School For Heiresses 3- Beware A Scot's Revenge (19 page)

Neighbors, not “friends.” But could they ever be friends? He wasn’t sure. Still, what could it hurt to let her doctor him if she had a mind to it?

He took a seat on the chair, and she glanced down, then turned a healthy shade of red. “Um, you may want to cover yourself a bit better.”

He followed her gaze to where his towel gaped open, exposing parts of him better left unexposed to a maiden. He stifled a laugh. “Sorry, lass.” He readjusted the towel. “But given yer experience with doctoring, you ought to have a passing knowledge of what a man looks like.”

Cheeks aflame, she examined his arm. “At the hospital, they were always careful not to allow women to deal with cases involving naked men.”

“Ah,” he murmured. “More’s the pity for the naked men.”

She ignored his comment, turning his arm toward the light so she could see his scar better. “Is the area tender?”

“A bit.”

She pressed her thumb against the spot where that bone had also torn his flesh. The never-ending ache exploded into agony, making him grind out a foul curse.

“If that’s ‘a bit,’ ” she said dryly, “then I hate to see what you’d consider real pain.” She poured liniment on the cloth. “This will burn at first, but it will feel much better later.”

“Burn?” he queried. She rubbed the liniment on his arm, and his wound seemed to catch fire. “Holy Christ Almighty! You trying to kill me, are ye?”

He grabbed for her cursed liniment, but she stepped nimbly back. “Stop that!” Standing well out of reach, she doused her cloth with more liniment. “If I’d wanted to kill you, I would have hit you over the head with the bottle.” She cast him a chastening glance. “Behave yourself, or I still may.”

Bloody heartless wench. But he had to admit that once the flames subsided, they became more like a heat, a soothing heat that took the edge off the ache in his flesh. That was the only thing that kept him from protesting when she ordered him to lift his arms so she could doctor his ribs. Now he had a different torture to contend with. Bad enough that the most seductive wench this side of the English border was rubbing his bare skin to heal his aching flesh. Must she also be wearing a shift that concealed hardly anything?

When she bent over him, his cock roused unmercifully. Even the sudden fire of the liniment on his ribs didn’t dampen his arousal, for her low bodice now gaped open so he could plainly see the fulsome swells of her breasts.

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Worse yet, he only had the damned towel to cover himself with, and it rose right up like a camp tent. Oh, and he could camp here forever, he could, drowsy with the scent of liniment and lavender, her hair drifting silklike over his chest.

“I’m afraid this next one is really going to hurt,” she murmured. “And I…um…will need to lift the towel a bit.”

She reached for the towel, and he caught her hand. “Let me do it.” He wasn’t sure he could trust himself if her hand brushed his erection.

Somehow he managed to wrestle the towel up high enough on his thigh to expose the scar without exposing the rest of him. He should have just told her to leave it be, but already he craved the soothing warmth the liniment had given his other wounds. And his leg
had
been plaguing him something fierce. Still, the searing pain when she spread the ointment on his worst one made him gasp and clutch at her arm until he caught his breath. That took a few moments. “All right. Do the rest. I’m ready.”

With a nod, she continued her ministrations, but her shoulders shook, and next thing he knew, a wet drop landed on his upper thigh. Then another and another. Tears.
Mo chreach,
the lass was shedding tears over him.

“Here now,” he said softly, “what are you crying for? It’s not so bad as all that, is it?”

“It’s awful,” she choked out. “What you must have suffered…”

In all this time, he hadn’t seen her cry once, not over the kidnapping or his crude remarks or anything. But here she was, crying for the pain he’d suffered. It was too sweet to bear. “Sh, sh, lassie,” he murmured, looping his arm about her waist to tug her down onto his good leg so he could comfort her.

“I’ve had worse, trust me.”

“I-I know,” she choked out, “but I can’t b-bear to think of you…”

She trailed off into sobs, and he wrapped his arms about her, touched beyond words by her sympathy. God help him, but the lass surely could cry. As she buried her face in his neck and sobbed, he stroked her back, helpless to know how to ease her tender heart. “It’s all right, princess, I swear it is. I’ve been walking on the leg for weeks, dancing on it even.”

