Chapter Twenty-Two

Rab stood motionless as Lisbeth’s hands moved to the ties on her skirt and worked their magic; the garment fell about her ankles with a billow, revealing her naked but for a pair of thin drawers—and stockings.

His heart began to pound like the hammer in the forge, and he fought to keep from reaching for her again. How many nights had he lain in that bed and longed for her, ached for just this? Ten thousand fantasies had possessed him; now the reality stood at his fingertips. How could he say no?

Yet through all those fantasies she had been another man’s wife. And was still.

He could see what lay in her eyes: desire enough to warm them both, to melt away the last of his self-imposed restrictions. His Lisbeth wanted him. That alone made a gift that should warm him to the grave. He longed to give himself in answer, spill his need into her heat, throw himself into the sea of her desire and never surface.

But what if, when the morning came, once the flames died and the cold light streamed in, she looked at him with dismay in those beautiful eyes?

He never wanted her to regret anything they did together. He did not want the word adultery to rear its head between them.

“Lisbeth.” He whispered it with longing.

“Touch me. Why don’t you touch me?” Almost angrily she untied the laces on her drawers and he saw how she trembled. The thin fabric fell away and she stood only in her stockings—easily the most tantalizing sight Rab had ever seen.

He had imagined her so, aye, yet the truth exceeded any imaginings: breasts just full enough and now peaked in the cool air, a tiny waist, and those slender legs, skin like cream everywhere. Lisbeth, his Lisbeth.

She reached for the buttons on his trousers, a woman determined for this thing, do or die. He already stood for her, hard as an iron ingot. Once she saw the state of him, could he deny her anything?

She succeeded in her fight against the buttons and thrust her hands inside to capture him. Ah, God—he was lost!

“Lisbeth—” It seemed all he could say.

With her fingers wrapped tight around him, she looked into his eyes. “I love you, Rab Sinclair. I don’t think I knew what love was, not till I realized what I felt for you. For better or worse—so it is!”

Rab’s chest heaved as if he had just run up the shore. “There has never been anyone for me but you.”

She stepped forward into his arms with a shocking contact of skin on skin. Rab struggled to shuck his trousers, and they tumbled onto the bed.

And oh, she made an armful—a mouthful—as he began to explore her soft warmth. Need burgeoned through him, reined only by tenderness. The flesh of her stomach felt like silk, the scent of her rose to enfold him. He had been born for this woman, had sailed the watery miles from Scotland for her, endured all the loneliness in fair exchange for this one night.

Aye, a fair exchange.

His lips skittered across her belly, made one foray downward, and returned to her breast. She fit into his mouth as if formed for it—just the right amount and no more. She sighed as he suckled her and buried her fingers in his hair. Her slender legs wove around his body, capturing him tight, and the weight of him settled very nearly where it needed to be.

An image of Declan O’Shea arose in his mind—face filled with mockery, tawny eyes full of malice.

He released Lisbeth’s breast and rested his face against her, breathing raggedly.

“I canno’. We both know Declan is still alive.”

“No, we don’t know. Anyway, was Declan faithful to me?”

“No.”

“Why should I then be faithful to him?”

She had asked this same question before. Rab had barely been able to refute it then and struggled as against a monstrous burden now.

“I want to wed you, Lisbeth.” It was what he’d always wanted from the first day he beheld her outside the schoolhouse. He had decided then that she—and only she—would be his wife. He had never truly looked at another woman.

He wanted this thing done honorably, not quick and desperate.

She went still in his arms. “Oh, Rab.”

“I canno’ ask you to wed me, now.”

“You can.”

He pressed his forehead against her breast. “You are still another man’s wife.”

She held him tightly, and he felt her tears come. He gathered her to him in the bed, still hopelessly hard for her, and aching. Slowly he began to kiss her tears away from her cheeks, the corners of her eyes, and her mouth.

She came to life suddenly and pressed herself against him. “Rabbie, Rabbie, if you will not complete the act—if your honorable heart will not let you—at least let me pleasure you. I know how.”

She knew how. Declan had showed her, for she had certainly been with no other man. That knowledge fairly choked Rab, yet how could he refuse when her fingers once more found and cradled him, when her lips touched the skin of his chest and began moving downward? He had not wanted their first time to be like this; he had wanted to cherish her, worship her, and now there was this terrible need and her willingness, the heat of her mouth when it closed on him, and the rush so like the fire when it flared in the forge.

At the last instant he found the strength to withdraw from between her lips even as she moaned in protest, to draw her up and fuse his mouth to her breast, part her legs and put his fingers inside where she desired him. He felt the waves of pleasure wrack her, and she held to him like a drowning woman.

“Rab, Rab—” She spoke his name as he had never heard it, like a prayer. “What miracle is this?”

A year wed, and though Declan had made sure to instruct her in the other act, she did not recognize her own pleasure. What had the man been about? But nay, Rab did not want to think of Declan during this moment of intimacy—and embarrassment. For he had shamed himself after all, released his seed onto Lisbeth’s soft skin even as she climaxed.

“Rab, look at me.”

“Nay.” He groped for his shirt, within reach of the bed, and used it to mop her flesh.

“Look at me,” she insisted.

“That was not what I intended.”

“Maybe not, but it was what I needed this night. Thank you for not being so cruel as to deny me.”

“Lisbeth, I would deny you nothing. But you deserve better than this: honor and beauty, a lovely wedding—”

She smiled tremulously. “What a romantic heart you have, Rab Sinclair. You are not to regret this, nor be ashamed of what we share, either.”

He sat up and reached for the rest of his clothes, feeling wretched and, all at once, cold.

“Stay with me, Rab,” she beseeched. “Stay the rest of the night. Lie here with me.”

And if he did, the same would happen again—that or more. He could not stand to be near her now without touching, tasting.

“Let me go, Lisbeth.”

Her hands fell from him as if singed. She lay quietly while he climbed into his clothes, found another shirt, and told Kelpie, “Stay, lad.”

At the very last he looked at Lisbeth lying in his bed, a vision from a dream.

“Be sure and lock the door behind me.”

She scrambled obediently from the bed, catching up a blanket to cover her nakedness as she came. Her hair made a halo around her head as it caught the lantern light.

She seized hold of him with both hands; the blanket slid down.

“Rab—are you angry with me?”

“Nay lass, not with you.”

“With yourself, then? Please do not be. This was my choice. Have I not a right to choose?”

Unable to look at her, he repeated, “Lock the door behind me.”

And he went out into the dark.