Page 39

She blinked at him. Her lashes were wet smudges of auburn against her pale skin, and her lips trembled.

“It is difficult.” She swallowed. Then, straightening, she took a deep breath and brushed her fingers beneath her eyes.

“But I suppose it is pointless to keep it in any longer. I did all of those things because I wanted you to notice me, even if it was only in irritation.”

She pulled her gaze away to look down at her feet, her arms wrapped around her middle, and the expression of agony clear on her face.

“In truth, when I saw you and Nora together I was jealous, and that is why I dosed you both with the herbs. I—I couldn’t bear the sight of her draping herself all over you.

You can mock me for being a fool if you like, but I’ve said it. ”

The joyful shock that shot through Duncan made his knees weaken.

Godamercy . He took two steps forward, his feet like leaded weights as he slowly raised his hand to touch her cheek.

A feeling of awe swept over him, making him speak in a tone more befitting a chapel than a bedchamber. “I didn’t think it possible.”

“Nay?” She still looked miserable, her gaze downcast, shame suffusing her cheeks. As she spoke, her breath wafted soft across the exposed skin of his wrist, and an answering shaft of desire lit in his belly.

“Aileana…” He brought both hands up now, making her look at him, cradling her face with tenderness that flooded from the deepest, most hidden part of him.

Her eyes widened slightly with surprise as he pressed a gentle kiss to her brow, savoring the silky feel of her skin beneath his lips, breathing in the sweet scent of her.

“You’ll never know how many times I wished for just this…

how many times I longed to hear such words from your lips. ”

She looked shocked for a moment, her expression of misery vanished under its force. “Truly?” she whispered.

“Aye, truly. I care about you, Aileana. But I never thought—” he broke off and shook his head, a rueful smile curving his lips.

They stood close. Almost touching. He could feel the heat of her body warming him through his plaid and igniting the embers of his passion, kept forcibly banked for so long, to full blaze.

But he sensed that she still reeled from the suddenness of this change between them.

She needed a little time to realize the truth.

To come to him when she was ready. Hell, he needed some time to adjust to it all.

Nevertheless, it took much of his resolve to remain motionless and let her make the next move as she willed it.

He watched the rise and fall of her breast. His gaze traveled from the curve of her chin to the full swell of her lips, his breath catching as they parted in soft exhalation.

When his stare moved up, finally, from there to the sweetly rounded, freckle-sprinkled tip of her nose, the graceful sweep of her cheekbones, and up to her eyes, he saw the sweet warmth filling her gaze, and his passion spiraled tenfold.

“I cannot believe it,” she murmured, still looking at him as if he might melt away before her eyes.

“It is true, Aileana. I don’t know how it happened, and I tried to deny it to myself, but the feeling is there.” He smiled. “As with everything else about you, it is persistent, prodding and poking me even when I do not wish it.”

“Is that so?” She smiled back at him in response. “And what, pray tell, is it that you wish from me now, Duncan?”

He paused for a moment, the image of what he envisioned full and perfect inside of him.

But he’d learned a few things where Aileana MacDonell was concerned, and one of the most important was that it was always better to let her take the lead—or at least the satisfaction of seeming to get it from him.

Raising his brow, he murmured, “What do you have in mind?”

“Hmmm…I believe I shall have to give that question some thought.”

Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips, and his heart skipped a beat.

She looked both innocent and yet somehow confident in her feminine allure, and the contrast of the two aspects was nothing less than intoxicating.

Though he had handed her the control over what happened next, he suddenly found that the idea of her initiative in this excited him more than he’d believed possible.

“It is unwise to become too confident, lass,” he answered huskily, trying to keep himself from completely abandoning all pretense of restraint, “or you might find that you’ve gotten yourself in—”

His words cut off to a groan as she stepped closer and pressed her body full against him.

“—over…” he murmured, while her hands slid up his arms and to his shoulders, “…your head,” he finally whispered against her lips, before she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into a soul-searing kiss.

