Grant and Burke exited quickly, realizing just how unnecessary they were, but they kept looking back at him as if they couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing. Aislinn, of course, was too busy hovering over her patient to notice their quizzical looks, and Kell had been trying to glare them out of the room since they’d put him on the bed. Sile arrived with Aislinn’s bag as they were leaving, and Jenny had already left some scotch on one of their side tables. Aislinn chased Sile out with her hearty thanks as soon as she could grab the bag from the girl and close the door behind her. The three of them – four once Adelle joined them – stood staring at the bedroom door for a short moment, some of them libidinously wondering what exactly was going on, and some wishing that they could take care of someone they loved.
Aislinn was buzzing around him like a busy little bee, patting him down quite provocatively and asking him a million questions. “Were you knocked out? Does your back or neck hurt? Can you see all right? Can you turn your neck without pain? Does it hurt when I touch you here?”
In answer to her last question, he merely grinned evilly and moved her ever seeking hand to the prominently tended portion of his muddied and grass stained kilt. “No more than when you don’t touch me here, lass,” he groaned.
Scarlet right down to her toes, Aislinn removed her hand as if he’d deliberately held it to a hot flame, trying desperately to cling to her most professional of demeanors. She might not be recognized as a doctor or been to school for it, but she had a healing touch and a good knowledge of herbs, as well as a budding subscription to the new fangled tendency to want everything and anything that touched a patient to be as clean as possible.
“Which of your legs hurts most?”
Kell groaned as she probed gently, and it had nothing to do with pleasure, unfortunately. Here she was, touching him voluntarily for the first time, and he was in agony with her every poke. “Both. Rory managed to fall back and roll over me.”
Aislinn let another dramatic exclamation escape, and Kell felt heartened at the sound. She seemed to care whether or not he was hurt. It wasn’t much, he supposed, but it was something, and he was willing to take pretty much anything as a sign of a step in the right direction.
Chapter 10
He relaxed and watched her from between eyelids that were mere slits, until he saw her opening a bottle of twelve year old Scotch that Jenny must’ve found in his office. Kell was in the process of trying to sit up, figuring that she was going to pour him a dram of sweet fortification, but instead she poured it liberally over the gash on his head, and he almost screamed the house down.
“What in heaven’s name do you think you’re doin’, woman?” he roared.
Aislinn continued to dab at him as if he hadn’t just nearly deafened her with his unnecessary outcry. “Why I would think that it would have been obvious to you – I’m cleaning your wound.” She sounded as if she was speaking to someone who had been discovered to be quite slow and a bit tetched.
“Not with the best liquor in the county you don’t! Are you out of your mind?” He made a grab for the bottle she held in her far hand, but Aislinn easily kept it out of his reach, and every lunge made his head throb as if he’d been on a five day pub crawl.
“Stay still.”
“Give me the bottle, woman.”
“Stay still.”
“Give me the bottle woman.”
Neither of them was likely to give in – they were both stubborn people. But Aislinn knew she had the upper hand, since he couldn’t go very far at this point without his brothers to help him. She didn’t even want him trying, though, which she knew he would do if she didn’t comply. So she took the easy way out, knowing in her heart that she could easily have won the argument. She surrendered the bottle to him and got up, grabbing a different bottle and holding it up to him for his approval. “Is this sufficiently cheap to use?”
He nodded, not missing a swallow from the bottle he’d immediately raised to his lips.
Aislinn wasn’t going to say anything to him about drinking. She’d already recognized that, for a Scotsman, he didn’t favor the drink anywhere near as much as she’d thought he would, so if he wanted some medicinal alcohol to help him tolerate the pain he must have been in, that was fine with her. She had a small supply of laudanum, but hesitated to use it if something else was available. Some people reacted badly to laudanum, so she used it as sparingly as she could.
Once his head was cleaned and dressed, Aislinn did what she really should have addressed first, but she couldn’t quite make herself until now. She raised his kilt to his hips so that she had a clear view of the entirety of both of his legs, trying desperately to be as detached as she could about what she was looking at, despite the fact that she knew her skin was as red as it ever got from a sunburn.
Kell had put the almost empty bottle on the nightstand and leaned back against the headboard, anxious to see exactly what she was going to do with and about him. He loved to see her blush like this. It was incredibly becoming and very endearing, reminding her of just how innocent she still was. She was his wife, and he had barely made love to her. Actually, he had yet to make love with her. He’d taken her virginity, but it was a clumsy drunken episode and not indicative of the lover he could be – he desperately wanted to be – for her.
He’d sworn to himself that he’d let her get used to him, even come to him for affection and sex, rather than forcing himself on her as he had their first time.
He hadn’t taken into account the fact that she would end up doctoring him, though, staring down at his naked legs after having pulled his kilt up to lie on his hips. No doubt she could see what she did to him with just a touch, not that she was bothering to look at him anywhere but where she absolutely had to. God, she was running her soft hands up and down his legs, making him groan from something distinctly other than the occasional pain she was causing.
