Perfect Strangers (37 page)

"What?" Connor prompted when she blushed harder and glanced away. He slipped his hand reluctantly from around her waist. Applying the crook of his index finger to the wet, silky underside of her chin, he nudged her mouth shut and at the same time brought her gaze back to his. He wanted badly to kiss her again, but sensed this wasn't the time. Later, he vowed, he would kiss her until they were both breathless and wanting. Right now, however, he'd a feeling she needed something much different from him. "Enough to... what, lass?"

"T-to..."

"Tell me, please."

"Enough to
wed me."
She wrenched from his grasp and, clasping her arms tightly about her waist, turned her back on him. The motion wasn't easy, especially considering the way her water-heavy dress and cloak hung from her shoulders like lead, pulling at her and making her movements awkward, but she managed it. It was either that, or let Connor see the humiliation she knew must be evident in her gaze and her expression. Had she really just said that?! Aye, she had. "There, I've said it. Are you happy now?"

"Nay, lass, not yet. But almost."

Gabrielle closed her eyes briefly. The vision of Elizabeth Tudor's pinched, mocking face floated in the blackness behind her tightly scrunched eyelids. Harsh, hurtful words echoed in her ears. She tried to chase the memories away, but they refused to go. Were it not against her nature to hate a woman so recently dead and buried, Gabrielle might finally have allowed herself to feel the animosity for her former Queen that had been slow-simmering inside her for so many years.

Releasing a shaky breath, she used one wet hand to smooth her hair back from her brow. Her fingertips strayed to her lower lip. Her mouth still felt hot and swollen from Connor Douglas's kiss. If she dragged her tongue over her lips, would his taste linger there? Gabrielle didn't dare try it to find out. Surely the sweet, musky flavor of him clinging to her skin would be her undoing.

A heavy weight settled upon her shoulder.

Connor's fingers dug lightly through the soaked cloth, into the tender skin beneath. There was a leashed strength to his touch, a barely restrained impatience that was mirrored in his voice when he spoke. "I dinny find the idea of wedding ye unappealing."

"Really?" The fingertips against her lips felt icy again as they trembled against the kiss-swollen skin there. "Aye, I suppose that's true enough. The chance is good our marriage would give you the heir you so desperately want. I can see where you wouldn't be too opposed to the idea. After all, Mairghread says—"

"Please, Gabby, dinny—"

"—these repulsively wide hips were 'made for birthing' and—"

"'Tis not
all
Mairghread said about ye." The grip on her shoulder tightened, his fingers biting into her skin now. "Och!, lass, she
dinny
use the term 'repulsive,' nor will I let
ye
use it to describe yerself. Nothing could be further from the truth."

"Don't lie to me Connor. Not about this. Don't you dare! I'm not blind. I know the truth when I see it, and I see it every time I look in a mirror."
And every time Elizabeth's cold, cruel words come back to haunt me.
"Believe me, m'lord, I suffer no delusions about how I look."

"What do ye see when ye look in that mirror, Gabby?"

"An overstuffed goose," she replied automatically. Biting down hard on her lower lip, Gabrielle swallowed back the sob that wedged tightly in her throat. Unshed tears stung her eyes, but she refused to let them flow. She would not cry in front of Connor, not about this. If nothing else, she still had her pride.

His hand left her shoulder. Gabrielle waited to hear the telltale splash of water that would signal Connor had turned his back on her and walked away in disgust. What happened instead was so unexpected it surprised a gasp out of her.

A splash did reach her ears, but it was closer than she expected, close enough to make the surface of the water ripple around her. Connor must have bent at the waist, for suddenly he slipped one strong arm beneath her knees and coiled the other around her back.

Gabrielle felt his muscles bunch and strain as he hoisted the burden of her weight, which was added to considerably by her water-soaked gown and cloak.

"What are you doing?!" she cried, even as she wrapped her arms around his neck and shifted her weight trying to spread it more evenly in his arms and make her easier to carry. Telling him to put her down never once crossed her mind; she enjoyed too much the hardness and heat of him pressing against her chilled flesh to willingly relinquish the feeling.

He didn't answer, but instead turned toward the bank and started walking. By the time he reached dry ground his breathing was a bit labored. She thought the dampness clinging to his upper lip and brow had more to do with the effort he exerted than any remnants of his bath.

Stopping in the middle of the small, dawn-lit clearing, he sat her down upon the ground and knelt beside her. He was gloriously naked and wet and... aye, he was aroused.

Gabrielle's heartbeat stuttered beneath the cage of her ribs. Suddenly, Connor wasn't the only one having trouble breathing.

"What are you doing?" she repeated when his fingers went to the laces beneath her chin, laces that held the plackets of her wet cloak securely together.

