Nothing. She found absolutely nothing. A deep groan wafted into the bathroom from the bedroom, a punctuation to her failure. She hurried into the next room and up to the bed. Sure enough, her bed was creaking as he thrashed about, sweating up a storm. God, it had set in quickly. Or maybe not. Who knew how long he’d been lying out there. She hadn’t brought Karma that far down the drive in days. The only reason she’d even gotten that far today was because her mother’s dismay over a cell tower—one that wasn’t working, by the way—had distracted her.

Apparently standing there at his bedside thinking was a bad game plan. A tremendous paw of a hand suddenly swiped out for her and yanked her off her feet, her body flying over his and her back hitting the bed. Her breath left her in a hard whoosh of sound.

“You again?” he growled as he rolled atop her, his hand wrenching her legs apart to make way for himself. He was so strong and she was so taken by surprise she hadn’t had a hope of fighting him. Once again she found his face buried deep at her neck as he took a deep breath in through his nose. “God Almighty in the blue sky above you smell good enough tae eat.”

“No! No,” she cried. “No eating! There will be no eating!”

She wriggled under him, trying to push him off her, even though she knew it’d be like a flea bouncing against a dog to try to change his direction.

“Oh, there will be eating,” he countered, his voice lowering to an even deeper timber than his already rich tones. “And licking and sucking and quite a bit more than that, my bonny lass.”

This whole time she’d been trying to place his accent. She’d never been very good at that, but in that moment, when he called her a bonny lass, she realized he was a Scot. Ooo, she thought, Scots are sexy. Gerard Butler is a Scot and God he is sexy.

But Gerard Butler was half this thing’s size and she couldn’t afford to think he was sexy. Even if she kind of did. Maybe he was only part Scottish. His accent wasn’t always so thick, and sometimes, when he was truly lucid, it faded to a much lighter version of itself. Just like his civility seemed to appear in those more lucid moments.

“No,” she said more firmly this time, “you will not eat me.” Then she realized what she’d said and she colored hotly. “I don’t even know you. And I don’t want you to … to do anything to me. I want you to let me up.”

“If you dinna want me, lass, then why do you no’ stay away? Why do you keep coming tae my bedroom smelling like sweetness and sex?”

“I-I don’t … sweetness and sex?” she asked, getting distracted from her goal.

“Aye,” he rumbled, that low voice trebling into her in a stimulating vibration. “As if you’d poured sugar over your nether bits and are wanting me tae lick it up.”

Okay, now the heat coming off her face could warm the polar ice cap. It was quickly matched by the heat suddenly radiating from those aforementioned nether bits. Not to mention she’d gone decidedly wet.

“Come now,” he purred coaxingly, his golden gaze falling to her mouth. “One wee kiss. It canna hurt you.”

“One wee kiss?” she echoed, flabbergasted that he would think there could be anything “wee” about him.

“Done!” he said, taking her stunned echo as permission.

“Oh no, I—”

He swooped down and caught up her mouth with his, her protestations muffled into silence. His mouth was hot and demanding, just like the rest of him. He commanded the kiss, crushing anything she might do to resist or gainsay him. He pressed the heat of it onto her until she melted and relaxed into it. It’s one kiss, she thought. What harm can one kiss do? He felt the change come over her and pressed his advantage instantly. He thrust his tongue forward against her, licking the trembling seam of her lips. It was a blatant knock at her door and she was torn between instinctively knowing this was a bad idea and instinctively knowing it was going to be the hottest kiss of her life. There was once a time, she thought, when you would have grabbed something like this with both hands and cried Woo-hoo!

She opened her lips and he dove right in, commanding and fierce. The wet stroke of his tongue in her mouth released an equally wet flood of heat bleeding into her from every which way. His hands came up to bracket her head, only his elbows holding the full press of his weight off her. But that didn’t matter to her right then. Because, right then, she was having her socks blown off by the deepest, hottest, richest kiss of her life.

When he finally pulled back a minute distance to give her time to catch her breath, she realized she was panting for it. For breath … and for another life-searing kiss. He was so hot along the length of her body, like a furnace turned up high, and he was so … hard.

Holy crap! He was naked and the sudden hardness pressing against her between her legs was most decidedly the most enormous erection ever known to man. And that’s when reality slammed into her. She was too small and weak to fight him off if he got it in his head that he wanted more than a kiss and was going to just take that as well.

And you will not think about how much you might enjoy that, she warned herself harshly. You will realize just how scary the concept ought to be and act accordingly terrified. And the other thing, the heat of his body was deepening and she wasn’t arrogant enough to think that had anything to do with her.

“Okay, let me up now,” she said. “You’ve had your kiss, now let me up.”

“Oh, but you’re no’ really wanting me tae go,” he wheedled. “Look at your wee nipples.” He rose up enough to put a hand between them, letting him cup her breast through her cotton shirt, his fingers brushing eagerly over the point of her hardened nipple. “They’re begging for a suckle, now aren’t they?”

“No!” she said, flustered. “They are begging for nothing of the kind!”

“Then what are they begging for?” he countered, a sly smile crossing his lips and feverish gold eyes.

“There’s no begging. No begging at all!”

“Liar,” he countered, brushing his fingers over her nipple again. “If this isna the prettiest of beggars, I doona know what is. Let me see the wee thing and then we’ll decide.”

He reached for the bottom hem of her shirt and she squeaked in panic. She grabbed his wrist and tried to stop him, but all she managed was to slow him down to a slow drag as he caught the hem of her shirt and pulled it upward.