D2D_Poison or Protect (12 page)

She moved badly, like one mocking stealth. Although Preshea supposed that was how laymen did it.

Miss Pagril paused at a door and then let herself inside. Whoever it was must be expecting her, for the door was unlocked.

Preshea frowned.
Whose room? Ah. Lady Flo’s. Very interesting.
She shook her head in wonder.
Young girls these days are getting very bold.
It put the iron into her.
If Miss Pagril can do it, so shall I!

Preshea glided down the north-facing hallway and then stopped as Miss Pagril had, in front of a room not her own. It also wasn’t locked.

Gavin was awake and waiting for her.

A Scotsman Without His Banyan

“I was hoping you might come.” There was a hint of surprise in his voice.

Good, I shouldn’t want to be predictable.
Preshea locked the door behind her. To keep others out or to prevent herself from fleeing, she wasn’t certain which.

She hesitated, watching him. He was sitting on the edge of a bed as big as hers. He’d one of the lamps lit for reading. It cast a gentle light over the room. His fire was built up, cutting through the night’s chill. It was all quite welcoming.
Comfortable.
Which made her uncomfortable.

He gave a tentative smile. His chin was shadowed by a day’s growth of beard. He was wearing that banyan again, looking like a laird from olden days in some Highland castle portrait. It had slipped again, too, showing his chest almost to the bottom of his sternum. It stopped at the exact spot where she’d been taught to wedge a knife. There had been a deal less muscle on the mechanical construct she’d learned on. Really, what right had any man, even a Scotsman, to that much muscle? His chest hair glinted golden in the lamplight. The quilted fabric of the banyan, thin with age, draped intimately against his thighs. The sash about the robe held it closed, but not so well when he was sitting; it parted over his knees. He clearly wore nothing underneath.
Barbarian.

She did not move, frozen with her back to the door. This was not something for which she’d been trained. Not exactly.

“You’ve done this before, aye?” He patted the bed next to him.

Preshea remained motionless but for her mouth. “Four husbands, remember?”

He stood and came to her. His legs were no longer visible, but that chest… The chest was advancing. She forgot to breathe a moment, riveted.

Slowly, softly, he took her small hands into his large ones. “Yet you’re shaking, lass.”

His thumbs caressed the backs of her wrists in small circles. She was still wearing her gloves, but the skin underneath tingled from his touch. It was an odd sensation – both comforting and exciting. She breathed in shallow sips of air, for he smelled too good, all warm spices like a ginger honey cake.

Preshea considered how she would answer him. With this man, perhaps honesty might work? “I never wanted it with any of them.”

“Oh, lassie.” There was a world of understanding and, oddly, pain in his response. “In truth, we men take too much, too often. It need not be so.” He rotated her hands, palms up, so he could begin unbuttoning her gloves. Before he did, he caressed the undersides of her wrists with one finger. He looked into her eyes then, asking permission. She swallowed and nodded. Then watched the tiny buttons in his big fingers, mesmerized. He was so very delicate and careful about it.

“Perhaps someday you’ll keep them on for me? But na tonight. No barriers between us tonight, eh, lass?”

“Already, you believe you will get a repeat performance? You must have great faith in your persuasive abilities.”

“Aye. I’m a gruesome optimist.” He tugged off the first glove and began working on the second.

“All men, I think, are takers.” She pulled her hands away, liking it too much, and removed the second glove herself.

He loomed over her, as comfortable in his skin as he had made the room. He did not press or crowd her in any way. She wanted to pet his chest, following the opening made by his robe. She wanted to press her lips into his hand, to test the meat of his palm with her teeth. She wanted – so badly, she actually ached with it.

Instead, she moved away to sit at his dressing-table, busying herself with taking down her elaborate hairstyle from dinner.
So many pins.

“Some of us would rather be taken, lass. I hope so, at anyroad. I canna be the only one. Here, let me.” He knelt behind her. He was so tall that when she sat on the low stool, he was of a height to still reach her hair.

