Pleasured (7 page)

“Yes, of course.” He looked at her, puzzled.

“Oh. Well . . . thank you. That was kind of you.”

“Did you think I would not?” He scowled. “That I would have ridden off and left you to drown?”

“I don’t know. I don’t really know you.” She turned away, smoothing at her skirts.

“Yet, not knowing me, you are ready to believe the worst of me.”

What was he doing even contemplating trying to win this woman over? Tempting as she was, she could not pos
sibly be worth the trouble. Meg Munro was prickly and baffling and odd. She made him feel off-balance and . . . foreign. Those flickers of hunger whenever he looked at her could easily be fed when he returned to the city. He would be here only a month or two; he could live that long without a woman in his bed. After all, he had had no expectation of bedding anyone while he was here.

He changed the subject, determined to be civil during the time they had to spend together. “How long will it be before the tide goes out again? I assume we must wait here until that happens. I see no way up this cliff.”

“There’s not, unless you can climb like a cat. But we don’t have to wait. I know another way out.” She pointed at the opening in the face of the cliff.

“That hole?” he asked doubtfully. “A cave? But how—”

“You’ll see.” She stepped over to the opening and dropped down on all fours. “Follow me.” Tossing him a mischievous grin, she crawled into the darkness.

6

D
amon stared at her retreating
back. Then, with a sigh, he grabbed up his boots and crawled in after her.

He was relieved to find that after the first two feet, the rock above his head sloped up at a sharp angle so that he was soon able to stand. He peered around him. The area was sunk in gloom, the only light the slanting pool of sun coming through the low entrance behind him. He could see no sign of a wall in any direction, only darkness. The stone floor of the cave was fairly level and dusted with fine grit. A boulder loomed to his right, and across from it a thick stalagmite thrust up from the floor, looking like a huge, milky icicle in the midst of melting.

“Miss Munro.” He turned to Meg. She stood in front of the boulder, her face pale in the velvety dark, her eyes large, their amber color seeming to pull in all available light. “How does this cave offer a way out?”

“These cliffs are honeycombed with caves. Many of them
interconnect, and it is possible to pass through them and emerge on the other side. One exit comes out above my cottage, and I know the way.”

“In the dark?” he asked skeptically.

“Come, my lord.” Her smile flashed teasingly. “Do not tell me you are afraid of the dark?”

“I admit I have a healthy fear of running into a rock wall or tumbling into a hole because I cannot see in utter blackness.”

“We can keep from doing either.” She stepped around the boulder and bent down, then turned back, holding up a lantern. “I have this.”

He stared. “You so often traverse the caves?”

“I don’t usually go all the way through them, as it’s a twisty, up-and-down route, longer than the cliff path. But I do go into a number of the caverns often enough, searching for moss.”

“Moss? What on earth for?”

“There are several lichens that are useful.” She squatted down and busied herself lighting the lantern. “Iceland moss. Irish moss, which I find in one of the lower caves; it grows on rocks submerged in water. Very helpful for coughs.”

“Ah, yes, potions and such.” Amusement tinged his voice. “I was told you were a witch.”

“You seem to have been told a great many things about me.” She fixed him with a steely gaze. “I do not practice witchcraft. I find that magic is what ignorant minds attribute to skills they do not understand. I am a healer; I create teas and tinctures and balms to help with a variety of ailments. There is no sorcery involved, only knowledge of plants and illnesses, passed down through hundreds of years.”

“I beg your pardon.” He nodded his head to her gravely. “I have clearly been misinformed on a number of topics.”

“Yes, you have.” She shrugged and stood up. “There are many people who are too ‘modern’ or ‘scientific’ to believe that my ‘wee folk cures’ can heal a person. That is fine. I help those who come to me and do not worry about those who do not.” Meg picked up the lantern, clearly dismissing the topic. “Come. It’s this way.”

Hastily he pulled on his soaked boots and hurried after her. The boots, squishing unpleasantly as he walked, were also gritty with sand from his dousing in the murky ocean—as was seemingly every other part of him, from his hair to his toes. The first thing he would do when he got home, he decided, was to get into a tub of warm water and wash away all the sand and salt.

“Is that how you live?” he asked, faintly intrigued by the thought, as he followed her up the path. “Selling your, um, tonics and tinctures and such? That is how you are able to, ah . . .” He trailed off, suspecting he was about to raise her ire again.

