Susan Johnson (4 page)

His fingers were warm on her skin as he unclasped her diamond necklace, his delicate touch evoking sensations of lust out of all proportion to the circumstances.

“Put mine on instead.” Dropping the necklace on the dressing table, he pushed her gently toward the bed.

She glanced at him again, and his smile obliterated the entirety of her durance vile that evening. “Will I like it?” One brow arched flirtatiously, an undercurrent of seduction in her voice.

“Definitely.” Even Johnnie, known for his largesse, had questioned the extravagance of his brother’s purchase. Roxane’s gasp brought a grin to his face. “All the best diamonds go through Rotterdam….”

“This must be
all
the diamonds in Rotterdam,” she breathlessly intoned, awestruck.

A wide collar of diamonds with a graduated fringe of larger diamonds, centered with a huge square-cut emerald, glittered on the bedcover. No fewer than two thousand diamonds made up the elaborate necklace.

“The emerald detaches for a brooch if you wish,
as does the central portion for a tiara. It’s very functional.”

“Everyone will know you’re back in town if I wear this.”

“Then wear it just for me until our court case is settled.”

“It’s too much, Robbie. I’d feel beholden.”

“Think of it as a gift from Queensberry, then. We’re holding a great deal of his funds in our banks in Holland. Try it on.”

She hesitated still, the costly necklace not some bagatelle that could be casually accepted from a lover. “I’m not sure.”

“Should I give it to Mrs. Barrett?” he teased.

“Probably not.” She grinned. “Her husband would kill her for it, or more likely she’d divorce him to marry you.”

“A terrifying prospect,” Robbie playfully observed.

“She didn’t capture your heart, then.”

He shook his head. “My heart was already taken by a scandalously beautiful widow.”

“She was a stopgap, you’re saying.”

“A way of passing the time until I could engage your interest.”

“And now that you have, the risks are horrendous,” she gravely replied, the light suddenly gone from her eyes.

“I’ll lock the door.”

“Don’t be casual about this.” Her violet gaze held his with a piercing regard. “You’re talking about my children.”

“I’m not going to jeopardize your children by being
here tonight. I’ll leave before first light. All I want to do is hold you,” he said. “I came here because I couldn’t live without you another moment, and I’m not leaving tonight unless Argyll’s Highlanders come and take me away.”

“I don’t allow peremptory men in my life anymore.”

“I’ll try to be more submissive,” he lightly murmured, pulling his pistols from his belt.

“Put those back.” Alarm echoed in her words. “You really can’t stay.” But her voice trailed away at the end, the strength of his large hands on the pistol grips riveting.

He looked up from the bureau where he was depositing his handguns. “Just for an hour or so. Why don’t you lock the door.”

She was in her stocking feet, her white silk-covered toes peaking out from beneath the lilac hem of her gown; in her hesitant pose, she had the look of an uncertain maiden. Bereft of jewels, clad in a simple, unornamented gown, she looked fifteen, and for a moment he wished he could have met her before all the other men.

But as quickly he discarded the romantical notion, too long a man of the world to concern himself with virginity. He loved her, not her past or her future, not her fame or repute.

“Or I could lock the door,” he gently added, slipping his baldric over his head.

His words seemed to reach her at last. “I always forget how watching you makes me tremble. Why can’t I remember that?”

“You’ve forgotten what it is to love someone.”
Laying his sword beside his pistols, he slid the buckles free on his jack. “It’s been too long.”

His fingers were tanned, long and slender, brushed with a light dusting of russet hairs on the knuckles, the red-gold hair swirling upward over his hand to slide under the wristband of his black linen shirt. A fragment of his powerful wrist became visible as he slid the heavy jack from his shoulders.

Stretching, he luxuriated in the freedom from the weight of the guilted armor, and as if mesmerized, her gaze traveled from his fingertips to his muscled arms and his hard lean torso, then down over the sleek black leather of his breeches clinging to his powerful thighs, to the dusty toes of his black riding boots.

“I’m pleased you came back,” she said.

His arms dropped to his sides, his hands swinging gently for a moment. “I know.”

“Tell me love is enough.”

“It’s everything,” he said, his voice velvet soft.

“It’s been so long…”

“You begin believing it doesn’t exist.”

