Highland Heat by Jennifer Haymore Page B

had a propensity to fuss maternally over them, even though she was younger than them all.
    He told her how the men had been taken not to the War Office, but to the Home Office, where they’d spoken to a shadowy man who gave them the details of what their new positions would be, should they choose to accept the offer.
    He told her about their debate last evening, about Captain Stirling’s hesitance to rush into it and about the major’s desire to proceed, even though they wouldn’t be given the intricate details of their orders until they accepted.
    He told her of the ill effects the men were suffering. The jarring nature of being back on English soil after so many months of bloody violence. Captain Stirling seemed particularly affected—he’d not been himself since the battle of Waterloo. He was distant and quiet, and Duncan worried about him.
    “But we’re no longer captain and sergeant,” he told Grace. “We’ll just be Stirling and Mackenzie. That’ll take some getting used to.”
    “I can only imagine,” Grace said. “After so long calling him Captain and deferring to him—it must be strange for all of you.”
    Duncan shook his head. “Aye, ’tis strange. But also freeing, in a way.”
    She smiled. “I’m glad.”
    “Though I wager it’ll be nigh impossible for anyone to call Major Campbell by name. I expect he’ll always be the major to us, even as he insists we call him Campbell.”
    “My brother-in-law is an imposing man. I doubt I could call him anything but Major, either.”
    “Do ye never call him Sir Robert?”
    She shook her head. “No. Those in our social circle call him Sir Robert, but Claire and I knew him before he was a Sir, and the honorific sounds so strange on my tongue.”
    Duncan squeezed her tighter against him, and her breath quickened. “Now tell me what you’ve been doing since we parted.”
    So she did, in almost as much detail as he’d given her. But though she’d been busy, her activities hadn’t been nearly as new or exciting as Duncan’s, so her rendition of the past two days’ events went much faster than his had.
    After she told him everything, she shook her head in bemusement. “How can you seem so interested? The vast majority of men would think my life utterly dull.”
    “ ’Tis
your
life, Grace,” he told her. “And everythin’ about you fascinates me.”
    “Really?” she asked, that little rush of disbelief streaking through her.
    “Really.”
    She wrapped her fingers around his neck and drew his lips down to hers.
    Desperate, hot kisses. Duncan could kiss this woman for the rest of his life. He could die kissing her.
    But his body demanded more, his need growing with every press of her skin against his.
    He pushed those thoughts aside, determined to focus on the here and now, on her eager sensuality, erotic in and of itself. She was inexperienced but open. She moaned softly when his good hand closed around her ankle, then wiggled as he trailed his palm up her silk stocking, bunching up her skirt as he went.
    She arched, pressing her body more firmly against him, kissing him frantically, her lips moving to press kisses over his jaw as he gently explored her thigh with his fingertips, knowing how rough the calluses must feel against her delicate skin.
    “Oh…Duncan.” She pulled back, raising wide blue eyes to him.
    He froze. “Do ye want me to stop?”
    She swallowed hard, then shook her head. “No. I feel…I feel…”
    “What do you feel, lass?” he asked softly, trying not to move, not to rub his steel-hard cock against the press of her backside.
    “I feel like I want you to cover every inch of me. Like my whole body is reaching for you. I want you to touch me, soothe me, everywhere. I’ve never…” She breathed out, as if in awe, then blinked at him. “I’ve never felt anything like it.”
    “It’s arousal,” Duncan murmured, nuzzling his lips into her hair. “Have ye never felt it before?”
    “Not like this.”
    He