Never Love a Highlander - Maya Banks [0]
It took every bit of his restraint not to roll her onto the bed and kiss her senseless. His newfound patience and desire to not frighten the daylights out of her was one of his more stupid decisions.
She drew away immediately, her eyes wide, a touch of pink suffusing her soft cheeks. Then she slid one hand up his chest and over his shoulder, staring warily at him the whole while as if she expected him to bite her for daring to touch him. Jesu, but he was nigh to the point of begging her to touch him.
Her fingers wandered to his neck and then she put her mouth carefully to his again. This time she remained there as she tentatively explored his mouth. With her tongue. Sweet mother of God, this was killing him.
She stirred restlessly against him as she pressed closer, her mouth hotly fused to his.
A surge of lust rolled through his body, but he held back, not wanting to destroy the sweetness of her offering. She was an innocent for all her warrior ways and attempts at acting like a man. She deserved all the gentleness and wooing he could muster, though God only knew he’d deserve sainthood before this was over with.
“ ’Tis not unpleasant, this kissing,” she whispered.
Never Love a Highlander is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Ballantine Books Original
Copyright © 2011 by Maya Banks
Excerpt from In Bed with a Highlander copyright © 2011 by Maya Banks
Excerpt from Seduction of a Highland Lass copyright © 2011 by Maya Banks
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-345-51952-8
Cover illustration: Alan Ayers
www.ballantinebooks.com
v3.1
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Excerpt from In Bed with a Highlander
Excerpt from Seduction of a Highland Lass
Other Books by This Author
CHAPTER 1
The weather for her first wedding had been a splendor of nature. An unseasonably warm day in January. Quite balmy with nary a breeze to ruffle her carefully arranged hair. It was as if the world stood still to witness the joining of two souls.
A snort rippled from Rionna McDonald’s throat, eliciting a raised eyebrow from her soon-to-be husband.
The weather for her second wedding? Gloomy and dank with a winter storm pushing in from the west. Already a brisk chill had set in and the wind blew in fierce, relentless sheets. As if the world knew just how uncertain she was about the man who stood beside her, ready to recite the vows that would bind him to her forever.
A shiver skirted up her spine despite the fact that they stood in front of the huge fire in the great hall.
Caelen frowned and stepped closer to Rionna as if to shield her from the draft blowing through the furs at the window. She took a hasty step back before thinking better of it. The man made her nervous, and not many people intimidated her.
He frowned harder, then turned his attention back to the priest.
Rionna cast a quick glance around, hoping no one had witnessed that particular exchange. It wouldn’t do for people to think she was afraid of her new husband. Even if she was.
Ewan McCabe, the oldest McCabe brother and the first man she was