She was shaking her head and trying to move away from him. "What are ye up to, Englishman?" she queried more curious than upset. "I don’t like that smile. I don't trust ye."
"You'll feel better after a bath," he told her, his handsome devil-may-care smile growing even wider. He tossed her soap in one hand and stepped slowly toward her.
“I’ve already had one.”
His grin widened.
Lainie said nothing more but tried to back up with each forward step Slade took. She watched him with a fascination she did not want to acknowledge.
Heat rushed to Lainie's cheeks as she recalled how Slade had looked with his pants undone. Now at least his pants were on and they were fastened.
And for the moment, she was safe from herself and Slade.
"I'll wash your hair if you like." His voice was a silken purr.
She shook her head. Lainie caught her long wet hair and twisted it into a knot on top of her head. A few tendrils escaped the knot. She ignored them. The gleam in Slade's eyes as she lifted her arms and dealt with her hair told her that he liked watching. And she reminded herself he was determined to have what he wanted. She was naked and vulnerable and very easy to touch.
Touching meant seducing, and she meant to keep Slade in his place. She didn't want him to take her again. She didn't want him to get close enough to touch her.
"Ready?" Slade asked.
She shook her head, sending a few more tendrils flying from their perch on top her head. "I don't need help washing myself. Hand over the soap."
Slade shook his head. "Not this time, little darling. Some things are much better shared." Slade's voice was husky and hot and the words licked over her, heating her to the core.
"I don't want to share anything, especially not a bath."
"Of course you do," he told her. "You just don't know it yet. Besides, you don't have a choice. I want to touch you and that's part of our bargain."
"So now you know what I'm thinking." She tapped his chest with her fingertip.
"Absolutely," he said.
Her breath left her.
She shivered as he cupped water in his two hands and drizzled it over neck and shoulders. He watched the silver drops slide between her breasts. Her hands instinctively rose to cover them. He held her back.
"No," he said. "I want to watch," he said, his voice soft and smooth and so very seducing with its strange power.
"I guess it doesn't matter. I have nothing to hide from any longer. Mistress or whore--" she shrugged her shoulders. "It doesn't matter."
His expression turned furious. Lainie was suddenly very afraid of what she just said.
"I will tell you only once. Do not call yourself a whore or my mistress," he said distinctly. "You will never be either. I won't listen to you degrade yourself."
"It's how I feel. Nothing can change that. I’ve been used and abused and I don’t care anymore."
He turned away from her for a moment. "Running me ragged inside and out won't make you feel better."
"What will then?" She regretted the question the moment it was asked. She made an unintentional noise and looked away. When she turned back, the harsh shadows and intense rage she saw in his eyes reminded her too much of her own confusion and frustration. In any case, Slade was right. Sparring with him would not make her feel better, but letting him make love to her once again wouldn't change who she had become. The depth of her fears and frustrations were terrifying.
He scooped up more water and let it wash over her flesh in a mesmerizing dance.
Lainie closed her eyes and pretended she was alone and Slade wasn't happening to her.
The slippery glide of cool water over her made her shiver, but not with cold. The day was too hot for that, and the sun's heat was solace to her soul. She shivered because she knew he would have his way and he would seduce her again, despite all her protests and efforts to keep him at bay. The passion she felt for Slade would betray her.
She would fail because somewhere deep inside, she did not want to keep him away.
Lainie was so absorbed in her own thoughts she jerked at the first touch of Slade's hands.
"Lainie," he whispered softly, his breath a soothing caress in her tumultuous world. "Easy, Lainie. Relax. You'll feel only pleasure. I promise. Trust me."
She heard his pain, and saw it in the grim line of his mouth. If she could erase it, she would, but she didn't have the strength to take on his problems while dealing with her own.
"I will bring you only pleasure, little darling. If I could have done better the first time, I would have. But I wanted you too much."
Lainie's breath caught in her throat. She nodded, knowing he was speaking true. He had never meant to do anything but give her pleasure. How was he to know how impossible a feat that would be.
"I know. You tried and I understand that you're sorry, but that's why I don't want there to be a second time. I don't want to see the pain in your eyes when you fail. That kind of pleasure doesn’t exist for a woman."
Slade let out a ragged breath. He brushed his lips down Lainie's' neck, tracing his way across her collarbone.
"Let me wash you," he said.
She hesitated, looking into sincere hungry eyes raw with desire. Then she nodded. What did it matter? He would do what he wanted. He would ask but in the end, even if she said no the first time, he would have her saying yes. Hands sleek with rose scented lather closed over her shoulders, touching her tenderly, seducing her with the sweet promise of a non-existent pleasure.
