A muscle jumped in his jaw. The shadow of his braid fell across his lean cheek, and his eyes were intense. “Then you have changed your mind?”
“Nay,” she murmured.
“Then I will do as you ask.”
The breath froze in her throat. She managed a nod and reached for his hand. It felt unearthly strong and warm beneath her fingers, but when she tugged him toward the bed, he resisted.
“It has been …” He cleared his throat. “… A long while for me, lass.”
Her mind scrambled. “Then you and Ailsa did not … couple?”
“Is that what you thought? That I could take another when you are …”
“When I am what?”
“In the world.” He said the words with weary resignation. “Still, being with the milk maid might have made this situation simpler.”
She forced herself not to wince. “It will be difficult with me?”
“To wait,” he said. ” ‘Twill be difficult to wait, lass. Thus, I think it best if we begin here.”
“Here?” Her heart kicked back into gear.
“You might disrobe me,” he suggested, and her heart threatened to leap from her chest.
“I do not think—”
“Control,” he said. A muscle bunched in his jaw again as if every fiber of his being was already straining. ” ‘Tis what the bastard took from you those years ago, lass. He could not take your virtue, nor tame your wilding spirit. Thus he took your control. ‘Tis what I would give back to you.”
“But I have never … I do not know how.”
“It takes no scholar,” he said, and lifted his own hands to his chest as if to begin the process, but the cat pin was not there.
“Your brooch,” she murmured. ” ‘Tis gone.”
” ‘Twas a good exchange,” he said, and reaching out, took her hand in his.
“Ailsa has—” she began, but in that instant he drew her palm to his lips. Desire arced like summer lightning up her arm. “… It?” she breathed.
“Lass, I do not think I can discuss the milk maid just now,” he said huskily, and kissed the heel of her hand.
She jerked beneath the onslaught of unknown feelings, already breathing hard. “MacGowan!”
“Aye, lass?” He raised his head slowly, and in the candlelight his eyes tore at her very soul.
“I feel … strangely unbalanced.”
“Do you?”
“Aye.”
” ‘Tis a good thing,” he said, and kissed her wrist.
She yanked her hand away, ready to flee, but he made no move to follow, no move to stop her. He stood as still as stone with his back against the wall.
She worried at her lip. “Where do I begin?”
He shrugged, the movement slow. ” ‘Tis your choice, lass. I merely wait.”
” ‘Twould be easier if you … did more.”
He nodded. “Aye.”
“But you will not.”
“I have before,” he said, and she could not help but remember the inn—the rush of hot feelings, the need, the consuming panic. “It did little but grant you a reason to hate me.”
She winced. ” ‘Twas not my plan.”
“I believe it was, lass. A simple way to keep yourself safe from men. From me.”
She considered denying his words, but his gaze was steady and sure. “How is it that you know me so well?”
“I do not. Not half so well as I would. Time wears on, lass.”
She wanted to reach for his belt but she could not, so she knelt and untied his garters from below his knees. It should have been a simple task—mundane, even—but her fingers faltered, so he nudged off his boots himself.
She stood finally, glanced briefly at his face, then lowered her eyes. Best to get this over with quickly, like any onerous task, she told herself. But the trembling in her hands was not from loathing. Still, it took all her will power to reach for his belt. She tugged at it, felt it loosen, and pulled it away. She dropped the belt and reached cautiously for his plaid. It eased away from his hips, its great length falling to the floor until he stood in naught but his tunic. Although his shirt nearly reached his knees, she dared not look down. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach. ‘Twas foolishness, she told herself. Then she noticed that his hands were clenched to fists, causing the corded muscles of his forearms to stand out in hardened ridges beneath his sun browned flesh.
“Are you …” She raised her gaze fleetingly to his. “Nervous?”
“Nervous! Nay!” he began, but then their gazes met and melded and he let out his air in one hard breath. “I am bloody terrified.”
“You?” The word trembled when she said it.
Don’t talk! Just act. Get it done with.
But he fascinated her, entranced her. “Why?”
He didn’t answer immediately. “Me brother Gilmour, ‘tis he who gained our da’s smooth ways.”
She stared at him without understanding.
“With the lassies,” he finished.
“You’re afraid of being unable to … couple?”
