Sam’s Creed (7 page)

She relaxed infinitesimally. “Thank you.”

The third button gave. He glanced over at the small kettle sitting over the fire. The water should be warm by now.

The fourth button gave without a protest. He could just make out the edges of her collarbone. His breath was coming hard, like a horse blown after a run, and he hadn’t even gotten a decent look at anything interesting. There was just something about her that teased his interest, caught on his lust, drowned his better judgment.

The fifth button revealed something wrong. A wide band of cotton. He explored it with his fingertip. It ran horizontally across her chest. “Are you injured?”

“Oh,
madre.
” She clutched at the lapel and her lids popped open. “I forgot.”

He let her hold the lapel up high while he worked the buttons below. “Forgot what?”

She tried to sit up, hit the wall of muscle pain and flopped back down with a groan. “It is my bindings.”

“Bindings?”

“Could we not do relations without undressing? It is not pretty beneath.”

That gave him pause. He cocked an eyebrow at her. “You think I’m planning on making love to you?”

“Why else would you be undressing me?”

Why else indeed. “To see what’s beneath this bandage.”

“It is not a bandage.”

The death grip she had on the top of the shirt didn’t hinder at all his spread of the bottom. The wrapping went all the way down to her surprisingly narrow waist. He pulled his knife from his boot. “What is it, then?”

“It is binding to contain my…chest.”

The binding was substantial. It only stood to reason that what it contained would be, too. Sam’s mouth went dry as he put the edge of the knife beneath the wrap. Her stomach sucked in, creating a gap between the material and her abdomen. His imagination galloped ahead while his cock throbbed and his pulse raced like a green boy’s. Isabella grabbed his wrist.

“Do not.”

“Why not?”

She was blushing so hard he could see it in the near dark. “I do not have any other bindings.”

“You won’t need them with me.”

He would never let another man touch her.

Her eyes met his, as soft and velvety smooth as melted chocolate, dark with embarrassment. “It hurts—”

The knife sliced through the bindings.

“To not have support,” she finished in an agonized whisper as the bindings fell to the side.

“Hell!”

He just bet it did.
Bountiful.
That was the first word he came up with to describe her breasts. Bountiful, plentiful and gorgeous. The full curves belled inward from the compression of the shirt, all but the nipples revealed. He opened his hand over her midriff, the palm itching with the need to touch. More than a handful. Maybe even two handfuls. Damn, she couldn’t have been created more perfectly to his taste. “Perfect.”

“Are you looking at me?” she squeaked.

He glanced up. She’d retreated into the only defense she had left. She’d closed her eyes.

“Yup, and getting an eyeful.” He slid his hand up toward the treasure she’d hidden from him. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Her hands slid down the lapel. He stopped her with a shake of his head.

“No.”

“I am not comfortable.”

He could see that. The binding had left her breasts reddened and swollen. They’d look like that after he loved them, too, but they wouldn’t have an angry rash surrounding them from the bindings, and they’d be swollen from pleasure, not abuse.

“You won’t bind your breasts again.” He rubbed his fingers along the ridges left by the bindings. She gasped and arched away. He followed her down, supporting her as he promised. Firelight played across the pale flesh. Anger snapped through him when he saw the shadow of a bruise. “It’s a wonder you haven’t damaged yourself permanently.”

Her hand closed almost convulsively around his wrist. “I need support.”

He hefted a heavy globe, grazing his thumb along the underside. He just bet she did. “I’ll take care of you.”

“You cannot walk around all day holding my breasts!”

He laughed at her expression. She clearly hadn’t realized how that was going to sound when she spit it out, but now he had a feeling that if she could have dug a hole, she’d be in it in a second.

“The thought has merit.” He said that just to get her going. It worked. She sat up so fast the bottom of her head barely missed his chin. One look at his face and she figured out his game.

“You said that just to shock me!”

Her breasts bobbed with indignation, the aftershocks reverberating along their heavy curves. He looped his arm around her chest, supporting her breasts on his forearm as he pulled her back against his shoulder. From here, he had a bird’s-eye view of her impressive cleavage. Deep and dark, it would take his cock perfectly. All he’d have to do was unbutton his pants, straddle her torso and he could be in heaven. Shit. She made him want. It was a struggle to find his voice. “Yes, I did.”

She yanked the shirt as closed as she could over his arm. The garment wasn’t cut to contain such largesse. The best of her efforts still left him with a fine view.

“Why?”

That was an easy question. He gave her the easy answer. “I like you better spitting fire than I do apologizing for your existence.”