He combed through it with those big fingers, finding the pins and pulling them out. Occasionally, he would pause and massage the base of her neck with his thumbs. It was glorious. She watched him in the looking-glass. It scared her, how big her eyes were and how much she enjoyed the service – so much different from when a maid tended to her coiffure. She had never before met a man who would consider doing such a thing. Yet he seemed to enjoy it, the little frown creasing his broad forehead from concentration, not distaste.

Preshea let her head tilt forward and closed her eyes, not wanting to stare and not wanting to calculate. Simply wanting to enjoy.

He finished and the cool weight of her hair fell against her back. He ran his hands once more through the strands, swirling against her skull. It was a glorious relief from the pressure of coils and twists. Slowly, he pushed the mass aside and over one shoulder. She felt a kiss, feather-soft against her exposed neck.

“What do you like, Preshea?”

“What?” The question floored her.

He laughed – a little huff of breath against her skin. “In this, I ken you may be more experienced than I. Four husbands, remember? I dinna have any wives.”

“But you have had lovers?”

“Only two. I’m hoping they taught me well.”

It was an odd thing for him to say. As though a man were to learn anything of his own pleasure from a woman. The very idea! Men were born knowing, and demanding. Were they not?

She turned to him on a breath. “I don’t know. No one has ever asked me that before.”

He tilted her chin up and looked into her eyes. It was not uncomfortable, but she felt scorched through from the heat there. “Come, then, lass.” He stood in one smooth movement, towering over her. “Shall we find out?”

Preshea blinked at him and his proffered hand. If this was what he wanted, she would play along, attempt to fathom his reasoning. Did he desire her loyalty? Why else care for her feelings on the matter of bed-sport? She was there, willing enough; he could do as he wished. Unless she decided to practice her more deadly arts, of course.

She placed her hand in his and allowed him to pull her to her feet. His grip was solid, more rough than a gentleman’s ought to be, but sure and kind.

“You are very beautiful.” His blue eyes gleamed. She had not thought blue could be a hot color, until now.

“I know.”

“But, I’m thinking, damaged?”

Preshea smiled. “Better to say
deadly
.”

“Aye, that too.”

“You are a brave man, to take me on.”

He chuckled. “Or a bun-headed one. Maybe I’ve an overblown opinion of my own abilities.”

Preshea cocked her head.
Is that was this was about? Is he a prideful lover?
That she could cultivate. “Shouldn’t I be the judge of that?”

“Nay, little trickster. You’ll na manage me so easily.”

That startled her. It was the first time he’d acknowledged that he saw her wiles at work. It was unbalancing.

“Very well.” She allowed a little of her frustration to show. He still held her hand but had not drawn her against him. She wanted his warmth. “What do you desire of me?”

He smiled and for once, she thought he might be quite handsome. He certainly wasn’t beautiful. In Preshea’s family, they were all beautiful, even her father. Gavin’s face was too harsh. But when he smiled, the white of his teeth and the crinkles at the corners of his eyes softened it to comely.

Still he held her apart from him, as if waiting for a cue.

“What do I do?” Preshea asked, for once in her life at a loss.

“Be still, simply stand there a moment. I want to look at you.”

She swallowed, nervous.

He kissed the backs of her hands, sweet and courtly, although perhaps there was a flick of tongue. She gasped and then laughed at her own surprise. He smiled and paced about her, arranging her hair to fall back. He stroked her arms, exposed by the shorter sleeves of her dinner dress and the absence of gloves. He entwined his fingers with hers at the last, a brief squeeze of reassurance. She felt goose bumps, although she was not cold. She reached to unbutton the back of her bodice, contorting her arms, needing to do something to take back control of the situation.

“Can I help with that, lass? Ask me and I should love it more than anything.”

She cocked her head on a sudden understanding.
Of course. It’s all my choice. That’s his point. And, for some reason, he needs it.
She dropped her arms to her sides. She took a breath, slow, steadying. Her eyes had gone dry from staring as he moved about her. She blinked to moisten them and took another, deeper breath.
Control is something I am good at.

“Take my dress off me, Gavin.”

