She vowed she would not start the conversation, regardless that the quiet made her itch. What could she say? Please stay. Stay and make love to me, but keep that thing to yourself, if you don't mind. No, that would probably be the beginning of a bad end between them. My God, who would've thought she'd be half-hoping for him to leave on their second day together?
"I should leave," he said suddenly, with such darkness she thought he must be talking to himself. "I should leave," he repeated, looking to her this time. "But I do believe some of your pragmatism is rubbing off on me."
"My pragmatism?" Her distracted mind noticed the glint of water through the trees just over his shoulder.
"I'm angry on one hand, but on the other. . ." He ran a hand through his hair. "A little voice in my head whispers, 'It is done now. Where is the harm?'"
"And what do you say to that little voice?"
His bitter chuckle tickled her belly. "I say nothing. I tremble before it."
Oh, God. "Collin, I. . ." She stumbled over words and wrapped shaking hands in her skirts to hide them. His brows rose in question. "I don't. . . I don't think we fit."
"We don't fit? You mean we don't get on?"
"No, I. . ." God. Oh, God. Maybe she should just pretend to like it so she wouldn't have to have this conversation.
"Alex?"
"You-are-far-too-big-and-I-think-you-should-go-home."
"What?" He blinked at her, lips moving as he deciphered her spewed words.
She saw his understanding in the darkening of his face, in the thinning of his lips. She stopped dead in the path, to cover her eyes and hide.
"Alexandra, you were a virgin—"
"I know! I know it hurts most the first time but, Collin, look at me. I can't think why I didn't consider it before. I am small!" She dared a peek through her fingers. "You are . . . not!"
"You cannot think to judge me, to judge the pleasure I can give you based on that. If I'd known . . . Yes, it is painful for a virgin, but there are ways of easing that. You can't. . . You can't think to send me away like that."
Alex groaned into her hands. "I can't do it again, Collin, please."
He cursed, a string of Scottish words, their meaning quite clear though she didn't understand a one. She peeked again. He looked up to the sky, to the patch of blue stretching through the leaves. His lips moved as if in prayer.
His face tilted down suddenly and he caught her watching, smiled past the strain on his face. "I guess the decision is made then."
Alex felt relieved and terribly, terribly sad. "I'm sorry. I—"
"I can hardly pass up a chance to be the seducer, can I?"
"Seducer?" He'd reduced her to a dumb child, repeating simple words in hopes the repetition would reveal their meaning.
"You know you're being ridiculous, Alex. You are an intelligent woman and a passionate one. You know that women must enjoy it, at least some of the time."
"Only the things that come before!" she cried, finally pushing away her cowardice and letting her hands fall. "You are . . . I know you are too large. You're far bigger than—" She pressed a hand to her lips, too wise to continue.
An incongruous mix of emotions played over Collin's face: amusement, horror, pride. The amusement finally won out. "I've never received any complaints in that area, as to being too small or too big. No. None."
She could only stare, afraid to open her mouth again.
"I'm sure I am quite normal. And how exactly would you know anything about the range of sizes, Lady Alexandra?"
"I was a virgin," she hissed, "not a nun."
"Really? I could've sworn you were convent raised."
"How can you find this so amusing?"
"Well, it is either that or fly back to the alehouse to drink myself to a shameful death."
'"Tis nothing to be ashamed of, Collin. Everything else was lovely. More than lovely! It's not your fault. We are simply mismatched."
"Trust me."
Trust him? She had no reason not to . . . "I don't know. I don't want to." She glanced at him, at his angled face and curling hair and, oh, she wanted him to stay. Wanted to have the time to stroke his hair and kiss his neck. Wanted to play with his body the way he'd played with hers.
"Oh, all right," she conceded. "All right. I am willing to try it, but only once more."
Collin nodded, one dip of his chin, and moved away, resuming the walk. She hurried to catch up.
"You must understand that if there is a babe, we will marry. I should have made that clear in Edinburgh." He took her hand loosely in his. "I will not have a child raised a bastard."
"No. I understand that. Will there . . . ? Will there be a child?" Hand cradled in his, she felt the tiny jolt of shock run through his fingers.
"I didn't think to ask, Alex, but you do know that what we did. . . the part you didn't like . . . that is how women conceive?"
A stunned laugh bounced from her throat. "Of course I know that. My God."
"Well, you're apparently more innocent than you seem, caitein. I wanted to be sure."
"Yes, I know that. But my maid said you would know a way to lessen the chance."
"Urn, yes." He squirmed a little at her questioning look. "Yes, there is a way to help prevent it, but I forgot myself last night. Still, it's not proof against children, else so many girls wouldn't be rushed to the altar."
"How is it done?"
Collin coughed and laughed, ears reddening at the tips. "I should not have spilled my seed inside you."
"Oh." She answered very solemnly. "It's a matter of timing then."
"Yes, timing." He watched her then, as they walked, kept glancing at her until she blushed. His teeth suddenly appeared, framed by a wolfish smile, and even his eyes flashed like a beast's, caught in a ray of bright sun. Alex swallowed hard. That couldn't be right though. Her Collin? A wolf? Impossible.
"Nonsense." Collin set the pail of steaming water next to the tub and wiped a hand over his brow. "Check the temperature."
Alex swept her fingers through the half-filled tub. "Just a touch more and it will be perfect."
She stood as he poured the bucket in, pressed her lips together nervously when he rose next to her "Thank you, Collin."
He reached for the back of her dress.
"You're going to stay in the room?"
"I'm going to do more than stay. I'm going to bathe you."
"Oh." She didn't protest, didn't pretend any modesty, though her hands fluttered toward his. "Shall I help, or. . . ?"
