He turned in his seat and saw the pain burning in her wounded gaze.
He rose from his chair and approached her, eager to feel the softness of her body wrapped tightly in his arms, to ease the hurt of her eyes.
But she did not rush into his arms as he had expected, as other women would have done. She took a step back and shook her head vigorously.
“No…please…”
He paused, momentarily confused, and then a realization tore through him like the jagged blade of a dagger. He knew the reason she didn’t want his comfort.
“Yer pain…Jack is the cause, aye?” His hands clenched at his sides. Did he truly want the answer?
Shock reflected in her wide eyes and drained the color from her face. “How did you—?”
“Ye spoke of him in yer sleep. Everything ye do is for him, ye said.” The days of wondering drew to a tumultuous peak and bitterness seeped into his voice.
Her gaze hardened, but she did not look away. “You are correct, but not in the way you think.”
“And ye know what I’m thinking?” Deep down he knew she did. Yet he was fearful to hope and afraid of having the splinter of trust tamped down.
She took a step toward him and closed the cold gap she had widened between them. She rested against his forearm, hot against the chill on his skin. “I do and it’s not what you suspect.”
Mariel let the comfortable quiet fill the space between them and waited for a stream of questions. They never came.
He gave her a courtesy she had not allowed him, could not afford to allow him. Silence and pleasure had been the weapons she’d used to draw the words from his lips. She had not counted on such a raw confession of emotion, nor had she been prepared for the intensity of the bond growing between them.
In a game where he was supposed to unveil his secrets, they had both inadvertently bared their souls.
Mariel wrapped her arms around the flimsy dress and shifted her gaze to the floor. Had he seen her for who she truly was? Had she revealed too much?
She wanted to look up, to confirm her fears, and yet she found she was afraid of what she would see.
“Blue always has been a fine color on ye.”
Startled, she jerked her head up and found him staring at her hands with a boyish smile.
She glanced down at her hands and laughed, giddy with the reprieve from the break in a conversation that ran too deep for comfort.
“We’ll have to have a dress made for ye with the wool ye dyed. The color suits yer eyes nicely.”
Mariel laughed again and allowed him to pull her woad blue hands against the roughness of his palms. “Who knew you were such a flatterer, Kieran?”
“I’m sure flattery is something ye’re verra used to.” He paused in his inspection of her fingers and raised an eyebrow.
His hand closed over hers and heat blossomed in her cheeks. “Not from you.” She glanced shyly up at him through the veil of her lashes.
He grasped her chin and tilted her face toward his. “Ye are the most fragile wee woman I have ever laid eyes on.”
Mariel’s brow furrowed. That was flattery? The compliment of her hands suddenly looked like a courtier’s praise.
“I’m no finished.” The grin that hovered on his face indicated he knew full well what she thought. The rogue. “Ye are the most fragile thing, and yet ye have a strength within ye that I’ve seen only in my warriors. I’ve no seen such spirit nor unyielding determination in any other woman.”
She had been expecting admiration of her fair skin or her unique eye color. Isn’t that what men usually praised? But the compliment he offered took her aback.
He saw more in her than she saw in herself.
“Ye’re no so bad to look at either.” His gaze swept over her, unabashed with obvious appreciation.
His thumb brushed against the line of her jaw and Mariel found herself smiling up at him.
“Yer skin is smooth as silk.” A ripple of excitement raised the hair on her arms. “Everywhere.” His voice was a strangled groan that tightened her nipples.
Mariel felt herself sway toward the hard wall of his chest, as if physically drawn to his strength, his warmth. The pad of his thumb brushed her lower lip, sending an insistent thrum of desire humming in her core.
He stared down at her and a muscle leapt in his jaw. “We canna do this.”
Frustration coupled with the sting of hurt. His face became impassive and the wall he so often put up rose between them once more.
“You want me,” she insisted. She could feel the proof of his desire pressing against her belly.
“I dinna need a mistress, Mariel.”
He stepped away, and the chill of the room crept across her scantily covered flesh. His rejection burned deep despite the comfort his words had brought only moments before.
He strode to his chair and sank into it before resuming his stare into the smoldering fire.
But Mariel did not move toward the door.
This was not over.
She would not give up so easily.
Chapter Eighteen
The floor was cool beneath Mariel’s feet, a balm for the searing heat flaring through her.
Kieran stared into the flames of the fire, his gaze unfocused. She knew he expected her to leave, but she would not. She could not be rejected again, not with so much at stake.
Mariel drew a deep breath in an effort to gather the strength to sever herself from the newly formed bond between them. If she stayed, she could not allow herself to deepen that connection or she might never succeed at what she’d been sent to do. No, this needed to be an act of a physical nature. An act aimed at his pleasure.
One that omitted her feelings and thoughts. They were far too dangerous.
She did not ask his permission to stay. Instead, she knelt beside his chair. His gaze turned to her, startled no doubt by her lack of obedience to his firm command. The wooden floor was smooth beneath her knee as she leaned forward and trailed her finger along the side of his strong calf.
“Mariel…” His tone held a wary note, and he tensed beneath her fingertips.
