Read One Night with the Highlander (The Gilvrys of Dunross) for Free Online

shimmer and waver. Or was it that surprising welling of emotion once again?
    She spun around to face him, to throw her arms around that wall of chest, to make sure he was real and not just a dream.
    He tipped her face up, with gentle fingers warm on the skin of her jaw. “Crying?” he asked softly.
    “Tears of happiness,” she choked out.
    He cradled her cheeks in his hands, held her tenderly, his gaze searching her face. “You don’t know how many times I wished I had taken you with me the night we met. Whisked you away.” He let out a sound that was half groan, half laughter. “I had no money. No way to give you what you deserved, but if there had been anything, any way, I would ha’ done it.”
    She caressed his cheek, his jaw, and smiled. “This is not the time for regrets. We have tonight. Let us make the most of it. I must be home before morning.”
    A sound like a growl came from his throat. His hungry gaze raked down her body. “Only a fool would let an offer like that go to waste.”
    A laugh escaped her. “And you are not that.”
    His hands tore at his cravat. “I am not.” He unwound it and tossed it aside, and went to work on his coat.
    She untied the bow at the neck of the dress she had chosen so carefully for tonight. Held only by the gathering at the neck and the ribbon tied high beneath her breasts. It opened with the smallest tug at the ties. Smiling, she let the gown slither to the floor and puddle at her feet. Beneath it she wore nothing but her fine lawn shift, her stays and her stockings held above her knees by garters embroidered with roses.
    He stared at her in awe. His admiration warmed her from the inside out.
    “May I?” he asked in his deep murmur. He reached above her head. She drew back, startled.
    “Your hair,” he said, looking apologetic. “It was down that night we met. I have never forgotten how glorious it looked around your shoulders.”
    A small laugh escaped her at the thought he had remembered such a detail. “By all means.” She reached up to remove the cap and her pins.
    He got there first. “Let me.” He freed the little scrap of lace first, tossing it aside, then worked his fingers through her hair, pulling out pins, massaging her scalp as he went. She wanted to purr like a cat as, tress by tress, it tumbled down her back.
    He stepped back to admire his handiwork with heavy-lidded eyes. “Just as I remembered,” he said with a satisfied nod. He arranged it over her shoulders, patting it in place, stroking it over her breasts. “Perfect.”
    Laughing, she raised a brow. “You are falling behind,” she said, plucking at his waistcoat. With the ease of long practice, she unbuttoned the offending garment and he slipped it off. She then undid the buttons of his shirt and freed it from the waistband of his pantaloons. He pulled it off over his head, exposing all that lovely male flesh to her gaze. Sculpted muscles. A mat of dark hair on his chest, a swirl of it around his beaded nipples and a trail down the ridged hardness of his belly.
    Awed, she could only gaze at what she saw. He was a vision of perfection. So very male. So very large. And if the rigid length bulging at the front of his skintight nether garment was anything to go by, so very ready for her.
    Moisture dampened the apex of her thighs. She licked her suddenly dry lips. Her insides fluttered, while deep inside her, nerves began to tremble and quake. He was just too beautiful. And she could not keep him.
    Perhaps this was going to be the biggest mistake of her life. It wasn’t too late to say no. To leave. In disarray to be sure, but not broken. Not quite.
    He was a true gentleman, and if she said no, he would let her go.
    But she would regret it for the rest of her life.
    She forced a bright smile, but could not quite look him in the eye, could not let him see her fear. “Do you think you can manage the rest yourself?”
    “Annabelle,” he murmured.
    The sound of her name on his lips had the