“I was not apologizing for my existence, but I am not used to undressing in front of a man.”

“Technically, I was undressing you.”

She just stared at him. As if maybe she was losing her mind, or maybe she thought he was losing his.

He dropped a kiss to the top of her head before leaning over to open the saddlebag. He fished around inside until he found the tin of salve. Leaning back, he said, “There is a difference, you know.”

Her tongue eased over her lips in a slow glide of pink on pink. “I do?”

He couldn’t take his eyes off the natural sensuality of the gesture. “You’re going to be hell on fire in bed, aren’t you?”

“Honestly?”

“Yes.”

“I would like to think I could be.”

He opened the jar of salve and scooped some onto his fingers. “Move your hands away from your chest.”

She did cautiously, obviously having no idea how inflaming the slow tease of gradual exposure could be. He smoothed the salve over the patches of prickly heat on the side of her right breast.

“So why the ‘could be’? Not that I’m complaining, but most young women aren’t concerned with the bedroom much, let alone how wild they’re going to be once they get there.”

His forearm brushed her nipple. And every time, she gasped, his cock jerked, until he was pretty much one big throb, and it was all he could do to keep up the pretense that the only thing that was going on was him treating her injuries.

“Eventually, Tejala will catch up with me.” She twisted her fingers together. “That will not be pleasant.”

He stopped rubbing ointment into her breast and cradled it instead. She needed comfort. He wasn’t good at giving comfort.

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I do not think I will ever want to be touched again after that, so I think I would like to know the full pleasure of being a woman before it is taken from me.”

Shit. “There’s such a thing as telling too much.”

Her lashes rose, revealing what he didn’t want to see. Hurt. He’d hurt her. “I am sorry.” Buttoning her shirt, she inched away. “I talk too much.”

She talked more than any woman he’d ever met. But strangely, it didn’t bother him. Because she also made him smile more than any woman he’d ever met. He sighed. “You might as well know from the get-go, I’m not good at this.”

She sat stiff and unyielding, buttoning those damn buttons, not looking at him. “What is
this?
”

He tipped her chin up, cupping it so she couldn’t look away. “Soft words. They’re never there when I want them.”

“Did you want them to be?”

“Yes.”

“Then we will trade. I will teach you soft words and you will teach me to love.”

Sam wedged the lid back on the salve. He took longer than needed doing it. Bella didn’t struggle or fight, just rested against him. Accepting his decree the way she wouldn’t accept Tejala as her fate. If he was smart, he’d turn tail and run.

“Making things between the sheets perfect for a woman is a tall order.”

“I understand.” With a wave of her hand she granted him absolution. When he didn’t want it.

He captured her hand midwave. It felt natural to bring her fingers to his lips. To make her promises. “He won’t touch you, Bella.”

There was a long pause. Her gaze searched his for answers to questions she wouldn’t voice. He didn’t think she was even aware how tightly she clung to him. “I pray daily for that miracle.”

“Then you can stop praying.”

Another pause. She took a deep breath. He found he was inhaling right along with her. A flush rose to her cheeks, emphasizing her youth. He couldn’t follow her there. He didn’t think he’d ever been as young as she was, ever had such innocence. But he had easily been as desperate. Tucking her hand against her chest, he took over fastening the buttons of her shirt. “You don’t have to bargain with your body, duchess. My protection won’t cost you a thing.”

“That is good.” To his surprise, she opened her shirt back up, not all the way and not without a new flush spreading over her creamy skin, but enough to tease him with the silky inner curves and the shadowed hollow between. “Because what I want between us should not have a price.”

“Everything comes with a price.”

“Then maybe this price I want to pay.”

“Maybe I don’t.”

She nodded. “Ah, so it is not for me you fear.”

No one had ever looked at him with such softness and understanding. He didn’t like it.

“The hell it’s not. A whore’s future isn’t pretty.”

She blinked, and the softness left her expression as if it had never existed. Her spine snapped straight. “You will apologize for that, Sam MacGregor.”

“Why the hell should I apologize for the truth?”

She pushed off his lap, gasping from the pain, and turned around. She was kneeling so her face was level with his. This close there was no mistaking she was ticked. She poked her finger into his chest. “Because it was mean and I did not deserve it.”

“Why should I care?”

She sighed and shook her head. “Because my feelings are damaged and because you like me.”

This was her with her feelings damaged? He opened his mouth. She cut him off.

“In case your eyes have not seen, this is a time for soft words. Nice words. Words of apology.”