Her hand skimmed over his knee and brushed the hem of his kilt. Were Kieran a typical target in the usual setting, he would have succumbed to the effects of the laudanum by now.
She inched toward the edge of his plaid and higher still to reveal the middle of his thigh. Her fingers trembled in their ascent across his legs, hard with muscle despite being relaxed and sprinkled with dark hair like his chest. She had never proceeded this far before.
Kieran’s eyes were inky black with desire, watching. Waiting. She bent over his knee and swept her lips across the coarse hair. He did not move to stop her.
A languid thrum of longing pulsed low in her belly. She slid her palms up his thighs and focused on his knees in an effort to pretend he was another man, one she did not respect and admire. One she did not care for.
His fingers threaded through her hair and sent a ripple of pleasure tingling down her scalp to the base of her neck. The heat of his arousal whispered against her fingertips, and her heart slammed in her chest with overwhelming anticipation.
Kieran’s hand tightened into a fist against the back of her head with a pressure firm enough to bring her actions to a standstill.
She drew a deep breath and held it in preparation for what she knew would inevitably come next. Rejection.
• • •
Kieran held Mariel pinned in front of him, torn between taking her back to her own bed and carrying her into his. His thighs burned where her fingertips had explored, where her lips had scorched. He should have let her continue her way up his legs, let her mouth wrap around him, hot and wet. His loins throbbed in painful reminder, cursing him for interrupting her once more.
Now she knelt before him with her eyes averted and her mouth soft and trembling. Tense silence filled the room as desire warred with honor.
“Ye dinna belong to me, Mariel.” His words were choked with the yearning h
e’d fought too long to deny.
Her eyes flashed with hurt. “I want to,” she whispered.
There it was again, the offer to become his, the permission to take what he wanted. And this time he couldn’t bring himself to say no.
His fingers tangled in her hair and his mouth came down upon hers, before he changed his mind—before he talked himself out of it again.
The intoxicating scent of rose enveloped him and drove him to the brink of madness. He grasped her slender arms and pulled her from the floor into his lap.
Her long legs straddled his hips as she sank against him, pressing into his cock. He caught her face with his hands and dragged his mouth to the softness of her lips.
With a breathy moan, her lips opened ever so slightly, a sample of what he craved.
The flick of her tongue against his sent a jolt of desire through him. He tugged her head back farther, forcing her mouth open to accept the full extent of his desire. His tongue swept aggressively into her sweet warmth as he spiraled the kiss to a place from which there was no return.
Mariel’s hips rolled against his swollen cock, and she met the hungry thrust of his tongue with her own seductive parry. Still holding her in place by the hair, his other hand cupped the weight of her full breast. Her flesh was like silk beneath his hands-supple, firm silk. She arched her back toward his touch until her supple flesh strained against the low cut of her night rail.
The flimsy fabric shoved easily out of his way, and the firelight played across the smooth expanse of her taut skin. This time, there was no abrupt end to his observation, no untimely weighing in of conscience. This time, she would be his.
Her breasts were full and round, absolute perfection. A small pink nipple hardened in the soft light, stretching toward the warmth of his mouth.
Kieran lowered his head and flicked his tongue over the tip of the right bud. Her sharp intake of breath echoed off the stone walls, encouraging him. He glanced up and circled the tender little nub with his lips before sucking it hard into his mouth, his tongue gently stroking. Her kiss-swollen lips parted and she made a sound somewhere between a whimper and a moan. It was the kind of sound that stroked a man’s confidence.
She pulled at his leine and drew it over the top of his head. Blue fingers trailed over his stomach, and she began a maddening descent to where he lay hard beneath his plaid. His muscles tightened automatically at her touch, and his cock jerked toward her hand. A slow grin spread over her lips.
She was not the only one who could tease.
His fingers eased beneath the provocative slit in her dress, skimming smooth flesh that seemed to go on forever. Caress by intentionally slow caress, he made his way up the softness of her inner thighs to the thatch of downy hair.
With a lazy motion, the length of his finger grazed the heat between her legs. She gasped, and her hips gave a reflexive lurch. Desire tightened in his stomach. If she reacted with such passion to his hand, how would she respond with him buried inside her?
Anticipation tightened his bollocks and he stroked her again. His fingertip traced the outline of her slick cleft before gliding down its hot center. A groan sounded deep in his throat. God, she was so wet.
He cupped the sweet mound with his hand and probed lightly inside of her, teasing before he followed the natural trail of her slit toward the hardened little nub that would give her incredible pleasure. She buried her face against his neck, her breath hot against his ear. He stroked her again and was rewarded with a breathless moan.
If she kept making those sounds against his ear, he would be unmanned long before he even had her.
With languid, purposeful movements, he massaged the tender bud. She arched back in his arms and ground her hips against his hand, her breathing frantic now. She tensed beneath his touch, and he knew she was close to her release.
His cock strained painfully at her high whimper as she stiffened in his arms. He sucked a nipple into his mouth.
He felt her telltale spasm against his fingers and heard his name on her lips as she cried out.
She opened her eyes and blinked slowly, her lips parted. One look at her dazed expression and a realization slammed into him. This woman may have loved other men well, but it was evident she had never been well loved.
