by Caroline Lee
Which is how he found himself standing in the middle of her room, his eyes following her movements as she poured water from an ewer to a basin, then carefully dipped in a cloth. The last time he’d been here, he’d woken with her wrapped in his arms, his cock hard enough to cut stone. And although Callan had interrupted whatever had been building between them, it hadn’t been that bad. It’d made Jaimie feel as if they were a family.
“Come here,” Agata called softly, and Jaimie felt his feet move before he’d realized it.
When he reached the small table in front of the window, Agata wrung the water from the cloth and lifted it. When its coolness pressed against his forehead, he sucked in a startled breath, but couldn’t quite tamp down the sigh of pleasure which escaped his lips.
At the sound, her expression softened and she dragged the cloth across his cheek, pushing his hair behind his shoulder, and sponging his neck and collarbone.
He realized he was holding his breath as she wet the cloth again and wiped the sweat from the other side of his jaw and collarbone. God Almighty, but it felt good to be taken care of this way.
Closing his eyes, he surrendered to the sensation. Not the pleasure of the cool cloth or her gentle hands necessarily, but the knowledge someone cared. She cared.
When her hands moved away, it took a moment before he opened his eyes. She’d put the cloth down, but was turning back to him with something in her hands—a leather tie? Before he could ask about it, she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Jaimie had stiffened in surprise before he realized what she was doing. She gathered his hair and secured it with the tie so it hung down his back instead of in his face.
But when she was through, she didn’t pull away. Nay, instead, she rested with her arms around his neck, watching him.
“There,” she whispered. “I’ve wanted to do that for a while.”
He tried to clear his throat, but couldn’t force any sound out. He didn’t even know what to say. Instead, cautiously, he lifted his hands from where they hung by his side and slowly, gently, rested them on her hips.
And she smiled.
They stood there, her arms around his neck, his hands on her hips, and it seemed so comfortable. As if the universe—as if God Himself—were showing Jaimie how life could be.
He’d promised himself he wouldn’t push her. Wouldn’t take her the way he had on their wedding night. Nay, he wanted to wait until she gave herself to him, until she told him to take her, but… but the look in her eyes, the heavy-lidded look of breathless anticipation, told Jaimie she was as aroused as he was.
He knew passion when he saw it.
“Lass,” he whispered roughly. “I wanted ye to have control of this, but…”
It wasn’t his imagination that she sucked in a breath. “Aye?”
Please God, let her say she yearns for this as well.
“Agata… may I kiss ye?”
She groaned in surrender and dropped her head back. “Aye, Jaimie! Now, if ye please.”
He didn’t even stop to smile at her pert command. Instead, his lips brushed against hers, then again, then…
Then he just stopped and savored the feel of a woman’s lips on his, barely touching, the taste and smell and nearness of her. It’d been years since a woman had allowed him to kiss her, and this was no mere woman.
This was Agata!
Under his gentle touch, she made a little noise of frustration and shifted her weight. She tugged him closer. He didn’t bother fighting, but lost himself in her touch.
And when her lips opened of their own accord, Jaimie’s tongue swept between them as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She moaned against his lips and pulled him even closer, until she was leaning back and his arms were around her slim waist supporting her. Their tongues danced erotically, and he remembered all the times he’d imagined her like this.
The reality was even better.
God only knew how long they kissed before he backed her into the table. The basin clattered against the ewer. He pulled away from her with a gasp, reaching for the pottery, but she kept her arms locked firmly around him.
They were both breathing frantically as they met each other’s gazes.
“Agata,” he breathed, his throat tight and his cock thick against his thigh. He couldn’t think of aught more to say than, “Agata,” again.
She loosened her hold long enough to place one palm against his cheek. “Why do ye cover this?”
It hadn’t been what he’d expected her to say, not after she’d allowed him to kiss her. “What?” he asked, rearing away from her touch.
