Scottish Brides (7 page)

Seven

 

 

 

With both hands on her waist, Hadden lifted Andra
down. With one hand, he steadied her as she tried to hold her gown up, keep her balance, and channel strength into her shaky knees.

And her drawers and petticoats dropped around her ankles. She stared at them stupidly. How had that happened?

“That gown'll do you little good, all unfastened as it is.” He pried the neckline out from between her fingers and let it fall. Holding her hands away, he spread them wide. “You look like a martyr in one of the old paintings. Are you prepared to be a martyr, darling?” His gaze dropped to her figure, barely concealed by a drooping chemise, by silk stockings and flower-bedecked garters. “For me?”

He was completely clothed and she was almost naked. He had brought her to ecstasy twice, and he still maintained control. Yet he stared, color sweeping up into his face, then ebbing away, stared so hard she could almost feel the heat of his gaze on the nipple that peeked through her chemise, on the swathe of bare thigh above her stockings. Oh, yes, he maintained mastery, but one little taunt, one glance of encouragement would bring him on her.

She almost did it.

But inviting him to take her meant more than just intercourse, and in some dim, still-functioning part of her mind, she knew it. She could do as her body urged and as he so obviously desired, and join their bodies in a celebration of the lust that scrambled her defenses whenever he was near. But if she invited him, she was inviting more than just lust. She would be saying “yes” to everything he wanted—marriage, children, a life spent growing closer until somehow, some way, sorrow ripped them apart.

No. She shuddered. She couldn't do it.

He saw the refusal to give in to what was between them, for his jaw tightened and in his eyes burned a blue, wrathful flame. He wanted more than she had to give, and for one moment she thought he would turn away.

Then he blinked, and his animosity was wiped away. He smiled, and tentatively she smiled back. He nodded, and she nodded back. It was, as she saw it, a tacit agreement that they could lust without pledge. Thank God, he had decided to be reasonable.

As the tension drained from her, she wobbled, and he interpreted that with deliberate inaccuracy. “You can't walk, poor thing.” He picked her up, out of the puddle of clothing at her feet, and carried her across the room. As he stepped into the path of the setting sun, it bathed them in flaxen light. Then, as he continued across the chamber, sullen shadow caught them. Darkness would arrive soon, darkness with all its sorrows and its needs.

Yes, she needed him tonight. Only tonight.

His starched shirtfront and waistcoat prickled her bare skin, but she put her hands around his neck and hoped he read that as willingness, but not submission.

“See how I serve you?” he asked. “I am your valet, your horse, your carriage. Whatever deed you wish performed I will do, for you are my lady.”

His extravagant homage fed a need in her soul, one she wouldn't acknowledge.

So she blushed, and as they came to stand above the bench arranged with the sheepskin, she wondered—why hadn't he removed her thin leather slippers, silk stockings, and flowered garters? She didn't want to ask; it would sound as if she were anxious to be naked. But she was naked, except for . . .

“Sit here.”

Her eyes narrowed as he lowered her to the seat.
Had
he planned this? Yes, her servants, directed by the wicked Sima, had locked them in, but had he been in league with those devils?

Then the sensation of fleece, warm and soft, touched her bottom, and she forgot suspicion. Curious now, she sank farther into the curly coat. It yielded beneath her weight, then rebounded to caress her. When she moved on it, it tickled, and the lanolin in the wool smoothed her like lotion.

“You like it,” he observed.

His tone gave her pause. He'd placed her here for a reason, to titillate her. If she admitted he'd succeeded, a bit more of her resistance had been chipped away.

Leaning down, he unlaced her chemise completely and pulled it off, leaving her in only her stockings. With his hand on her shoulder, he pushed her back until she lay flat and the pelt caressed her neck, her back, her bottom. Her feet still rested on the floor, like a lady riding sidesaddle.

But without being told, she knew the next thing he would want.

He would want her to put one leg on each side of the bench, and when she did, he would look.

He'd like it, she knew. He already liked it. He glowed with satisfaction at having her doing his bidding. He glowed with the heat of desire. He glowed because he was a man and he spied victory, but he'd proved on the table that he considered it victory only if she won, too.

“You still have all your clothes on.” He was armored; she was almost completely bare. If he removed his clothes, he'd be as self-conscious as she was.

At least, that's what she hoped until he stepped up beside her and said, “Unbutton me and take me out. Put your hands on me. Make me feel what you're feeling.”

“Embarrassment?” she asked tartly.

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Is that
all
you're feeling?”

Of course, it wasn't. Conflicting emotions tore through her. She wanted him nude, and she feared him nude. She wanted to yield, but she resisted unreasonably.

And why did she resist? This was just lust.

“If you want something, Andra, you have to reach out and take it. If you want me, you have to take at least one step in my direction. Just one step.”

She opened his breeches, fumbling with one button at a time. He stood patiently, waiting, watching. He wasn't wearing drawers, which shocked her and made her wonder if he ever wore them, or if he'd been so confident of her, he'd left them off.

Maybe it hadn't been a case of being confident of her, but of himself. Maybe he could give himself completely because he had no dark places in his soul, no ugly scars that he feared to show, no reason for the ghosts to haunt him like her lost menfolk haunted her.

