by Joanne Rock
“I don’t know why he was interested in my gift, but I am certain that he sought me out because of it.” She had not thought about the past in so long, the memories never pleasant. But they came to her easily enough as she sat beside Graham, his legs sprawled out in front of him, strong thighs stretching his blue braies wrought of the most interesting fabric she’d ever seen.
“You’re tired.” He did not need to ask since her head had somehow tipped onto his shoulder while she’d been thinking.
She lifted it in surprise now, but he only shifted her closer and wrapped his arm about her waist. Perhaps he simply did it to keep the rest of her upright, but that didn’t prevent her from enjoying the warm male strength of him banded about her waist.
“Sorry.” Heat rolled through her in spite of her exhaustion, desire for this man still very much alive. But first, she needed to tell him about her betrothal. “I heard about Kendrick before I met him. First from a traveler who spent a night at Welborne Keep and then later from my brothers, who had met Kendrick when he came searching for the woman who’d impressed that first traveler.”
She toyed with a stone on the ground beside her, the small pebble no doubt smoothed by years of water rushing over it when the creek rose high.
“Rumors of your skill at bathing strange men had spread?” He pulled her legs into his lap, his one hand disappearing under her skirt.
“Hardly.” She delighted in the slow ascension of his fingers up her calf, behind her knee, swirling in the hollow there. “Although I am willing to test my bathing skills on you again as soon as you think it safe.”
He pushed her hem farther up her legs, the action stirring a slight breeze against her thighs and—ooh—beyond. The sensation made her squirm with want until she nearly dropped the stone she still clenched in one hand.
“We will test the water again soon enough.” He tightened his grip about her waist, as if steadying her for the trek of his fingers down the inside of her thigh. “But first tell me what impressed the first traveler that spurred Kendrick’s interest.”
Her pulse quickened as he traced a path to the outside of her leg to palm one hip.
“I had a vision of the man’s wife—dead. I knew as surely as I breathed that he had killed her, even though he talked about her as if she still sat at home waiting for his return.” The vision had been ugly and vivid, violent moments between a husband and wife that outside eyes wouldn’t normally ever see. “I told my kin, but they only laughed and shared my ‘foolish fears’ with the man himself. He looked at me strangely after that and left in all haste during the night.”
Graham’s hand halted, his forehead tipping against hers as he held her.
“You are sure this event you saw actually happened?”
“I do not think I saw the future that time. I believe that vision was in the past, although I have had dreams that have foretold events yet to come. But yes, I know the vision was true since the unfortunate woman’s body was found a fortnight later.”
She shivered in spite of the warmth of his body next to hers, her knuckles white around the stone she hadn’t realized she’d held in a death grip as she spoke.
“And Kendrick got off on that,” Graham mused to himself in his strange dialect that she understood more by his tone of voice than his words.
“He queried me greatly about my visions when he found me—again, thanks to my brothers who cannot see beyond their own coffers.” She pitched the stone into the waterfall with a forceful toss. If only she could be rid of her kinsmen as easily.
“But he does not have you anymore.” Graham pulled her farther onto his lap, displacing more of her skirts until half her thighs were exposed to the muted daylight and gentle breeze. “I think I should have you instead.”
Linnet lifted her gaze to meet his and found his expression fierce. Possessive. His aspect inflamed her, tempted her to forget that he was a foreigner with secrets and a life that didn’t include her. Just now, she could only care that he was a man. A strong, intelligent and honorable man.
And she, for her part, remained an aching woman who had been too long deprived.
Graham might leave her tomorrow for a woman in his homeland, or he could simply vanish from her life as startlingly as he had entered it. She’d be a folly-fallen fool to allow this moment with him to pass through her fingers.
Arching against him, she gave herself to the moment. The man. She only had one condition, and she whispered it in his ear.
“Show me everything.”
TALK ABOUT RISING to a challenge.
Graham figured if he rose any higher he’d be light-headed for a week. As it was, he strained his fly like the superhero who burst out of clothes, leaving only rags behind.
Linnet’s lips brushed his cheek as she whispered her innocent command in his ear, her tongue darting out to taste him.
“You don’t want much, do you?” He stroked the silky skin of her hip, hoping he could take his time to give her the slow build she deserved after how long she’d waited to be touched.
“I trust you to give me what I want.” She edged closer to him on the leather satchel, her legs thrown over his in a sprawl of soft feminine flesh.
He brought his mouth down to hers, ready for another taste, needing that sweet flavor on his lips to help tide him over until he undressed her. He’d tied the laces on her outer gown before, but he had no clue what to do with the rest of it and a man damn well ought to be able to undress a woman.
Tunneling his hand under her long hair, he found her neck and tilted her head for better access. The soft sigh in the back of her throat spoke volumes.
A light breeze blew over the water and covered them with a fine mist from the waterfall but it did nothing to cool the rising heat between them. Graham never wanted to stop touching her, her responsive wriggles and moans making him crazy.
