Charming the Devil (20 page)

“Not as oft as he injures…” She unwrapped the bandage, trying to do the same with the mystery of his words until his meaning struck her suddenly. “Surely, he would not hurt
you.
”

“You needn’t worry for my welfare, lass,” he said.

She shook her head, bemused, holding the forgotten cloth in front of her. “Because he would bandage you himself were he here?”

His eyes sparkled as if amused, though his lips didn’t twitch. “Truth be told, lass, he’d more like lop off me arm than bind it, but…” He paused. “Here then…” he said, reaching for the bandage. “I can do that meself.”

She pulled it out of his reach. “But what?”

He paused a moment before answering. “He’ll not hurt me.”

She stared at him, the roiling muscle, the tremendous size. “He said that he could not compare to you on the battlefield.”

He raised his brows, watching her a moment before speaking. “You jest.”

“No. I had asked…” she began, and just then remembered that Connelly had been under the influence of her powers. Kneeling beside the chair, she silently chided herself for her carelessness. “I think he admires you.”

His eyes had narrowed slightly. “Might we be speaking of different Connellys?”

“Thayer
Connelly,” she said, and began wrapping his wound. Her fingers brushed the taut expanse of his forearm. She gritted her teeth against the potent feel of skin against skin.

“You didn’t hit your head whilst rushing me through the door, did ye, lass?” he asked.

“No, I…” she began, then realized the jest. She felt the blush begin at her ears and refused to meet his eyes. But the rest of him was far too tempting to dwell on; his shoulders, heavy with touchable power, his nipples dark and flat, his belly graced with a line of downy dark hair that arrowed beneath his breeches.

“Lass?” he said, and she jerked her gaze away. Clearing her throat, she pinned her gaze on the amulet she had given him. But even that seemed dangerous, for she could not help thinking how fortunate it was to lie undisturbed against the strength of him, to—

Flustered, she yanked her mind back to the topic at hand.

“Is it so difficult to believe that he admires you?” she asked, and realized suddenly that her task was finished, and yet her hand remained on the bulging strength of his forearm.

The room fell silent, then, because she could no longer resist, she looked into his eyes. They were as solemn as a dirge. As dark and mysterious as a Highland loch.

“Why did you come here, lass?” he murmured.

“I…” She tried to think, but it would have been so much simpler to
act.
“I had something to tell you.”

Silence again. Deep and heavy.

He rose to his feet, all rolling, quiet muscle. She moved with him, transfixed by the strength of him, by the sheer masculine glory. His expression was stoic, his eyes dead steady. “You came to say you have decided against…befriending me.”

Good heavens he was attractive. Not in the traditional sense of Regency style, of course. He was no preening dandy. Instead, he was power personified. Strength just leashed. And he wanted her. She knew little enough about men, but that much she realized. “Yes.”

He reached silently for his shirt, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm. Excitement skittered through her.

“Is something amiss?” he rumbled.

Yes. She was losing her mind. “I don’t think it necessary for you to…”

He was still staring, but she had run out of words.

She glanced away. “Put the shirt down.”

He glanced at the bloodstained rent in the sleeve. “If it offends you, I shall fetch another—”

“But
that
will offend me also.”

He stared and she laughed. So it had finally happened. She’d officially gone mad.

“I do not understand,” he said, and scowled as he took a step toward her.

Her heart knocked hopefully in her chest. “I just…I don’t…” She glanced around, searching for help. But it was nowhere to be found, thus she turned back and felt her breath catch fast in her throat. “You’re beautiful,” she rasped.

He stopped in his tracks, brows raised. “What say you?”

“You’re the most beautiful man I have ever encountered.” There. That sounded much better than, ‘I want to tear your clothes off and have my way with you.’ Though really, she wanted to tear his clothes off and have her way with him. This madness was rather liberating.

“I…” He still hadn’t moved. “Do you jest?”

“No, why…No,” she said, and felt the world settle gently around her. She’d set her course, mad as it seemed.

“Then why did you come to—”

“I’ve changed my mind. Again.”

“So you wish to…”

“Yes,” she said, but even to her own ears, the single word was inaudible.