It took all her nerve to slide his breeches down, and she realized—no, Hadden was hiding nothing. He was so proud of himself, all of himself, and he thought that when he'd cajoled her out of her shyness, she'd be as proud as he.

Well, maybe she would be—of her body. Her soul she'd keep sacrosanct, but he'd be satisfied with her body. She'd give him that, for now.

On that resolution, she ran her fingers along the length of him. She didn't know if she'd made him feel what she felt, but his half-closed eyes and indrawn breath bestowed optimism upon her. While he was distracted, she raised one foot onto the bench, keeping her knee bent and trying to strike a casual pose.

He noticed anyway.
“
I love these little flowers.
”
As he knelt beside her, his fingers flirted with the rosette on her garter. “They give a hint of what's higher.”

Gently he caressed the center of the rosebud, and that touch vibrated into the center of her. Almost without her volition, her hips rippled in answer.

“Move again,” he urged. “Just watching you move makes me . . .” In a sudden flurry of activity, he stripped his clothes from his lower body.

From this range and this angle, everything about him looked bold and muscular. His lightly haired thighs gave witness to his years of riding; his rippling stomach proclaimed him a man of action; and . . . she traced one long muscle from his groin to his knee. “Aren't you going to remove your coat?”

“What?” He seemed distracted by her action.

She smiled a secretive smile and dared ask for another memory to store away. “If you would, I would be your valet.”

That snapped his attention away from his gratification and back to her. “One more step?”

A big step, she thought as she cautiously sat up. The first step she had taken without suggestion or coaxing. Hadden seemed especially enthralled, his eyes following her, when she reached up and tugged hard to strip the coat from his shoulders. She peeled him free, then inspected his cravat, waistcoat and shirt. With her hands on his cravat, she said, “I shall expect a very large tip for this.”

“You'll get one,” he promised as she unclothed him completely.

He wasn't talking about money. When she'd flung his garments across the room and he was as bare as she, he said, “I would like you to try something different.”

“Different?” This was all different.

“When you lie down, lie down face first, and feel the way the fleece caresses your breasts and your stomach.”

“Face first? That won't work.”

He fought a grin, and she knew she'd said something silly. “There are more ways to make love than there are nights to experiment with them. But I assure you, we will do our scientific best to attempt them all.”

“Oh.” As she thought about it, her hands wandered down his chest and cupped him once again. He was ready, very ready, and with the proper positioning . . . “Yes,” she speculated. “It might be possible.” It might be enjoyable, too. With elaborate nonchalance, she stretched herself facedown onto the bench.

“Move on it.” He smoothed each one of her buttocks, then nudged her legs apart. When her feet settled on the floor, he urged again, “Move. It feels good.”

She might have been a babe, exposed to his gaze, but she didn't feel like a babe, especially when she did as he instructed and moved. Her belly relished the comfort of the fleece while her nipples tightened with its stimulus. Her eyes closed as she concentrated on the sensations, and his soft laughter sounded from behind her. “That's it.” His fingers explored her, brushing the short, curly hair over her nether lips, languidly parting them while she waited in aroused suspense. When she whimpered, he clutched her hips, moved closer, and held her still. Leaning into her, he penetrated her in a slow, firm, relentless motion, and when he had buried himself to the hilt, he said, “You're mine.”

“No.” But had he heard her? She could scarcely speak. Her system hummed, overloaded with the sense of abundance, of being more, of taking his span and returning joy.

“Can you feel me?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Really feel me? I'm not lying on you, you're not lying on me, and only one part of each of us is touching.” He moved in her. “This part. There's only the pull to invoke passion for you.”

In and out, in and out, he created friction in her flesh with his action, and friction in her mind with his words.

“Do you feel more if I touch you?”

His stomach pressed against her bottom, and he lifted her a little. His fingers winnowed into her thatch of hair, into her cleft. He found the button he sought and pressed.

Sensitized by expectancy, desire, by two climaxes already achieved, she bucked and almost succeeded in jumping away from him.

“Too much, Andra?” His touch lightened, became less than a whisper, yet louder than a drum. “Is that better?”

“Don't need you.” She couldn't even articulate a whole sentence, and she tried again. “I don't . . .”

Catching her hand, he brought it down and replaced his own with hers. “You do it,” he urged. “Show me what you like.”

The touch of Hadden made her live, and his wholehearted approval of her craving made it grow like a flower deprived of water and now given a drink.

“I don't need more,” she managed to say. Grabbing handfuls of the fleece, she spasmed, swept away by sensuality indulged.

“I can feel . . . everything. Your inner muscles”—he sucked in a breath—“they hold me, grip me.” His fingers slid around her buttocks, directing their course, reaching where she would not. “Do it again.”

His hoarse voice told the tale. He was trying to give her satisfaction while he retained dominion.

He infuriated her. How dare he retain control when all her vaunted discipline disappeared at the first sight of him?

Vengefully, she touched not herself, but him. She circled the base of his penis with her fingers and gripped him.

And he roared like a rutting stallion, carrying her with him as he half stood for his climax.

The motion brought her eye-to-eye with a small statue of a stallion, in a state of exaggerated excitement. For one horrified moment, she stared at the blatant fertility symbol in dismay.

Then another, cataclysmic climax swept her. Lowering her head, she buried her face in the sheepskin and muffled her cries in the fleece.

Eight