Page 26 of A Promise of Love

For a moment, he allowed himself to look, seeing what he had not seen before in this room, with her naked and stripped bare to the soul.

Her skin was the purest white, like virgin milk, her breasts were heavy, pendulous but proud, large pink nipples jutting out from their pink areoles like tiny fingers begging to be kissed, to be sucked.

Her waist curved to perfect hips and then to long, luscious legs.

The vee at the notch of her legs was shielded with auburn hair, curly and curiously beckoning .

His fingers itched to touch her just once, to see if she was as soft there as she looked.

His mind urged him to explore, to discover if those pink nipples would draw up and nearly disappear at the touch of his mouth, or pout proudly.

His palms urged him to forget his plans and stroke down one hip to see if she trembled beneath his touch .

Instead, he sat down in the large overstuffed chair and pulled his reluctant wife onto his lap. Her eyes opened and she stared at him in surprise .

Alisdair placed one hand on the back of her neck, gently urging her head down until her cheek rested upon his chest. The look in her eyes was suddenly too much to witness - hurt, pain, and fear, silent emotions all the more powerful for being unspoken .

Judith curled into herself, placing her arms across her breasts, drawing up her knees and wrapping her arms about them, as if to hide herself from his interested gaze.

It did not mean, however, that her skin lacked sensation, that she could not feel the mat of his hair against her right arm and cheek, or the smooth warmth of his golden flesh .

Her body was soft where his was hard, curving inward where his barely tapered .

Alisdair placed both hands on the arms of the chair and looked out the window, wishing he could view the sea. It would be a paltry diversion to feeling her flesh against his. Yet, Judith was so armored by her own fear it was as if there were a suit of chain mail between their bodies .

The hammer beat of his heart boomed loudly against her ear. Would he not hurry then, or was this some sort of slow torture ?

Judith didn’t not move, not because he restrained her, but because she felt exposed in the sunlight, more so than the time when she had stood before him naked .

"Did you know I studied at Edinburgh?" he asked .

It was not the question she was expecting. She nodded, remembering their conversations .

He reached out suddenly and grabbed her foot before she could jerk it from his grasp.

A tiny frown marred her brow as she sat, contorted, her foot in his hand, his fingers gently tickling her toes.

Alisdair wondered if she realized her frowns had been growing more frequent of late.

The perfect mask she’d worn was cracking, and beneath its surface lay a woman he wished to know.

One who felt anger and joy and a hundred other emotions once buried under an exquisite facade of blankness .

"There are more bones in the foot, Judith," he said absently, as if not noticing her nudity, "then in any other part of the body. Did you know that ?"

" No ."

He stoked her foot from her ankle to her toes. "You have long toes," he said with a smile. "It is a very aristocratic looking foot." She peered over her clenched knees as if never having seen it before .

"I, however, have wolf feet," he said, extending one of his own so that she could see it.

Even his toes were hairy, and the black hair extended up his ankle and over the corded muscles of his calf.

"One of the women of our clan used to say it looked as though the kelpies had stretched my feet at birth.

" It did look that way, she thought. The space between his toes and heel was long and flat, with barely an arch .

He gently released her foot, again pushing her head down upon his chest before returning his hand to the arm of the chair.

They sat for a long time in silence, the beating of his heart the only sound she heard.

That, and the faint breath which emerged from his chest. Occasionally, his chest hair would tickle her cheek, and she would rub it absently, then return to her original position .

She did not like waiting for the pain. Perhaps he would not hurt her as much as Anthony had, or degrade her as much as the other, but it was still a duty she wished fervently to avoid.

The feeling of his skin against hers, especially that warmth that lay just beneath her buttocks was disconcerting.

She was not so scarred there that she could not feel .

"Will you not just do it, MacLeod?" she asked finally in the silence .

"My name is Alisdair," he corrected her absently .

"Very well, Alisdair," she said shortly, "will you not just do it ?"

"Do what?" he asked, smiling .