“My apologies,” he rumbled. “I do not believe I heard you correct—”

“Yes!” she said, and, grabbing him by the belt, rose on her toes to kiss him.

S
omething flipped in her stomach as he kissed her in return. It quivered up her sternum and shivered over her nipples. She slipped her arm around his back. Muscles shifted beneath her hand and against her breasts. But in a moment he drew back.

“Lass are ye—”

“I’m sure,” she breathed.

He delayed for a momentary eternity, then scooped her into his arms and pulled her against his chest. She wound her arms breathlessly about his Herculean neck, and he bent that strong pillar to kiss her again.

Their breath melded as he carried her through the house. Their gazes caught, but the shifting strength of his chest called to her, and she lowered her head to kiss it. His eyes fluttered closed for an instant, then he stepped into his bedchamber. The door closed behind them as if by some kind of unknown magic. His eyes were like brands upon her face. He kissed her again, slowly now. She slipped
her fingers into his hair, then down, over his ear to his bulging neck and the hard slope of his chest.

His eyelids stuttered down, lashes downy against the firm skin of his cheeks. “Lass…”

“Perhaps you should put me down,” she whispered, and he scowled as if he had forgotten he still held her. Releasing his right arm, he let her feet swing to the floor, and there they stood, inches apart, his torso so bold and beautiful it all but stole her breath.

But the room was too dark to appreciate his full beauty.

She glanced at the fireplace. In the hearth, a charred log shifted. Embers caught and flared. Perhaps she should have been surprised at her awakening powers, but if the truth be known, she felt as if she could set the entire world ablaze with the heat of her desires.

He turned to the fire, surprised, searching for answers to unspoken questions. “Perhaps it caught a draft.”

She knew she should lie, should make up some story, but firelight was dancing across the breadth of his chest, illuminating the scar that sliced beneath her dangling amulet. She winced at the sight of it, then reaching out, brushed it with her thumb.

“What happened here?” she whispered, and, raising her eyes, realized that his had fallen closed again.

“Nothing of consequence.”

“I disagree. Anything that mars your beautiful chest is surely a sin,” she whispered.

“Me chest is not beautiful, lass,” he said, watching her. “While you—”

“It is to me,” she said, and slipped her hand up the slope of his hard pectoral. “As is your shoulder.” The scar there was small but angry. She kissed it gently and felt the muscles twitch restlessly beneath her lips. “And your cheek.” The mark there was merely a nick. “Your throat.” Completely unscathed. She ran her thumb down his sternum and felt him shiver in the wake of her touch. His excitement fueled her own, and she pushed her fingers lower, down the bumpy path of his quivering muscles. “Your belly,” she whispered. But he caught her fingers tight in his.

“Lass.” He bore her hand slowly upward, eyes intense. “You set me ablaze like yon fire,” he rumbled, and she almost smiled as she tugged her fingers from his.

“Which parts?” she asked, and skimmed her fingertips back down his abdomen.

It was the first time she ever heard him curse, a low hiss of feelings so deep and masculine she felt something clench in her gut.

“I think you may have other areas just as beautiful,” she whispered.

His eyes were half-closed, dark and solemn and steady.

“Do you mind if I look?” She could barely force
out the words. But neither could she hold them back.

“Lass…” he murmured, still watching her with those soul-dark eyes.

“Yes?”

“I think you may well be delusional.”

She chuckled, heady with power, then leaned forward and carefully kissed his nipple. He jerked as if shot, but she was already bumping her fingers along his ribs. Following an aged laceration, she stepped around to his back, marveling at the width of him as she spread her fingers out to fan across his rippling strength. He turned his head to watch her, but his eyes were heavy-lidded, as if in ecstasy, and it was the sight of him thus that most fueled her own sizzling lust.

She found his spine and slipped down the groove between his powerful muscles, then shifted her hands along his sides to skim across the hard expanse of his belly, but her fingers struck his belt buckle and she stopped, breath held.

He watched her, face solemn past his endless shoulder, sable hair caressing his bronzed skin. “I will not hold you to this course,” he said.

“You think it is not what I want?” she asked, and brushed her fingers breathlessly through the downy arrow of hair that graced his belly.