“I wasn’t calling you a whore, but—”

Holding up her hand, she glared at him. “Know that if you ask me another question that I must answer with ‘because,’ I will cry.”

Son of a bitch. “Are you blackmailing me?”

She shook her head and touched his shoulder fleetingly before sitting back on her heels. “I am just tired and sore and I have not much resistance left.”

That might be a tear in her eye.

“So you’re going to cry?”

“Men do not like tears.” Her lips trembled, then firmed. “I understand this, but I do not think mine will stay away much longer if you continue to damage my feelings.”

“Hurt my feelings.”

“Damage. Hurt. What difference does it make?”

Not a bit, and she was right. He hated to see any woman cry, especially Bella. And she understood that and warned him, because to her that was fair play. He didn’t think he’d ever met another woman like her. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. She left him too off balance. He sighed. “What do you want from me, Bella?”

“I’m afraid to ask now.”

She wasn’t afraid of anything. “Ask.”

It was practically a growl.

Instead of flinching in fear, her eyes heated with hunger.

She caught his hand and brought it to her breast, straightening his fingers one by one until they straddled the hollow and flattened against the succulent flesh on either side. “Will you give me pleasure, Sam? Will you teach me to be a woman?”

In the end it was an easy decision to make. He cupped his fingers behind her neck, drawing her forward into the press of his palm, feeling her heart leap, hearing her breath catch. Oh, yeah, he’d teach her. “Better than that, I’ll teach you to be my woman.”

“L
ean back.”

Leaning back meant making muscles work. Leaning back meant committing herself to the path she’d taken. Leaning back meant trusting Sam.

Bella reached out. “Could you help me?”

“Absolutely.”

He handled her as competently as he had handled his horse. One hand behind her shoulder, the other holding hers. He made it easy. All she had to do was give him her weight, and he took care of the rest.

“Are you going to make it all this easy?”

He cupped her cheek in his hand. It was a gesture of comfort. A declaration of intent. “Yes.”

She turned her head until she could press a soft kiss into the center of his rough palm. “Thank you.”

He smiled, a real smile that reached his eyes. “I think that’s usually the man’s line and comes much later.”

She could not help but smile back. “We are doing many things differently—why should this be any different?”

“Why indeed.” He gave the shirt a tug. “You want to lighten your grip a bit?”

The shirt. He wanted her to let go of the shirt. She tried, but her fingers wouldn’t obey the dictates of her brain.

“Problems?”

“My fingers will not listen.”

“Second thoughts?”

“I think it is too many years of being told I should keep it closed.”

“Then this must be your lucky day.”

“How?”

“I spent a lot of years learning how to convince women to get buttons open.”

Bella tried not to think about that. Not only because she didn’t want to know about other women, but because, despite her brave talk, she wasn’t sure she had what it took to satisfy a man like this. And she did not think she would find relations satisfying if Sam was not fulfilled.

But maybe Sam didn’t know that. Her mother had talked to her in vague terms that had touched on the mechanics, but her talk had not touched on the emotions involved.

“Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“I want to find this fun, too.”

He paused and looked at her, surprised. “That was always the plan.”

“Ah, I did not know.
Mi madre
only told me that my responsibility was to please you, but not that it’s possible for me to be pleased.” She licked her lips, the next words lodged in her throat as a flush burned her from toe to head. She had to swallow twice before they would come out, and even then they came out in a high-pitched airy rush. “I would like to have some pleasure.”

She could not believe she’d said all that without burning up from embarrassment.

“That’s another thing I like.”

“What?”

“A woman not afraid to ask for what she wants.”

Bella let go of the shirt. “Then maybe I was an answer to your prayers, too.”

He met her gaze squarely. “I don’t pray.”

Dropping a bandanna around the handle of the kettle, he lifted it off the fire and set it beside the packet of soap.

What did he want her to say to that? “Then I will pray for you until you remember how.”

“Don’t waste your time.”

No matter where she put her hands, they felt awkward. She tried her stomach, then her thighs and finally settled for resting them on the slicker beside her. “It is my time. I will waste it however I want to.”

“Suit yourself.”

He dipped the bandanna in the pot, wrung it out and then placed it against her neck. The warm water felt heavenly against her skin.

“Oh, yes.”

Sam chuckled. “You’re easy to please.”

“My easy is good for your lazy side, yes?”

“Oh, definitely.” He wiped at her skin with surprisingly gentle strokes for such a big man, but then she’d seen the way he’d handled the horse and she realized she shouldn’t be surprised. There were many layers to Sam MacGregor. The more interesting ones were the ones he didn’t show the world.

