Knight In My Bed (21 page)

Something indefinable in the low, huskily spoken words sank into her, exciting her, while the oddly soothing feel of his large, well-formed hand encircling hers cooled her ire and sent pure languid heat spooling through her.

A wondrous warmth that threatened to melt every shred of resistance she held against him.

"I am not desirous of being ... pleased," she managed, struggling to ignore the fluttery feeling his nearness touched off inside her.

Keenly aware of the way he looked at her, truly looked at her, deep, deep into her soul it seemed, Isolde let her own gaze flit from the sensual curve of his triumphant smile to the discarded little flask lying on the table. Saints, but she needed a swallow.

"Be that so, why do you tremble when I touch you?" he whispered above her ear, and smoothed his knuckles along the curve of her cheek.

Isolde leaned away from the contact, even though, true to his word, a flurry of pleasant shivers had cascaded down her back the instant he'd touched her.

"'Tis shaking from vexation I am, not quivering with pleasure." She purposely kept her head angled away from him.

"Indeed?" He captured her chin with one hand and turned her face back to his. The look in his remarkable dark eyes made her heart skitter a beat. "Most beautiful lady," he said, "I do not believe you."

She looked right back at him, straight into his all-seeing brown eyes. "You vex
 
me mightily, that is all."

Releasing her, Donall lifted his hands, holding them palm outward. "Then retreat to your safe corner behind the chair ... if you so desire."

She didn't move. "What I desire –“

I ken what you desire." He circled his hands around her upper arms, holding her gently but firmly in place by letting his hands glide smoothly from her elbows up to and over her shoulders, then back down again. "There is a very fine line betwixt passion and ire," he said. "Sometimes it blurs."

"And you think to show me the difference?'

“Not think to, I will," he murmured, his fingers lightly kneading her upper arms. "With a kiss."

Unsmiling now, but with a heat smoldering in his eyes that she instinctively recognized as pure, untamed passion, he slid his arms around her back and pulled her flush against him. "A thorough and leisurely kiss," he said, looking deep into her eyes.

The warmth Isolde saw there chased her rising whimpers of protest right back down her throat, and stilled the hands she'd been about to press frantically against the hard wall of his chest.

"Must you?" she gasped, already losing the battle to conquer the heart-stealing sensations spinning through her at being held thus.

Held thus by
him
.

"Must I what, lass? Kiss you?" He lowered his head until their very breaths mingled. "Aye, I must," he said, and did.

He touched his mouth to hers with such sublime tenderness, the sheer power of his kiss rivaled the iron-hard strength of the arms he'd curved around her back.

A tiny sigh escaped her as he moved his lips over hers with exquisite gentleness. A soft, smooth warmth, headier than she'd e'er dreamed a kiss would be.

Her pulse quickened, her blood thickening, even as a heavy languor settled over her, pooling deep in her lower belly. A mindless, swirling, pulsing ache.

An ache for more.

A deeper yearning her body understood better than she. Easing her hands from between them, she cupped her palms over his broad shoulders, reveling in the warm, solid feel of his warrior's strength beneath the soft linen of the
lenicroich.

"Holy saints," Donall breathed against her lips when she tilted her head to the side, parting her lips in an instinctive invitation for him to deepen the kiss.

He obliged at once, slanting his mouth over hers, claiming her lips with a firmer, more commanding kiss, its heated fervor stealing her breath and unraveling her very senses.

Another little moan rose in her throat, and he caught it with his tongue, masterfully blending her gasp of pleasure with his own until both sighs were indistinguishable from the sweet sighing of their mingled breaths.

Somewhere deep inside her something broke free, setting loose a wash of torrid, liquid pleasure that spilled down the length of her to pool around her feet in a rushing, soul-stirring torrent.

A sea of sensation swirled 'round and 'round her, tantalizing and powerful enough to sweep her into a wild, frenzied abyss of pure bliss.

His arms tightened around her, his hands moving over her back, caressing her, molding her to him. He deepened the kiss, and cupped her lower bottom, splaying his fingers over her curves, drawing her so close she could not deny his arousal, the unbridled might of his need.

A delicious haze engulfed her, and she opened her mouth wider, accepting his passion with an increasing need of her own. Letting herself melt into him, she slipped her hands around his neck and twined her fingers in the silken thickness of his hair, losing herself in the wondrous maelstrom of yearning.

Losing herself so completely naught else mattered.

Not his name.

Not why he was there.

Nothing.

As if he sensed her capitulation, he gentled his embrace and eased the kiss to an end by degrees until, as he'd begun, he simply grazed the soft warmth of his own mouth tenderly over hers, then finally pulled away.

He looked at her, his head angled so near his breath caressed her cheek. "Lady," he said, and naught else. But the softly spoken word held enough awe to kindle anew the raging fire he'd ignited in her blood.

With great gentleness, he brushed the pad of his thumb over her lower lip. "Ne'er compare me to lecherous graybeards and mating dogs again," he said, and a spark of his rare yet oh-so-fine humor flashed across his handsome face.

Though fleeting, the wee glimpse of genuine amusement warmed her, melting her heart with the same mastery his kiss and embrace had melted her resistance.

Feeling much the enchantress she'd professed to be, she gave in to the irresistible urge to touch her fingers to his mouth. Firm, yet smooth and warm, the feel of his lips fascinated her. Her breath caught on a captivated sigh as he curved his mouth into one of his slow, disarming smiles right beneath her fingertips.

"Now you know how a knight kisses," he said, the low, silky words causing a shower of light, fluttery shivers to ripple down her spine.