He hissed a careful breath through his teeth. “I believe I mentioned how I fear for your state of mind.”

She leaned her face against the smooth strength of his back and smiled as she moved her hands lower. Compared to his hot flesh, the metal buckle felt cool and out of place. But she maneuvered it easily enough, easing the leather from its keeper, pulling the strap wide. She paused, drawing away a hand’s breadth, needing to breathe, but he neither rushed her nor stopped her. Instead, they stood together, still, unmoving. Fire crackled in the hearth, casting light and darkness with loving care across his rugged features, and with that encouragement, she slipped her hand over the bulge of his erection. He was hard and long beneath the fine fabric of his breeches. She swallowed, drew a careful breath, and eased open the top button of his trousers. His penis eased out, hot and throbbing against her palm. She pressed her breasts against the heat of his back and pushed her open hand against the length of him.

His groan seemed to escape from the very earth, and with that primal sound, she slipped her hands into the waistband of his trousers and pushed downward along his lean hips. The fabric moved slowly, as if loath to leave him, and she could hardly blame it, for he was beautiful beyond words. Powerful and lovely and tempting. Indeed, she felt the need to move back the slightest degree, not only to allow the garment to slide down his buttocks but also to glance down, to see his furrowed spine flow into the mounded hillocks of his posterior. They looked powerful and foreign in the
shadows, and she eased her hands down his body, filling her palms with them. They tensed against her skin, perfect, hard, eager. She pressed downward, following the powerful length of his thighs with her hands, feeling every taut muscle, every hard fiber, until finally he stood all but naked before her. Gathering his breath, he pried off his boots with his feet, then leaned down to release himself from the binding garment.

She watched as he bent, watched as the firelight glowed along the broad sweep of his back, watched the turgid curve of his testicles peek out, just visible for an enticing instant before he straightened. She held her breath as he turned slowly toward her, power personified, desire come to life.

She felt her throat tighten, felt the core of her sizzle as she skimmed her gaze down his body, viewing the massive power of his full erection.

He watched her unblinking, seeming frozen, waiting.

“You are…” She paused, caught her breath, swallowed, found her nerve and continued. “Large.”

His brows dipped the smallest amount. “My apologies.”

She almost laughed, but her mouth was too dry. “I do not think it a bad thing in and of itself.”

“Even though you are small?”

“Shaleena said…” she began, but even the memory made her blush. Repeating it seemed impossible. But he was scowling his curiosity.

“You discussed the size of me…” He paused. “You spoke of me to another?”

“I have never…” She paused, remembering to shadow the truth. “I have been without a husband for a long while. Hence I find I am a bit…” She flickered her gaze down again. His erection stood tall and hard against his belly, leaning slightly to the left as though the weight of it was too much to support.

He eased his fists open beside the bulging power of his thighs. “You are what?”

“Nervous,” she said, and pulled her hot gaze back to his face. “And what of you?”

“Would it seem unmanly to admit I might well pass out?”

“I believe it might well be charming.”

His scowl deepened the slightest degree. “You will tell me when you decide for certain?”

She smiled. Perhaps it was his own nervousness that dulled her own. “Do you often pass out in these situations?”

“Nay,” he said, but his answer sounded uncertain. She stepped up closer still and placed her palm flat against his right pectoral. The muscles bunched eagerly beneath her hand.

“How many times?” she asked, and slipped her hand down his body, taking her time, letting herself absorb, feel, think, revel in this agonizing ecstasy.

He lifted his chin and gritted his teeth. “There has not been a woman like you, lass.”

“Like me?” she whispered, and skimmed her fingers, featherlike down the coiled strength of his abdomen.

His breathing escalated, but it was the leashed desire in his eyes that allowed her to continue, to travel lower still, to fill her hand with him and find that her fingers would not quite fit around his girth.

He jerked against her touch, then stiffened, holding himself perfectly still. “Irresistible,” he said, and found her eyes. “Powerful.” She tightened her grip the smallest degree. “Bold,” he ground out.

It might be the strangest thing that had ever been said to her. The strangest, and oddly, the most flattering. “You think me bold?”

He raised his brows in an expression that was almost arrogant, but when he spoke, his tone was low and flat. “I seem to be naked, lass.”

