Until the Knight Comes (18 page)

Ravishingly naked, she gave a proud toss of her head, flicked her braid over her shoulder. “Bliss, aye,” she said then, a spark of fire in her eye. “For so long as you allow me to stay beneath your roof.”

Kenneth frowned. “For so long as the fates give us,” he amended, wincing at the notion he might have just called undue attention to their . . . arrangement.

A possibility given credence when a sudden gusting wind rattled the shutters, causing one to crack loudly against the tower wall. The resounding
bang
jarred the night’s quiet, but proved nowise near so unsettling as the cackle he would have sworn he heard just before the gale-like blast died away.

Suspicion nipping, he crossed the room and refastened the loose shutter, fully expecting her to comment on the gleeful hoot when he turned back around, but she only locked gazes with him and stepped out of her tangled gown.

Torturing him even more, she lifted and plumped her breasts, then walked quite unashamedly to the cloth-lined tub of bathing water someone had placed near a well-doing little brazier in the corner.

Thin wisps of herb-scented steam rose off the water to curl up toward the ceiling rafters, the bath’s purpose and his lady’s intent sending a jolt of objection streaking to his core.

“Och, nay, lassie.” He seized her arm, pulled her back just as she lifted her leg to step into the tub. “That willna do—not this night.”

“No bath?” She lowered her foot to the padded toweling spread around the bathing tub, the movement making her breasts sway. “But I thought—”

“You thought wrong.” His blood on fire, he tightened his grip on her, needing the balance, so heady had been the flash he’d caught of deep red curls and tender female flesh. “To be sure, you can bathe if you wish. We shall both bathe. But later, not now, this moment.”

“You prefer to wash . . . later?”

He nodded, his throat too tight to speak.

She looked at him, and he looked
there,
his lust so fierce he could hardly breathe.

But, blessedly he could, because the musky-dark scent of her arousal rose up even more strongly now, its intoxication making him dizzy with desire.

She slipped free of his grasp and dipped a hand in the water, swirling her fingers across its rippling surface. “I do not understand—the water is still warm.” Her brow puckered. “I would know myself . . . well ready for you.”

“O-o-oh, that you are, lass. More than you know!” He inhaled deeply, his need almost splitting him. “But, see you, I would have you as you are.”

“As I am?”

“’Tis your scent and
your
taste I want all o’er me, not whate’er scent might come out of yon little clay pot of soap!”

She blinked at that, the widening of her eyes and her bright flush revealing better than words that she’d comprehended.

A flush that deepened alarmingly, even if she kept her chin raised and made no attempt to shield her nakedness. “You know I am not without experience. That I desire you as only a woman who has loved, and loved well, can want a man,” she said, an emotion that could have been embarrassment flitting across her face. “Nor am I ashamed of my body—or my ache to know passion again.”

She paused, glanced at the steaming tub, her face now flaming in earnest. “But I ne’er went to Hugh’s bed without first—”

“You bathed but several hours ago if I heard aright—as did I, if only at the castle well,” Kenneth minded her, understanding her concern.

Even if he found it sorely misplaced.

He took her chin, forcing her to meet his eye. “I am not your late Hugh Alesone, lady, and more the pity for him, if he did not appreciate certain
enticements,
” he said, determining to wipe the man’s memory off her, however long he needed.

“Hear me well, sweeting. ’Tis you, and you alone, I want.” He released her, unbuckled his sword belt. “No other lass, no false scents designed to rob a man of the true beauty and pleasure of a woman!”

“But—”

“Lady, I have told you, I am no courtly knight, overfond of fineries and airs.” His gaze not leaving her, he tossed aside his belt and blade. “I am bastard-born and was raised in a thatched cot-house so small the whole of it would fit three times into this bedchamber. ’Twas a good life despite its roughness, and to this day I still count my pleasures in the riches of this earth. The great blue hills, the mist on the braes, and other . . .
natural delights.
”

He reached out a quick hand then, dragged his fingers across the dampness of her center, then brought his hand to his lips, inhaling deep before he licked the glistening moisture clinging to his skin.

