Part 10 (1/2)
Ignoring the furious scissoring of her feet, he carried her out the door, his water-logged boots squelching with each step. ”I really wish I could be there when the earl discovers he's wed a wee wildcat instead of some mewling English kitten. In case no one has ever told you, la.s.s, you're quite fetching when you're jealous.”
She sucked in a scandalized gasp. ”Jealous! Don't be ridiculous. Why would I be jealous just because I saw you pawing some slattern in the kitchen yard? Why, I'm not the least bit jealous! I'm relieved! Now that you have your very own trollop to satisfy your baser needs, you can stop finding ridiculous excuses to kiss me and put your hands all over me. And you can stop looking at me in that intolerably impertinent manner!”
Jamie addressed the shapely rump draped over his shoulder. ”And just what manner would that be?”
”As if I were a fresh strawberries and cream trifle and you'd had nothing but bread and water for all your miserable life.”
Jamie stopped in his tracks, his stillness so complete Emma stopped kicking and pounding and simply hung limp over his shoulder like a side of mutton.
When he started forward again, his strides were even more determined. Muira's maidservant Gilda had just emerged from a chamber at the end of the corridor, her stout arms piled high with rumpled linens. As Jamie came barreling toward her, she let out a startled shriek and plastered herself to the wall.
Both of her chins quivering, she jerked her head toward the door. ”The mistress had me lay a fire on the hearth. She says the puir wee la.s.s can have her bed fer the night.”
”Tell your mistress the puir wee la.s.s and I are much obliged,” Jamie replied, striding right past her and using his heel to kick the door shut in her astonished face.
He marched over to the bed and tossed Emma none too gently on her back in the middle of the heather-stuffed mattress. The dampness from his s.h.i.+rt had transferred itself to her nightdress, rendering the linen translucent. The fabric clung to the soft globes of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, outlining the tantalizing thrust of her pert nipples with a diligence that made him want to lower his head and taste them with the tip of his tongue.
She blinked up at him like an upended turtle as he prowled over her on hands and knees until they were nose to nose, their lips only a breath away from meeting. ”I can a.s.sure you, la.s.s, that Brigid was more than willing to satisfy my 'baser needs.' But I didn't take her up on her offer. If I had, I'd be down there right now doing all the things to her that I so desperately want to do to you.”
Chapter Seventeen.
JAMIE'S SMOKY GROWL MADE Emma s.h.i.+ver deep inside, in some dark secret place no man had ever touched. Emma s.h.i.+ver deep inside, in some dark secret place no man had ever touched.
She struggled to catch her breath, imprisoned by the seductive softness of the mattress beneath her and the muscular heat of the man above her.
He wanted her. Now that she'd driven him into confessing it, there was nowhere for either of them to hide from the truth. Not behind fruitless denials and petty bickering. Not behind his contempt for the earl and her loyalty to him. And certainly not within the cozy confines of Muira's bed.
Sharing the cold, hard ground with Jamie Sinclair was one thing. Sharing a bed with him was another matter entirely. With his weight poised so precariously above her, it was only too easy to understand just how seven strapping sons could have been sired in that bed, or how a man and a woman might best spend the bitterly cold Highland nights when the hours between sunset and dawn seemed as dark and endless as the winter.
Emma licked lips that had gone suddenly dry. ”You're dripping on me.”
Jamie waited until another drop of bath water splashed like a tear against her cheek, then leaned back on his heels. With his knees still straddling her hips, he peeled his soaked s.h.i.+rt off over his head and tossed it aside, revealing an alarming expanse of bare skin. The sculpted muscles of his chest glowed like bronze satin in the firelight. He used both hands to slick his wet hair back from his face. His unshaven jawline only served to emphasize the striking symmetry of his features.
He was a beautiful man. And a dangerous one.
His sodden breeches were clinging to his lean hips and powerful thighs like a second skin, giving Emma even less reason to doubt his words. She jerked her wide-eyed gaze back to his face, half afraid he was about to divest himself of the breeches as well.
”I'm doing it again, aren't I, la.s.s? Looking at you as if you were a trifle made from fresh strawberries...” His hungry gaze caressed the vulnerable pout of her trembling lips, then rode slowly downward, taking in the pulse beating madly at the side of her throat, the uneven rise and fall of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the provocative way the damp fabric of the nightdress was clinging to the mound between her thighs. His burr deepened on a hoa.r.s.e note. ”And cream.” His gaze drifted back up to her lips. ”I suppose next I'll be trying to find another ridiculous excuse to kiss you.”
”Such as?” she whispered, knowing even as she did so that her foolish challenge would not go unanswered.
He leaned down and touched his mouth lightly to her ear, his whisper a low-pitched vibration that made her shudder with desire. ”Because I'm bluidy tired of bread and water.”
Before her chest could hitch with another uneven breath, Jamie's mouth was on hers, devouring her lips with such delectable tenderness it was impossible to resist inviting him to partake even more deeply. Her arms went around his neck as his tongue parted the ripe softness of her lips, urging her to join the feast. Her tongue danced over the smoky velvet of his with a wanton hunger that shocked even her. This wasn't just a tantalizing taste of pleasure. It was a banquet for her starving senses.
His kiss made her crave delights she could not name. She yearned for something sweeter than honey and infinitely more filling than ambrosia. As she stroked her fingers through his damp hair, sweeping it into a veil of silk around their faces, he groaned deep in his throat.
