Only For A Knight (33 page)

 

“I see your need, Juliana,” he said, lowering his hand again so that this time only the merest sliver of air separated his fingers from the bared skin of her calf, “but that is not good enough. I would hear the words. Say ‘Yes, Robbie, I want you to touch me . . . caress and feel all of me.’”

 

“All of me?”
Juliana’s brows shot upward, some of her bravura leaving her.

 

Especially when she shifted on the stone bench and the edges of her bed-robe slid back another few inches to expose still more of her thigh. “Your hand is hovering above my calf, sir, not . . . the entirety of me.”

 

He gave her a look of feinted surprise.

 

“Och! Only your calf, is it?” He teased her, looked down to where his hand almost rested on her flesh.

 

“But you will enjoy my touch on the whole of your leg, will you not, Juliana? Every deliciously exposed inch of you.”

 

“Of me?”
She blinked. “Every inch?”

 

He nodded, his smile deepening into a wolfish grin.

 

Juliana gulped.

 

Wary now, she gave him a narrow-eyed look, something about the gleam in his eyes, the roguish uptilt of his smile setting the whole of her body in wild-spinning sensual turmoil.

 

“What do you mean . . .
deliciously exposed
?”

 

Dreading what she’d see but unable not to look, she glanced down, her breath immediately catching in both embarrassment and excitement.

 

As she’d suspected, the edges of the bed-robe had indeed fallen away from her thighs and the resulting gap clearly revealed the red-gold triangle of her lower curls.

 

In truth, almost the whole of her vulnerability!

 

“Oh!” She clapped one hand over her exposed heat and grabbed for the edge of the bed-robe with the other.

 

“Nay, Juliana. Do not cover yourself.” He seized her wrists and returned her hands to the bench, pressing them in place before letting go, as if warning her to keep them there.

 

“I have seen your nakedness before—and in all its ripe golden sweetness—as you know,” he said, the huskiness of his voice sliding beneath her skin, exciting her.

 

Chasing all else from her mind.

 

“See you, it pleases me to have you fully open for my delectation,” he said, his words making the lowest part of her belly tighten and grow heavy with hollow, hot-throbbing awareness. “And, my sweet, you will enjoy my touch all the more if I gaze on you, if you watch me looking at the most intimate part of you as I rub your leg . . . as I
warm
you, Juliana.”

 

“But—”

 

He pressed two fingers against her lips. “You must say the words, minx,” he urged, the focused heat of his gaze on her woman’s flesh making her tremble. “Repeat the words for me . . . ‘Yes, touch me . . .
caress and feel my nakedness.
’”

 

“Ooooooh, I cannot say anything suchlike,” Juliana moaned, keenly aware of the wetness beginning to damp her inner thighs.

 

A female triumph she’d heard of from a scatter of married lasses in Glenelg . . . a wondrous glory she would have joyed in experiencing did she not have other troublesome thoughts plaguing her, casting dark shadows upon her happiness.

 

“You want me to touch you, Juliana,” her knight was saying, his gaze still fastened on
that part
of her.

 

“Come, lass. Say the words and I shall . . . satisfy your wishes.”

 

“My wishes?”

 

He nodded. “Any and all of them.”

 

Juliana’s eyes flew wide.

 

Her wishes!

 

Merciful saints, she did not ken what greater sweetness she could wish for . . . already, the very tops of her ears were on fire, the tips of her toes, equally a-blaze.

 

His words swirled around her, too. Seductive eddies, each honey-sweet whirl bringing another bone-melting wave of deliciousness that undid her resistance and made her forget everything but his dark, heart-stopping beauty.

 

And how luxuriously exciting it was to feel his stare devouring her most intimate place.

 

“The words, Juliana.”

 

“Yes, touch me. And keep . . . looking at me. Down there, as you are now doing, for I find your gaze on me—
excites
me, aye,” she blurted, surrendering at last, the recently wakened wildness inside her making her angle her outstretched leg a bit more to the side—just enough to better his view.

 

And increase the deliciously hot pulsings weighting the deepest part of her belly. A sensation she recognized as mutual unbridled need. Faith, it pulled so taut between them, the sheer intensity of their passion crackled the chill air.