"Let me," Slade said again, his voice velvet smooth.
She hesitated once more.
"I won't make love to you," he said. "Not unless you ask me to. I just want to help ease the pain. Will you let me wash you?"
Unable to bear the intensity of Slade's eyes, Lainie lowered her lashes, "Aye."
For the longest time she waited in an agony of suspense, but when Slade touched her, it was only to wash her face.
Slade's gentle touch felt more like a lover's caress and caused an almost painful pleasure to course through her. She hadn't realized her face was as sensitive to his caress as other parts of her body were.
He turned his ministrations into a ritual of sun-drenched pleasure. He washed and soaped and ripples of pleasure coursed through her.
"'I will keep all my promises to you, little darling."
Lainie shook her head. "It's not necessary." A long strand of hair floated free. Slade tucked it behind her ear.
He leaned forward and began tracing the outline of her ear with his tongue. "May I?" he asked.
She shuddered but also nodded her consent. Heat whipped through her. He continued to tantalize and tease, challenging every part of her, retreating and withdrawing, urging her to feel and to respond. She made an odd sound in the back of her throat and her nails bit into his forearms.
"That's good, feel, feel everything," he murmured. "This is pleasure, pure and simple. I mean to give you so much pleasure your head will spin."
Slade lifted his head and gazed into Lainie's wide surprised eyes and smiled tenderly.
"I never know what to expect from you," she said. "You surprise me and I have no defenses to resist."
"Did you have no beaus?"
She shook her head. "Bertram was hardly a beau and aye, one man wanted me. But I didn't love him. My brothers promised me I could find love so they never insisted I wed."
"No stolen kisses on the battlements?"
Lainie shook her head again. "I never wanted a kiss until I saw you. Even after Bertram raped--" she couldn't speak the words. Despite what had happened to her, she'd wanted Slade the moment she saw him. She just hadn't known she was willing to give up her heart and soul to have him.
"Sweet Jesu."
"What?"
"So innocent. So passionate," he murmured.
Slade's glittering green eyes swept over Lainie. She looked down and realized that the transparent water hid nothing from Slade's eyes. Every curve and valley of
her body was there for him to see.
"Save for violence, no man has touched you at all. There has been no pleasure even in a stolen kiss."
"That's not true," she whispered.
"But it is," he whispered gently touching her.
"I’ve felt your touch. There was no violence,” she paused, thinking. "I've never known that kind of touch."
In a silence that only sun and wind intruded upon, Slade washed Lainie to the waist. Warmed by his caress, her wounds slowly began to heal. His hands lingered in sensual spots. Her nipples hardened beneath his tender ministrations. With soapy hands, he returned to them again and again, caressing lightly, exploring, teasing.
Saying nothing, Slade pulled Lainie under the gentle waterfall, rinsing her. When he finished, he looked at her with hungry eyes.
"Will you ask me to kiss you?"
She nodded her head in consent but he watched her and waited.
Curiously, she looked at him. "Aye," she spoke softly, "a kiss would be nice I suppose."
He bent and kissed her skin until she made small noises and clung to him.
"I should tell ye to stop," Lainie said huskily, letting her head fall back against his chest.
"But you won't," he said smoothly, nuzzling her breast. "Don't ever tell me to stop. Let me kiss you everywhere."
Lainie couldn't speak but she leaned into him, giving him her consent. This time he didn't wait for a verbal reply.
The dizzying feelings Slade created with his mouth and teeth and tongue left her bereft of words as well as air.
The splintering noise Lainie made owed nothing to pain and everything to sudden, brilliant pleasure. Her resolve vanished. Her emotions spiraled onto a different plain. She could no more stop Slade than she could will her heart to cease beating.
Lainie didn't know what she felt when Slade stopped seducing and renewed his attentions to washing.
I don't dare beg him for more. He will know that I want him more than he wants me.
"I have never courted you. I should have. You are beautiful, Lainie MacPherson. I've never seen hair as soft and as silken as yours, nor eyes that put the summer sky to shame," Slade said and paused as if in thought. "If you want more pleasure, you have to ask."
She stared at him. "Please Slade, kiss me," she murmured, then lowered her lashes as if she were afraid to give him the freedom to do as he pleased. In Slade's mind, she had done just that.
Slade slowly pulled her from the water, and with such reverence that startled Lainie, he brushed his lips across one breast and then the other. "I have no words that are eloquent enough to speak of your beauty."
He set her down in a spot where the water came only to her waist. His long fingers soaped lower, touching her waist her hipbones and her thighs. "Open your legs for me, little darling. I won't hurt you. I need to touch all of you."