If his mouth on hers had been pure bliss, there were no words to describe the moist heat of it gliding over the sensitive satin of her throat, nibbling at the tender swath of skin behind her ear, giving her earlobe a sharp nip, then turning her startled squeak into a gasp of raw pleasure by gently suckling the place he had nipped.
His mouth captured that gasp with another ravenous kiss, warning her that his appet.i.tes could never be satisfied by pressing his lips to a lady's wrist or stealing a chaste peck in some ballroom alcove.
Jamie Sinclair was no gentleman. He was a man.
Despite the ferocity of his kiss, his hand was irresistibly gentle as it closed over her breast through the damp fabric of the nightdress. He fit her softness to his broad palm as if she had been fas.h.i.+oned by G.o.d just for him. Any fears that he might find her lacking in comparison to the buxom Brigid were laid to rest by the reverent sigh he breathed into her mouth.
Emma had never dreamed such strong hands could be so gentle-or so nimble. Jamie tenderly brushed the callused pad of his thumb over the rigid bud of her nipple again and again, creating a friction so exquisite it was almost painful. She moaned and clenched her thighs together against a delicious little throb, his deft caress making her feel as if he was stroking her everywhere at once.
Taking her moan as one of invitation, Jamie lowered his weight, covering her fully. Although the snow continued to cascade past the bedchamber's darkened windowpane, it was impossible to believe she had ever been cold or that she ever would be again. Not with Jamie's arms to warm her, his tongue to kindle a scorching spark of desire in the depths of her mouth and his clever hands to stroke that spark into a living flame. That flame soared to dangerous heights when he used one knee to nudge her thighs apart and settled his hips between them.
He groaned into her mouth, warning her that if it wasn't for the rumpled folds of the nightdress and the wet buckskin of his breeches, he wouldn't just be on top of her; he would be inside her.
Lacing his fingers through hers, he gently imprisoned her hands on either side of her head. Bracing the weight of his upper body against their intertwined hands, he rocked between her legs in a rhythm new to her but as ancient as the mountains surrounding them. Waves of pleasure began to fan out from the tender cleft where his body sought to join with hers. She arched her hips, straining toward him instead of away.
As Emma trembled on the very precipice of something both terrifying and wondrous, she realized she was doing it again-bringing herself and her family to the brink of destruction just to satisfy her own selfish desires. Perhaps she really was one of those women her mother had spoken of with such contempt: a woman willing to sacrifice everything that was n.o.ble and proper and court ruin for nothing more than a few stolen moments of pleasure beneath a man's hand... a man's body. Yet even in that moment, she couldn't bring herself to feel ashamed. She was too breathless with longing to feel anything but exultation. Oddly enough it was that lack of shame, that overwhelming sense of rightness rightness she felt in Jamie's arms, that shocked her into turning her face away from his kiss. she felt in Jamie's arms, that shocked her into turning her face away from his kiss.
He immediately stilled, lifting his head to gaze down at her.
Although all she wanted to do was weep with frustration, she forced herself to meet his wary gaze. ”Please. This isn't what I want.”
Even as she whispered the words, she knew he possessed the power to prove her a liar with nothing more than a nudge from his lean hips.
The grim set of his jaw couldn't hide the unspoken entreaty in his eyes. ”There are things I could do to you, la.s.s. Things I could do for for you. Pleasures I could give you without compromising your innocence. He would never know. No one would ever know.” you. Pleasures I could give you without compromising your innocence. He would never know. No one would ever know.”
Despite that innocence, Emma understood what he was offering. But she also understood just how much it would cost them both.
”He might not know,” she said softly, unable to keep the note of despair from creeping into her voice. ”But I would.”
Jamie continued to gaze down at her as if weighing her words. With his fingers laced through hers and her thighs splayed open in wanton abandon, she was his prisoner in every sense of the word. She could still feel every inch of his manhood-hot, hard and heavy-pressed against her throbbing flesh. Mercy was his to grant... or deny.
He rolled off her and to his feet in one abrupt motion, as if to linger would make such a feat impossible.
Emma had been wrong. She could be cold again. It was almost as if the snow drifting past the window was falling inside the room, casting a chill no fire could dispel.
Without looking at her, Jamie retrieved his wet s.h.i.+rt and shrugged it on over his broad shoulders. The cut of his breeches made it impossible for him to hide his unabated arousal.
As he strode to the door and swung it open, Emma scrambled to her knees in the middle of the bed. ”Are you going to her?”
He stopped dead in the doorway but did not turn around. ”No, Miss Marlowe,” he finally said. ”I'm going to finish my bath.”
Although Emma sensed he would have liked nothing more than to slam the door hard enough to rattle the rafters, he pulled it shut behind him with painstaking care.
As his clipped footsteps faded, she flopped to her back among the rumpled bedclothes and gazed up at the ceiling, knowing she'd had no right to ask that question.
And even less right to be relieved by his answer.
EMMA EMERGED FROM THE cottage the next morning to discover the spell that had so enchanted her upon their arrival had been broken. Sometime during the night, the rain had returned, was.h.i.+ng away any lingering trace of snow or magic. It was no longer raining but clouds still hung low over the glen, casting a brooding shadow over the clearing. cottage the next morning to discover the spell that had so enchanted her upon their arrival had been broken. Sometime during the night, the rain had returned, was.h.i.+ng away any lingering trace of snow or magic. It was no longer raining but clouds still hung low over the glen, casting a brooding shadow over the clearing.