“’Tis the goodness of you I savor. Naught else,” he said, stripping off his plaid and tunic. “And you are good, lass. So blessedly tempting I could ne’er tire of tasting you—as I’ve already told you.”

Mariota’s nipples tightened and a delicious weightiness spread through her belly. “I would enjoy you . . . tasting me.”

“I just have, minx, and your taste pleases me so much I find myself craving more.” He looked at her, hot desire glittering in his eyes. “I will devour you—there, where you burn the hottest and your essence gathers so sweetly.”

Mariota’s heart gave a great leap of excitement, her body shuddering with thrilling need.

Hugh had licked her down there, and often. But the throbbing hunger now beating between her thighs felt far sweeter than that one’s most ardent endeavors—and
he
hadn’t even touched his tongue to her yet!

“Would you like that, Mariota?” He brought his fingers to his nose again, then, holding her gaze, inhaled. “Do you know how much I burn to scent you? Feast on your sweetness? Lap up every delicious drop of your woman’s dew?”

Woman’s dew.

The term knifed Mariota’s heart. One of Hugh the Bastard’s most favored phrases—mentioned at least once in over half the love sonnets he’d penned for her.

Now she understood the man’s attachment to . . . woman’s dew.

Like as not, as much as he could get of it and from as many sources!

Bile rising in her throat, she pressed a hand to her breast, blinking against the darkness rushing at her, the way the floor suddenly dipped beneath her feet, unbalancing her.

“Aye! ’Tis well I ken how much men crave such base pleasures,” she blurted, the words bursting from a dark place in her heart, a cold place forever branded with the Bastard of Drumodyn’s dead-glazed stare, the taunting eyes of Elizabeth Paterson.

But then
he
dropped to his knees before her, his hands gripping her hips as he pressed his face to the soft curve of her belly. At once, a great tremor tore through her, its power sweeping away the hurtful images and replacing them with such golden melting bliss she wondered she could contain it inside her and not burst.

A stinging heat jabbed into the backs of her eyes, near blinding her. Tears. Hot, burning ones that made her blink and swallow until they went away.

Archibald Macnicol’s daughter didn’t cry.

But she did allow her heart to thunder and her hands to curl into fists, as if the clenching of her fingers could hold fast to the warmth inside her, the joy her Keeper was giving her.

“Not base, lass. Ne’er that,” he murmured, rubbing his mouth on her soft skin, his warm breath a tantalizing sweetness teasing her nether curls. He looked up her, his eyes almost black with passion. “’Tis heaven on earth to taste your need and breathe in your desire. Dinna e’er think otherwise.”

As if to prove it, he swept his hands down the backs of her thighs, easing her legs apart just enough to allow him to touch his tongue to her. Only a light flick across her throbbing flesh, but a light flick he ended with a decidedly wicked curl—one that circled and swirled over the tiny bud of swollen urgency at the top of her womanhood.

Circled, swirled, and . . . suckled.

“Oh-dear-saints,” Mariota cried, Hugh Alesone and his whore fading into oblivion.

Gasping, she clutched her Keeper’s shoulders, her fingers digging into him lest her knees buckled. “O-o-oh, I can’t bear it. . . .”

“Ahhh, but you can,” he disagreed, and licked her.

Long, broad-tongued strokes, each one dragging across her wetness, probing her softness as if he truly relished the taste, scent, and feel of her.

“You are so lovely,” he breathed, his voice thick with raw need. “And far too delicious not to be savored to the fullest.”

A sigh escaped her, her body both trembling and tightening as she twined her fingers into the thick silk of his hair, pulled him more firmly against her, needing him closer to the hot, needy, ache pulsing where he licked her.