“Aye.” She glanced over her shoulder at him, her eyes dancing with amusement. “That is how I am able to survive without payment from a man. There are some ways, you see, for a woman to make money without lying on her back.”

“Miss Munro,” he said somewhat stiffly. “I do apologize for impugning your character. I did not intend to insult you, I assure you.”

“I know.” Again she shrugged, her voice light and careless. “It is not the first time I have been accused of selling my body rather than my remedies.”

He felt a twinge of guilt, perversely strengthened by
there being no complaint in her voice as she said it. He should not have acted so quickly, he thought, should not have relied on the word of his housekeeper, whose nature, he had known from the way she spoke, was sanctimonious. He had been, he thought, all too eager to have Mrs. Ferguson brand as licentious the woman for whom he lusted. If he had approached Meg himself, if he had played the game of discovery and desire, he would have realized how little she was like any other women he had known.

She baffled him. What, he wondered, would it be like to pursue a woman who was not angling for some form of payment, whether marriage, a carte blanche,
or coins in her hand? A woman who could choose to let a man into her bed without considering what he would give her in return. How would it feel to kiss lips that sought pleasure instead of doling it out? How differently must her moans of passion ripple through him when she had no need of anything from him except himself?

He had never considered this before, and the notion stirred him—a response, he suspected, amplified by the sight of Meg’s form in front of him, the curves of her body delineated by the wet garments that clung to her. His eyes dropped to the movement of her hips beneath the material, the muslin rendered almost translucent by moisture. Her enticingly rounded bottom flexed and contracted as Meg walked up the rising path.

His gaze slid down her legs, ankles bared as she held up the skirts to walk. Meg’s feet were bare, her shoes having been torn off in the roiling sea. Her pale feet were long and elegant, like her hands, and he thought how it would feel to glide his fingers over her legs, to take that narrow, arched
foot in his hand, to drag his thumbnail along the sole and watch the shiver run up her body.

Damon realized that despite his good intentions a few minutes earlier, he was once again tempting a lust that was all too easily aroused by Meg. Blast it, he normally had more control. But when it came to Meg Munro, nothing seemed to be as normal.

He tried to concentrate on his surroundings. They passed through tunnels and caves, some cavernous, some so narrow it felt as if the walls might close on him at any moment. In minutes he was turned around, with no idea how to retrace his steps. He sincerely hoped Meg’s confidence was not misplaced.

The walls oozed moisture, their surfaces rippled and slick in the lantern light. He saw stalactites and stalagmites, some thick and others no larger around than his wrist. Here they might appear as dry and grainy as a salt pillar; there they resembled a melting candle; still others looked like a sheet of water frozen as it ran. Most were varying shades of white and tan, but in one low-ceilinged cave, the rippled sides were a muted rainbow of colors. It would be a wonderful place to explore . . . when he was not wet and filthy. And cold.

Inside the caves, out of the sun, the temperature was constantly cool, pleasant enough if one was dry, but enough to make one shiver when covered in sodden clothes. Still, even the chill could not thwart the lust rising in him. Indeed, everything about their circumstances seemed to arouse him. Their situation was intimate, alone together in the quiet dark. He could not drop back lest he lose the narrow circle of light cast by her lantern. Her scent teased at his nostrils; he could feel the warmth of her body. If he stretched
out his hand, he could slide it down her back and over that tempting derriere. Once thought, that vision was difficult to banish.

She turned to caution him about a low tunnel ahead, and he could not keep his eyes off the wet cloth that molded to her breasts, clearly outlining the thrusting points of her nipples, sharpening in the cool air. The folds of fabric draped from the gown’s high waist normally concealed the shape of her body, but plastered wetly to her skin as they were now, he could follow every dip and curve—the narrowing of her waist flowing out to feminine hips, then down to thighs and calves. Her body was revealed, yet still concealed in a fashion more titillating than bare skin. His fingers itched to reach out and pull that fabric aside, to slide down her bare skin, slick with moisture. The mystery of her made him ache to explore her, to find out what shade of pink her nipples were and whether that bright flame of her hair was echoed farther down, to map the curve of her back and steal between her legs, seeking the heat.