“You do that.”

“While you are fully clothed.”

“Is that wrong?” Unusual? Untimely? Fantastic? She knew so little.

“Far be it from me to pretend I know much of these situations, lass, but I would guess it is not the norm.”

She scowled. “Had you so desired, I think you could have fought me off,” she whispered, and lowered her gaze to catch the strength of his chest once again.

“I rather doubt it.”

She raised her gaze back to his. “I did not mean to take advantage of you,” she said, and stroked him gently, just to feel the effects of it in her own clenching body.

His head fell back the slightest degree. “I shall try to forgive you.”

She froze, uncertainly flooding her. “Have I hurt you?”

He made some sort of choking sound. “Nay, lass.”

“You…enjoy it?”

“Aye.”

“Then why did you not…” She fought for breath, for strength. “Why did you not initiate this exchange?”

“I wished to allow you a chance to change your mind when you saw…the whole of me.”

“And now?”

He gritted his teeth again as if holding himself back. “Now I await your decision.”

She kissed the bottom of his jaw. It was as high as she could reach without rising on her toes. “Tell me, Mr. McBain, are you always so patient?”

“Patient,” he said, and rumbled a laugh. It seemed to begin beneath her feet, to shake the very foundation of her world. “I am near to exploding in your wee hand, lass.”

Embarrassment rushed over her, but it was spiked with desire, fused with need. “Because of me?” she asked, and shyly drew her hand up over the plum-ripe edge of his head.

He shivered at her touch but never lost contact with her eyes. “There is none other, lass. Thus, I would know—”

But in that instant a tiny droplet oozed from the tip of his cock. She felt it on her fingers and glanced down.

“Your intentions,” he continued, voice guttural.

“I fear they may not be honorable,” she breathed.

“Thank God,” he rumbled.

“What say you?” she asked, and jerked her gaze to his.

“The decision is yet yours,” he said, “though I am not certain how much longer I will be able to say the same.”

His words intrigued her, sizzled through her. “What will happen after much longer?”

His brows quirked a little. “You are certain you were once wed, lass?”

She could not lie. Not when he was naked. Literally and figuratively. Not when he was hard and heavy in her hand. So she remained silent.

“Tell me lass, was he human?”

She scowled.

“To resist you while you…” His voice was breathy. “Handled him.”

“Oh.” So it was hard…
difficult
…for him to wait. Is that what he was saying? “He was not as large as you.” That seemed a safe bet.

“I do not see what that has to do—”

“Nor so tempting,” she said.

For a moment their eyes met, then, with the slowness of a winter sunrise, he kissed her.

“I need you,” he growled, and she found she could not answer. “Now. But I shall try to…” He glanced down, drinking her in. “They say ’tis best to take one’s time,” he said, and, reaching forward, swept her hair from her neck. The air felt cool against her throat. His lips felt warm and supple when he kissed her there. Tingling sparks raced downward, igniting her nipples, her belly, her core.

“Who
says?” she asked. Her voice sounded oddly guttural to her own ears.

“They,
” he said, and paused for just a moment before he kissed her shoulder.

She shivered at his touch.

“Have you been speaking to Shaleena too?”

He chuckled as he turned her. “I am not as brave as all that,” he said, and, lifting her hair, kissed her back. She stifled a moan and let her eyes drift closed. His fingers felt steady against her spine as they undid a button.

“Who then?” she persisted.

Air rushed against her flesh, replaced by tender kisses. “I meant ‘they’ as a collective sort of knowledge.”

“So you do not know firsthand?” she asked, and glanced over her shoulder. Her gown had slipped lower. She held it to her breasts and hunched her back. He kissed her again, as soft as a butterfly’s caress.

He cleared his throat. “Connelly—”

“You spoke to Connelly?” she asked, and jerked her gaze to his.

He scowled, but his tone evidenced some emotion. Embarrassment perhaps. “I felt certain after all these years that he must be good for something,” he rumbled.

She stared at him, and found, once again, that she could not resist. Twisting slightly, she kissed his lips and felt as if she would surely melt like molten wax against his skin. “And was he?” she breathed.