Perfect Strangers (15 page)

"Och! is that the way of it?" His laughter—loud, devoid of mirth—cut through the damp night air like a knife. The husky rumble sliced a warm path down Gabrielle's spine. "Nae matter how sternly ye did it, I dinny think that correcting their manners would have stopped a reiver from aught."

Like an expertly aimed arrow, the insult hit its mark. Gabrielle winced. She reacted on one part anger, one part instinct—hand lifting, open palm swinging toward his arrogant cheek—before she even knew she was doing it.

For a big man, Connor moved fast. Frighteningly so... Gabrielle realized this only in retrospect.

Before she could blink, he countered the attack. His powerful fingers shackled her wrist, bringing her up short. Her palm was brought to a bone-jarring halt a mere fraction from blistering contact.

His grip was tight, but not painfully so.

Yet.

The glint in Connor Douglas's cold gray eyes as he glared down into Gabrielle's surprise-widened green ones said his restraint was hard won and, perhaps, temporary. His anger was tethered right now only by the utmost of self-control, a rein that could dissolve at any moment.

A muscle buried deep in the left side of his jaw ticked erratically. Like a magnet, her gaze was drawn to the stubble-dusted flesh there, inches from his sensuously carved mouth.

She sucked in a deep breath, only to find it was filled with the leather-and-spice scent that was Connor Douglas. She released the breath in a rush and watched, unnaturally fascinated, as it turn to a transparent, pale vapor that twisted and mingled with his.

The anger she'd felt only a second ago—
she had been angry, hadn't she?
—melted away to another, more confusing emotion. Dark and intriguing and mysterious, the sensation wove its way through her, so strong it heated the blood pumping hot and fast through her veins, and made her knees feel weak and watery.

And what, exactly, was she feeling?

It was a grand question, that. Pity she'd no answer.

Gabrielle couldn't begin to describe the sensation because she'd never in her life felt anything even remotely like it. Well, nay, that was not entirely true. She'd felt something similar the time Essex, years ago, had kissed her in the Queen's garden. The sensation then had been pale by comparison, the difference between a sapling struggling to stand next to a towering oak. Surely it was not the same... was it?

There was but one way to find out.

Gabrielle inhaled a shuddering breath, tried to ignore the enticing aroma it carried, and decided in a heartbeat trat she did not want an answer
that
badly. If she let herself explore this strange and wonderful new sensation too thoroughly, she might trace it to its source, then be forced to give it a name. That would never do. Some things were best left unknown, a secret even from one's self. This was one of them.

Her lashes lowered, hooding her gaze as it slid down... over the thick trunk of Connor's neck, the broad shelf of his jack-encased shoulder, the firm line of his arm. She stopped at the place where his fingers were coiled about her wrist. That place felt molten; the flesh there burned and tingled in the most enigmatically splendid way. It was almost frightening. Almost.

Connor's attention shadowed hers. The muscles in his stomach tightened into a fist.

He should have let her slap him. Touching her, even if only briefly, to thwart her angry attack, had been a mistake. He'd known it the second his fingers grazed her wrist and he'd felt the warm silk of her skin whisper against his fingertips and palm. She was not small-boned; he could not circle her wrist and have his fingertips touch. She wasn't scrawny, all sharp angles and bones, like the other women he'd known. He liked that. Too much, he liked it!

She was full-figured and vibrant. The way her hips and thighs filled the trews was enticingly indecent. The way her breasts strained against the borrowed tunic...

Och! he'd never seen anything like it, and prayed to God he never would again. The tempting sight tested his resolve in ways it had never been tested before. Worse, for the first time in his life, The Black Douglas found his resolve lacking. And what, he wondered, would the Border balladeers think of
that?!

The night air, heated by closeness and nerve-shattering contact, stirred against Connor's face. A waft of Gabrielle's oh so soft, oh so sweet and feminine fragrance drifted over him like a breathy sigh.

