Chapter 12 #3
“Is that so hard to believe, MacGowan?”
He said nothing.
“’Tis, isn’t it! And why so? Just because you are strong and bonny and . . .” She stopped the words belatedly, feeling sick, expecting him to laugh, to howl at the evidence of her weakness.
But he did not. Indeed, even that devilish hint of a grin had been wiped clean from his face. He watched her with eyes slightly narrowed, his hands perfectly still on her arm.
She cleared her throat and kept herself from shifting her gaze away.
“You think me bonny?”
She could no longer hold his gaze, but let it drift to the side. The candle flickered atop her walnut writing desk, chasing shadows across the room. “I did not mean that.”
It took a moment for him to speak, but finally he did. “What is it that you meant?”
“Some . . .” She scowled at the quill left atop her ancient desk. “Some maids might find you appealing.”
“Me nose has been broken,” he said. “Twice.”
She nodded, but refused to look at him, for every inch of him spoke of strength and valor and all the things for which she cared.
“Me face is scarred.”
There was a unnatural crease in the center of his chin and his left cheek was marred. She knew without looking at him. Still, something tightened far down below, making her want to squirm deeper into the water. Aye, he was a warrior clear to the bone, and yet, when he touched her . . .
“I am neither charming nor witty, despite me heritage. Not like me brothers.”
“Your brothers!” she scoffed.
His scowl deepened and she wished to hell that she could sink beneath the water and not arise until he was long gone.
“What of me brothers?” he asked.
“Nothing.” She refused to meet his gaze. “There is naught amiss with them, I am certain. Indeed . . . I do not know them well.”
“You sounded . . .” His own tone was perplexed. “Disdainful.”
“Nay.”
The silence stretched around them. She fidgeted.
“Maids swoon at the merest glance from Gilmour. Indeed—”
“Gilmour,” she scoffed again, then winced, mortified at her foolishness.
His scowl had deepened. “’Tis said scores of maids fell to his charms before he met his Isobel.”
She kept her mouth firmly closed and refused to lift her gaze from her own wrist. It seemed so ridiculously pale against his darkened skin. For a warrior she was uncommonly fair. And as weak as a Protestant. But who would not be weak where he was—
“You do not find him appealing?” he asked.
“He matches his steed’s color to his own.” She knew she made little sense.
“What?”
She cleared her throat. “He is too fair and too vain for me own taste, but as I have said afore, MacGowan, I’ve little interest in men, so I am not the one to ask.”
“I beg to differ,” he said, his voice low and his caress soft against her wrist again. “You are the only one.”
There was something in his tone or his touch, or perhaps it was the very air around her that made her shiver. She closed her eyes and hid the weakness as best she could.
Silent seconds ticked away. “You seem to know a good deal about me brother for one who has no interest in men.”
She said nothing.
“And what of Ramsay? You must admire him; his steed is as ugly as sin,” he said, and rubbed a slow circle into the palm of her hand.
She tried to think beyond the feelings his fingers caused. “He punishes himself,” she said.
“What?”
The surprise in his tone brought her fully aware.
“As I have said afore, I’ve no interest in—”
Again he trilled his thumb across her wrist. She shivered from her shoulders to her knees. Coherent thought burned to ash.
“Methinks you protest too much,” he whispered.
“I do not lie!” she said and yanked her arm from his grasp. “So do not think I long for you.”
All the air had been sucked out of the room. One moment it was there and the next it was gone. Voilà. Like magic.
“Lass—”
“Nay!” Her voice sounded shrill, just short of panic. “Do not speak.”
His gaze burned into hers. She held it as best she could, but for a warrior she felt pathetically naked—body and soul.
“Very well. I will let it be.” His own voice was low, and he sat for a moment, entirely unmoving as he watched her. “Tilt your head back. I will wash your hair.”
“I don’t need your help.”
He dipped his hand into the tub. She jumped and he raised his brows as he looked at her.
“The water is cooling,” he said. “I will hurry you along.”
“I am not a weakling maid what needs the help of some brawny—” She stopped before she spilled another compliment, stared at him for an elongated moment, then, in a wild attempt at self-preservation, slipped lower and dunked her head.
For a moment she felt more exposed than ever as her breasts rose into the cooler air. She straightened quickly. Water streamed from her hair.
MacGowan shifted his gaze to her eyes. A muscle danced in his jaw and suddenly her own face felt hot.