"Plucking you," Connor replied as he deftly untied the water-tightened bow, then eased the cloak off her shoulders. That done, his hands slipped behind her, his fingers working free the tiny seed-pearl buttons that trailed down the spine of her bodice. "I promised ye last night I'd show ye my true feelings for ye. I can think of no better time and no better way."

"Surely you don't intend to...?"

Their gazes met.

Determined gray meshed with shock-widened green.

"Aye," he replied, his voice low, deep, and husky with raw conviction, "I do."

"Now?
In broad daylight?"
A blush warmed Gabrielle's cheeks. The times they'd made love before had been at night, amid the comforting shield of darkness. Panic bubbled up inside her. Daylight would expose the many flaws in her plump figure, flaws that she could pretend the cover of night had so graciously concealed. "Nay, Connor, please don't."

"Why not, lass? Do ye not want me?"

Gabrielle almost laughed. How could he think such a thing? Her fingers rested limply in her cold, wet lap; she twisted them nervously together. "You know I do. It's just that... truth to tell, m'lord, I'm not entirely sure that
you
want
me."

Connor cocked one dark eyebrow, his gaze leaving hers only long enough to shift briefly down to the part of his anatomy that gave hard, vibrant proof that he did indeed want her. So badly he ached from it. "Does it look like I dinny want ye, Gabby?"

Her attention shadowed his, and her blush deepened to a hotter shade of pink. "Well, no, but—"

"No 'buts' aboot it. I want ye, Gabby, and not for the reason ye think. Aye, I'll not lie and say I dinny want an heir, several of them in fact, because I do. Howe'er, if ye said ye dinny want to carry me bairns, 'twould not change the way I feel for you. I'd still be wanting to lay ye back against the cool, sweet grass, strip ye bare, and make love to ye until neither of us could think straight."

She didn't want to ask.

She
had
to ask,
had
to know.

The uncertainty of his motives was gnawing at her insides, creating doubts where, perhaps, there should be none. "Why?"

Connor's fingers left the buttons at her back. His hands shifted, his open palms gently cradling her cheeks. His expression didn't blanch, nor did his gaze waver as, without missing a beat, he replied, "Because I love ye, Gabrielle Carelton. Why else?"

The sincerity with which he uttered the words made her spirits soar higher than the eagle that circled the sky above. She was torn between a strong sense of disbelief and an even stronger sense of unadulterated joy. Had she misheard? Had he really said he loved her? Dare she hope it was true? "But how can you? I'm not beautiful. I'm not—"

"Ye are to me," he corrected her firmly. "Ye're maun than beautiful. 'Tis all that matters, dinny ye ken?"

Gabrielle blinked hard, her senses spinning. The Black Douglas loved her? He thought her beautiful? Had she really drowned when he'd pulled her into the water? Died and gone to heaven? She thought she might have, for never in life had she known such elation.

"I'm not dreaming, am I?"

"Nay, lass."

"And you really do mean it, don't you?" Her voice was edged with disbelief.

Connor nodded, the gesture making his dark hair sway wetly against his shoulders. "I do. It may take me a lifetime to prove it to ye, but... Och! lass, I've ne'er meant anything so maun in me life. Why do ye think I finally relented and tried to end the feud between Douglas and Maxwell? Do ye think I'd do that for anyone else but ye? Nay, I would not have. But
ye
were the one who asked it of me and, try though I do, I cannot deny ye anything, e'en that."

Gabrielle unlinked the fingers clenched tightly in her lap and, his words filling her with a heady burst of confidence and boldness, splayed her open palms against his naked chest.

He felt hot and damp to the touch.

He felt oh so very wonderful.

The smile she bestowed upon him was so radiant that at first Connor was too entranced by the sight of it to realize she was speaking. Even once he did realize it, her words did not register in his mind and he was forced to ask her to repeat them.

"I simply pointed out that there's another feud in need of settling, m'lord."

"There is?" he asked, dazed by both her touch and the intense desire it aroused within him.

"Aye. The one between you and your twin."

Gabrielle's hands were not content to remain still. She began stroking restless, distracting circles over his hard-muscled chest and belly, his shoulders and arms. He groaned when her water-wrinkled palms left a blazing trail of molten fire in their wake.

"Later, Gabby," he said throatily, his mouth dipping with slow intent toward hers. "We'll discuss it maun, maun later."

His mouth carried through its promise and was on hers, his tongue urging her lips apart. His kiss was ravenous; it obliterated all thoughts of family and feuds and weddings from her mind.

Connor's arms stole around her, holding her impossibly close, and Gabrielle decided abruptly that later would suit her just fine. There was no rush... now that she knew there would
be
a later.

A lifetime of laters.

She looked forward to each and every one.

The End

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Perfect Strangers
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