His gaze lifted, whisked over her mouth. Her lips were alluringly full and pink; as he watched, the tip of her tongue darted out, moistening the flesh there until it glistened in the muted moonlight.

Connor trapped a groan in his tight, parched throat. His tongue stroked the back of his tightly gritted teeth; Lord, how he ached to trace the gesture, to sip and savor what he knew without a doubt would be a thoroughly unique, thoroughly delicious taste of those sweet, sweet lips.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, did the woman have any idea how desirable she was? E'en for a court-pampered Sassenach!

He frowned. Judging by the way she blushed to the roots of her silky black hair and, in a coyness he'd rarely seen displayed so openly in a woman, lowered her gaze to the scant sliver of wet ground separating them, he thought that perhaps she didn't. Incredible. But indeed mayhap true.

"I did not mean to worry you, m'lord," Gabrielle said finally, the words coming out in a soft and raspy rush, "or make you to ride out after us. Ella and I thought to accomplish our mission and return to the Bracklenaer before daybreak. We never thought we'd be missed. Please, I beg of you, m'lord, try to understand that we wished only to rescue Mairghread from the Maxwell."

Connor felt his anger chipping away. He tried to retain it—anger was a safe emotion; maun safer than the stronger one that threatened to override it. His tone softened a wee bit. "Yer motives are alien to me, lass, yet I do believe ye."

Gabrielle nodded. Her voice, she was pleased to find, didn't shake nearly as violently as her knees. "The old woman showed me great kindness by nursing me through my sickness. It wasn't necessary, but she did it anyway. I sought only to repay her generosity by seeing her safely back at Bracklenaer. If I could. It seemed the least I could do."

Connor's grip on her wrist had loosened at some point. He didn't know when or why. His thumb now traced small, rhythmic circles against the pulse throbbing in the base of her wrist. He realized this fact only when he felt her quiver beneath his fingertips. Her reaction was not caused by the cold, and well he knew it. Nor did the reciprocal shudder that coursed through him have roots in the weather.

His gaze lingered on her mouth. Her lips looked warm and moist and inviting. Would she taste as good as he thought she might? More importantly, since she was soon going to be his wife, was there a reason in the world to stop him from finding out?

None that he could think of!

Still, Connor hesitated. Very little space separated them. He'd only to lean forward, bend his knees a bit to accommodate the differences in their height, angle his head slightly to the side...

Like a piece of driftwood being swept away on a forceful current, Gabrielle swayed forward. The tips of her breasts grazed the rock-solid wall of Connor's chest even as her fingers wrapped around his sinewy upper arms in an attempt to regain her balance.

She gasped at the contact.

The sound was swallowed by Connor's mouth crashing down upon hers.

Her fingers tightened around his arms, her palms pressed against the coiled bands of muscle playing beneath the sleeves of his jack and tunic. Because of the padding it was impossible to feel his body heat against her hands... yet Gabrielle could have sworn she felt it anyway. And, oh, but it felt wonderful! Hot and enticing, his warmth seeped through the thick fabric separating flesh from flesh, into her palm, into her very being.

Her gasp melted into a low, throaty groan as she clung to him and went up on tiptoe. Her breathing had been shaky and shallow; it now took a deep, ragged turn... when she was able to suck in a breath at all.

The movement of his mouth on hers had started off gently, coaxing. Her shift in position pressed her lips more firmly to his, encouraging from Connor a lusty moan and a more hearty response.

One arm slid around her waist, and he shivered with desire as he hauled her to him. Och! but she was hot and soft, the generous curves of her body complementing to perfection the hard planes and angles of his. He could not remember any woman feeling this good in his arms.

The fingers of his free hand opened, raked through her dark hair. The strands felt like silk as they slid against his fingertips. He cupped the back of her head, tilted it to the side as his tongue skated hungrily over her lips. She opened for him with delicious readiness, and he wasted no time in plundering her mouth with his tongue.

