Perfect Strangers (35 page)

"The feud will not end so simply, lass," Connor said. Yet even as he heard the words bouncing off the cold stone around him, heard them echoing roughly in his ears, he found himself doubting their sincerity. Was he wrong? Could a feud that had started so simply, over a woman and a horse, end with equal ease? There was but one way to find out. As Gabrielle had so wisely pointed out all he could do was try. He had. Grudgingly, aye, but he had. In the end, only time would tell if his meager effort would be successful.

Gabrielle's smile faded and she looked suddenly uncomfortable. Letting her hand drop to her side, she averted her gaze and, her voice soft and shaky, asked, "What you said earlier about me, m'lord, did you mean any of—?"

A commotion sounded from above, halting her words. Feet stomped, male voices roared. Apparently a Douglas had spotted either Roy or Siobhan and assumed the pair was escaping. A natural assumption, one he would have made himself under similar circumstances. While he longed to linger and offer her an abundance of comfort and reassurance, there was no time for such luxuries. His attention was needed above.

Connor's gaze dipped, fixing on her mouth. Nay, more precisely it fixated on the small, moist tip of the tongue that darted out to lick her full, perfectly shaped lips.

He swallowed a groan and leaned toward her, his mouth brushing over hers. Back and forth. Gently, gently. Her breath smelled sweeter than wine as it washed over his skin, seeping deeper and deeper into him. "Aye, lass," he whispered huskily against her mouth, his gaze holding hers ensnared. Now that they'd been voiced once, he was surprised to discover he'd no problem saying the words again. They felt almost natural as his tongue curled around them. "I meant e'ery word and more."

"H-how much more?" The crack of anticipation in her voice was nearly missed to the escalating noise emanating from the floor above.

Curling his left hand into a fist, Connor stroked the back of his knuckles over her softer-than-velvet cheek. "Lass, I've made ye a promise and I intend to see it kept. I maun go above and escort Roy Maxwell safely out of Bracklenaer afore me men kill him and worsen the feud ye've tried so hard to end. Once that chore is completed, with yer permission, I'll happily prove to ye exactly how ver maun I meant what I said. I'll prove it all night long, if ye like."

This time the grin that tugged at Gabrielle's lips was one steeped in pure feminine mischief. She cocked one dark brow at him. "All night long, you say?"

"And then some ... if ye insist."

She shivered in hot anticipation and her voice dropped a throaty pitch. "Then you'd best be about it, m'lord. The night grows late, and this is one promise I've no wish to see The Black Douglas break."

"Nor I," he agreed with a rakish grin.

Connor planted a sound kiss on her lips, then turned his attention toward the stairs and the commotion to be settled above. Knowing the unmatched pleasures that awaited him when the chore was over made him impatient to see the task completed with the utmost speed.

Chapter 16

The loch, calm and clear, with nary a breeze to ripple its placid surface, was located within walking distance of Bracklenaer. Gabrielle was surprised to find that by the time she reached the wooded clearing bordering the water, her breath came almost as easily as when she'd left the keep.

Her weeks on this tumultuous side of the Border had been fraught with one adventure after the other. While her several kidnappings and escapes hadn't seen her lose so much as a quarter stone in weight, spending more time in a saddle than out of one—or so it seemed—had relaxed joints unaccustomed to such strenuous exercise, defined and toned muscles in her arms and legs and back, muscles she would never have guessed even existed upon leaving London.

The Black Douglas had once described her as a "maun healthy, sturdy lass." As she stepped into the clearing, that was exactly how Gabrielle felt. At some point the words had lost their bitter sting. They no longer felt like an insult, but something to be proud of.

The circle of branches and leaves above revealed a hazy, pink-and gold-tinted sky. The bellies of the two slim clouds that hung suspended there were a singular, pale shade of lavender.

The air was sweet with the rich perfume of the dew-kissed, vibrantly colored wildflowers growing in profusion on the low bank of the loch, the scent mingling with the crisp sweetness of grass. Her sense of hearing must have been inordinately acute from a night of sleepless anticipation, for Gabrielle could have sworn she heard the soft buzz of a bee as it flitted hungrily from one pollen-rich petal to the next. High up in the trees, birds chirped as though singing out a welcome to the newborn day. Somewhere in the woods behind her, the snap of twigs and hushed rustle of leaves marked the passage of a red deer.

All those sounds were overridden by another, more subtle noise: the gentle tinkle of water being cupped in a big, hard palm and splashed over broad shoulders and a wide, sinewy chest.

Gabrielle stopped on the edge of the clearing, her ears filled with the sound, her dazed
green
eyes filled with the sight that created it.

Connor Douglas stood waist-deep in the frigid, mountain-fed loch, the water lapping against the tight indentation of his waist. She blinked hard, thinking again that her senses were deceptively acute this morn—or her imagination entirely too overactive—for she knew that from this distance and angle it simply wasn't possible to see the tiny rivulets of water trickling down his sunkissed flesh.

Possible or not, imagined or not, her body flooded with a warmth to chase away the dawn's chill. Her right elbow was invisible beneath the folds of her black cloak, hiding the way her fingers balled into fists as her palm itched to run over the slick surface of his skin. Her fingertips tickled with the equally strong and impulsive desire to caress him all over.

A soft, pleasant rumbling sound reached her ears. Gabrielle frowned. It took her a moment to place the noise, and when she did, she gaped, then smiled.

Connor was humming.

