The Laird and the Wanton Widow (4 page)

He somehow managed to turn the knob on the door to a chamber. A bedroom. “I’m Scottish. A barbarian. Remember?” He dumped her on the bed.

She arched her brows. “As am I.”

He bent over her, took her mouth. One hand covered her breast and the nipple peaked with interest, while her heart beat with excitement.

Her husband had never made her body hum this way. He’d been sweet, and gentle, and slowly dying. She’d nursed him through the last days of his life, never begrudging a moment, because he was a genuinely good man. One of the few she’d met in her life. And she’d used him shamefully.

But Harry was the love of her life. Blood pounded in her veins, reminding her she was not so very old, and not so very respectable if the wicked thoughts in her mind were anything to go by.

Thoughts of seeing Harry naked. And aroused. For her.

What was it Diana had said only a day or so ago? A widow is much less restricted in what she does than a single lady. She’d almost encouraged Kate to take a lover.

Kate swallowed and reached up to unknot his cravat. His eyes crinkled at the corners, dancing with laughter. “That’s my bold Kate.”

His
Kate.

But only for today. Just this once.

Then she could go back to reality.

The cravat slid slowly from around his neck in a whisper of muslin against linen. She let it drift to the floor and set about his shirt buttons, surprised at how easily she slipped into the role of siren. Delighting in the expression of pleasure on his face.

She pulled the shirt from the waistband of his pantaloons. “Bend down.”

He leaned over her and she hauled the shirt off over his head. When he emerged from the billowing fabric, he kissed her. A quick buss of approval. Soft moist lips tangling with hers. The sensation, so tantalizing, hit her stomach in a shower of what felt like embers, glowing up from her belly to warm her all the way to her hairline. She drank in the sight of his torso, the light dusting of hair across his chest, the male nipples puckered and tight.

“An expert, I see,” he teased.

Not in the way he was thinking, but it really didn’t matter. Not now. She smiled and worked at the buttons of his falls. He drew in a sharp breath when her knuckles brushed the skin of his stomach, his ribs standing out beneath the beautiful bronzed flesh. Lovely. Bonnie. Braw. The fabric of his falls stretched tight across bulging male flesh, the sight of which made her damp between her thighs in anticipation.

She popped the last button.

His erection sprang free. Dark with desire, jutting from its nest of crisp brown curls.

She licked her lips, but before she had more than a glimpse, he toed off his shoes and bent to peel his pantaloons down a pair of strong thighs and dispose of his stockings.

“Now you, madam,” he murmured in low sensual tones while tweaking free the bow at the neck of her bodice and doing the same to the ties at her waist. In an instant the gown was slipped down her body, under her legs and feet and was tossed aside.

“It seems you have your own expertise,” she said breathlessly, forcing her gaze to remain on his face, much as she wanted to study the rest of him.

He chuckled, a warm sound that soothed and excited at once. “I’ll admit to enough. You learn quite a bit when your cousin is London’s foremost rake.” He ran a finger along the lacy edge of the shift peeking above her front-closing stays, following the contour of the rise of her breasts, promising more. Her skin jumped to life, tingling and burning in the wake of his touch.

A promise she might well enjoy. She licked her bottom lip, tasting his kiss. His eyes tracked the movement. “Have patience, madam. I have more work to do yet.”

Strong fingers made short work of her stay laces while she traced the ripple of corded muscle in his shoulder and upper arm with her fingertips. Satin over steel. Warm, smooth and rock solid. He whipped the linen away, leaving her in naught but her shift.

He paused, looking down her length from beneath eyelids seductively lowered, his stern face softened by passion and desire. “Lovely,” he said.

Praise indeed. She wanted to take it in her stride, wanted to believe he spoke the truth, but she was no longer a girl in her first blush of youth. Mirrors did not lie. They reflected a widow aged twenty-five with ravages of time wrought on her face and her body. She could not stop the edgy laugh or the words. “You are too kind.”

His gaze lifted to her face. “Do you give me the lie, then, oh luscious morsel?”

