8 #3
It wasn’t enough for either of them. With a quick, graceful movement, Amber sat up. The rush of cool air made her shiver. Instinctively she shrugged the folds of her mantle forward, covering her shoulders even as she reached for the laces at the front of Duncan’s shirt.
“Be as I am,” Amber said, pulling laces free. “Naked but for the mantle.”
“And if I take chill?” he asked, smiling slightly.
“Why, I will warm you, of course.”
Duncan’s smile widened. He threw off his mantle. His shirt soon followed. With a slow care that was both torment and pleasure, Amber drew the mantle back around Duncan’s shoulders and fastened it at the side.
The amber talisman he wore shimmered with an uncanny light, as though infused with Duncan’s own immense vitality. Amber bent her head and brushed her lips over the ancient talisman in silent greeting.
Only then did she give in to the temptation that haunted her, running her fingers through the cloud of dark hair on his chest. Eyes closed, smiling, kneading him as a contented cat would, she tested the muscular flesh of Duncan’s torso with fingernails like delicate, unsheathed claws.
“I love the feel of you,” Amber said softly. “When you slept so unnaturally, I spent many hours rubbing oil of amber into your skin to keep away fever.”
“Did it work?”
“Of course. Amber is noted for its ability to take fire from a body.”
“It wouldn’t work on me now,” Duncan said.
“Why not?”
“Your hands bring me fever.”
Amber didn’t doubt it. She could feel the passionate heat radiating from Duncan’s body.
And if that wasn’t enough, she had the truth of his words pouring into her through the medium of touch.
“’Tis like bathing in a magical fire,” she whispered.
“What is?”
“Touching you. Feeling your passion.”
The smile Duncan gave Amber was rather fierce, but she didn’t care. She felt the truth of him, and that truth was his restraint. He had given his vow, and he was a man who would die before he was forsworn.
“But I must confess something to you,” she whispered.
“Why? Do I look like a priest?”
Amber laughed. “Nay. You look like what you are, a warrior both fierce and sensual.”
“Then why confess to me?”
“Because I only now realized that I smoothed oil over you long after the danger of fever was past.”
Duncan’s breath caught. “Did you?”
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Why?”
“For the forbidden pleasure of touching you.”
One of Amber’s fingertips brushed over a male nipple. The sudden surge of pleasure that went through Duncan was as clear to her as a cry. Her fingers returned, lingered, and teased with a skill far beyond her experience, for his response was her unfailing sensual guide.
“But touching me isn’t forbidden now?” Duncan asked almost roughly.
“No. ’Tis foolish,” Amber whispered, “but not forbidden.”
“Why not?”
She bent her head and kissed first one, then the other, nipple. When she drew her tongue slowly over him, his whole body tightened with a pleasure that was nearly violent.
“Because you promised that I would be safe here with you,” Amber whispered.
“Today,” he said, doubting he would ever be able to withstand such temptation again.
“Yes, today, now,” she said, “in this place where ancient stones watch over the sea.”
Duncan framed Amber’s face with his hands, then took her mouth with a hunger that was like nothing he had ever felt before. The kiss was deep and powerful, urgent with the rhythms of the joining that he would not permit, for he had given his vow.
Amber yielded her mouth and took his at the same time, glorying in the heat and strength of the man holding her. The pricking of her nails against his skin made him groan with pleasure. Hearing his passion, feeling it, tasting it, Amber raked slowly over his muscular back again.
“You will make me wild,” Duncan said against her mouth.
“I feel wild,” she admitted, “but ’tis your doing.”
He bit her lower lip with savage care.
“How wild do you feel?” he asked. “Enough to be naked to my hands and eyes? Enough to let me caress you in new ways?”
The violence of the hunger that went through Duncan as he spoke told Amber that he wanted her to say yes so much that he was shaking with it.
Knowing that, touching him, trusting him, it was impossible for her to say no.
“Yes,” Amber whispered.
Duncan’s arms tightened until she could barely breathe. Slowly he pressed her back until she lay once more on the ground. Her mantle fell away, revealing the pale curves and pink buds drawn tight by his mouth.
“Lift your hips.”
Duncan’s voice was hardly recognizable. The anticipation pouring through him as he looked at Amber’s half-nude body was so great that it almost overwhelmed her. She could barely breathe, much less move.
Amber didn’t know what Duncan was going to do next. She knew only that waiting for it was piling fresh fuel on the wildfire of his passion.
“Duncan?” Amber whispered.
“Lift yourself,” he said. “Let me see the flower whose heart I foolishly vowed I would not take. Today.”
Trembling with conflicting emotions, Amber did as Duncan asked. As her hips lifted, clothes slid down her body, urged by his strong hands. When he was finished she was naked but for the mantle at her back and the bright stockings on her legs. The feeling was both shocking and erotic.
“You are beautiful beyond words,” Duncan said hoarsely.
He was no longer touching Amber, leaving her suddenly vulnerable to her own innate shyness and unease. With a muffled cry she reached beneath herself and jerked a corner of the mantle over her hips. When he moved to pull the mantle aside, she resisted.
“Don’t be shy,” Duncan said. “You are more beautiful than any flower in a sultan’s garden.”
As he spoke, his hand slid beneath the mantle.
The instant Duncan touched Amber, his desire arced through her. It was like being ravished by lightning both gentle and fierce.
Fingers spread wide, he put his palm low on her body and spanned her pelvic girdle with a hand that trembled very slightly from passion and restraint. Then his hand turned and his smallest finger eased through the silky warmth of her hair to find even warmer, silkier flesh beneath.
The unexpected caress sent a cascade of heat through Amber.
The ragged sound of her breath breaking made Duncan smile.
Seeing the centers of her eyes darken and expand in passionate response made blood pool even more hotly between his thighs until his hardened flesh leaped with every beat of his heart.
Feeling the tight, sultry petals brushing against his finger tempted him mercilessly. With every breath he took he regretted the vow he had given.
Duncan’s hand shifted again. Tenderly, insistently, watching Amber’s eyes, he caressed her.
“Duncan,” she said. “What—”