“Will you cease calling it that? Like two boars in rut! Nay,” he said, and relaxed a smidgen. ” ‘Tis not me fear, for just looking at you, with your hair all aglow and … there is not a man alive who would not be moved. ‘Tis simply that …” He exhaled slowly and loosened his fists. “I would have you enjoy this.”
“Enjoy it! I’m but hoping to survive it.”
He chuckled. The sound was full and low and somehow made her stomach flip foolishly. ” ‘Tis good to know you expect so little of me, but I had rather hoped for more.”
She had no idea why she felt like crying, but suddenly she did, so much so that she had to bite her lip in an attempt to hold back the tears. “You’re afraid of disappointing me?”
He winced. “It sounds worse when said aloud.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. ” ‘Tis simpler to ignore one’s weaknesses if they are not spoken.”
“I mean … why do you care?”
“Surely you know, lass.”
“Nay,” she whispered. “I do not.”
“If we do not hurry, we shall surely be found out. Or is that your hope?”
It should be, of course. She should be searching for an excuse to stop this lunacy, but … he was so beautiful, so bonny and manly and powerfully alluring. Her hand reached out of its own accord to touch his cheek. His eyes closed. Muscles coiled beneath her fingers, as if it took all his considerable control to keep himself from reaching back, and somehow that knowledge was more sensuous than all his other enticing attributes. So enticing, in fact, that she could not help but rise on her toes to kiss him. Their lips met in trembling intimacy. Her hand slipped over the taut muscle of his shoulder, then down the tight mound of chest. A gravelly noise issued from his throat, but he did nothing, not until her fingers slipped with tremulous curiosity onto his abdomen.
The muscles jumped beneath her hand. Startled, Anora almost fled, but again he made no move to seize her. She tightened her resolve and sidled closer until their bodies were nearly touching. Fascinated, she placed her palm against the hard muscles of his belly. Craning up on her toes, she kissed his chin, his cheek, the corner of his mouth.
He turned to her like a starving man, kissing her with a hunger so ferocious that it almost drove her away, but somehow the fear was not enough to drown the desire that raged through her. His tongue brushed her lips, seeking entry, and she gave way, letting him in. Hot longing scorched her. She drew back, breathless and dizzy, and found to her surprise that her fist was bunched in his tunic near one lean hip. Their gazes met in a flash of scalding desire, and then, like an amateur’s marionette, she lifted the tunic.
Beneath her bent fingers, she felt his muscles coil, but he made no move toward her. Finally, with breathless anticipation, she raised the shirt farther. His every muscle was frozen to rock hard immobility as the fabric slipped up his body. She didn’t look down. Indeed, she couldn’t. Instead, she held his gaze, watched the expressions mirror her own—desire, impatience, and maybe, if she let herself admit the truth—fear.
Nearing his chest, the tunic’s hem scraped his bandage. Anora slipped her left hand beneath the bunched cloth.
His flesh was warm, firm, crisscrossed with undulating muscle that stretched from his belly to his throat, and suddenly she wanted to feel every inch of it. Her fingers skimmed over the lean ridges of his ribs, up the sloping underside of his mounded pectorals and onto his nipple.
“Sweet Almighty!”
Anora jumped, but he remained where he was, breathing hard, his shoulders pressed against the wall behind.
“Did I hurt you?”
“Nay.”
His voice was raspy, low, little more than a rough whisper of sound.
“Then why—” she began. He leaned forward and kissed her.
His longing seared her like a flame, and when he drew back, her knees felt weak and her lungs overtaxed.
She took a steadying breath and leaned into him. “Oh,” she said.
“I long to love you,” he murmured. “To fill you with my desire and feel you climb the summit of pleasure.”
“Oh!” Against her hip she could feel the hard evidence of his longing, but suddenly it held no fear for her, only an aching kind of indescribable need. Her hands moved slowly but surely over the sculpted ridges of his belly, up his mounded chest. He raised his arms without taking his gaze from hers, and she slid her hands breathlessly over the dancing muscles of his triceps. His throat corded as he bent his head, and finally the shirt dropped from her tingling fingers to the floor.
He was naked. Bigger than life. Powerful as a destrier, he stood before her, and finally fear coiled in her belly.
She took a step back and skimmed his body with her gaze. His chest was broad, sweeping down to a narrow waist and hips only the slightest bit wider. And between those hips …
Her breath caught in her throat, for despite his immobility, his manhood was intimidating. It rose bold and restless from a nest of dark hair, as if reaching for her.
