He released her hand and nipple, though he rubbed his face over her breast desperately before he hissed a harsh curse and drew back. When he forced his huge, swollen member into his trousers, he looked in more pain than with any of his injuries before. He inhaled deeply, then exhaled in shudders several times as if he was getting himself under control. "We are no' finished with this," he rasped, his voice hoarse.

She quickly shook her head, but he studied her expression as if he didn't quite trust that she'd resume what they were doing.

Just after he shuddered again, he somehow remembered to smooth down her skirts for her as she pulled her blouse back in place. He opened the carriage door and bellowed, "Why the bloody hell have we stopped?" He sounded on the verge of violence.

The driver called down, "A tree's blocking the road. Probably from the storms earlier in the week."

MacCarrick slammed the door. "God damn it!" He reached for his bag and gave her a warning look. "I want you to stay down."

"Wh-What is it?"

"Rechazados. With bloody, bloody bad timing."

The rage Court felt that someone would seek to hurt her was nearly blinding. No, kill her. And he was the only thing preventing it. If he didn't get cold like he used to be, they'd both be dead.

So busy in her skirts that he wasn't aware of the danger they were in.

He snared his pistol and a bag of coin, retrieved his shirt with a bitter curse, then donned it and his jacket with more bullets in the pockets. "Down, Anna," he ordered again, as he snatched his rifle from the overhanging net, then stormed out of the carriage, shirt still unbuttoned. He didn't bother to duck or cower, but strode to the front. Ducking wouldn't make a damn bit of difference with them, just would be the last thing you were doing when you got killed.

"Turn the carriage around."

The driver nodded, obviously shocked at Court's tone. Court stuffed the pistol into his pocket, then tossed the bag to him. "This is a quarter of what you'll get if you get her to safety until I return."