The bandanna moved across her collarbone, taking the dirt and tension with it. When Sam removed the cloth, the night air felt cooler. She felt cooler. Her nipples tingled and puckered. “No one has ever bathed me before.”

Water sloshed in the kettle as Sam rewet the cloth. “A lot of people have been missing out.”

She closed her eyes and smiled. “Men, you mean.”

The fragrance of pine-scented soap got stronger. “Yeah. Men.”

She didn’t care about other men. Just Sam. When the cloth returned, gliding across the tops of her breasts, she arched her back, just a little. The shirt fell to either side in a whispery caress. Sam’s indrawn hiss of breath was an equally elusive caress.

“I am glad then that the only man to give me this pleasure is you.” She sighed, keeping her voice soft so as not to disturb the emotion burgeoning between them.

Another glide of the cloth, this time lower. “This is just for now, Bella.”

Internally she smiled at the hard tone. He was so leery of strong feelings. “So, you would have me not enjoy it?”

“Not hardly.”

With a lethargic wave of her hand, she motioned him on. “Then hush and continue.”

The cloth paused in the valley of her breasts. “Anyone ever told you it’s not your place to be giving orders?”

She shook her head. “No.”

The bandanna left her skin. The spot where it had rested chilled. “Then let me be the first.”

There was that hard note in his voice again. It shivered through her more powerfully than a kiss. There was something about that tone that resonated with something wild in her. Something primitive, feminine and hungry. She opened her eyes. Sam was staring down at her with the same implacable resolve deepening his drawl. A second shiver joined the first. His gaze sharpened and his nostrils flared. Did he sense that part of her that struggled for freedom?

“If you’re going to be my lover, you’ll have to learn to temper that side of you.”

If? What had she done to bring the “if” back? “Why?”

The little smile that curved his lips tweaked her as hard as a dare. “Keep giving me orders and find out.”

“That was unfair! You know I will not be able to resist.”

He rewet the bandanna as calmly as if he had not just thrown down a challenge. “Got to admit, the thought had occurred to me.”

Excitement thrummed through her blood, kicking up her heartbeat. She licked her lips and asked, “What happens if I fail?”

The cloth swirled over the surface of her breast, circling upward, encompassing her nipple. His fingers closed over the hard tip through the damp cloth and squeezed lightly, drawing it away from her body in a sensual tug, drawing out the tension, the heat. Intensifying the pleasure. “When you push me too far, I’ll take you in hand.”

The spasm that rocked her womb was akin to pain. The aftershocks were a prelude to a savage need she did not understand, but Sam did. She could see it in his eyes. He understood what she needed. Her “How?” was a soft whisper of sound.
Por Dios,
she wanted to hear how.

The soft pinch he delivered to her nipple tore a cry from her lips and jerked her up. Pain lanced through her from her abused muscles, drowning the pleasure from his teasing. Immediately he was there, cradling her head in his hand, easing her back. Concern mellowed out the harshness of desire. “Easy, Bella. You’ve got to be easy.”

“I cannot when you do that.”

His eyebrow quirked. “This?”

He squeezed her nipple again, a little harder, a little longer, and this time the sensation did not come as a surprise. This time she could enjoy it, savor it.

“Yes.” She wanted to arch into the feeling, into his hand. His palm on her shoulder prevented it.

“Stay still, and we’ll see if you can take a little more.”

“We? Where is this ‘we’?”

He laughed and leaned in, his mouth meeting hers in a deep kiss, his words flowing into her mouth like a lure. “Little innocent. Don’t you know nothing gets a man hotter than when his woman burns at his touch?”

Bella slipped her fingers between the lapels of Sam’s shirt, feeling very daring as crisp hairs tickled her fingertips. “Not even my hands on your skin?”

Sam shuddered and smiled, his mouth moving over her cheek, nuzzling into the corner of her mouth, waking up nerves she did not even know were there. Nerves that clamored only for him.

“That’s good, but it’s nothing without the other.”

She slid her fingers farther inside. “And you like the way I come alive for you?”

“Very much.”

Popping the button beneath her fingers, working her hand deeper, she asked, “And when it is my turn, will you come burn for me?”

His grip clenched convulsively on her nipple. Pain and pleasure combined in an erotic bite. She gasped and grabbed at his shirt, holding on as the thrill wove through her.

“Damn!” Sam smoothed his thumb over the taut peak. “I’m sorry. I lost…”

Shaking his head, he sat back.

She finished the thought for him. “Control.”

“I didn’t lose control.”