Frowning in concentration, lips twisted, she started again at the top of his right thigh, leaning over him with that light lilac scent of hers, her hips pressing against the side of his as she prodded him as gently as she could. “Hmmmmmm. You’re not groaning in the same place twice.”
Kell swallowed hard, realizing that he was going to have to try to keep his desire under control as much as possible.
She poked and pushed, hitting several truly tender areas. But then she moved to the insides of his thighs, and he couldn’t resist the urge to pull her across him, arranging her on top of him, with her body between his legs, his prominent desire poking her at least as insistently as she had been prodding him. “What are you doing? I need to finish examining you – “
Before she could finish her sentence, he very, very carefully leaned down to melt his lips down onto hers. Considering how he felt, it was an extremely non-demanding kiss. He wanted to flip her over and drive into her. He wanted to slant his mouth across hers and delve into her with his tongue. He wanted to rip her shirtfront and chemise and gather those firm, soft mounds into his palms to tweak her nipples into ripeness just before he claimed them with his hot, wet mouth.
But he did none of that. He held her in place with one arm across the small of her back, but didn’t try to force anything. He just . . . kissed her.
And she wasn’t struggling. In fact, her left hand came up to cup the side of his cheek. She pulled away first, but not far, just enough to look down at him. “I was very afraid when you were so late,” she admitted.
Kell drank that in. It was a balm to his savaged ego. It was the first thing she’d said to him that indicated any sort of feeling for him beyond anger and or annoyance. He squeezed his arm a little, and kissed her cheek. “I’m fine, really. My legs hurt, but then anyone’s legs would hurt if a big behemoth like Rory had his way with them. I’m lucky to be alive,” he said, then continued in a whisper, “and I’m very lucky to have you as my wife, Lady MacNaughton.”
Aislinn’s eyes grew very large and to her horror her tears began to splat down onto his chest. “I
– I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.”
Kell hugged her tight to his chest, amazed that she would allow him to do so, running his fingers up and down her back. “Why not? It’s the truth. You’re a wonderful wife – you’ve organized the house, gotten a much better cook, doctored everyone in the county, I swear! I’m very proud to have you as my wife.”
Instead of getting better, her tears increased until she was sobbing on his chest as if he’d just taken the tawse to her naughty little bottom. Gingerly, so as to hurt either of them the least, he leaned over so that they were both on their sides. His legs were moving much better than they had been. There was some swelling around his knees, but he could bend them and Kell figured that a few days in bed should make him right as rain.
But his wife was bawling as if she hadn’t a friend in the world, and he didn’t like it. She wasn’t the crying type – unless he’d given her something obvious to cry about. Her sobs were the only thing he’d found so far that could completely eliminate his desire. Kell found himself in a quandary. He’d never really had to deal with a crying woman before. Certainly not a crying wife. And he wasn’t used to not knowing what to do. He was the one with all the answers, the one who was always in control.
This was new territory for him, and he didn’t like it at all. He didn’t know why she was crying, and he had no idea at all how to get her to stop. So he did what he wanted to do – he put his arms around her and pulled her to him, rocking slightly, as if she was a cranky bairn. Surprisingly, it seemed to work. She relaxed and settled into his arms, and her crying died away as if it was never there. Kell pulled back experimentally, looking down into her face. Aislinn looked back at him, her eyes cloudy with shed tears but clearer than he’d ever seen them. There was no fear, no loathing, no anticipation of pain at his hands. She was just looking at him as if seeing him for the first time.
And then she did something that brought every part of him to full attention: she leaned over and kissed him, full on the mouth, even going so far as to slant her lips over his and touch his teeth tentatively with her tongue.
He resisted the urge to squeeze the stuffing out of her, and just let his arms settle naturally around her, not too loose, not too tight. It had never occurred to him that she might take things into her own hands, as it were, but he wasn’t about to object.
Aislinn pulled back to see him considering her with an almost amusingly hopeful look. She knew what he wanted, but hadn’t been able to face the idea of a repeat of what had happened the first time they had had marital relations. It had hurt. Granted, he had been drunk and thought that she wasn’t a virgin, so he was far from careful with her, but it was still a scar on her soul and her heart. She had so wanted to think that they were a good match, and could make a reasonable go of it, perhaps even be happy.
Other than there terrible misunderstanding, he seemed to be a pretty good man – he didn’t drink to excess, usually – and he obviously loved his brothers a great deal. She wondered if he would spread some of that love over to her if she let him do what he wanted . . . but then, he seemed content to let her set the pace this time.
She bit her lip, though, and asked the question that was on her mind. “Are you – are you hurting too much . . . “ she would never be able to say what she was hinting at. Never.
Touched at her concern, Kell flicked the tip of her nose. “I would rise from my grave to be with you, Aislinn,” he breathed, and the words came from the very bottom of his heart.
She looked at him, as if weighing the truth of what he’d said, then leaned forward to kiss him again, starting out tentatively then deepening it slowly, slightly, carefully enough that he was sure that he was going to die, that his heart was going to pound its way out of his chest and into hers. When her tongue first touched his, he nearly lost control of himself, thrusting automatically and making her start a little away from him, but he clamped down as much as he could on his instincts and intentions and remained still, enticing her back to him with his nonthreatening quietness.