The mention of dancing sent her into another bout of sobs. “I-I
made
you d-dance on your b-bad leg—”

“No, you didn’t.” He held her close, nuzzling her hair. “If you want to blame it on somebody, blame it on yer aunt. She’s the one who started talking about my death and got me worried that you’d recognize me.”

Venetiagave a little hiccup against his shoulder. “She did, didn’t she?”

“Aye.” Tipping her chin up, he brushed her tears away with his thumb. “And I wasn’t about to have her resurrecting me from the grave before I was ready, you know. Dead men aren’t supposed to appear in kilts at fancy balls.”

That garnered him a watery smile. “You didn’t look a bit dead, either,” she managed.
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“I certainly didn’t feel dead.” Taking the cloth from her fingers, he used a dry part of it to wipe her eyes, then let her blow her nose into it before he dropped it on the floor. “Especially not when we were alone.”

She was staring at him now, her pretty green eyes huge in her flushed face, and it felt like that night at the ball. Only this time she knew what and who he was. But instead of flailing at him as she ought, she was gazing at him as if seeing him for the first time—not as a villain but as a man caught between the devil and the sea.

“I know it doesn’t mean much,” she whispered, “but I
am
sorry for every time I kicked you and hit you and crawled over your poor leg while you slept—”

“Don’t think on it,” he growled, unable to bear another word. Especially the part about her crawling over him. “You didn’t know. It wasn’t yer fault.” And having her look at him like that, perched all fresh and clean on his lap, was already more temptation than he could stand. He told himself to put her aside, to get her away. He even set his hands on her waist. But then she slid her arms about his neck, and he knew he was in trouble.

“Let me make it up to you,” she whispered, the sound turning his resolve to jelly. “Let me show you that I’m not like my father.” She stretched up to kiss the scar on his forehead, and something gave way in his soul.

“I know…you’re not like…yer father,” he said hoarsely. “You smell better, for one thing.” He’d meant the joke to keep him from doing something daft, but her throaty laugh had the reverse effect. So did the kisses she scattered across his collarbone. He’d never felt anything so dear. Yet he blundered on, fighting to ignore his rapidly stiffening cock. “You look a damned sight better in a gown than he ever could, too.”

“I’m not wearing a gown just now,” she pointed out.

The unnecessary reminder made him half lose his mind. He lost the rest of it when she trailed tender kisses down his chest, her lips lingering to caress his nipple.

“Holy Christ, lass, you have to stop that,” he ground out.

She jerked back. “Am I hurting you? Because I didn’t mean—”

“Ye’re making me take leave of my senses, that’s what ye’re doing.”

Her kittenish smile sent a jolt of heat to his groin. “I told you, I want to make up for hurting you all those times I hit you.” She slid her hand up his chest.

He groaned. “And how do you mean to do that—by tempting me into ruining you?”

Her smile faltered, yet she persisted. “Isn’t there some way I could give you enjoyment without ruining myself?”

The very words put ideas in his head that bloody well shouldn’t be there. He ought to ignore them. So of course he promptly answered, “Aye, there is.”

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Her face brightened, and he groaned.

“But you can’t be doing things like that, you know,” he added hastily, trying to reverse his dangerous admission. “It isn’t wise. It can only lead to trouble.”

“And lying alone together in a room all night when we desire each other
won’t
lead to trouble? Show me how to give you enjoyment without ruining myself, and I swear it will end there. It has to.”

“
Mo chreach,
” he muttered under his breath. He was done for.

“Is it kissing that you like best?” she murmured, pressing her lips, her luscious lips, against his throat.

“Should I kiss you here?” She dusted kisses over his chin. “Or here?” She delved into the corner of his lips with the tip of her tongue.

That was all it took—a few sinful kisses from her very proper little mouth—and his control snapped. With a growled curse, he caught her head in his hands and kissed her back, thrusting deeply, hungrily inside. Her mouth held a profound warmth he could lose himself in, opening easily beneath his urgent tongue to let him plunder and plunge.