“I tried to talk myself out of you.”

He smiled. “I could tell.”

“Don’t be so smug.” The corners of her mouth curved upward, a lush intimacy in her voice. “You’re too young to know everything.”

“I’ve been on my own for a long time, darling. Johnnie wasn’t exactly a model of circumspect behavior after our father died. So I know more than you think.”

“Can you blot Agnes from my life?” Grinning like a young girl, she teased him.

“I can do anything you want.”

“That Carre assurance,” she whispered, taking in the full beauty of his strong, bonny body.

“One learns to fashion the world to one’s liking. And why not? Life’s short.”

“Not
too
short, I hope.” A minute terror quivered in her words.

“Let me rephrase that,” he diplomatically asserted, moving toward her. “One learns to take what one wants. Period.”

“The freebooter Carres.”

“It’s a tradition on the Borders. We’re born and bred to the practice.”

“And you want me.”

“Very much.” He spoke in the merest whisper, but authority impregnated the quiet words.

How much of her independence was at stake? she wondered. “Would you take me against my will?”

He stopped just short of her, careful not to touch her. “I might wish to but, no, I wouldn’t. Don’t let the likes of Agnes Erskine turn you away from me, though. She was a corrupt and vicious woman long before you and I were born.”

“More than you and me, it’s about my children right now.” A gravity underscored her words.

“Have them taken out of the country for safety. Don’t you trust Jamie’s sister Amelia?”

Her expression immediately brightened, her small frown disappeared. “I adore you.”

“Problem solved?”

“Maybe.” She sighed with a new-felt optimism. “Just maybe …”

“I’ll have Coutts send someone to talk to her.” A
small army of Carre retainers was at his command. “Someone neutral.”

“Is there anyone neutral left in these times of tainted principles and dishonest men?”

“Well find someone.” His confidence was always a source of wonder to her. As if he could do anything. His presence in Edinburgh was evidence enough of his competence; every authority in Scotland was on watch for the outlawed Carres.

“In the morning,” she offered, her voice tantalizing.

He shut his eyes briefly, a smile already forming on his mouth before his eyes opened once again. “Don’t move.” He held his hand up for a moment, the words of welcome he’d been waiting to hear sweet in his ears. “I’ll lock the door.”

When he returned, he saw her waiting exactly where he’d left her, but her arms were opened wide and her smile was the lush, seductive one he’d yearned for during the lonely weeks past.

“I’ve been dreaming of this a very long time,” he said on a suffocated breath, taking her in his arms.

“And I feel helpless, when I never have before.”

“Helpless in love,” he whispered. “I know.”

She nodded, gazing up at him, tears shining in her eyes. “You should go. I should make you go. But all I can think of is wanton desire. This is insanity, Robbie, with Agnes Erskine and her servants here—none of whom I can trust—and Queensberry and Argyll in town with their armies of swordsmen.”

“Hush, darling.” Pulling her closer, he slid his hands down her back. “After a month without you all I want to do is feel you … everywhere. To hell with everything else.”

“The danger—”

His mouth covered hers, obliterating the rest of her sentence, and the last remnants of her prudence died in a sigh.

He was blatantly aroused, ardent, his hard, lean body so flagrantly aphrodisiac that lust spiked through her, jolted her senses. He was all muscle and sinew beneath the soft linen of his shirt, the broad expanse of his back under her roving hands triggering sweet memory. She’d know him in the dark, she thought, sliding her palms down his sleek body, a flaring heat responding to the familiar feel of him, as though his audacious sexuality had been forever seared on her senses.

Knowing her reluctance, greedy for her after a celibate month, single-minded, he wooed her with kisses and whispered promises of pleasure, reminding her of all he could do to her, of how he could make her feel, how long he could sustain her pleasure. He almost lost control at that point, his memory keen, but disciplining his impulses with an iron will, he coaxed and petted and caressed until she was panting, breathless with need.

“You seem ready,” he teased, nibbling on her bottom lip, moving his hips gently against hers.

“A month’s a long time.” She reached for the buttons on his breeches, so irrepressibly aroused she was drenching wet, throbbing with desire.

“A novel experience for you?”

Her gaze flickered upward. “Unheard of.”

“Then we’ll have to make this a memorable night.” A carnal heat flared in his eyes.