Shoving aside her skirts the rest of the way, he exposed her to the summer wind and the waterfall spray. Judging from the way she squealed, her cheeks flushed, he supposed she appreciated the sensation after the shield had covered her for so long.
His fingers worked the laces on her gown, one after another in a seemingly endless row up her side. He started at her hip and worked toward her breast, lingering over the last tie to cop a feel of her softness. He could see the shape of her through the fabric of her dress, the green velvet starting to fall from her shoulders the more he loosened the ties. With nothing but the yellow linen to cover her, her nipples pressed eagerly at the material.
Distracted by the sight, he bent to test the feel of them between his lips. Against his tongue. The pebbled tips trembled against his mouth while he untied the laces on her other side. Her breasts were so beautiful. So full and soft and high.
And the rest of her…
He released her breasts just long enough to tug the loosened garments over her head, unveiling all of her to his gaze.
“What a sin to hide you away.” He tried not to let the anger out now when he needed to be sensitive to her and what she’d been through.
But when he unleashed the fury on the target most deserving…
“You need to see this.” He lifted her to her feet, a perfect wood nymph with pale skin and huge, luminous eyes.
Carrying her over to the water’s edge, he found the small pool that was relatively undisturbed. At least, he could see his reflection in the water. He stood her at the edge and positioned himself behind her, his arms wrapped around her waist.
“Look at you.” He could hardly believe his own eyes looking down at the reflection of them together.
She could have been Lady Godiva, since her hair was so long she could have ridden around town with enough to cover all her secret places. Graham brushed it away from her shoulders, his skin bronzed and tawny next to her creamy flesh.
A small gasp escaped her lips as she stared down as if mesmerized.
“I am free.” Her hand followed the line of her belly from one hip bone to the other, tracing the faint b
ut definite crease on her skin where the belt she’d once worn had rested.
“You damn well are.” He covered her hand with his, his fingers joining hers in their thoughtful trek, and he felt her sharp intake of breath at the sensation.
She was a virgin.
He could hardly wrap his head around that. The thought that no one else had ever shown her pleasure before had already made him angry on her behalf.
Now, he felt only a determination to make up for every lost second. Not necessarily all today, since he had a little more sensitivity for her first time than that. But sooner or later, he intended to show her everything she’d been missing with whatever time they might have together, just as she’d asked.
It would be his pleasure to touch her more. To taste her more. To discover what made her shudder with fulfillment.
Nipping her shoulder with his teeth, he licked his way up her neck and inhaled her clean fragrance, never taking his attention off her tantalizing reflection in the water, even when her eyes fell closed.
“I’ve been fantasizing about doing this ever since I watched you undress for bed. Open your eyes, Linnet.” He hooked his foot around her ankle and coaxed her leg wide. “I want you to see everything that I see.”
8
HER REFLECTION IN THE SMALL inlet behind the waterfall bore little resemblance to the woman she knew from her looking glass.
This woman’s eyes were not wary and alert, but languid and knowing. Her lips lacked the thin, pursed quality they had taken on in recent years, and now swelled with moist ripeness. Her hair tripped wildly over her shoulders, wind-tossed and unruly, barely cloaking her body like a seductive veil.
He had done this to her. A man.
“This is how it should be between a man and a woman.” She liked the stranger in the reflection, the bold, brazen wench who did not run from life but embraced it with open arms.
And, saints preserve her, open legs.
“’Tis wicked and wonderful at the same time,” she murmured, lifting her arm to encircle his head.
Their gazes met, held, in the water.
“Sweetheart, trust me, it’s all good.” He cupped her breasts with strong, broad hands, testing their weight, outlining their shape. The sight of his fingers on her pale skin made her knees weak.
Fortunately he shifted his stance to plant his thigh between her legs, his hard male strength holding her up when she would have pooled at his feet. And yet, that position provided no relief from the heat building within her. Her most private places met the taut muscle of his thigh, making her shudder with pleasure and tremble for more.
His hands started their slow descent from her breasts, tracking down her sides with deliberate thoroughness. Fire leaped within her at his touch, the flames licking her skin and traveling south far faster than his slowly moving palms.
The fall of water filled her ears with its dull roar, a noise she would never forget as long as she lived. Graham filled her other senses and she realized she wanted him to fill her with a desperation that bordered on madness.
She stifled a low whimper as his hand reached the pale curls that were her only shield from him now that her metal prison was long gone.
“You like that?” He wound one silken tendril around his finger while he waited for her reply.
She caught herself nodding frantically in the liquid mirror and then stopped herself.
“Yes.” It felt good to speak the word aloud, to claim her own pleasure. “Very much.”
“Don’t be afraid to tell me what you want.” He parted the swollen folds of her sex and slid two fingers along the damp seam.
She cried out with the surprising rush of pure bliss that followed, so intense it contracted like a fist in her womb.
“This.” Her breath seemed to have been sucked from her lungs, leaving her gasping for any sign of air. “I enjoy this.”
She held the rest of her body perfectly still, her full attention devoted to the intensely sensual feel of his finger playing in her wetness, teasing her with her slick response.