Reveling in how she twined her tongue with his, he skimmed his fingers down her throat to caress the twin pulses that beat and throbbed wildly beneath his thumbs. Then he slid his hands further to the ties of her shift, untying them in one swift jerk before shoving the linen off her shoulders so he could fill his hands with her bountiful bare breasts.

“Wait,Lachlan ,” she tore her lips from his to murmur, “I’m supposed to be…giving
you
pleasure.”

“Touching you gives me pleasure,” he rasped, thumbing her nipples until she gasped. “Giving you pleasure gives me pleasure.”

“But…I want…”

“Here,” he said, seizing her hand and dragging it down to his rearing cock, “if you want to please me, stroke me here.”

Her minxish smile as she grabbed hold of his flesh was almost more than he could bear. This could get very dangerous very fast, with his curious little virgin trying out her innocent wiles on him for God knew what reason.

“Stop.” He caught her hand to stay it, and she cast him a startled glance. “If we’re to do this, lassie, then we must have rules, ye ken?”

“Rules?” she whispered. “Why?”

“Without them we’re sure to end up rolling about in that bed over there, and I know you don’t want that.”

Nor did he. Because nothing would destroy his plans faster than ruining the daughter of the Earl of Duncannon.

Chapter Fifteen

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Dear Cousin,

Are you so familiar with what women want that you can make pronouncements about it? I was
under the impression that you are a bit of a recluse, that you do not like to go out into society. Or
am I mistaken?

Your curious friend,

Charlotte

R
ulesare good,
the sane part ofVenetia argued.
Remember Mrs. Harris’s main rule—if you think you
shouldn’t do something, you probably shouldn’t.

Rules were good
if
you could follow them. Clearly, she’d lost the capacity. Because she was fairly certain she shouldn’t be perched on a man’s lap half naked, with her hand on his privates, contemplating the unthinkable.

And all for an apology that he said she didn’t owe him. He was probably right. It had been his choice to kidnap her, his choice not to tell her of his injuries, his choice to put himself in a situation where he got hurt in the first place.

But those perfectly logical thoughts vanished whenever she saw his scars and remembered the agony coursing over his face. Then it was hard to think of him as anything but incredibly brave for surviving his ordeal. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to reward such bravery with a bit of pleasure. All right, so that was just an excuse. The truth was, the walls of rules she’d erected to keep him at bay were crumbling down around her, and she couldn’t shore them up. She’d clung to them for a long time, thinking they would protect her, yet it hadn’t stopped her from being kidnapped. And why? Because Papa had been breaking the rules, not honoring his debts, ruining people’s lives even as he pretended to be an honorable man.

Well, Papa could go to blazes. And so could the rules. “I don’t think we need rules.” She fingered the damp curls at the nape ofLachlan ’s neck. “I’ve had enough of them to last me a lifetime.”

His troubled gaze burned into her. “You say that now, when the heat is upon you, but in the morning you’ll regret throwing them aside. Then you’ll hate me.”

Knowing he might be right only made it worse. Oh, why couldn’t he just kiss her and let her forget who he was and how much he despised her family? Why couldn’t he lose himself in her the way she lost herself in him?

Despite his grip staying her other hand, she could feel his flesh swell against her. Clearly he wanted her. What had happened to the wildLachlan who took what he wanted with reckless abandon? Why must he behave wisely now, when she just wanted to be reckless? He only balked because of his cursed plans for her father. Well, if it took her all night, she would banish from his mind any thought of what lay between their families. She would banish his soldierly control. Defiantly, she lifted her mouth to his, tugging at his lower lip with her teeth, then soothing it with her tongue. Though he still kept that iron grip on her wrist, she was rewarded by his heartfelt groan, followed
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by his mouth opening over hers to deepen the kiss. Soon their tongues were entangled again and their mouths warmly locked, and she felt herself sliding down into that place where it was just the two of them, nothing more.

But when she tried to shrug her hand from his grip, he drew back to stare at her. “One rule, then,” he said hoarsely. “Only one. To keep us from going too far.”