The kissing went on forever, and Kell knew he had never indulged in such an orgy of mouths and tongues in all his life. It was incredible, but he wanted more – much, much more. Yet he didn’t want to pressure her. So he suffered, but not quite in silence. He relaxed his usual tight rein and moaned softly against her mouth.
Aislinn’s heart swelled at the sounds he was making – it sounded like he was truly enjoying what she was doing – and, to her surprise, she was also. She would never have thought that kissing would be so enjoyable. She’d been kissing people all her life, and it had never felt like this!
But parts of her were craving even more of him – she wanted to touch him. All of him. She wanted to feel all of his skin against all of hers, with no clothing as a barrier. It was an entirely sinful wish, she knew, but also one she intended on fulfilling.
Her husband pulled a little away from her to sprinkle butterfly kisses all over her face. “I just want to say something to you. This is our bed. We are alone in this room. What goes on between us is entirely between the two of us – and whatever happens, as long as we both want it – will be glorious, I can tell.” Kell caught her eyes and stared into them seriously. “There’s nothing you could do to me that would hurt me. I adore your touch, and you can touch me anywhere you like.” He rolled onto his back and stretched, then finished with, “I am yours to do with as you wish.”
Aislinn’s eyes grew round, and he almost burst when she innocently licked her lips, looking him up and down eagerly. “Would it hurt you to take your clothes off?” Aislinn, always curious about things regarding the human body, had wondered just exactly what the thing looked like that he’d used to stab up into her when he’d taken her virginity. If he was going to let her do as she pleased with him, then she was going to take full advantage. If he thought that she was unladylike for it, then so be it.
Kell was only too happy to disrobe for her. It was a question he’d wanted to hear from her for a long time.
When he lay stretched out on the bed before her as she sat tailor fashioned, Aislinn knew immediately exactly what weapon he’d used – and what a weapon it was. That part of him – that Jenny had said was a penis – was humongous, and stood out from his body as if it was an entity in and of itself. It was slightly curved, veined in blue but overall reddish at the same time, with a big, bulbous end that looked like there were very few places it was likely to go comfortably.
And well she knew that. But still, it was fascinating. She reached out tentatively towards it, then glanced up at him. “Is it okay if I touch it?”
Kell swallowed hard, hoping it was. “Yes.” He wasn’t hesitant in his response, because he didn’t want her to think that he didn’t want her to touch him. He did. He just wasn’t sure that he would live through it, was all. His body was just about as tense as it had ever been in his life, and he waited patiently for the moment when her small fingers would close around him, and send him straight to heaven.
But they didn’t wrap around him at first. Instead, having gotten permission from him to touch that part in which she was most interested, Aislinn started at his forehead, and asked a question she’d been dying to ask since Jenny had given her that little talk about husbands and wives and what they did in the privacy of their own bedroom. “Are – are there any other ways that men and women are made differently besides this?” She waved her spare hand towards his huge erection while the fingertips of the other hand ran gently down his face, as if she was trying to learn every crag and dimple.
He wasn’t sure he whether or not he could give her a coherent answer, but he tried. He was already breathing heavily, as if he’d already impaled himself on her, which was his most fervent wish right now. “No, lass, I – I don’t think so.”
Aislinn nodded and continued to touch him – everywhere. Those tiny fingers ignited fires over his broad shoulders and down to his own fingertips, then across his collarbone and down the other arm. Aislinn adjusted herself a l
ittle, and leaned over him, putting her palms on his chest, sliding them down and over his nipples.
Kell couldn’t help it. He jumped as if she’d hit him with a whip. Aislinn noted his reaction, almost clinically, then did it again, carefully watching him. He groaned loudest when she touched his nipples, so she settled there for a while, enjoying the fact that there was a second way that she could elicit cries of pleasure from him.
She carefully plucked at his nipples, which made him arch and moan, writhing beneath her touch.
Suddenly, Kell abandoned his passive role and reached up to the collar of Aislinn’s dress, and with one sure tug he ripped it down the front. Her chemise was worn and frayed and even more easily dispatched with. Aislinn tried to back away from him, but he held her in place until he’d left her top half nude and exposed to his lustful gaze.
Then he took her stiff arms and put her palms over his own nipples, and did the same thing to her, cupping those delightful breasts and flicking his finger over her nipples, coaxing them out as gently as possible. Aislinn finally got what he was trying to do, and as she began to want to writhe and moan from his ministrations, she started to do the same things he was doing to her, to him. He was showing her that their pleasure in each other was mutual. That what she did to him that felt good, would feel just as good to her.
They stayed that way for a long time, fondling each other, plucking nipples, moaning and groaning and playing a sensual follow the leader that had them both breathing heavily by the end.
Kell couldn’t take any more. He removed his hands from Aislinn’s breasts, and removed her hands from him, saying, “Stretch out beside me, Aislinn. I want to feel you against me.” But he stopped her from moving first, and removed the rest of her clothes.
The MacNaughton Bride Page 12