She followed. “I wish ye’d wear yer hair pulled back, Jaimie. I’ll have special ties made for ye, or ye can use mine.” Her fingers stroked his cheek once more. “Then ye willnae be able to hide.”
He swallowed. If she wanted that—if she commanded him—he would shave his head as bald as his chin. But a habit of many years was hard to break.
“If I wear it pulled back…”
“Aye?” she prompted gently.
And he knew she already suspected what he would say. “Then everyone will see… see my scar.”
But she just shook her head slightly. “Ye donae want them to see ye, Jaimie. Why is that?”
“Because I used to be handsome!” he blurted.
Then, ashamed of his weakness, he tried to pull out of her arms once more, the kiss nigh forgotten in what she was asking from him. But Agata was stronger than he was, and didn’t release him. Instead, she just smiled gently.
“Ye still are, husband.”
Handsome? He snorted.
She continued. “I find ye handsome, and I’m the only one who matters, aye? Besides, regardless of what ye’re saying now, I donae think ye’re so vain as to be ashamed over a little scar.”
“Little—?” he repeated. Could she really be so blind? He held up his hands in front of her, trying to frighten her. “Is this so little, eh? I lost my fingers, Agata!”
She merely nodded and dropped her hold to his hands. When he should have stepped away from her—away from this room and the things she was making him feel—she tightened her hold on him, twining her fingers through his.
“Aye, ye did. Will ye tell me what happened?”
“Nay.”
“Jaimie, ye are a good man. I ken ye’re ashamed, but I donae ken why. Will ye tell me?”
Ashamed. She was wrong. He wasn’t a good man. He closed his eyes tightly, hating how gently she was asking him.
But in only a few short weeks, she’d come to know him better than anyone. She knew he could resist a plea, but when she hardened her voice, he was powerless.
“Jaimie,” she commanded. “Tell me.”
He couldn’t deny her.
But he couldn’t tell her while looking at her. He jerked away again, and this time she let him go. Facing the window, he forced his eyes open and scrubbed his hand across his face.
“There was a woman.”
It was a start, at least. Behind him, she made a little noise of encouragement, and he heard her move across the chamber. Somehow, it was easier when she was further away. Further from his shame.
“I fostered with the Grants, her family, and I thought…” He shook his head and took a deep breath. “I loved her. I’d kenned her for years, and she gave herself to me.” He hadn’t been her first, but it didn’t matter. Not when he’d been so passionate for her. “Even after I went to court and bedded other women, she was the one I kept coming back to.”
She was the one who’d held his heart, who’d enjoyed the power over him.
Agata’s voice was soft when she asked, “What happened?”
With a muffled curse, he turned from the window and snatched up the cloth she’d dropped. Throwing it into the basin, he didn’t even bother wringing it out before he slapped it against his shoulder, viciously rubbing at the sweat and dirt from the training session.
“Tell me.”
His hand s
tilled and he closed his eyes. God in Heaven, she knew what he needed. Her urging loosened something inside of him, allowed him to breathe again. Jaimie forced himself to say the words.
“I visited her family, and she came to my bed. I pleasured her… and the next morning, she told me she was to be married to my brother.”
Agata’s startled gasp was eclipsed by a crash. Jaimie swung around to see her skirts sway around her and a small wooden chair on its side behind her. She’d stood up so suddenly she’d knocked it over? And judging from the way her hands were fisted by her side, she was furious.
“Aileen,” she hissed.
He nodded, his heart breaking again, knowing he’d caused her pain, mentioning David. “Aileen would never be satisfied with me, not when David was laird. I ken that now,” he mumbled as he began to slowly wipe down his arms. “She married him the following day, and I returned to court.”
“Jaimie,” she whispered, and he hated the pity he heard in her voice. He’d pitied himself too damn much over the last years. Swallowing, he turned away, concentrating on the cold water and cloth.
“She kept sending me messages, inviting me to visit. Callan was born nine months after their wedding, and I—” He felt his throat closing up at the memory. “I had to see the lad.”