While the melody was wincingly off-key, she eventually recognized it as a song her mother had often sung to her when Gabrielle was a child. A song about a knight, a war, and lady fair.

She was surprised a Scotsman could hum with such easy familiarity a song that, until now, she'd considered a completely English one. That it was a song with blatant romantic overtones, and that it was being hummed with such husky intensity by the likes of The Black Douglas, a notorious reiver whom many on both sides of the Border had written songs
about,
was more surprising still.

Most surprising of all, however, was that while Gabrielle found herself mouthing the familiar lyrics in her own language... she couldn't help but wonder how the words would sound in Gaelic. A bit harsher, yet she'd a feeling the no-longer-so-foreign tongue would add a harshly passionate texture to the complex ballad of love, deception, and bittersweet reunion.

Connor's arms were lifted, his hands smoothing water from the dark hair plastered to his scalp and the back of his neck. What was it, she wondered, about the nape of a man's neck, that gently curved expanse between shoulder and hairline, that displayed vulnerability in even the fiercest warrior? Or Border reiver?

Gabrielle's mouth went dry as she watched the water sluice down Connor's spine. His skin was slick, his flesh a shimmering shade of bronze in the early-morning light. If he'd been close to her, she would not have been able to resist the temptation to angle her head and lick off the silvery droplets of water beading on the shelf of his shoulders. They would taste crisp and sweet, she knew, her tongue curled against her palate in thirsty anticipation.

The humming stopped abruptly. His hands, which had been working the excess water out of the shaggy fringe of his hair, stilled. Awareness pulled taut the rigid sculpture of muscles in his back and shoulders.

Connor turned his head, his neck craning as his gaze sliced through the hazy morning. He didn't scan the bank. It was as though his gaze was a magnet and she a motionless chunk of steel standing on the edge of the clearing; his attention was drawn to her with a force that astonished them both. And once there, it refused to budge.

The chirping of birds overhead receded, the sound chased away by a loud thumping.

Curious, Gabrielle traced the noise back to herself; it was the throbbing of her heart in her ears. Her vision darkened around the edges, tunneling down until all she could see, all she
wanted
to see, was a wet, naked Connor Douglas: his gray eyes, piercing and narrow and intense.... his dark hair slicked back against the cup of his scalp... the morning light kissing each angle and plane of his harshly carved face. His skin was a wet temptation to her palms; her fingers ached to find out if his flesh really felt as wonderfully warm and slippery as it appeared.

Everything around her faded to insignificance.

She felt as though her entire world consisted of herself and Connor Douglas, and nothing else.

Gabrielle's lips parted. She'd sought Connor out to tell him something, something important, yet the words she'd been about to voice died on her tongue unspoken when he lifted his arm and extended his hand to her. The sound of water drops falling from his skin and back into the glossy loch trickled in her ears like the first refreshing splashes of a gentle rain falling on a scorching summer day.

Her attention fixed on his hand. While she couldn't see it from this distance, she remembered each thick, powerful finger, remembered the short, springy dark hair on the back and between the first and second knuckle, the way it teased her fingertips. It was a hand capable of wielding a broadsword with deadly precision:
Tis in my hands she is now, and in my hands she stays.
A hand also capable of caressing a woman's body with a gentleness that was soul-shattering:
Ye've no objection to me doing this... tonight and all the nights after?

Her gaze traced the length of his forearm, up over his shoulder, past the hard, darkly stubbled square of his jaw. Higher. His attention narrowed. The muscle in his jaw ticked. His gaze was intense and... aye, it hadn't been a trick of the hazy morning light, there really
was
a glimmer of uncertainty in his penetrating gray eyes, a flash of vacillation that tightened his expression as he watched her.

The sight touched her, way down deep, in ways a curtly uttered command for her to come to him never could have done.

Gabrielle's legs moved of their own accord, carrying her past the place where he'd carelessly tossed his clothing in a wrinkled heap upon the grass. Her feet felt heavy, her knees weak and shaky, yet somehow the latter found the strength to support her and keep her upright.

Rose brocade dragged over the grass as she took one step.

Two.

Three.

She stopped hesitantly on the bank, so close to Connor now that she no longer had to imagine each droplet of water clinging to his skin—she could
see
them, if possible her gaze could
feel
them. The sight made her stomach do strange little flip-flops, made her breathing uneven and shallow, made her heart pound hard until her head felt dizzy, her senses spinning crazily from the sudden onrush of blood, lack of oxygen, and the tidal wave of raw sensation that being within touching distance of this man always seemed to cause.

Relief seeped through her. Up close she could see that no fresh wounds marred his skin. No trace of blood, dried or fresh, clung to his wet body. It wasn't until Gabrielle had assured herself that Connor was unharmed that she realized how very worried she'd been that he would somehow get hurt while returning Roy Maxwell to his family.

She breathed in a deep sigh of relief. It was then that a new scent reached her, mingling evocatively with the fresh morning fragrance of wildflowers and grass and pine sap. It was the unique, musky male scent of Connor Douglas, and it was a scent to savor.

His arm was still raised, his hand palm up—the skin there puckered slightly from the water—and extended toward her. It was a conciliatory gesture, yet at the same time a beckoning one. It tugged at a place deep down in her soul that she found almost impossible to resist. Almost.

If she reached out—as she was oh so tempted to do—her fingertips would graze his. Connor's would feel warm and wet, Gabrielle knew... even as she commanded her hand to stay exactly where it was, hidden beneath the thick folds of her cloak, so he couldn't see how much he affected her, how badly she was shaking.