 

“Aye, do all those things—and more. Please,” she breathed, aching for his touch. No longer needing to gather her courage, for the arousal spooling through her made her bold. “Caress and feel . . . all of me.
Everywhere
.”

 

“Everywhere?” That was a groan—soft and husky. “Och, but I shall, sweetness—and all the night through if it pleases you.”

 

The barest of smiles quirking his mouth, he touched her at last, sliding his hand up and down her calf, letting his fingertips tease the backs of her knees, the light caress sending bolts of pure molten heat arcing straight to her loins.

 

All the night through.

 

The words rang in her ears.

 

Only four words, harmlessly spoken, but they stole some of the hot-thrumming pleasure from her blood, something about them affecting her as deeply as his soothing touch roused her.

 

She wanted more than one night . . . she burned for an entirety of such nights. An endless succession of intimate entanglings of their bodies and souls. Their hearts. But some lingering darkness taunted her, minding her with cold certainty that the melting sweetness he promised could not be hers.

 

Could ne’er be hers.

 

But he was still sliding his hand up and down her leg, stroking gently, the callused pads of his circling fingertips a thrilling contrast to the smooth sleekness of her thigh. Each slow, deliberate glide reverberating through her, driving her to madness.

 

Then he inched his hand higher, let his fingers slide inward so they reached the dampness misting the tender skin of her inner thighs. The musky-scented wetness oh-so-close to her throbbing woman’s flesh. And the moment he touched that glistening dampness, the whole of her body came alive, tingling and spinning with his luscious discovery.

 

“Oooh!” Her hips lifted off the bench at that first near-intimate contact, the bed-robe now falling wholly open, its wide-gaping edges freeing the ripe swells of her full-rounded breasts. Her tight and proud nipples thrust toward him, a bold testament of her arousal.

 

“Oh, indeed, there is my precious minx,” he agreed, arching a brow as he glided his fingers ever so close to her quivering heat. “Look down, sweetness, watch me touching you.”

 

And this time she complied at once, swiftly lowering her gaze to where his fingers traced the most breath-stealingly delicious patterns in the wetness dewing her soft skin.

 

“The center of your womanhood is wetter still, Juliana. And softer,” he murmured, his deep voice an intoxication.

 

Wetter and softer, indeed.

 

As if she could not tell—saints a mercy, he was melting her!

 

She moistened her lips, slid deeper down the bench . . . and let her legs fall apart just a wee bit more.

 

Nay, a lot more.

 

“Would you like me to touch
that
wetness, my sweet? Test and probe its softness for you?”

 

“M’mmm. . . .”

 

“I will taste you, too, Juliana,” he told her, the look on his face revealing exactly
where
he meant.

 

Juliana’s breath caught, her heart near stopping. She could not speak . . . too heady was such a notion.

 

“I will taste you there again and again if it pleases you.”

 

That did it.

 

At once, her lower body developed a will of its own and her legs promptly opened even wider. Dear saints, she was dying. Of pleasure and lasciviousness. There could be no doubt. Ne’er could one experience such pure, unabated sensual bliss and wake up the next day to tell the tale.

 

“Say the words, lass.” His fingertips were brushing over the tips of her nether hair now, that slight contact almost too intensely pleasurable to bear. “You must tell me this, too, my heart—that you wish me to . . . taste you.”

 

His deep voice broke through the haze of exquisitely throbbing sweetness, and for one fleeting beat of time, the chill night breeze kissed her flushed and naked skin, cooling her flaming ardor, challenging what might be so very wrong . . .

 

“Come you, say me the words,” he urged again . . . just in the moment her toes burrowed deeper into the rushes and nudged against Devorgilla’s small jar of
all-cure
ointment.

 

Only rather than sizzling hot as it’d been earlier, the little earthenware jar was now possessed of a grinding cold.

 

An astonishing iciness that turned her toes to icicles!

 

Jerking back her foot as if she’d been burned, nay,
scalded
by the jar’s frigidness, Juliana shot to her feet so quickly, her head spun.

 

She stared at her knight, purest desire still roaring through her veins, but another, deeper compulsion chilling her, turning her fast-pounding heart to ice.