"No. Let me." He watched his brown fingers against the pale fabric, watched the tiny hooks fall open under his hands. The skin of her face was a little tanned, but here, as the material parted, alabaster skin was revealed, just a shade darker than white. She wore a shift this time, a soft wisp of gauze that covered nothing. When he slid the dress low and turned her, he found a pale pink corset that pushed her breasts high, rounding them.
Her head bent as he looked, as if she would see what he saw. They both watched his work-rough hands etch a line over her collarbone, over the front of her shoulder and down the inside of her arm to her wrist.
"You are so finely wrought," he breathed. "Like a new child."
Even as she shook at his words, his hands stole down to push her dress off. She unhooked her corset, and the shift was her only garment now, a veil that skimmed over her stomach and hips, hiding nothing of the dark triangle at the juncture of her thighs.
Collin kept the distance between them, caressed her with his eyes, drank in the beauty of her body veiled like a virgin bride. But how could he ever have suspected her of virginity?
Even as he watched she became more aroused, her breath stuttering to a pant. She responded to him like a mare kept from her stallion too long, just the scent of him enough to rouse her. Her lust called his beast, raised in him a need to dominate and subdue, to ravish her into surrender. Of course, she would not surrender. Not for more than a moment. Then it would start again.
Setting his jaw, Collin touched his thumbs to the thin ribbons of lace at her shoulders and pushed them aside. When the slip of fabric had slithered down her body and left her naked, she raised her head and smiled.
"Into the tub." His gruff words caressed her.
Alex brushed past him as she walked, letting her arm rub against his shirt, against the solid mass of his chest beneath it. She loved the effect she had on this man, loved that she could control his very breath. Make him gasp or pant or stop breathing altogether.
She stepped over the edge, sunk one foot into stinging-hot water.
Collin watched, seeming fascinated by the water lapping at her knee. She pulled her other leg in and slid down. When she touched bottom, the water came just to her ribs, tiny waves sloshed against the underside of her breasts. Collin stared.
His gaze heated her nipples, seemed to scrape against them until something twisted in her belly, something almost painful and as hot and liquid as the water that swirled about her. When his eyes slid up to lock with hers, the silver wildness of them caught her breath and deepened the pain in her belly.
She'd never seen his eyes like this, glinting gray on black, hot and icy cold at once. She suddenly felt in danger of being burned by the fire she'd so recklessly tended. He was not a plaything; he was a man, a man she'd pushed to the limits of temper and control. Alex shivered in the hot water and closed her eyes against the danger.
The cool air of the room shifted. He was moving, circling her. Her muscles vibrated in anxious tension as she waited for a touch, for anything.
"Lean forward."
She jerked, felt the water rippling against her skin as the light weight of her hair was lifted from her back. She felt him dip a hand into the water, heard the slippery squish of wet soap and then those slick fingers took her in their grip, trailing a cloud of steamy lavender.
His hands pressed into her shoulders, slipped to her neck and then down, over her chest, over the high rise of her breasts. His fingers separated, opened to let her nipples slide between them, to rub those sensitive peaks until they caught at the start of his palm.
Alex gasped, then whimpered as he pressed his fingers together to squeeze a delicious pressure into her nerves. His hold turned. His thumbs flicked over the hard pebbles, pushing past and back again in twin circles that brought her to a squirm.
"Collin!"
"Mm."
At the sound of his chest rumbling near her ear. Alex threw back her head and pressed it into that solidness. His thumbs finally left her nipples. His palms, instead, caressed her, cupped the whole of her breasts. Her body pressed into those hands, wishing they could cover all of her skin at once.
"Shh," his deep voice soothed, and she sighed at the departure of his touch.
Alex heard the water, the soap again, and then he cleaned her. He soaped her arms, her hands, her armpits. He diligently washed her, stroked each rib, each notch of her spine, his skin slick against her, like a tongue that licked at every space on her body.
He lifted her hair, poured fresh warm water over her shoulders and arms.
"Stand." The order was curt but so warm it burned her. She stood.
More soap on his hands and then her waist, her belly. Alex couldn't stop the trembling that took her body. Her belly twitched at the pass of his hands, jerking away from the too-wonderful touch.
He still knelt behind her, and she could feel his breath cool the dampness at the small of her back. She tried to picture him there, his mouth easing closer to her skin as his hands slicked down the curve of her belly and into the dripping curls of hair. A choking gasp clawed its way up her throat. She wanted him to kiss her, to bite her hip and curl his fingers up and inside her, but he only washed, only pushed the soap into that triangle of hair, then pulled away to wet his hands again.
Roughness tinged his grasp when he returned to his task. His fingers gripped her hips tight, held on for a moment, then let go to slide down her thighs. He pushed up again, toward the swell of her bottom, and seemed to push with him all the feeling in her legs, so that her feet and knees and thighs numbed and sent all their nerves to that hollow between her legs. A pulse took up the beat of her heart, a pulse that throbbed at the opening to her womb, a drum to call him.
Collin cupped the round halves of her bottom, spread his fingers wide and slipped his thumbs into the crease, sliding along it and back down, slowly, slowly. He caressed again and again, teasing closer to her core with every pass. Alex shook and burned and moaned when she felt his hands slide apart and down her hips, spreading her buttocks, then letting her slide free again as he soaped her legs.
"Lift your leg." Oh, he tried to sound detached, but his throat wouldn't loosen enough to let him. Alex wanted to tease him, but her own mouth was too busy holding back a plea, so she raised her left leg and perched her foot on the edge of the tub.
Turning her head, she saw his pupils dilate, saw his eyes turn to black as he gazed at her. open and slick with soap and woman's need. He squeezed the soap, twisted viciously until it jumped from his hands and into the water with a plop.
