Her nipples were hard, poking through her snug white sweater.

And she’d just wet her lips again. Tossed her head in a challenging come-hither.

Don’t touch me/Come and get me, every ounce of her was saying.

Cian closed the distance between them, ducked his head, and inhaled sharply. She stepped back again, but not before he’d gotten what he’d been after. He smiled, pleased by her dichotomy. He fathomed it well.

She smelled of an exquisite combination of fear, defiance, and desperate sexual hunger. ’Twas a scent he’d waited all his life to smell, a desire that had intensified painfully in him over these past days.

He’d wager, even as learned as she was, she didn’t fully understand what she was feeling.

But he did. Perfectly.

It was all he’d dared hope for.

Jessica St. James had accepted him as her man, and for more than just this night. If she hadn’t, she’d not have smelled of this unique combination. A woman seeking only a night’s pleasure smelled of desire, little more. Certainly not fear and defiance, unless the man was doing something he shouldn’t be, things the woman didn’t want, and such a bastard should be put down. Women were precious, to be cared for, not despoiled and abused.

But a woman recognizing her mate smelled of those things because such recognition heralded significant life change. In his century, the woman would have recognized that babes were coming, that she was leaving her girlhood and her clan behind, bonding to a new clan, cleaving to her husband and his people, embarking upon the impassioned tear- and joy-filled route of her mother before her.

A strong, independent, modern woman like Jessica St. James would instinctively resist such change, in proportions equal to her desire for it. She was a woman accustomed to being in control. With him, her control would be threatened.

He intended to threaten the hell out of it.

It was time he made her his. Time he made it clear that, although she might one day lie with another man, none would ever be him, none would ever be good enough, none would ever make her feel the way he had this night. The way he would make her feel the next and the next and the next. He would sear his mark into her in ways she would never be able to forget. When one day she took another man to her bed, he would be on that mattress between them, a great, big, dark Highlander using up too much space, a barrier around her heart, forever alive in her memory.

When he reached for her and pulled her back into his arms, he got more of her womanly dichotomy, but ’twas a dichotomy a man could work with, verily, a wise man would savor.

For as she came into his arms, she turned her back to him as if to deny him, yet at the same time backed right up to him, thrusting her sweet ass against his hard, hot cock. She wanted what he wanted: claiming first, loving later.

With a soft moan, she quested back with her bottom. The sound ripped into his groin, stringing his testicles tight. Dropping his head forward, he cupped her jaw, slanted her face around, and kissed her, deep and long, pumping his hard shaft against her lush behind.

He walked her forward, one hand at her waist keeping her pressed back to him, the other on her chin. He nipped at her kiss-glossed, lush lips, tasting her with slow, firm sucking pulls. He trailed more kisses over the delicate shape of her ear, down the edge of her jaw, over her neck. He continued walking her forward until he walked them into something, not caring what piece of furniture it might be, so long as he found one.

Something to lay her down on would be good.

Ah, his descendant’s desk—better still! Groping blindly, he shoved everything off it, heedless of the crashing, tinkling sounds of objects hitting the floor. Filling his hands with her lush breasts, he bent her forward, over the ornately carved, cool wood. She gasped, bracing her palms on the high-glossed desk.

He needed to be inside her. Nothing less than final, incontrovertible proof that she’d chosen him for her man would sate him now. Reluctantly relinquishing those heavy breasts that jiggled so perfectly, so womanly, with his every thrust, he slipped his hands down to her jeans. “I’m going to take you now, lass.”

She jerked and arched her delicate spine, glancing over her shoulder at him. Her eyes were as wild as he knew his must be. “Yes,” she said raggedly. “Please, Cian.”

Please, Cian. He could listen to her say those words for the rest of eternity! Die a happy man, hearing her beg carnal pleasure from him. Die trying to give it to her, any way she wanted it.

“Are you wet for me, Jessica?” He knew she was. He could smell her woman’s heat. But he wanted her to say it. Wanted to hear her talk about how he made her feel, how she felt about him.