Desire throbbed in him, a sweet pain that made it difficult to think of anything but her body and all the ways he wanted to discover it, the secrets he wanted to know. It only increased when they reached a ledge and she pulled up her skirts to climb up on it, exposing her legs all the way past her knees. He could not keep himself from reaching out to give her a helpful boost, one hand at her waist and the other under the tantalizing curve of her buttocks, and it was all he could do not to let his fingers roam farther afield.

She scrambled quickly onto the rock, turning her head to shoot him a warning look. But he saw that her chest was rising and falling more quickly, too, and he smiled to him
self as he climbed up after her. A short passage followed in which they had to crawl their way along a tunnel, presenting Damon, behind Meg, with an entertaining view. They emerged in a small chamber where, amazingly, clear water fell from a small ledge higher up, cascading into a wide, shallow cup of rock and running off in a stream.

“A waterfall!” Damon stared at it in amazement. “Here in the depths of the rock.”

She nodded, smiling. “Yes. I took a small detour to reach it. I could not pass up the opportunity.” She started toward the shallow pool. “Come.”

“What?” He gaped at her. “You expect me to stand beneath a flood of cold cave water?”

“Unless you enjoy having sand all over you,” she tossed back as she stepped beneath the waterfall.

He stared at her, struck dumb and motionless by lust. She stood in the crystal cascade, water sluicing over her hair and body, plastering her clothes even more tightly to her form. He watched, his throat dry, as she turned her face up to the spate of water, eyes closing, and let the water flow over her. She turned, reaching up to hold the neck of her bodice away from her back so that the water poured over her skin inside the gown.

Cold be damned, he thought, and yanked off his boots, dropping them onto the floor of the cave. He stepped into the waterfall with her. There he received his second shock. “It’s warm!”

Meg laughed, turning toward him. “Yes. It’s fed by a hot spring. There’s another spot higher and farther along where it runs quite hot, but by the time it reaches here, it’s a wonderful temperature.”

He had to agree. It was like being bathed in warmth and comfort. Except that there was no comfort to be had, not when he was standing a foot away from Meg Munro, watching her comb her fingers through her hair, separating the strands to let the water wash the sand from it. He tried to be practical and mature, but the knowledge that he was essentially bathing with her even though they wore all their clothes was almost too much for his control. He felt the water running over him, warm and sensual, sliding beneath his clothes, and knew she was experiencing the same sensations.

His eyes roamed her body, feasting on her with his gaze, and hunger thrummed in him, hot and heavy. The touch of his eyes was not nearly enough. He craved to feel her, hold her, have those legs wrap around him and that softness press into him. To steal the water drops from her lips with his tongue, to open her mouth to his and taste its sweetness. Hunger quivered in him, need rushed through his veins.

Damon took a long, quick step and pulled Meg into his arms.

Meg saw the flare of heat in his eyes and knew what he was about to do. In an instant, his body was against hers, his mouth taking hers. She felt the heat. The urgency. Everything within her surged in response. Men had grabbed and kissed her before, but she had never felt anything like this.

This was no drunken pawing, no clumsy groping by a callow youth. This was a man who knew how to kiss, who, no matter the eagerness with which he kissed her, moved
his mouth against hers in a seductive, expert way. Her lips parted before his, and she heard the satisfaction in the soft noise he made. Then his tongue was in her, exploring, arousing, and she could not hold back a quiver at the pleasure in it. One of his hands fisted in her hair, the other clutched the fabric on her side, holding her in place.

The waterfall poured over him, breaking over and sliding down his head and neck and onto her cheeks, warm and sensual. Meg curled her fingers into the lapels of his jacket, holding on to him as her muscles melted. She had never imagined such bright frissons of sensation shooting along her nerves, had never dreamed what need, what fire, could explode in her belly. His kiss brought up a deep, primitive ache in her, and she was aware of a shocking urge to rub herself against him. Heat blossomed between her legs. He changed the angle of his kiss, and his hands slid down her back, firm and sure, and rounded over her buttocks, his fingers digging into the soft mounds and pressing her into him. She could feel the hard length of him against her. That, too, had happened a time or two before, when she had not been able to evade one of Andrew’s aristocratic, young friends who thought she was there for his pleasure, but she had felt no excitement then. Her abdomen had not turned achy and malleable as hot wax as it did now.