He would see an end to that.
Her gaze trailed down his torso like fire to where his arousal thrust up beneath his kilt. Kieran swallowed. Her fingers glided down his sweat-dampened body to his thick belt. The breath hissed out between his teeth in an effort to rein in the desire that threatened to overwhelm him.
She slid her finger along his belt and a languid grin lifted the corner of her lips. The metal prong clanked against the flat edge of his buckle, and the belt went loose. Kieran gripped the smooth wooden sides of his chair to keep from reaching out to her. Her gaze flicked up to his face, and she tugged the belt from his waist so his kilt lay folded, unsupported, across his lap.
Kieran shifted his grip on the chair and focused on the cool wood against his damp palms. Her hand brushed his thigh as she peeled back the top flap of his kilt. Sweat prickled along his brow. She went too slow. He was so hard he might burst beneath her measured movements before she even unveiled him.
She pulled the plaid away from him, inadvertently letting the wool rasp against the sensitive head, until his cock thrust into the blessedly cool air of the room, freed from the stifling heat of restraint.
Mariel’s eyes widened, and her mouth parted in a silent gasp. An arrogant grin spread over his lips before he could stop himself.
His hands caressed either side of her legs, gathering the shimmering silk around her hips. Her legs spread wider, and her wet heat rubbed against the length of his shaft, slick…hot…wanting. His hands balled into fists as if squeezing the delicate fabric might take the edge off the painful level of desire that hammered through him.
His mouth was dry, his blood scalded his veins, and his brain thundered—all with anticipation for what he’d put off for too long. He wrapped his shaft in his fist and nudged the tip against her, teasing her, savoring her, preparing to enter her.
He nudged against her entrance and a primal groan tore from his chest as she gripped the sensitive head of his cock.
One slight shift of his hips, and he would be sheathed within her tight, slick heat.
Chapter Nineteen
Heat raged through Kieran, consuming him in an intoxicating swirl of pleasure and tingling expectation. The blunt edge of his cock pushed gently against Mariel’s moist center. He eased his hands to her narrow waist and shifted his hips back in preparation to thrust into her.
Wet. Her waist was wet. No…her hip. His fingers spanned the damp fabric. A dark stain against the dress ripped through the fog of his desire. He stilled.
“Please, Kieran…don’t stop.” Her words were breathy, frantic. She arched against, him and the stain grew larger.
Fear slammed into him. “Stop. Yer wound has reopened.”
She leaned forward and brushed her lips against his earlobe. Her breath was hot against his neck. “I don’t feel it. Please…” She rolled her hips against him, grinding with a wild need he too had felt only seconds before.
Kieran caught her face in his hands and gently pulled her back so he could meet her gaze. Her eyes were hazy with unmistakable desire, her cheeks still flushed. All good signs that she had not lost too much blood—yet.
“Mariel, ye’re hurt.” Carefully, he eased her from his lap and tried to ignore the gut churning ache of his need. “I need to see how bad the injury is. Ye can look away if ye want.” He hoped she would. Seeing the torn flesh might frighten her.
He eased the gauzy silk up to better inspect the wound. Her long legs were shapely, lean, and completely distracting. Kieran staunched the desire to let his hands sample the sensual curve of her thigh and fixed his attention on her hip.
Several stitches had ripped out and half the gash had reopened. A steady trickle of blood streamed down the curve of her per
fectly rounded arse.
Damn it. How could he have been so careless with her? He knew she was injured, and yet he’d pawed at her like some randy adolescent.
“The wound is going to need to be restitched. I’ll call someone to fetch the healer.” Kieran got to his feet and grabbed his kilt off the floor.
Her hand rested on his forearm. “Please don’t, Kieran.” Her brows knit together with obvious concern. “One look at us and they will recognize why I was here. I don’t want your people to know you’ve been with me…” She lowered her eyes. “…and think less of you for it.”
Kieran stared at her, unsure of what to say. Were the hurt in her voice not so apparent, he might have laughed at the thought of her marring his honor. But she did not jest, and the words she whispered bothered him far more than if someone else had said them of her. “Mariel—”
“You can sew it,” she said quickly.
Kieran frowned. “I’m no a healer. I’ve stitched war wounds on the battlefield, no the flesh of a lady.” The very thought of punching a needle through her petal soft skin made him uneasy. Hadn’t he hurt her enough for one night?
“Need I remind you that this was a war wound obtained on a battlefield?” When he did not respond, she stuck her chin out in stubborn defiance. “If you don’t do it, I’ll do it myself.”
Needle and thread lay in his sporran should it be required after a bout of rough training, but many years had passed since he had need of it.
Blood flowed from the wound and for all her stoicism, she was beginning to pale. Even if he wanted to get the healer, by the time she was roused and had traveled the length to his room, Mariel could very well be…
Muttering a curse under his breath, he snatched his sporran off the mantle. “Staunch that,” he snapped. Did she know nothing of wounds?
Mariel clutched the shimmering fabric in her hand and pressed it tight against her side while he threaded the needle. He filled his discarded cup and passed it to her. “Drink this,” he commanded. The spirits would at least help dull the pain.
Deception of a Highlander Page 13