But he had with her. She smoothed the crease from between his eyes with her index finger. “I will forgive you if you do it again. It was very…exciting.”

The lines beside his mouth deepened, the tension in his fingers spreading through his body. His eyes narrowed. “You’re going to be hell to keep in line, aren’t you?”

“Would it make me bad if I say to the point that it is probably not even worth the effort of trying?”

A real laugh accompanied the chuck he gave her chin. “If I didn’t succeed, what kind of man would that make me?”

Isabella did not want to know. She liked Sam just as he was with all his bossiness, his sense of honor, and she definitely liked his sense of humor. “The man I want as my lover?”

The cloth fell to the side, and then it was the heat of his hand on her damp flesh, plumping it as his head bent. Though she knew it was coming, his mouth on her breast was a shock, burning hot, the lash of his tongue across the sensitive tip a surprise. Lightning whipped across her skin, picking up sparks as it went, igniting fires across the landscape of her torso, sending a shower of sparks careening down her spine, throwing her into a wild storm that swept her up and tossed her about with nothing familiar to grab on to. The scrape of his teeth was more than she could stand. But it was not enough. She needed more. Wrapping her fingers in his hair, she dragged his mouth to her. “Harder.”

Oh, please do it harder.

With something that sounded like a growl he complied, drawing hard on her nipple, nipping with his teeth, soothing with his tongue until she was arching up, pulling down, panting with pleasure.

“Sam!”

Another rumble followed by a small nip. Ah! It felt so good. He was so good. She rubbed her breasts against his beard-roughened cheeks, trying to keep the magic even as he pulled away. “Your mouth is wonderful.”

He swore and dropped his forehead to her breastbone.

“What?”

“You are hell on a man’s good intentions.”

“I like these intentions.”

His chuckle blew across her belly. “And I’ll get back to them, but first I have other plans for this sweet little body.”

“Will I enjoy it as much as this?”

“Right now, I think you’ll enjoy it more.”

She pressed his hand to her breast, sighing when he obligingly stroked the tender skin. “This will be hard to better.”

With a last hard kiss, he knelt beside her and tested the water in the kettle. “Trust me.”

She missed his warmth and weight immediately. No wonder mothers preached that their daughters have nothing to do with men. If all women felt with men the way she felt with Sam, there would be no virgins.

Trust me.

He picked up the bandanna and dipped it in the kettle again. She did trust him, but she did not understand. He would prefer to wash her? “This is what you wish?”

He nodded, his expression strangely intent. “Yes.”

He rubbed the wet cloth on the soap. Pine scented the air. Starting at her neck, he wiped away the dirt and heat of the day. She studied his face as he repeated the action on the other side before moving down to her shoulders. Every move was carefully planned; every stroke overlapped the first. And with every pass the tension in him eased and the satisfaction in his eyes grew. Bathing her fed a need in him. She didn’t know what it was, but if doing this gave him a measure of peace, then she would not complain.

Bella sighed as the warmth from the cloth sank through her skin. Not that she had anything to complain about. Sam was very good at this. He never let the cloth get too dry, never let the water get too hot. And while relations with him were exciting, this was as good in a different sort of way. This made her feel special. Pampered.

“Feel good?” he asked as he lifted her arm.

“Muy bueno.”
It was almost a purr.

The quirk of his lips indicated his approval. “Good.”

The water was hotter now, the heat almost stinging her skin before soaking beneath to the sore muscles of her arms. It felt so good. She moaned, flexing her fingers as he brought the cloth back up her inner arm. “You may do that all night.”

“I did intend on getting some sleep.”

“Then I will just appreciate your care until you sleep.”

His lips twitched. “You do that.”

“But I do not think your reputation will survive.”

He dipped the bandanna in the water, this time wiping the soap from her skin. He seemed fascinated by the process. “What reputation was that?”

She couldn’t believe she was saying this. “That you can please a woman from dusk to dawn without stopping in between.”

Unbelievably he smiled and moved the cloth down, sliding it over her breast in gentle motions.

“Is that a fact?”

Her breast tingled and drew taut. “Yes.”

Firelight played across his features as he cut her a glance from under his hat brim. “Then maybe you want to reconsider your proposition.”

He was giving her an out. Another one. Some cold-blooded seducer he was turning out to be. “No. We made a deal. I am holding you to it.”

His head tilted slightly as he put the cloth aside and eased his hands under her. “To the letter?”

“Yes.”

“That’s my girl. Roll over.”

“I am comfortable.” And she really didn’t want to go through movement.