The words made her want to giggle like a girl, but the heat in his expression made her feel very much a woman. The joy of seeing him again turned into something else, a yearning for her lost youth, a longing to undo what was done, and deep desire for this man on so many levels. A desire to make him happy, to see his brow smooth, his lips and eyes smile, to hear his voice warm.

An ache deep within herself longed to ease his aura of loneliness.

Yet how could she? She was the one who had walked away. She didn’t deserve such happiness. She only had now. Today.

Kate opened her arms to him, raised her face for his kiss and, with a deep sigh, he brushed her mouth with his, licked and teased at her lips until she parted them allowing him entry. He stretched his large body alongside her on the bed, the ropes protesting a little at his weight, the mattress sinking and conspiring to roll her against his warm heat and hard body.

The kiss roughened, his tongue probing deeper. One hand palmed her buttocks and drew her closer; his other hand cradled her nape. His thigh, warm and heavy, trapped her legs, making escape impossible. If she had wanted to escape.

She cupped his cheek with one hand and let the other explore his lovely flesh, the hair on his chest, the tight nipple, the smooth swells and valleys of his sinewed arms, the wide plane of his back, the dip of waist and narrow hip. He was lovely.

And for this brief moment in time, she would imagine he was hers.

He raised his head, slowly, his lips parting from hers with kisses and nibbles and nuzzles that drove her wild. He trailed kisses across her cheek, blew softly in her ear.

Shivers prickled across her shoulders. She gasped.

He nipped her earlobe.

She kneaded his firm buttocks.

“Like that, do you?”

“Mmm,” she managed, and delivered a nip of her own on his neck.

He hissed out a breath.

Another round of shivers hit her, traveling all the way to her core, tightening her inner muscles. She quivered with anticipation.

His tongue traced her ear, her neck, the hollow of her collarbone, the rise of her breast. He kissed the aching swell and his hand left her nape to pet the other breast through her chemise, weighing, measuring, adoring until she wanted to weep at his gentle kindness.

Then his mouth found her hardened nipple and his tongue flicked over it and around. The flutters in her center intensified. It felt so good, she moaned her pleasure.

“This shift has to go,” he murmured against her breast and raised himself up on one elbow, pulling at the hem of her chemise, dragging it upward.

Oh, yes. It had to go.

She helped him take it off, aware of his gaze following the hem upward, taking in every inch of naked flesh slowly revealed, aware of the increasing sensual cast of his lips, aware of the hunger in his low-lidded gaze. Aware that he wanted her.

The fears and doubts fled on a tide of desire. For this short while she would forget the past, not think of the future, but live for this unexpected moment.

She sat up and pulled the wisp of fabric up over her head and flung herself at his broad chest, knocking him off balance onto the pillows. She swung one leg over his narrow hips, felt the heat of his erection against her inner thigh and rained hot kisses on his face, nuzzled into his neck, licking and nipping her way down his chest to his flat male nipples. The springy curls of hair tickled her lips.

His hands fell hot and heavy on her back. They wandered her skin, circling, smoothing, soothing yet encouraging. She grazed his nipple with her tongue and he groaned.

“Ye’ll be the death of me, lass,” he murmured into her hair, but he made no move to hinder or control her exploration.

She suckled.

His hips rose off the bed, lifting her with him as if she weighed no more than a feather pillow. The power in the man awed her all the way to her toes.

“My turn,” he said, and flipped her on her back.

She gazed up into his face. He smiled at her and stroked her cheek with a fingertip. “Now you are in for it, sweet.”

She sighed. “Make it good, Harry.” Make me forget the time lost. The heartbreak.

His eyes softened and there he was, the boy she’d loved all those years ago. Tears burned the backs of her eyes. She blinked them away.

On a soft groan, he dipped his head, kissed her breasts, first one then the other, his hot, wet mouth open, his tongue teasing, and then he suckled. Eyes drifting closed, she flew on a tide of sensation, of delicious pain, heat and aching tightness and deep urgency for something just out of reach.

Thoughts no longer formed. It was all about his lips on skin so alive it hurt. He moved over her, nudging his knee between her thighs and as he settled there, his erection hot against her belly, they fell open, her back arching, inviting him in.

It felt right.

Everything she’d done for these past many years felt as if she’d been merely waiting for this. A marking of time, waiting for Harry.