With a growl, he clasped her closer to him, and she sighed and opened her mouth to him, restraint finally abandoned as she deepened their kiss.

The warmth of her, the voluptuous feel of her in his arms threatened to drive him beyond the edge of reason.

Through the jolt of sensation, he realized that it was as he’d always imagined it would be.

She fit to him. Even through their clothing, her warmth and her contours melded to his as if their bodies were made for each other.

Perfect .

When she pulled back, it was to place her palms flat on his chest. A tentative smile curved her lips as she pulled her fingers gently down his body, her progress un-hurried.

His body sang under her touch, his flesh burning with tantalizing fire.

When she reached his waist, she slowed even more, slipping her hands around behind him and bringing them to a stop only when her palms rested atop his buttocks with a touch that was unbearably erotic in its gentle artlessness.

Then she shyly tugged him to her, leaning in to whisper hot against the skin of his neck and shoulder, “Perhaps you’re right, Duncan. I do believe that I’m in far over my head. So far that I do not care if I drown because of it.”

Her touch, coupled with the innocence of her admission, sent his desire bubbling over.

With a deep-throated sound, he slid his hands down to cup her sweet curves in the same way that she held him, pulling her more fully against him and eliciting a gasp of pleasure from her.

“Then it seems we’ll be drowning together,” he murmured, interspersing his words with kisses along her jaw and across the warm, sensitive point beneath her ear.

“But it will be a blissful death, to be sure.”

She trembled, tilting her head back as his lips trailed a burning path along her throat. When he could bear the delicious torment, the tempting taste of her no longer without tearing her garments off where they stood, he scooped her into his arms and carried her to the bed.

He stretched out beside her, and she gazed at him with a desire that matched his own.

“Hold me close to you, Duncan,” she whispered.

“Please. After all of those nights when you carried me to your bed—” she broke off, biting at her bottom lip and glancing away for a moment before directing the full and beautiful force of her gaze on him.

“In my most secret of hearts I wished that just once during one of those nights you might forget what had brought us together and pull me close to you. Do it now, Duncan. Let me feel you next to me, touch me and let me touch you as I’ve yearned to for so long… ”

A tide of love swept through Duncan. But he couldn’t tell her of it. Not yet. He lacked the courage, though perhaps in time…Heat and joy and tenderness rushed in all at once, and he cupped her face to kiss her again.

But she shook her head even as she gripped his hand, stopping him. “Wait.” Lifting herself to one elbow, she pulled off his left gauntlet. “We must be rid of this.” She gripped his other hand. “And this.”

Before he realized, she’d started pulling the glove from his right hand as well. A thrill of fear shot down his spine. She would be repulsed. It would be a cruel irony to have it so now, when they had just taken this first, difficult step. Roughly, he jerked back.

“Nay. I cannot take this one off.”

She sat quiet for a moment. Then she reached out and stroked a lock of tawny hair that fell across his brow, tracing the scar that threaded from there to his jaw.

He couldn’t meet her gaze, but her voice caressed him with sweet reassurance.

“There is no shame in what lies beneath that gauntlet, Duncan. Your captors may have done their worst, but they could not ruin you. I do not care how your hand looks. It is you that I admire—all of you just as you are.”

He half sat up. Pain mixed with a vulnerability that threatened to rip him apart inside.

“Nay, Aileana; it is an ugly thing. No one who has seen it uncovered has—” He broke off, feeling the old shame twisting deep again, and so he ground it down with vicious determination.

“The truth is that any woman who has ever seen my hand has cringed at the thought of my touching her with it, even though some tried well to hide their feelings. Do not ask this of me.”

“But it has already happened, Duncan, and it was of no matter. I saw your scars that day I woke after you’d tended me during the plague.

” Unshed tears sparkled in Aileana’s eyes, making them look like gems in the light filtering through the windows.

“I tell you that I felt naught but respect and pride for the courage you must have shown to make the English hurt you in such a cowardly way.”