The Lover (24 page)

“W-Would you…like something to eat?” she managed to ask.

“Later, sweeting. I have in mind satisfying a different appetite first.”

“What…appetite?”

“Come here, and I will gladly show you.”

Her heart twisted in her chest. Niall seemed so easy and normal, unchanged by having made love to her, while she had been devastated by his tender eroticism. With his invasion of her body, he had laid claim to some secret part of her. But then, he doubtlessly had honed that particular skill. He was a veteran of more beds than he could probably recall.

He flashed her a slow, lazy smile, more brilliant than sunshine. “Come to bed, love.”

“W-Why?”

“Because I want you.” His voice was pleasant, unhurried, rich in timbre. “And because I want to pleasure you.”

He was in an enchanting mood, Sabrina thought, her heart sinking. It was all she could do to resist his potent sexual power, yet she had to try. She had already exposed more of her vulnerability to him than she could bear.

“Do you never think of anything else but lovemaking?” she muttered.

“Occasionally.” The warm blue eyes were amused and beguiling. “The third Tuesday of each month I devote to clan affairs.”

She bit back a smile, cursing the overwhelming urge to run into his arms. “You may cease your efforts to seduce me. Our marriage has been consummated, you might recall.”

“True.” He regarded her with lazy anticipation. “But we have barely begun your education.” His voice held a uniquely seductive rasp. “You delighted me far beyond my expectations last night, but it will take time and practice for you to become proficient.”

“You have enough proficiency for both of us. And I have no desire to repeat the experience.”

“Did you find your initiation too painful?”

“I found it…disappointing,” Sabrina lied. “I cannot comprehend why such fuss is made about so awkward a procedure.”

His eyebrow shot up. “You render me inarticulate.”

“I doubt it.”

His grin was audacious and captivating, his eyes a vivid, wicked blue. “I think you must be telling a shameful falsehood. Come, admit it, mouse, you find me irresistible.”

A warm laugh bubbled past her control. “I find you impossibly conceited.”

Niall tilted his head at the bell-like sound of her laugh. “You are entrancing when you laugh, do you realize that?”

Her heart tumbled over itself at his remark. Doubtless he was giving her false coin, but still she felt herself succumbing to the virile charm. “I expect countless women find
you
entrancing, but I think your prowess as a lover much overrated.”

“Come, now, pet, I might become insulted.”

“That would be impossible!”

His smile softened. “I shall take pleasure in proving you wrong. No lass has spent a night in my bed and yet been unsatisfied.”

“I am honored to be your first.”

“Did you not enjoy the feel of me moving inside you, sweeting?”

Sabrina shut her eyes briefly, fighting the erotic image of their bodies joined. His sensuality was a weapon he held over her, and the wretch damn well knew it. “If you expect me to pay homage to your carnal talents, you will have a long wait.”

“Just so I do not have to wait for
you
. Come, sweeting, I am not accustomed to begging for female companionship.”

“Perhaps you should. You might find it beneficial.”

He shook his head. “I can see you have a great deal to learn about the art of dalliance. When a man asks if you enjoyed his lovemaking, you should declare yourself enchanted.”

“Had I been enchanted, I might have admitted it.”

Niall was the one to laugh this time, a wry, pained chuckle. “My wounded vanity may never recover.”

“I’m certain it will. You have only to seduce your next female and it will be quite whole again.”

“I want no other female but you.”

“Now who is telling falsehoods?” Sabrina plucked at a thread of her skirt. “I…am not the kind of woman who could ever please you.”

His expression suddenly grew sober. “You can and shall please me in every possible way. Come here, Sabrina.” When she remained frozen, he patted the mattress beside him. “I never took you for a timid lass. But perhaps our Highland ways are too fierce for you, and you are not up to the challenge.”

Vexed as he intended her to be, Sabrina rose abruptly, determined to prove him wrong. She might be unable to change her plain appearance, but she was not a mouse in spirit.

