Page 55 of Kidnapped by a Rogue
For a man who could sneak into a cottage without making a sound, he seemed intent on making certain she was aware of his every motion by splashing in the tub.
“I’m out,” he said after a while. “’Tis safe to look now.”
She turned around and swallowed hard. Nay, it most certainly was not safe to look.
Drops of water glistened on his sooty eyelashes and fell from his black hair in tantalizing rivulets down his muscular shoulders and broad chest. More drops glistened on the hair on his abdomen above the drying cloth he’d slung low around his hips.
“Shall I take this off so ye can have a better look?” he asked, giving the drying cloth a slight tug.
Her cheeks burned hot and her gaze flew to his face. He wore a wide grin.
“If you’re done staring,” he said, “ye can hand me that cleanléinemy aunt sent up.”
“I wasn’t staring,” she said. “I merely wondered why ye did such a poor job of drying yourself.”
“Do ye have any notion what a poor liar ye are?” he asked with a laugh.
She held the shirt out to him and turned her head as he dropped the drying cloth.
When she looked again, he had donned theléine, the loose linen shirt Highlanders wore, which hung to his mid-thighs, clung to his damp skin, and exposed an expanse of his chest through the gap down the front.
“Sit on the stool and let me comb your hair for ye,” he said.
Finn’s offer seemed harmless—and she would not have to struggle to keep her eyes off him while he stood behind her—so she sat down and handed him the comb.
Harmless? Heavens, no. Margaret could not help the occasional sigh as Finn took his time, combing with smooth, rhythmic strokes that he drew out and lengthened. She was surprised by how intimate it felt to have Finn do this for her. In five years of marriage, William never had. It never would have occurred to him. She was the one who was always expected to cater to him.
“Your hair is the color of moonlight shimmering across a loch on a clear night,” Finn said as he paused to let strands of her hair slide through his fingers.
When Finn began massaging her temples, her eyes fluttered closed.Don’t stop, she silently pleaded, because it felt so good. She felt the whisper of his breath on the side of her neck, followed by his lips, a soft touch that caused a tantalizing thrill and made her nipples tighten. She tensed with delicious anticipation as he continued down her throat toward her breasts…
Good heavens!She opened her eyes with a start as she suddenly recalled how quickly she lost her head the first time they kissed—and ended up with her skirts around her waist and her back against a tree. She sprang to her feet and spun around to face him.
“Are ye ready to go to bed,leannain?” he asked, and ran his hands down her arms, a gesture that made it difficult for her to breathe.
“Aye, ’tis getting late,” she said, her voice coming out unnaturally high.
She opened her mouth to ask which side of the bed he preferred, but the words died on her lips when he cupped her face between his large hands and leaned down to kiss her. Her will to resist him slipped away and her body bent toward his.
Instead of hot and demanding like the last time, these were slow, sensuous kisses that made her feel drugged, bewitched. Her head fell back, and her mind could focus on nothing but the journey of his lips and tongue as they traveled along her jaw, below her ear, and down the side of her throat. He lifted her onto the bed and enfolded her in his arms, then his mouth was on hers in another smoldering kiss that left her head spinning.
He paused to lean over her, his deep blue eyes dark with desire, and brushed a stray strand of hair from her forehead with his fingers.
“I’m beginning to think,” he said in a hoarse voice, “that telling everyone we are handfasted was a verra good idea after all.”
She wanted to pull him down into another mindless kiss, to not think of risks and consequences. She’d never been kissed like that before, where time seemed to stop, and it felt as if he wanted to kiss her forever. But time did not stop. She knew where Finn expected these kisses to lead—where they would inevitably take them—and she could not let herself go there.
“We can’t do this,” she forced herself to say, and pressed her palms against his chest.
His brows shot up. “Why not?”
“Because we’re not truly wed,” she said, though that was not the reason that stopped her.
“If we must act as if we are,” he said, “we ought to have theonebenefit of this pretense of a marriage.”
“But it is only a pretense,” she said.
“M' eudail,”my treasure, he said, giving her a wicked smile that made her stomach flip, “ye cannot truly believe the two of us can share this chamber—this bed—and not enjoy ourselves in it.”