 

Caught in a fearing dream, she dragged in a shaky breath and pressed her hands to her cheeks, uncaring when the bed-robe slipped from her shoulders to pool on the floor.

 

Scarce aware of the cold night air on her heated skin, she stood fully unclothed, naked save for the spill of her gleaming hair, rippling wildly to her hips, shimmering with the reflection of the candle shine.

 

That, and the suspiciously bright glimmer of moisture in her magnificent moss-green eyes.

 

“Guidsakes, lass!”

 

Robbie leapt to his feet with equal speed and grabbed her arms, steadying her. Saints, she was swaying, even looked as if she might swoon dead away on him.

 

“For truth, lass, I meant to set you alight—not bolting to your feet like a cornered doe.” He touched her face, stroked her cheek. “I thought . . .”

 

He broke off, releasing her, heat scoring his own face now, shaming him for pressing her, for boldly assuming he’d won her heart and that she needed him with the same hunger he desired her.

 

“You thought I wished . . . that I wanted—”

 

She broke off, her gaze lighting briefly on the still-prominent lift in his plaid, but rather than color so prettily as she usually did, the last vestiges of her fetching blush drained from her face, the wonder of just moments before now replaced by a shadow that made his heart lurch.

 

“You
did
desire . . . this,” he said, waving a helpless, frustrated hand. “I saw it writ all o’er you—God’s bones, I can even
smell
your need.”

 

He looked down, stared at his hand. Sakes, his fingers were still damp with the wetness of her arousal!

 

She followed his gaze, her eyes widening as she, too, clearly spotted and recognized the telltale glistening on his fingertips.

 

But to his dismay, she clapped a hand over her lips, swung about, and fair flew across the room to a little table near the hearth.

 

A table very close to where she’d so carefully arranged a veritable sea of cushions on the floor and strewn the rushes with so many dried rose petals and crushed heather sprigs.

 

Preparations even the dimmest of wits would comprehend.

 

So what madness had flown into her?

 

“Aye, I wanted you—
desired
you—and still do!” she cried, whirling around, the tatty old plaid from the herbarium clutched tight against her breasts. “But now, oh, how I fear—”

 

“Fear?” Robbie stared at her, eyes wide.
“Me?”

 

She gave a choked cry and shook her head, her eyes brimming.

 

Thoroughly confused, Robbie crossed the room with swift strides and pulled her into his arms. He gentled her head into the crook of his neck, cursing whate’er demons plagued her as he held her close, rocked her.

 

“God’s mercy, sweet, what is this?”

 

He pulled back to look at her, struggled to keep the dark from his own brow. By the Rood, he’d just told her he was certain he’d resolved the obstacle of his betrothal, and he knew she was not a maid to cower before the passion blazing so hotly between them.

 

Nay, his beauty was a magnificent full woman.

 

Well made and perfectly crafted for a man’s vigorous loving . . .
his loving.

 

And his every instinct told him she’d accept his love with pride and fully unashamed. That she’d e’er be herself, without every artifice, and that she’d give back her own ardor with a passion to match his own and all the generosity and fervor he’d come to cherish in her.

 

So what ailed her?

 

“My dear sweet lass,” he murmured, using his thumbs to wipe the dampness from her face, “did you not hear me? I promised you that all will be well. I swear it on my life. Now tell me what troubles you so?”

 

She drew a great, quivering breath. “It has naught to do with you. Not directly. Nor with . . .
her.
Your betrothed. Or scarce little, anyway,” she admitted, jerking away to clutch her middle as if she might retch. “’Tis my name, see you? I—”

 

“Your name?”

 

Robbie dragged a hand through his hair, disbelief making his head pound. “God and his saints aiding me, you needn’t fear telling me your name, lass. You are my heart’s blood, my sole desire—there can be no name under the heavens that would make me turn from you if that is your worry.”

 

But she only shook her head and pressed the ancient MacKenzie plaid tighter against her.

 

“My name is Mackay,” she said, her voice choked. “Juliana Mackay. And my mother’s name was Marjory Mackay.”

 

She paused to gulp, then said no more. She simply stared at him as if she expected the name to mean something.