For a moment the entire world froze and for the same amount of time, she fought to remain where she was, safely out of his reach.
She thought for an instant that he would touch her, but he kept his hands away, rose to his feet, and walked behind her. In a moment she felt his hands in her hair, felt the soap rub against her scalp.
She closed her eyes to the world, to her own foolishness, to the feelings that raced through her like intoxicating wine.
He dipped his hand into the water, raised it and lathered her hair again.
Then his fingers were against her scalp, easing away the tension.
They skimmed her brow, caressed her ear, traced a path of suds down her throat and onto her shoulder.
She held her breath. For a moment he paused.
She could feel the shift in his attention, and then, like magic, his hand smoothed with velvet softness across her breast.
Hunter gritted her teeth. Sensations sparked like fireworks in her loins. She dared not look down, but she felt her nipple bend and rise in the soapy trail his hand made down her body.
He shifted around her. Their eyes met, then he pressed on her shoulder, and she slipped deeper into the water.
Soft as seal skin, her hair whipped against her back and neck, but in a moment she was up.
He reached for the soap again and dipped it slowly into the water.
There was naught but torture after that.
Slow, nerve-shattering torture. He lathered her arms and shoulders.
Then, with painstaking thoroughness, he washed her breasts and moved lower.
Not a hollow nor a swell nor a dip was neglected until finally his hand skimmed lower still, slipping beneath the water along her belly.
She held her breath as magic raced over her hip and onto her thigh. Every fiber tingled as he caressed her calf, but finally he lifted her foot from the water.
Her foot! When her entire body ached to be—She stopped the thought, managing not to pant like a hound as she watched his progress.
His hands were moving upward, lathering her leg as they went.
Her calf muscles felt limp beneath his ministrations.
His hands encircled her knee, sliding toward her bottom, smoothing, caressing, washing, until they reached the mound of hair nestled between her legs.
He cupped her there. Fire burned, threatening to engulf her, but he was moving again, shifting so that his fingers slipped between her thighs.
She closed her eyes and pushed against his hand, aching with need.
“Lass,” he whispered, and it was that whisper that brought her awake.
She jerked to her feet. Water splashed over his chest. The candle’s flame hissed and sputtered as she stumbled from the tub.
“I’m clean!” She all but shouted the words—like a newly washed Christian staggering from the Jordan.
He rose slowly to his feet, muscles flexing everywhere.
She swallowed hard. “Clean,” she repeated.
“Lass—”
“Nay!” Her voice warbled as she hugged her arms against her chest. “I am not a lass.”
His gaze lowered. Hers followed suit. Above her tightly pressed wrist, her nipples bulged toward the ceiling, bright red and ridiculously enlarged.
Retrieving a towel from the tub’s edge, Lachlan advanced, and though she meant to retreat, she could not.
Indeed, when he stepped up to her, it was all she could do to keep from climbing him like a well-broke steed.
Instead, she merely tilted back her head and hoped her heart would not stop dead in her chest.
He wrapped the towel slowly about her body, letting his hand brush her breasts.
Her knees went limp. She placed her palm against his chest. Perhaps she meant to push him away.
But the feel of his flesh beneath her fingertips was horrendously magnetic, drawing her gaze, her attention, her entire focus.
She slipped her hand lower, letting it ripple over the intense strength of his abdomen and rest just above his plaid.
Tension was cranked as tight as a windlass. Air was impossible to find. A muscle jumped in his cheek.
“Tell me what you want.” The words were gritted, almost as if he were in pain.
She sucked breath in through her teeth and met his eyes. They burned like hot coals in the firelight. “I want . . .” A thousand images soared through her mind. Every one of them showed him naked.
His belly felt as taut as a war drum beneath her hand. His hands were still where they held the towel together between her breasts and every corded muscle in his arm was stretched hard and strong.
But she was strong too. And she could not afford to be weak, not now. She closed her eyes to the heat of her desire.
“I want you to leave,” she whispered.
The world stood still. She dare not breathe, but he spoke finally, his voice low in the shifting darkness.
“Swear to me that is what you want.”
“I swear it.”
For a moment she thought he would refuse and for a moment hope soared, but finally he pulled his hands away.
The high muscles in his chest jumped as though he was enduring some horrendous torture, but he stepped back, his eyes still blazing, and then, like a well-trained soldier, he snatched up his belongings and left the room.