"Mount me. Spill your seed. Seek your pleasure ."

"Good God, Judith," he said, that infernal smile still playing around his lips, "you have a variety of descriptions for the act, don't you? It is sad that none of them is correct ."

"What would you call it, then?" She squinted up at him, and he chuckled .

"Making love, coupling, sharing passion. They all seem more apt than your rather coarse terms ."

"Fine, call it whatever you will. Will you not just get it over with ?"

"That is not my purpose, Judith," he said softly, countering her sudden panic. It showed in her eyes and in the stiffness of her body, curled though it was over his .

The sun touched her skin and made her warmer.

She squirmed, and Alisdair fervently wished that she would not move.

It was damnable practice, this, and he could not focus on other thoughts if she was forever moving about.

He was very grateful her husband had only been a sadist, that he had also been a lousy lover.

That was plain by the contempt with which Judith viewed love making.

If Anthony had compounded his sins by teaching Judith pleasure, then she would have learned to equate it with pain.

As it was, she knew a great deal about torture and nothing about passion.

Even now she sat, fearing to move much lest it stir some great dormant desire of his .

If she knew anything, she would have realized that his desire hadn't been dormant for quite awhile .

For almost an hour, they sat in the sunlight.

With the warmth of the room, and the warmth of his skin, Judith began to feel drowsy.

She sighed, heavily, and allowed herself to relax a little.

He smiled again, nudging the top of her head with his chin.

The soft movement did not disturb her, nor did the placement of his hand upon her knee .

He traced a path with that broad palm of his, over her knee, down the length of her leg to her ankle.

She moved, fitfully against the tickling sensation.

He slowed his touch and removed all but one finger from her skin.

He traced an imaginary circle around her knee slowly, so delicately that it felt as though a fly brushed across her skin .

He chuckled when her knee jerked, as if to dislodge his finger.

He moved slowly, extending his right hand over her body, and clasping it with his left so that she sat within the circle of his arms. She opened her eyes and looked at him accusingly, but he did not remove his arm, nor did he go any further .

He broke their look, staring out the window at the clouds massing above the promontory. From here he could see the very tops of the pines, but no more .

"Anne was very young when we married," he said, as if she had asked the question. "Barely grown. All of my skill, what there was of it, could not save her. My child died with her, struggling to find life ."

She kept his eyes upon his profile, that jutting chin that spoke so eloquently of his stubbornness, that nose which looked to have been broken once, she wondered how.

His hair curled around the shells of his ears, and the shadow of his beard was showing through the tanned expanse of his cheeks.

It was his eyes that drew her attention the most, though, and the soft, pained look within them.

It seemed to alter their color to molten copper .

"You could not prevent a death in childbirth, MacLeod. It happens all the time. It happened to Janet," she reminded him .

"Too often, Judith. Surely a bountiful God would not make it so.

In Anne's case, it was a forced escape from a place she'd learned to call home, the terror of fleeing in the dead of night, her youth, perhaps, and a body not built for birthing that caused her death.

Not to mention the futile and puny skill of her husband. It was too much to ask of her ."

She wanted to ask why he left Scotland, but then realized the timing of his exodus, shortly after Culloden.

Then, she wanted to ask why he had returned, to this isolated spot, when he would have been welcomed anywhere with his skill and his education, then realized that what she knew about the man answered that question.

Alisdair MacLeod had a deep and abiding sense of obligation and responsibility.

He would not turn his back on the people who, for generations, had looked to their laird for sustenance and protection.

Nor could Judith picture him enjoying a carefree life while those who had once depended on him tried to survive.

No, he would either lead them to victory, or die with them .

"Did you love her very much?" The answer was somehow important .

He sighed. "Perhaps part of the guilt I sheltered and protected for so long was because I did not love Anne as much as she deserved. Is that truth enough for you ?"

She nodded .

"And Anthony? Did you love him ?"

Her horrified glance was answer enough .