She tasted good. Och! nay, she tasted far, far better than good. The best whisky in Scotland paled in comparison to the intoxicating flavor of Gabrielle Carelton's mouth. Connor felt drunk with a sudden, overpowering need that stunned him. The hand cradling her waist slipped downward. He cupped her bottom, his strong fingers gently kneading her through the trews. The snug trews which hid nothing from his exploring hand.

Sweet Lord, even there she was temptingly, pleasingly soft and supple!

With a flick of his wrist, he pulled her hard against him. Her mouth swallowed his husky groan. Her breasts felt full and firm, pushing against his chest; the shape and feel of her burned through the thick leather jack, stamping an imprint into his skin that he'd a feeling would brand him forever. His tongue darted and probed and teased. He was shocked to feel her meet the passionate strokes measure for bold measure.

The woman was a seductress!

All thought of satisfying his curiosity with one simple kiss scattered from Connor's mind. There was nothing simple about this kiss, nothing simple about Gabrielle's unabandoned response. He'd expected her to be shy, perhaps even frightened and unwilling. He'd never miscalculated a woman and her response so drastically in his life!

What he'd wanted was but a quick kiss, something to tame his mounting curiosity and put the matter to rest in his mind.

What he'd gotten instead was an armful of wild, unrestrained passion.

Gabrielle attacked his senses in ways he'd never experienced, to an extent he'd never imagined possible. The sweet, fresh scent of her filled him. The silky feel of her hair slipping through his fingers, the warm pliancy of her perfectly rounded curves straining against his body, made him ache for something infinitely more intimate. The taste of her mouth left him parched, thirsty for a taste of all of her.

Her arms slipped around his waist, her hands splaying his back. She squirmed closer. Her hips pressed hard against his, her breasts rubbed against his chest. His breathing, what there was of it, went harsh and choppy.

Did the lass have any idea of how much he wanted her? Of how her untamed response was driving him insane? Did she care?

It took every last shred of Connor's self-control not to surrender to the sudden, unexpected urge to strip away the barriers of cloth separating them. He wanted—needed,
craved
—to feel her naked skin gliding beneath his open palms. Beneath his mouth and tongue. He wanted to touch and taste all of her. Now. So badly it frightened him. But not so badly that he would stop.

Releasing a shaky moan, he leaned into her until her spine bowed. Her curves cushioned his front as he deepened the kiss. She needed to feel the true extent of his desire for her, needed her to decide—now, before it was too late—to be sensible and stop this madness while there was still the time and ability to do so. The hardness between his legs said that the time for stopping was growing preciously short.

Gabrielle did not shy away, as he'd expected—hoped?—she would. Instead, she kept pace with the bold strokes of his tongue. In fact her tongue made more than a few bold strokes of its own. Strokes that left him shaking and breathless.

Her hands stroked restlessly over his back—sometimes caressing, sometimes clenching around the leather of his jack in tight fists... always in ways that promised untold delight were the jack and tunic peeled away and his skin laid bare to her touch.

Connor shivered. A lightning bolt of raw sensation fisted in his stomach, rippling shockwaves throughout the rest of him when he imagined her fingernails raking over his ultrasensitive flesh. His head spun. His desire escalated, spiraling upward with soul-numbing speed.

She wasn't his wife. Yet. He should stop. So rationalized the small portion of his mind still able to cling to a tattered thread of sanity. Another, larger portion instantly countered the thought, reminding Connor that, while it was true Gabrielle was not his wife, she would be soon enough. This very night if he could manage it!

More importantly... had she even once, in either words or in deed, indicated that she wanted him to stop?

Nay, she had not!

Just the opposite. The way her temptingly full body wriggled impatiently against him, the way her warm, ragged breaths puffed like a sweet summer breeze against his cheek as she clung to him and returned his kiss with an ardor that wanted—
demanded
—more, encouraged his yearning to satisfy the mutual need simmering like liquid fire inside them both.

An intense throbbing shot through Connor, rocking him to the core. Och! how he wanted her! Here. Now. In any manner she pleased. The sanctity of marriage be damned; their legal joining was a negligible obstacle that would be remedied soon enough... after their physical one.