Knight In My Bed (35 page)

"Every one?" She looked at him, shadows and candle-glow playing across her beautiful face.

“So I have said." Half-besotted with lust, he rubbed his thumb in
 
slow, tender circles 'round one of her vermilion-tipped nipples. "And when the day breaks, mayhap I shall fetch you the sun as well."

She sighed, snuggling closer, her eyes limpid. "And you, my lord? What of your pleasure?"

His pleasure?

Could she truly not know simply holding her thus filled him with such pleasure, he'd soon burst from the sheer intensity of it?

“My pleasure is in the giving," he said, returning his attention to her rose-scented nipples. Hoping to lose himself
 
in passion before his conscience smote him for what he was about to do: indulge his fierce craving for her, then leave.

And leave he would.

He'd take the key she'd so bravely relinquished, and escape at first opportunity, following not his pleasure, his heart, but his duty.

His pressing need to return to Baldoon before Iain's temper unleashed such chaos the
tittle
-tattlers would need centuries to tell the tale.

Her fingers -- warm, smooth, and surprisingly strong -- slipped over his hand, staying the sweet ministrations he dispensed so gladly. Banishing all thought of his hot-headed brother.

"The key is merely to afford you and your friend more comfort," she said, as if she'd read his mind, the words slicing through the thick shroud of his lust.

Donall glanced sharply at her.

Saints, but she was as great an all-seer as Gavin!

Something keen and hurtful hid behind the desire lighting her eyes, but before he could fathom the look, she spoke again. "Naught has changed."

He arched a brow. "Think you?"

She met his gaze full on, her courage bright and shining. "You and Gavin MacFie may while unhindered in your cell, but the door shall remained barred."

Hot fury sluiced through him, the cursed MacLean taint, and he struggled to tamp fit down. Cool his brewing temper and not lose sight of her struggle.

And struggle she did.

Warring emotions flashed across her face, while the bitter edge in her voice heralded the weight of her cares.

He closed his eyes for a brief moment, silently cursing himself for a fool. Despite his own vexation, seeing her thus troubled bothered him greatly.

"You are blind, Isolde of Dunmuir," he said, his voice tight, rigidly controlled lest he bellow his frustration at her.

Remind her of the famed MacLean temper.

Toss tinder on her suspicions against Iain.

"Blind?" She tilted her head and the movement cent a sheaf of her hair sliding over his arm.

Cool, flowing silk, heating his blood, and firing his temper at his ineptitude in convincing her of his brother's innocence.

"Aye, blind." Willing the flare of ill humor to recede, he smoothed his free hard down her arm. He captured her band and brought fit to his lips. "A brave lass would look into her heart when seeking truths, and not out fool windows." He gentled the words with a soft kiss on the backs of her fingers.

Her eyes widened, but rather than dispute what he'd said, she pressed her lips together and simply stared at him.

Donall shrugged. "'Tis there, and there alone, your answer lies." He released her hand. "Not out yon windows or inside flagons of foul-reeking potions."

Her face colored at that, and she glanced away, despite his words, looking straight toward the row of un-shuttered windows lining the far wall. Narrow, arch-topped eyes peering out on the silvered night.

Undaunted, Donall cupped her chip and turned her face back to his. "Fair lady, you are wondrous full of puzzles." He touched a fingertip to the lone freckle on her cheek. “How is fit, you can dab whore's paint on your breasts without batting an eye, yet one mention of that sharp-smelling tincture and you blush furiously?"

The high color in her cheeks glowed near as red as the vermilion staining the tips of her breasts. Donall peered at her, curious beyond redemption. "What is the brew?" he
 
prodded. "Have mercy and ease my wonderings, for I will not be gulled into believing it is what you've claimed."

His gaze raked her from the crown of her pretty head to where her gown and camise still bunched 'round her waist ... and saw naught but unblemished creamy skin.

"You have but a single freckle," he said, his MacLean temper vanquished by the powerful swell of his lust.

He placed a light kiss atop the freckle. "And a most fetching freckle it is," he said, a genuine smile curving his lips.

"A bonnie freckle, indeed," he jested, extraordinarily pleased at the way her own lips lifted in a tiny half-smile at his teasing. Totally smitten, he kissed the freckle again. "I would sorely regret its demise."

"There were others," she began, fidgeting at the lie. "I b- banished them all
wi
-" she broke off when he shook his head.

Clearly defeated, the blush drained from her cheeks, quickly replaced by the soft vulnerability he found so difficult to resist.

A vulnerability alluring enough to melt the most jaded knight's heart, yet enough steel in her blood to make that same warrior's hardened soul swell with pride.

Despite his best efforts to remain impassive, a frustrated sigh welled in Donall's chest, and this time he didn't even try to hold it back.

"By all the prophets and apostles, lass, it cannot be that damning," he swore, his voice gruff, riding his aggravation. "What is the vile potion?"

She turned her head to the side and for one gut-wrenching moment, Donall feared she'd cry, but then a worse thought seized him. "Are you ill?" His fool MacLean heart twisted in anticipation of her answer.

To his astonishment, she smiled. Little more than slight twit-
chings
at the corners of her mouth at first, but blossoming into a beaming smile of such radiance, it rivaled the light of all of Baldoon's finest candelabra combined.

A smile to light the darkest night.

Or warm the emptiest heart.

"Aye, I am ill," she said. "Sorely stricken, and there is no cure. The potion was given to me as a p-preventative measure, but has proven itself worthless save in repelling all who catch its smell."

Something tightened in Donall's chest. Not because of her words, but because of the look on her face as she'd said them. Were he Gavin MacFie, he'd know what the look meant, but he wasn't, so he asked.