“I like this, too.” He gave her sex a soft pinch between his thumb and forefinger, then circled her nipple with his other hand. “And this.”
As if he’d somehow drawn a physical connection from one place to another, a line of flames erupted between them. The sensations heightened, singeing her insides and making her wonder what would happen to all that heat. She felt it building, building, and didn’t know where she could put it all. The vision in the pond blurred as her eyes ceased to focus, her response to Graham’s touches growing more out of control and wild and—
Ooh. Her cry drowned out the noise of the waterfall as a wave of pleasure ripped through her so strongly she would have fallen if Graham’s leg hadn’t been there to keep her standing.
The heavens seemed to erupt with shooting stars behind her eyes as one wave of fulfillment after another rocked her body. Her womb pulsed with joyous convulsions, the feeling a delicious revelation to her after years of total denial.
She couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, and she could scarcely move as the angels above broke into spontaneous, blissful chorus at her good fortune in discovering what a man could do for a woman if he had any interest in pleasing her.
Finally, she gave up chasing her breath, resigned to waiting for it to return. Her heart hammered recklessly inside her chest as the last spasms of pleasure made her twitch. Graham turned her in his arms, spinning her to face him.
“That had to be the most erotic thing I’ve ever seen.” He kissed her hard, the thrust of his tongue against hers reminding her that he hadn’t reached the same fulfillment as he’d given her.
He must still be waiting. Wanting.
Poor man.
Unsure how to proceed, she let instinct guide her, shutting out the guilty voice inside her head that chastised her for not returning the fulfillment he’d given her. Instead, she followed the movements of his tongue with her own, taking note of the seductive mating of mouths.
No. That couldn’t be enough. Not after all he’d done for her. He’d freed her in so many ways, but this last was the most delightful.
Pulling away, she met his gaze in the amber rays of sunset, admiring the way the light found hints of russet in his dark hair. She touched one of those burnished patches with her fingers, surprised at the silken feel of his straight hair, her own already curling from their swim earlier.
“I wish to make you feel the way I did just now.” She splayed her hands on his chest to keep him at arm’s length since she did not want him to distract her with kisses that would make her forget her noble purpose. “Show me how to give that to you.”
“Honey, you deliver just by breathing.” He tried to lean in for another kiss, but she stopped him with a hand pressed to his chest.
“I do not understand.” She shivered as a gust of breeze blew a spray of water on her bare shoulders, her skin sensitized for the slightest touch. “If you felt the way I do, your knees would be shaking and your whole body would convulse with lush spasms.”
“You don’t want to see me start convulsing yet. Trust me on that.” He backed a step and looked out over the water. “Come under the waterfall with me and I promise I’ll be shaking like there’s no tomorrow before you can say ‘dream come true.’”
She didn’t ask why she would say such a thing in the middle of passionate embraces. She simply took his hand and followed him into the shallow inlet alongside the waterfall, their reflections faded now as the day’s shadows grew long.
The cool water reached her ankles for several steps before it deepened to splash lightly against her knees. When they arrived at the waterfall, Graham stepped behind it and drew her behind the curtain of water with him, the cocoon of natural sounds and misty spray sheltering them from the rest of the world.
The soft glimmer of twilight cast Graham’s body in detailed relief, outlining his powerful arms and broad chest for her viewing pleasure. His blue eyes invited her closer, luring her as surel
y as the hand he extended to her.
Taking it without question, she was rewarded by his quiet words of instruction.
“Touch me.”
She didn’t have to ask where he would like to be touched. She might be a virgin, but she knew well enough what the heat in a man’s gaze meant.
Reaching out, she ran her fingertip from the base of him to the thick head, following the line of one pulsing vein for a map. The heat of him throbbed against her hand and she wondered how such velvety skin could contain a staff so rock hard.
A shudder ripped through his body as she held him, the small movement letting her know how much her touch affected him. But could she really accomplish a task so astonishing as he’d managed for her on the shore?
Tantalized by the thought, she pressed a kiss to his chest and found new courage in the urgent hammer of his heart against her lips. Licking the solid wall of muscle, she discovered she liked his musky male taste. Hands splayed on his chest, she kept enough distance from him to prevent herself from rubbing her whole body against him and losing herself in the sultry heaven she knew he could provide.
Tasting her way down his chest, he let out a low groan when she bent to her knees in the water, water surging to her shoulders. Had he suspected her motives? She cupped the base of him in her hands and lowered her mouth to test the flavor of the dark, glistening head, her tongue running tentatively around the rim.
She noted Graham’s reaction with interest, his whole body growing even more rigid in ways she hadn’t dreamed possible at this point. Encouraged, she braced her hands on his thighs and lowered her mouth around him. His muscles clenched beneath her palms, his fingers sifting restlessly through her hair.
The taste of him pleased her, aroused her, the seductive motion imitating the sex act she craved with him. She wanted to suggest it, but he was already hauling her up out of the water, pushing her back toward the spray of the cascading stream.