She hesitated, however, when Niall tossed aside the covers, exposing his nudity. He presented a riveting contrast to the pale linen sheets, his body an awesome line of broad chest and naked, rippling thigh, all lean-muscled strength and bronzed skin.

She wanted desperately to avert her gaze, but then she noticed the discolored flesh on his right hip—a wicked gash that in her nervousness she had missed seeing previously.

“You are hurt,” she murmured in sympathy.

Niall’s mouth twisted wryly. “A wound from an unfortunate mishap. But it is healing. Do not think to change the subject, mouse. Do as I bid and come to me.”

A mixture of desire and excited apprehension coursed through Sabrina as she forced her feet to move.

When she was close enough, Niall reached out to capture her wrist and drew her down to sit beside him. The warmth in his blue eyes seemed very real as he lightly stroked her cheek with the back of his knuckles. “Did you truly not like kissing me last eve?”

She couldn’t answer with the sudden constriction in her throat; indeed, she was finding it difficult to breathe.

“
I
very much liked kissing
you
,” he murmured.

“You were…merely performing your duty.”

“Surely you do not believe a man embraces a woman like I did you out of simple
duty
?”

“Yes…”

“Indeed,” he said almost to himself, “a great deal to learn.”

Sabrina forced herself to reply lightly. “You cannot persuade me that last night was not a disappointment to you. Doubtless you prefer ladies of experience.”

Niall gave her an odd look. “Don’t underestimate yourself, lass. Such spirit as yours is entrancing. It will be a fortunate man who can unleash all the fire you’ve hidden from the world.” He smiled softly. “And I intend to be that man.”

He reached up and flicked the high neckline of her gown, making Sabrina tense. “Surely this is too constricting, sweeting. And unflattering. It doesn’t do you justice.”

She made a face. “You have a most annoying habit of criticizing my taste in attire.”

“Because I am not fond of the stiff Presbyterian frocks you wear. The style is all wrong for you—and you don it like protective armor. A gown should flatter the wearer. The neckline should show the lovely swell of your breasts…Like this…”

Gently he tugged on the bodice, drawing down the fabric to the neckline of the tight stomacher. Sabrina’s breath caught in her throat.

“And if you were truly daring…you would rouge your nipples and let them peek over the edge, beckoning your lover…like so…”

Her breath fled entirely. When he brushed her skin, her nipples instantly grew taut, while her heart began to thud. Yet she made no move to stop him as he exposed the pale swells of her bosom pushed up by stays of whalebone, freeing her flesh of the confining fabric.

His eyes darkened, his glance making no effort to disguise his purpose, a blatant appraisal of her charms.

Instinctively her arms rose to cover her breasts, but Niall drew them away. “No, lass…there’s no need for shyness between us. Not after the intimacies we’ve already shared. You are my wife now, Sabrina. You have yet to lose your inhibitions, but one day soon, you will take great pleasure in showing me every single secret of your lovely body…”

Ruthlessly his eyes devoured her, scrutinizing the high, jutting breasts, the rose-hued nipples, still swollen and hotly sensitized from his attentions the previous night. “You are a far greater temptation than you know, pet.”

Sabrina felt her heart hammering. There was something warm and exciting and yes, flattering, in the way he was looking at her. But then she dared not trust so renowned a rake. Niall’s gaze was full of male appreciation whenever he looked at
any
woman. It was his stock in trade, a talent he had deliberately cultivated—letting his sapphire eyes shimmer with desire while hiding every other emotion brilliantly.

“Aye, I much prefer this charming dishabille,” he murmured, his voice husky. Determinedly, he drew a lock of her hair forward, to fall gracefully over her shoulder. “I like your silken hair flowing free like this. I like the way it teases every sweet curve of your breast…”

Her nipples quivered beneath his gaze, the peaks distended and hard. Then, with one finger, he touched the tip of her breast, brushing her flesh that was achingly tight and tender, knowing full well the sensuality of it.