Such a fool.

Moisture leaked from her eyes—tears of joy? Tears of heartbreak, when she’d never before cried? Not once. Anger, hurt, fury had all been too hot for tears. And later the regret had left her empty.

Warm hands cradled her face. “Ah sweetheart, don’t cry,” he whispered, anguish in his voice. She opened her eyes. His face echoed her sorrow. “Please, don’t cry.”

A shaky laugh rose from her throat, husky, damp sounding. “I’m not.”

He captured a tear at the corner of her eye on his thumb, tasted it. “You are so. We’ll take this no further. I’m not wanting to make you sad.” He made as if to pull away, a flexing of muscle in his arms, a grimace on his face as if it took him great effort.

She grasped his broad forearms, her laugh stronger. “Don’t you dare stop. It’s just…I’d forgotten what it felt like, to feel…wanted. Please, Harry.”

He groaned and pressed home.

The feel of her sweet body clenched around his flesh drove him wild. He wasn’t sure he could….no. He would not lose control. He had yearned for this moment too many years to muck it up like some green youth.

Slowly he withdrew, watching her face, seeking to know what she liked. And there she was. His fierce Scottish lass with fire in her eyes and passion writ large on her beloved face. His Kate.

Her hips rose to meet him, the dark red curls mingling with his of dark brown as he plunged deep into her heat. Glorious sensation ripped through his body.

He lowered his head to taste her sweet breast with their budded peaks and her fingers speared into his hair, urging him on while she moaned her approval.

This she liked.

He found himself smiling. He withdrew slowly, preparing for the next torturous entry he must control.

Her legs came up around his hips, her heels on his buttocks, urging his return. With a long slow stroke he entered her body, slid home deeper than before as she tilted her hips.

Hades, she was tight. And so wonderfully hot.

Her hands roamed his back, his arms, while her expression grew ever more hazy with desire.

“You look so beautiful,” he muttered through gritted teeth.

Her eyes widened, the green depths a mystery. “Oh Harry,” she said.

The sound of his name on her lips was his undoing. He would never let her go. Because she was his and always had been. Nothing and no one would ever come between them again.

The urge to drive into her, to stake his claim overcame reason. He pounded into her body, over and over, watching her pleasure, wanting her to know him and only him.

She met his furious assault with a battering of her own, lifting her hips, grabbing his buttocks, meeting him stroke for stroke, all the while her gaze drank in his face.

Sweat sheened on their bodies, the dark bliss beckoned, and she took everything he had to give.

He angled his hips, looking for the one place inside her that would shatter her and let him find his release.

There. He saw it in her face, a kind of wondering melting. He moved harder, faster. “Please, Kate,” he groaned. “Let go for me, now.”

She cried out. He let go and joined her in shuddering bliss, feeling the pull of her body as wave after wave of rippling tension held her in its grip.

Beautiful. Wondrous. He felt proud. And so bloody happy.

“I love you,” he said.

“Oh, Harry. I was such a fool. I’m sorry.”

He lay twining her silken fiery hair around his fingers. With the afternoon sun slipping through the window turning her skin to gold, a shadow lurked in the room. The future. She’d not said one word about love.

“I have to go,” she whispered, and he was glad to hear the regret in those words, even as they gave him a sense of dread.

“Stay.” He nuzzled her neck and blew in her ear.

She shivered deliciously. “I can’t. We have an engagement for dinner.”

“To hell with dinner. I want to feast on you.”

Her laugh was breathless.

“When will I see you again?” He knew the answer, before it came, from the sadness in her eyes, and she leaned up on one elbow to look at him.

“We mustn’t. It wouldn’t be right. The Mcraes think you are going to offer for Elizabeth. Diana has been good to me. I can’t betray her trust.”

He opened his mouth and she pressed a dainty finger to his lips. “I can’t do it, Harry. She is my friend.”

“What about me? About us.”

Her small hand stroked his jaw. “You’ll be fine.” Her voice caught a little on the words. “You don’t need any help wooing a woman.”

He clearly was not going to change her mind. Nor was he going to act the forlorn lover and throw a tantrum. He was too old for such games and Kate wouldn’t like it.