Suddenly, she was beside him once more, but didn’t touch him. “He’s yers?” she asked in a rough whisper.
He shook his head, then lifted one shoulder in a hopeless shrug. “He has the Mackenzie eyes, but Aileen’s hair was as dark as mine. He could be David’s.”
It was the not-knowing part which had kept him away for so long, only to drag him back in moments of weakness. Aileen had never told him the truth, but laughed and waved away his questions as if they hadn’t mattered. And maybe they hadn’t. David had thought the lad was his son, and Callan would be the next Mackenzie laird, assuming his regent didn’t fail him.
That’s when Agata touched him again. “He could be, and he has yer spirit, Jaimie. Yer love, yer passions.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. She was right, just as she’d been that day outside the walls, when he’d gone looking for them and she’d told him how much Callan needed him. The lad had needed to know it was fine to grow up feeling and expressing himself, rather than the way David had been… because Callan was so very much like Jaimie himself.
And, as he’d told himself before, he would raise Callan as if it didn’t matter. Maybe the lad was David’s. Maybe he was Jaimie’s. But either way, he was the next Mackenzie laird, and Jaimie loved him.
“Will ye…” She hesitated, then continued. “Will ye tell me what happened to ye, Jaimie?”
He’d oblige her, since he’d come so far already.
Cold water dripped down his arms, and he tossed the now-dirty cloth back into the basin. The breeze from the window caused his skin to prickle with awareness, and he bit down on a shiver.
“She begged me to come for Yule when the lad was four. I took him riding,” he admitted, the memory a happy one.
“I remember Callan saying that,” she said encouragingly. “’Tis good he has such fond memories.”
Jaimie’s nod was more of a quick jerk, and suddenly, he was desperate to get it all said. “I confronted Aileen once more, and we quarreled. She accused me of no’ really loving her, and by that time…”
He shook his head. He’d realized what he felt for Aileen had been a yearning, while she’d had some kind of need to be in control of him. It could have been wonderfully freeing, to grant her control… but by then, he knew he couldn’t trust her.
Not the way he trusted Agata.
He tried again. “Now I ken she saw her control over me slipping, and that upset her more than my feelings did. She said…” He took a deep breath and shot a glance at Agata before looking away. “She said if I didnae love her, she’d rather die. I thought she was being dramatic, so when she ran out into the night, I didnae bother telling David.”
“Ye followed her.” Agata’s fingers tightened around his upper arm.
It hadn’t been a question, but he nodded. “Aye, I followed her. It wasnae snowing, but it was bitter cold. I couldnae see her, but I could hear her, laughing, calling to me.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Telling me it was my fault she wasnae in the warmth where she belonged.”
He remembered that. He remembered her mocking words, but they were impossible, because…
“But by the time I found her, she was frozen. She’d fallen down a bank and hit her head. It was hours later, and she was damn near solid. I… I remember being near frozen, too.” He’d put his cheek against hers, had gathered her face in his hands, and had wept.
Agata’s hand slid down his wet arm to his hand. “That scar…ye told me ’twas a cold burn, aye? Ye sat there with her body and allowed the cold to scar ye?”
He stared down at their hands, his fingers barely longer than hers now. “Aye,” he whispered. “It seemed appropriate.”
“And ye think ye failed her. Ye think ye’re the reason she’s dead.”
Again, it wasn’t a question, but he nodded, unable to speak.
“Ye feel shame because she’s dead?”
Her faintly skeptical tone forced his gaze up to hers. There was something sparkling in those warm brown depths, and the knowledge irritated him.
“Her death was my fault, aye. I cost Callan his mother, and David his wife. And myself…” His voice caught, but he pushed on. “It cost me my—my pride.”