He unbuttoned the bodice down the back, tiny caresses as he went, peeling it away and laying it reverently aside. Then he untied her overskirt, pulling it up over her head. He was careful about her hair, smoothing it after, his hands wide and worshipful. He lifted up her top skirt, paying it equal attention. Were his hands shaking slightly? Preshea found relief in knowing he was not unaffected. He was pulling off her first petticoat now, and Preshea was beginning to regret that fashion called for so many layers. His reverence now felt achingly slow. He unwrapped to savor, like a poor child with only one gift at Christmas. She willed herself to enjoy, allowing the spice of him to season her confidence. He moved on to her second petticoat, this one heavy with her revolver in its special pocket.

He smiled at the weight.

“Such a canny lass you are,
leannan sìth
.”

He was standing before her now, his eyes warm as they flicked over her face and neck, her bare arms, and her fine silk underpinnings. His skin was warm too, as his hands stroked the path of his gaze – the side of her throat, the turn of her shoulder, memorizing her with his fingertips. Even that damnable spicy scent of his was warm, inviting. He was one massive, muscled invitation.

He made quick work of her corset cover so that finally she stood before him in nothing but chemise and stays, stockings, drawers, and boots.

Well, I suppose that’s still quite a bit of clothing.

“Wait.” She stopped him before he could continue.

He froze gratifyingly quickly, a slight panic in his eyes. As if he were afraid she would flee.

“You first,” she said instead, accepting his invitation.

He flashed one of those big sincere smiles and, without hesitation, shrugged out of his robe. He was, indeed, quite bare underneath it.

“Oh, my.” Preshea’s prior experience in such matters had all been beneath nightclothes, at best uncomfortable, and at worst agonizing. She had neither seen nor wanted to see any of her husbands naked.

Gavin was different. Whatever he’d done with the Coldsteam Guards had clearly involved a deal of physical labor. The hair on his chest shaped down to a single line over his stomach. She would not allow her eyes to follow it farther, not just yet.

If I’m going to take advantage of this man, by George, I shall do it properly. I’m no lily-livered milk-water miss!

She stroked his chest with one hand. Not quite daring enough to go lower. Although she did want to know what he felt like everywhere.
Soon.
No doubt he would allow it.
Soft.
His chest hair was very soft. He closed his eyes to savor her touch. Preshea allowed herself to look at everything he offered.
He was not a particularly small man anywhere, as it turned out.

She glanced up to find him watching her. Eyes still so warm, crinkled at the corners in delight at her appraisal. At her obvious interest. At her desire. So, she looked her fill again, flushed but sure. If he was hers for the taking, he should know that.

He was not embarrassed to be naked while she remained clothed. If anything, he seemed to enjoy it, if his cock was anything to judge by.

She found herself smiling.
An odd sensation right now.
Strange that humor should accompany such an act. But she couldn’t help it; she was delighted with him. And with herself. And with her power over him. She stepped away slightly and turned around, presenting her back to him and drawing her hair forward over her shoulder. “My laces.”

He loosened them quickly. Showing a depth of experience with corsetry that belied only two paramours. Or perhaps each had been for a long duration. He was clearly a man who enjoyed the titillation of undressing his lover.

He guided her around to face him once again so he could pop open the busk. Pulling the corset off and laying it aside, he loosely encircled her in his arms. Instead of pulling her into a full embrace, he rubbed her back, strong and firm, stroking the places where the lacing had bit through her chemise to mark her skin with wrinkles.

It felt so glorious, she moaned and relaxed forward. Her focus shifted to those big hands massaging through the thin silk, although she was acutely aware of his eager flesh pressing against her stomach. She let herself melt, pressing against him. Warm.

Tentatively, she nuzzled her nose into his chest hair, soft and only a little pricking against her face. His breath was rougher now, and his heart, under her cheek, was racing. That plus his stroking hands were causing her own breath to hitch, her body to ache in ways both pleasant and anxious. She was bathed in the scent of him now, and she did not care that it could overwhelm her. She knew she could stop this at any time, the moment she felt close to drowning. And he would let her. But for now, she would be
warm
.

After a long moment, he judged his ministrations complete and let his hands drift up her back, into her hair, to cradle her head against his chest.