Page 89 of For a Scot's Heart Only

“Finely curved, indeed,” he whispered.

He touched her as though her torso was the rarest treasure. Tracing her ribs, memorizing the dip of her waist, her hip still covered with cloth. Her hold on her shift was feeble. The linen too much. Fabric falling down her thighs was met by a warm caress on her bottom.

Her eyes flew open.

Not a hand, a feather!

One of the implements from the bedside table. She blinked fast, the room’s fire, piercing and bright to her lust-blurred eyes. Thomas was using the frippery to sketch a line through her bottom’s crevice to the backs of her knees.

“On the bow of this ship was a womanly figurehead. Beautifully carved, beautifully painted.” Thomas kissed the ball of her shoulder. “Her eyes were the color of North Sea lightning.”

His mouth lingered on her shoulder, her shoulder blade, places she’d never thought erotic.

She was grateful for them now.

Her lashes were heavy. Her limbs like quicksilver. She turned her face to his, tried to see him, but he eluded her, busy as he was, feathering her backside. She couldn’t move. Carnal shivers had taken over. Her head lolled sideways, its weight too much. Thomas was stroking her hips with his hand and the feather, the contrast a delight.

“Sailors claimed she was a North Sea siren punished by Poseidon.”

“Punished?”

She tried to be coherent. Thomas’s laugh was a diabolical rumble.

“Poseidon forced her to live untouched on the bow.”

A ticklish sensation stopped her from asking why. She looked down. Light played on something blue-green and dandelion-soft poking between her thighs. The eye of the peacock feather.

Would Thomas drag it up? Or down?

She pressed a hand against her abdomen. The ache, palpable.

Thomas’s face was in her side vision. Amber light smudged his features and turned the tips of his lashes golden. His smile creased blade-sharp.

“What’ll it be? The story? Or the feather?”

A dangerous taunt.

Her mouth opened but her tongue refused to answer. She was as shimmery and lithesome as the iridescent feather between her legs. Thomas decided for her, stroking her inner thighs with the feathery tip. Sweet waves skittered across her skin. Air hissed past her lips.

“Like that, do you?” he asked hoarsely.

Small, tender brushes went on and on and on. Down her stocking-covered calves. Across her bottom, her back, her shoulders. Until the feather slipped between her legs. Watching it was torture. The blue-green eye rose, inch by agonizing inch, almost touching her quim.

She swayed, waiting for it. Wanting it.

“On the bed.” Thomas was gruff and the story forgotten.

She didn’t question him. Her sea wolf obviously knew what he was doing. She only hoped the feather was part of whatever came next. She wasn’t above begging for it.

Raising a knee, she navigated the mattress. She was arms and legs, striving. Awkward. Coolness shocked delicate, wet flesh between her legs. Years she’d climbed into bed. She should do it competently. But Thomas watched her. Protective and sensual, his hand on her bottom. She could be his most treasured war prize—or she spent too many evenings reading salacious stories.

Her heart galloped. Her labia slicked. And she tingled deliciously from head to toe.

A new tremor was building. A quickening.

Sinking into the plush mattress, she felt it. Watching Thomas undo the last buttons on his placket, she felt it. Spreading her legs while he stretched out beside her, she felt it. This gnawing, slamming sensation.

This was the bargain they’d struck.