"And from what dire scourge is the wretched brew meant to protect you?"

She hesitated but a moment. "From you, milord," she said, looking right at him. "From you."

"
From me?"

She nodded.

"A potion to protect you from me?" Hilarity began to overtake his astonishment. A bold conviviality, moving in fast and hard, ably crowding out his stunned surprise, and even his passion.

"Saints above, lass, 'tis not I who set out to seduce." He skimmed his fingers across the round swells of her breasts.

Her naked, exposed breasts.

Heated desire shot straight to his groin. "Why would you seek to protect yourself from that which you so openly sought?"

She blinked, had the good grace to appear chagrined.

"Sought and won," he added, heeding the urge to needle her when she didn't answer him.

Needle her and take the sharp edge off his growing need to possess her.

He grazed a fingernail over one hardened nipple. "So now you've worn down my resistance, you seek to safeguard yourself with rank-smelling potions?"

"Nay, such is not the way of it," she demurred. "I drank the potion to protect me from myself."

His brows shot upward, the pert nipple forgotten. "
From yourself
?"

"Devorgilla gave me the anti-attraction potion to render me immune to your charms," she said, bold as day, the steel he knew she possessed rising to the fore again. "Charms such as your bonnie chest and that slow, wicked smile you're e'er turning on me."

She stared at him, daring him to laugh. "Much is bandied about concerning your prowess and airs with the ladies," she declared. "I only wanted an alliance. Ne'er did I desire to fall prey to your legendary appeal. I was assured the potion would spare me such a fate."

His last trace of chivalry gone, Donall lowered his head and gave in to the urge to flick his tongue over one of her painted nipples. Unable to curb his lust once he'd touched her so intimately, he drew the nipple into his mouth, and swirled his tongue over its swollen, tender peak.

She arched her back, pressing herself against him, instinctively seeking more. It was the reaction he'd sought, all he needed to know.

"And have you been ... spared?" he asked, lifting his mouth from her sweetness. "Do you still desire `only a bairn'? Or would you have the whole man as well?"

Body, heart, and soul
?

He touched a finger to her damp nipple. "Have you fallen for me, my lady?"

Silence answered him.

Silence and a most telltale stubborn set to her fine jaw.

Donall's heart soared. His fierce MacLean pride wanted to shout with triumph. She'd said she wanted an alliance, naught else. But what she didn't say, and the look on her beautiful face, said more.

Whate'er fool notions had made her desire a child to seal her ludicrous pact, she wanted him now.

Donall was sure of it.

A maelstrom of fierce, joyous emotions surging through him, he gave her one of his guaranteed-to-melt-a-wench's heart smiles. "And you vow the potion to be worthless?"

She surprised him by placing her hand on his chest and smoothing her fingers over the planes of his muscles. Donall melted, his jaunty smile tilting away. Banished by the darker urgings stirring inside him.

Easing her hand over his heart, she stilled her fingers, tensing them as if listening with their nerve endings for the manifest thudding.

The slow pounding of a heart conquered and besieged.

A tiny smile of recognition flittered across her face when her questing fingers heard what they'd sought.

"This is what I sought protection from," she breathed, her words balm to his soul. "Exactly this."

“The beating of my heart?" he could scarce speak, so thick was his throat.

"Nay, sirrah, what its slow, hard beat means." Showing the steel he loved, she captured his hand and placed it over her own pounding heart. "What this means," she said, and Donall was lost.

Totally, irrevocably lost.

A tremor, light and delicate, rippled through her. A sign as sure and true as the damnable thumping in his chest.

She cared.

Cared mightily.

As did he.

A floodtide of pure joy rose within him. Bold, fierce, and
 
shining. "And will you tell me what it means?" He slipped his hand from her grasp so he could caress her cheek. "I would hear the words."

She shook her head, and the refusal struck hard. Stinging and painful as a fired arrow striking its mark. But then she circled her arms around his back, and the pain diminished. "I cannot say the words, Donall of Baldoon, but I will show you."

Lifting her chin, she offered her lips for a kiss. Donall crushed her to him, slanting his mouth over hers in a rough, possessive claiming. A deep taking of her lips, her tongue, her very breath.

Her soul
.

When he eased the kiss to an end, she gazed at him with luminous eyes. The pulse at the base of her neck pounded wildly. His pulse raced, too. Swift, hot, and urgent, an unrelenting stream of need pouring straight into his groin, filling him and demanding release.

But even as he held her, steel bands held him.

Invisible constraints forged of a steel harder than the most adept armorer could hope to achieve.

A forever bond crafted of his feelings, and hers, for there could be no doubt she harbored them. They shouted their existence, shone clear in her shining amber-flecked eyes.

Regardless of how many flagons of her fool anti-attraction potion she'd imbibed to dull them.

A wholly unexpected, giddy sensation swept over him. Wild and unrestrained. Exultant. He could call it naught else, and its fierceness threatened to bring him to his knees.

He pushed away from the table. Sweeping her up hard against his chest, he strode to her bed. With great gentleness, he lowered her to her feet beside the bedpost,
his bedpost
.

His dark eyes heavy-lidded with desire, he regarded with a smoldering look so intense, sheer nerves made her slip out of her soft leather slippers and dig her toes into the floor rushes.

The stiff coolness of the rushes prickling her feet made a welcome contrast to the liquid heat of his gaze and the languid warmth weighing her belly.

“Your eagerness to disrobe pleases me greatly," he teased, his amused gaze lighting briefly on her bare feet before he swept back the bed curtains. He whipped down the coverlets, his swift movements revealing a sharp eagerness of his own.