When he touched her in dark, secret places, she flinched away slightly, knowing he would venture there, seduce and conquer and, sweet Jesu, she wanted it even knowing the pain and humiliation would return with a vengeance.
And she would curse herself and her lack of control once again. But for now--
She said nothing. She couldn't speak.
"Let me wash you there, ease the pain where I hurt you," he spoke from the heart. "I won't do anything you don't want me to do."
He waited, watching her, watching her eyes so he could see into her soul and feel the pulse of her life. With more patience than he had ever thought he possessed, he waited.
Finally, as if she knew he would not force her and that he was patiently waiting for her to give herself to him, she shifted her position allowing him access to all her secrets.
"That's right, little darling. Open for me. If I could take back that moment when I could have given you pleasure and gave you only frustration and pain, I would," he whispered. "But I would never take back the rest."
His warm sensual caress sent flames sweeping through her.
"Slade…"
"All my life I have searched for a woman as warm and as hungry and as passionate as you are. I've searched for a woman who would give herself honestly and willingly to me and not ask for anything in return except the same hungry passion."
"You never caused me any pain," she whispered.
"I didn't give you pleasure."
Lainie shivered and bit back a throaty purr as Slade's fingers ran the length of her leg and then back only to hesitate near the juncture. His caress was feather light, enticing and seducing all the while giving reassurance.
"Put your legs around me," he told her huskily.
She did as he told her. Her hands trembled as they settled on his shoulders. She froze when his fingertips traced her flesh along the inside of her thighs. Always moving higher, he teased with exquisite tenderness. She closed her eyes and held on to his shoulders so hard that her fingers pressed deeply into powerful muscle, leaving their mark.
"Does this hurt?" Slade asked looking at her.
She saw the tenderness in his eyes as well as the sweet hot rise of hungry desire. "Nay," she whispered letting her head fall forward and rest on his shoulder, unable to withstand the rising passion she saw in him.
"Does it give you pleasure?"
"Ye know it does," she whispered finding words difficult.
"I know."
"Sweet Jesu, but I should tell ye to stop," she said. "I shouldn't let ye do this to me again."
"But you won't."
Nay." Lainie looked up again. He brushed his lips over hers in a tenderness that spoke of longing and unfulfilled passion. "Because I want all you can give me. You put a song in my heart--a heart that was dead until you came into my life."
He leaned his head against Lainie's forehead. "I was afraid you would refuse to let me close to you again."
"When you touch me, I loose the ability to think," she murmured.
"So soft and silken," he said, caressing her, teasing her to a point where he could well and truly make her his. But he wanted to wait. He wanted her to need him so much that she begged for his touch.
He set her down beneath the waterfall, her legs trembling. Fire rushed through her body. She forgot everything--her promise to herself, her bargain with the man who would not let her refuse him. All she knew was the sweep of heat and the flames that touched her all the way to her core.
Moving his head from side to side, Slade stroked her stomach and her hips with his cheeks and the silken strands of his hair.
"You are everything a man could want, silky and soft," he told her. "Hot, so very hot a man could melt. Open for me, sweet Lainie. Let me show what making love should be. Open for me as a flower opens for the sun. I want to give you a pleasure you will never forget. I want you to remember this day with pleasure for the rest of your life."
Lainie couldn't help but surrender to the tender pressure between her thighs, allowing Slade access to dark, secret sensitive places. A soft gently exploring touch was her reward. Its gentle heat surprised her, weakening her knees. She made a broken sound of astonishment and pleasure then tried to catch her balance.
"That's good. Just relax. Let me do everything," Slade whispered. "Hold on to my shoulders."
Suddenly Lainie understood why his touch had been so silken and smooth.
"Slade."
He answered with another silken, heated caress and left her trembling from head to toe.
"Relax little darling. Don't fight this. We both know it's what you wanted the first time," Slade whispered. "Let me give you more pleasure than you could ever dream existed."
Slade made a husky sound of pleasure that reverberated throughout her body. She slid her nails across his back as he sent a wave of molten heat right to her core.
"Ah, Lainie, you were made for loving. You're hot and sweet and you swell with my caress."
Lainie couldn't answer. She had no voice, no coherent thoughts. She knew nothing but the inferno Slade ignited within her, releasing her from control and giving it all to Slade.
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Heat pulsed through her. She let out a tiny cry, shattering the stillness surrounding the pool. She moaned and lightning seemed to lick through her. Her body writhed and pulsed. Then she melted against him, trembling and spent, wondering at the pleasure that had taken her to the highest point she'd ever been.
Slade moved back watching her and holding her because she could barely stand. He tucked her head against his chest and rocked her slowly while she recovered.
Highland Song Page 25