“I have a feeling it will be.” She slid her palm down
the leather stretched taut over his erection, and closed her fingers around his rigid length- “I’m glad I decided to keep you.”

About to speak, he changed his mind. This wasn’t the time to take issue with who was keeping whom. The blood of a reiver ran true in his veins, and whether the Countess of Kilmarnock knew it or not, she was his, now, tomorrow—always.

A door slammed downstairs and Roxane trembled. “Oh, lord, Robbie, I don’t know if I can do this. You should go … you should.”

“I will,” he murmured, reaching down to unfasten another button on his breeches.

She tried to push him away. “What if they find you here?”

He pulled back marginally in response, but instead of leaving he slid his hand between her thighs. “Or they could find me here.” He pressed his palm firmly against her mons, his middle finger sliding in her pulsing slit.

She moaned, inundated by a heady, feverish heat.

“It won’t take long.” Quickly pushing her skirt aside, he slipped two fingers inside her drenched, sleek cleft, stroking the throbbing flesh with such exquisite tenderness, she thought she’d die of longing.

A rivulet of pearly fluid oozed down his palm. “I’ll make you climax before I go.” His voice was fragrant with lust as he plunged his fingers deeper, touching her to the quick. Her thighs tightened around his hand and she squirmed restlessly, wildly aroused, her fears obliterated by an intoxicating madness that overlooked sense and sensibility, that brought her trembling under his hands.

Easing in a third finger, he forced her incited tissue wider and tantalizingly stroked the aching, moist flesh while she melted around his hand and felt the first stirrings of orgasm. Her irrepressible small cry vibrated in the room before he could muffle her mouth with his.

And as the riveting swell flowed in wave after sensational wave, violent, explosive, he leaned into her climax and inhaled the ecstasy of her breathless sighs.

After the turbulence stilled, he kissed away her last small gasps and lifting her into his arms, carried her to the bed. Pushing the diamond necklace aside, he placed her on the embroidered coverlet. Still blissfully aglow, she gazed up at him though half-lowered lashes and languidly murmured, “I’ve really missed you.”

“I know.” His smile was indulgent. Sitting down beside her, he ran his palm over her silken thigh, stroked upward to the heated, damp verge of auburn curls. “We won’t have to rush this time.” He leaned over, his long, silken hair framing her face, blending with hers, and kissed her lightly. “You always were impatient,” he whispered, untying the laces of her gown, his fingers scented with her smell. She lay docile under his hands, content, sated, while he eased the lilac silk away along with her lacy petticoats, slipped the ties of her furbelows free, pulled off the fine linen of her chemise. Then tracing a delicate finger over the bounteous soft curves of her breasts, he said, “Don’t go away.”

Unbuttoning his cuffs, he pulled off his shirt, tossed it aside, and reached down to take off his boots.

She touched his back, so close and tempting, her fingers splaying down his muscles—supple and lithe beneath his bronzed skin, the firm, toned perfection of his body lure to her senses.

Turning his head, he smiled at her. “Touch me all you want—anywhere at all”

“I intend to.”

“Then my trip was definitely worthwhile.” He kicked his boots aside.

“I thought you didn’t come for sex,” she purred.

“Did I say that?” He stood to slip his breeches down and turned, revealing the full extent of his erection.

She drew in an admiring breath as he stepped out of his pants. “And then again, I’m not opposed,” she murmured, anticipation in the hush of her voice.

He smiled broadly. “Good, because sex with you is high on my list of priorities.”

“You definitely intrigue me, my lord,” she coquet-tishly whispered.

“How convenient, since I’m planning on making love to you most of the night.”

“Really? And if I were to refuse?”

“Perhaps I could persuade you.” Taking his erection lightly in his hand, he slid his fingers lazily down and up, once, twice, three times, his penis swelling larger, longer, the veins pulsing with blood, the rampant head gleaming waist high.

“Oh, yes,” she breathed, savoring the sight.

“Does that mean I can have my way with you?” he said, cheeky and brash.

She laughed.

He climbed into bed and, lowering his body over hers, he spread her thighs apart with a gentle pressure of his hands and settled between her legs—skin to naked skin. “Now then, Countess,” he whispered, his words husky and low, tilting her chin up with one finger, “it’s my turn.”