She scoffed. “Ye’re being vain again, Jaimie. Yer ability to woo the court ladies wasnae—”
“Vain?” The word exploded out of his mouth like a curse. “Is it vain to mourn the loss of my hands, lass?” His fingers tightened on hers. “I lost my ability to—”
“To what, husband?” she snapped in a suddenly firm voice. She stepped closer, her body—her breasts—pressed against his side. “To write? To wield a bow? To paint?” She pushed herself up on her tiptoes. “To woo a woman?” she whispered in his ear.
And more than the picture those words conjured, it was the challenge in her voice which made Jaimie’s eyes narrow. He dropped his chin so his lips were even with hers.
“Ye saw me wield a sword and taught me to paint, lass. Are ye doubting my abilities in other areas?”
When her eyes flashed with victory, he realized he’d walked right into her trap. And he didn’t mind one damn bit.
“Prove it,” she challenged.
The knock on the door made both of them jump, but they didn’t pull apart.
“My lady, the bath ye requested—oh!” Morag, the little serving wench with the limp, blushed and glanced at the floor when she saw the two of them standing so close. “I mean… yer bath is ready, laird. I mean, milord. I mean…”
Flustered, she curtseyed and backed out of the room. Jaimie watched her go, but when he turned back to his wife, Agata was watching him with a speculative look.
“What?” he snapped.
She grinned. “I’m going to prove ye’re still the man ye remember. Follow me.”
Chapter Nine
Agata liked that he didn’t resist as she tugged him into his room, then shut the door behind him. Just as in her chambers, he stood in the middle of the room and watched her warily. He wasn’t quite sure what her plan was, and that empowered her.
This was it. This was the moment she would show him who he was.
The bath steamed in front of the hearth, the scented oils perfuming the air. This room was smaller than hers. She’d only been in here a few times since her return as Lady Mackenzie, and had decided she liked it much more than the laird’s chambers. As she strolled toward the hearth, she pondered the possibility of moving her things in here to be with him.
Because the more she got to know Jaimie, the more she realized she would be quite delighted to spend the rest of her life curled up with him in bed.
And after today, he’d know it, too.
Turning, she met his gaze, reached up, and began to untie he
r gown. She made fast work of the laces, and soon the midnight-blue wool was hanging low on her shoulders.
His hands slowly fisted at his sides as he watched, and although his breathing was slow and even, it was a little too deliberate, as if he was forcing himself to stay calm. Which is why she allowed her desire to show in her smile.
Mayhap she was a better seductress than she’d imagined, because he sucked in a breath and his tongue traced his lower lip as his nostrils flared. The memory of their first kiss—how long she’d waited to kiss him—made heat pool in her belly.
She held his gaze as she pushed her gown down over her shoulders and wriggled out of it, kicking it and her slippers aside. Her chemise was just as modest as the gown had been, but she noticed the way his eyes dropped to her breasts. Was he remembering the way she’d placed her breasts in his hands? Was he looking forward to doing it again?
It was difficult to tamp down the giggle which almost crawled up her throat, but she did. Stripping in front of him made her feel powerful. She didn’t need power over Jaimie, not the way Aileen obviously had… and she cared too much about him to ever hurt him. But she was in charge, as he’d said he’d wanted.
“Jaimie, take off yer boots.”
He nodded and bent to pull off his shoes. When he straightened, he met her eyes once more with a look which was part challenge, part yearning.
So, she rewarded him with an approving nod. “Good. Now yer kilt.”
He hesitated a moment longer, but his hands eventually moved to his buckle. He made short work of it, and as he dropped it on the floor, the tartan around his hips sagged, held up only by his hands clasped in front of him. Unlike their wedding night, he wasn’t wearing a shirt, but he hadn’t been this modest the night she’d washed his hair.
“Jaimie,” she cajoled with another smile.
His chin came up, and with a sudden breath, he let the kilt fall.
It was her time to suck in a delighted gasp. He was perfect to her. Three years of hard living and drink hadn’t destroyed his body. In the weeks they’d been married, he’d trained with the men as often as possible. His shoulders were broader and his stomach more defined than on their wedding night. With his hair pulled back, she could see the pride and challenge and intensity in his expression.