Sabrina gasped, even before the long fingers curved, cupping and teasing the furled bud with expert skill.

“My bonny mouse…” he whispered.

“I…am not bonny….”

Their eyes met, haunted brown to hungry blue.

Niall shook his head at the uncertainty he saw in her features. It was criminal, how little value Sabrina placed on her own feminine attractions. She was convinced that she possessed no beauty, that he could not want her. She had no notion how lovely she could be. She was intriguing with the light of laughter dancing in her dark eyes. She was enchanting in her fury. Her spirited defiance lent a radiance to her skin and a fire to her eyes that was as fascinating as it was alluring. And when passion brightened her face, she was almost incandescent….

Niall smiled faintly to himself. He intended to prove her wrong, to make this lass believe he found her desirable, to understand how very much he wanted her…With the right amount of masculine persuasion he could convince her.

“You
are
bonny,” he whispered as his hands began their practiced arousal. “You are one of the most intriguing women I’ve ever met. Lovely and vibrant…”

The shimmering-silk words washed over her and made Sabrina’s heart ache. He was a scoundrel set on seduction, and she would be powerless to stop him.

“Can you feel how perfectly you fill my hands?”

She gazed down at his bronzed fingers cupping her pale flesh. He had beautiful hands with long strong fingers, aristocratic yet seasoned by battle. He cupped and weighed the soft globes, brushing his thumbs across the aureoles.

“Your slender body is exquisite, Sabrina, made for giving pleasure.”

She closed her eyes, feeling a feverish heat throb between her thighs. He was winning. She could feel the reckless hunger rising, slow and insidious.

When his hands covered her breasts completely, she arched her back, thrusting the rigid tips, so deliciously sensitive, against his callus-roughened palms. She wanted to do more, to press her full length against him, until she melted into his hard-muscled form. She felt a need so palpable, it throbbed and pulsed with a life of its own.

“You’re a woman of great passion….”

Dazed, she shook her head. “Niall…”

Tenderness filled him as he watched a lush sensuality suffuse her face. “I like the sound of my name upon your lips. Perhaps we should see if I can make you cry it aloud again.”

Sabrina bit back a whimper, trying to resist the maddening games his touch was playing on her ready flesh.

“Look at me, love.”

His eyes were smoldering embers in the candlelight, his voice a velvet whisper. “How bonny you are…Your breasts are exquisite, so firm and taut, the nipples pouting like wild rosebuds eager to be kissed.”

With light erotic strokes, he caressed each peaking crest into a rigid, aching hardness, rubbing and teasing the furled buds with expert skill, filling Sabrina with a hot shameless yearning that grew with each heartbeat. Her body felt heavy and tense with wanting, with craving.

Then his dark head dipped, his mouth skimming hot and open against her bosom. A sweet blinding hunger flooded her.

“Do you ache here, sweeting? Shall I ease the pain? Let me taste you…”

His tongue was rough and wet on her tender skin as it wrapped around a budding nipple. The arrow of pleasure that shot through Sabrina made her whimper aloud. She would have collapsed against him had he not supported her.

Her fingers clung to his powerful shoulders as his lips captured the pouting crest. Her heart lurched wildly as he suckled the rigid peak. A wave of stunning sensation streaked through her, excruciatingly violent, a fire burning in her blood. Sabrina moaned again raggedly.

The murmur that sounded deep in Niall’s throat was one of approval. “Aye…let me hear your pleasure…”

Slowly, gently, he teased each peaking crest into a rigid aching hardness. Like a lash of dark fire, his tongue flickered and tormented, arousing sweet searing pleasure within her, filling her with a raw, reckless hunger, until she wanted to plead for mercy.

When weakly she tried to pull away from him, though, Niall wrapped her in the sweet prison of his arms. She wanted him, he was certain. He’d known too many women not to recognize need when he saw it, tasted it. Pulling her resisting body across his, he rolled with her, till she lay sprawled among the pillows.