She backed away. His muscles bunched as if he would follow her, but he did not. Instead, he reached up to grasp the bed frame with one hand and the window shutter with the other. The muscles in his chest and arms coiled as if he held himself there by hard-won will power alone.
Candlelight flickered across his bare skin, casting shadows beneath his powerful arms and thighs, and at the apex of his legs, his desire stirred again.
Her lungs felt strangely tight within her chest and desire hung heavy in her gut, but she dared not step forward. She longed for a word of comfort, of assurance, of admiration. ‘Twas what other men would do: coax, cajole. But he said nothing, as if challenging her courage with his very reticence. It disturbed her somehow, irritated her.
“You will not …” She let her gaze slide downward again, felt the breath halt in her lungs, and sprinted her attention back to his face. “You’ll not hurt me?”
It seemed like forever before he spoke, and when he did his chest swelled slightly. She could not help but notice every flex of muscle, every lift of a limb. “What I say matters little, lass. ”Tis what you believe that counts.”
“I believe …” What—that he would sooner die than harm her? ‘Twas foolishness. Men were cruel, hard, undisciplined. Life had taught her that. “You are a man,” she said, lifting her chin.
He raised one brow. “Had you decided the opposite, I would be sorely wounded, lass.” Good Lord, he was conversing with her as if he had just met her on the streets of Edinburgh, instead of standing spread before her like a pagan gift of war. “Indeed, I am a man. ‘Tis your choice now what you will do with me.”
“I do not trust men,” she whispered.
“So I have noticed.”
“For they are cruel.”
“I cannot deny it.”
Frustration exploded within her. “Not even to say that you are different?”
“Nay.”
“Mayhap ‘tis because you are not. Because you are just like the others, selfish and …” Her words stuttered to a halt.
“And what?” he asked.
“And yet I want you,” she whispered.
The tightening cords in his wrists were the only evidence of any emotion. “Where?” His voice was incredibly low. She swallowed hard, glanced sideways and wrapped her hands about each other in an effort to keep them from shaking.
“On the bed.”
He said nothing but dropped his arms to his sides and placed a bent knee on the mattress. He looked like a great lionlike creature with his most private parts just nudging past the powerful bulge of his bandaged thigh. She watched in breathless awe as he stretched out on his side, then reminded herself to breathe and searched for something to say.
There was nothing. So she tried to take a step forward. That was only marginally more successful, for her legs felt as stiff as stone block. “I do not … know if I can do this, MacGowan.”
He looked up at her with half masked eyes. “Do not play me for a fool, Notmary. You can do whatever it is you wish to do.”
She winced. “You’ll … show me how?”
“Aye.” The single word was as deep as the night.
“What do I do now?”
He didn’t speak for a moment, as if a hundred possibilities were running through his mind, then, ” ‘Twould be much appreciated if you would disrobe.”
Fear skittered up her spine. “Is that necessary?” she whispered.
“Nay.” He cleared his throat, looking rather sheepish. “Nay. Only preferable. Being naked alone is …”
“Too intimidating for me.”
He raised his brows. “Too humiliating for me.”
“Nay.” That could surely not be true, for he looked like a god of fertility, stretched powerful and confident before her.
“Lass, I do not know how you think I spend me nights. But this is not the usual.”
“So this … so you are doing this just for me?”
“Nay.” He grinned, a slanted flash of white in the dimness. ” ‘Tis for entirely selfish reasons that I am thus.”
His words sent a warm rush of feelings through her, feelings that urged her fingers slowly to the laces at her back. But the knots were high up and hard tied.
“I need … help.” She made it to the bed and turned slowly, presenting her back to him.
His fingers never so much as brushed her skin. Even when he swiped her hair over her shoulder, he did not touch her, yet it seemed that they were flesh to flesh, so strong were the feelings. The laces eased. She felt his breath against her neck and remained frozen as his lips touched her there, just below her ear. Goose-flesh shivered down her arms. She felt the rough brush of a day’s beard graze her shoulder, and somehow, like magic, the gown slipped lower. His kisses followed, down her neck, along her spine. Her head fell back as she drowned in the heady feelings. She arched her back, driven with a consuming need to be nearer until her thighs were pressed up against the mattress. His kisses ran lower, and her gown fell away. But there was still the underskirt, drawn tight at her waist.