She held fast to him, moaning her pleasure, rocking her hips against him. “I thought I’d known this pleasure,” she gasped, breathless. “But I have ne’er . . .
ooooh!
”

“O-o-oh, aye, that’s my good lass,” Kenneth agreed, and plunged his tongue even deeper inside her this time, touched a questing finger to the little nub pulsing so hotly at the heart of her sleek female heat. “Take your pleasure, minx . . . shatter for me.”

A fast approaching triumph, its certainty racing ever closer as he circled his finger. Licked and tasted her, his swirling tongue pushing her to greater heights, the desperation of her arousal firing his own blood until he burned with equal ferocity.

Mayhap even more, for the instant she cried out with her release, his control spiraled away, his own groan of pleasure blending with hers, a damp, telltale stain suddenly marring the front of his braies.

A disaster he hoped to hide by pushing to his feet so smoothly as his
depleted condition
would allow, then yanking off his boots and shoving down his stained hose with a swiftness a lesser man would ne’er have been able to achieve.

His quickly snatched up plaid spared him further shame—as did the wits to hold it in front of him until her lush nakedness and pungent arousal worked their magic again.

She turned wide eyes on him, still visibly trembling, her breath gradually slowing. “You have made me whole again,” she vowed, her voice soft with the after-ripples of her release, her flushed skin and the wonder on her face already reviving the familiar, throbbing hunger.

He shoved a hand through his hair, released a breath he hoped did not sound too shaky. “Dinna think I did not find my own pleasure,” he managed, hoping she’d never guess the truth of his words.

“Even so, I would ease your need as well.” She tilted her head and began unplaiting her hair, loosening the strands until they streamed to her hips, a red-gold curtain of silk gleaming with the reflection of the hearth fire. “And if I might use your own words—do not think I will not enjoy myself!”

“You have already undone me.” He stroked her glistening hair, brushed a kiss across her temple. “But I would ne’er weary of pleasing you, or enjoying the pleasure you bring me. Having you the way I want you—fully.”

“Aye, completely.” She slid her arms around his waist, splaying her hands across his chest, her fingers lightly plucking at his chest hair. “You have unleashed a deep hunger in me, my braw Keeper, and I find myself wanting . . . more.”

“And you shall have more. All that I can give,” he promised, hot desire pulsing into his loins, letting him swell and lengthen again.

Harden so fiercely he dropped the plaid and swept her up in his arms, cradling her high against his chest to kiss her roughly on the lips before he carried her across the room and lowered her to the bed.

“Nay, not yet.” She stopped him when he made to stretch out beside her. “You have seen my nakedness—and you know I joyed in having you see it. But now I would look at you. Step back and let me see the man who has made me a woman again.”

“Made you a woman again?” Kenneth swallowed his astonishment.

He stared at her, saw every lush, golden inch of her sprawled so invitingly across the bed, and wondered not for the first time at the mysteries of the female mind.

The misconceptions they could spin.

Sakes, he could scarce breathe for wanting her, needing her. Already, he craved the taste of her again! Burned to drink in her scent, saturate his senses with its dark, feminine musk.

Bathe in it if he could!

Instead, he did as she’d asked, stepping back so she could regard him. “For truth,” he said as her gaze flitted over him, “a more
womanly
female than you ne’er walked this earth.”

“I am pleased if you think so.”

“Think so?” He lifted a brow, his own gaze moving over her, marveling at her proud breasts and slightly rounded belly, the red-gold triangle topping her thighs, her beautifully curved hips.
Her ripeness.
“I do not think so, I
know
so,” he vowed, his loins heavy with desire.

“You are walking glory, my lady,” he added, craving her beyond any lust he’d ever before experienced.

Not a wee dainty bit of a female, one who’d blow away at the first blast of a black north wind, Mariota of Dunach was well-made. A full woman, her bold curves and height made her a true Highlander’s most rousing dream.

And Kenneth was a true Heilander if e’er one lived and breathed.

“Ooooh, aye,” he purred, feasting on her beauty, “I have wished you mine from the beginning—the moment I first glimpsed you.”