Holding her captive with the heat of his gaze, he captured her wrist, upturned her hand, and planted a searingly soft kiss on her palm. "One to dream on," he murmured, folding her fingers over the kiss.

Isolde blinked, too shaken to speak.

He offered her his palm. "Will you grace me with one, too?"

"One, too?" she echoed, full aware of what he wanted her to do.

"A simple hand kiss," he said, ardor still simmering in his warm brown eyes. "To see me through the long, lonely hours in your dungeon."

His last few words doused the fire in her blood in one fell swoop, at once reminding her of the constraints of her plight and smashing his expertly spun illusion of gallantry and dashing knights with all the finesse of a mailed fist crashing down on a goose egg.

"You said one kiss," came her rebuff, edgier than she would've liked, but at least her fool lips had ceased quivering. "It's now been two."

He closed his hand over her shoulder. "I would have more," he said, an indefinable undercurrent in his deep-timbered voice. "And you, most desirable maid,
should
have more ... if you seek to further enlighten yourself."

"You are a shameless imposter, Donall MacLean," she accused, trying to wrest herself free of his iron clamp hold on her shoulder. "An arrogant boorish blackguard with nary a knightly bone in your body."

"Think you?" He arched a brow.

"Aye, I do!" she cried, anger scorching her cheeks. An acute and shameful awareness of the wild abandon she'd so easily succumbed to filled her with enough fury to ignite ten roaring fires.

Afraid traces of that abandon might still be blazing in her ryes, she whipped her head around, turning her face away from him. Unthinkable, should he be able to tell her lips yet tingled, aching to be kissed again.

Kissed as knights kiss.

"Ohhhhhh ..." Fury bubbled and churned in her at the ease with which he'd so deftly played on her most secret desires.

"Ohhhh, you enjoyed my kiss, or ohhhh, you are wroth with me?" he whispered above her ear, then planted a quick kiss on the crown of her head. "That makes three."

She shot him an angry look. "You are mad."

"So some have claimed." He shrugged. "This night, though, I am simply mad for you, my lady," he added, and his mouth began to curve into another of his disarming smiles.

Isolde glanced away before it could fully form. "And come the morrow, another maid would catch your favor."

"Mayhap," he said, the speed with which the unflattering retort had sprung from his lips irritating her even more. "I have warned you my affections are fickle."

With an agitated huff, she wriggled from his grip. Free at last, she quickly darted behind her chair. Gripping its top, she drew a fortifying breath. "And I have told you I do not want your ... affections."

He folded his arms across his chest, his entire mien exuding pure male superiority.
Triumph.
"Aye, you have told me." Tilting his head a bit, he peered at her with another of his feigned looks of consternation. "Tell me then, why your body says something else?"

Isolde pressed her lips together in a tight line.

His
lips twitched in high amusement. "Ah, wench, you are fulsome beautiful when riled."

Her cheeks burning, Isolde promptly stared at the table.

Anywhere but at him.

Devorgilla's little flask was still where he'd tossed it earlier. Empty, innocuous-looking, and as yet wholly ineffective.

She frowned. Thus far, the cailleach's anti-attraction potion hadn't done her a whit of good in resisting Donall MacLean's charms. Blessedly, though, neither had it stilled his apparent ardor.

He cleared his throat. "I find I am quite smitten with you, Isolde of Dunmuir," he drawled, as if uncannily privy to her thoughts.

And we with you, your lordship magnificence
, the meddlesome butterflies still fluttering madly in her most private reaches chimed in answer.

She stiffened her back, refusing to deign him a response. Instead, she kept her gaze firmly focused on the flagon, vowing to have the crone brew a more potent batch.

"
Knights admire wenches with steel in their veins
. "

The beguiling note underlying his observation, and the observation itself, almost brought a tiny smile to her lips.

Almost.

But she caught the wee tuggings at the corners of her mouth before they betrayed her. Squaring her shoulders, she made certain her posture displayed enough steel to set the handsome devil's head spinning.

Her effort was rewarded by a deep, rich chuckle.

Refusing to acknowledge his mirth, she walked to the opened windows with as much dignified grace as she could muster. Folding her hands in front of her, she let the brisk salt air cool her flushed cheeks and stared out into the rosy-gray luminescence of approaching dawn.

Niels and Rory would come for him soon.

A sharp pang of guilt jabbed into her at that, and she risked a quick, slanted glance over her shoulder. He'd resumed his favored position: lounged against her bedpost, ankles crossed, arms folded, one mocking brow arching heavenward the instant he saw he had her attention.

Resplendent in his dark, masculine beauty.

Proud.

"A farewell kiss before your henchmen fetch me?" His deep voice shattered the spell she'd almost sunk back into.

I would like a thousand kisses
, her lips called to him.

She let silence speak for her.

Wincing at her weakness, and sorely in need of escaping his presence, Isolde gathered her skirts in preparation for a swift departure from her chamber.

From him.

The man was insufferable, but possessed of enough exalted prowess and high looks to win any maid's heart.

He kissed like a knight.

And his name was Donall MacLean.

That alone helped lift her chin to a haughty degree as she sailed past him, not stopping until she reached the door. With shaking fingers, she freed the stout drawbar and opened the door. "Sir Donall," she called, stunned by the audacity of what she meant to say even before the brazen words could leap off her tongue.

"Aye, sweeting?" he called from behind her, the two words rich with telling eloquence.

She steeled herself, and a teensy spark of warmth sprang to life somewhere inside her.

Donall the Bold liked steel.

"It would please me to resume our discussion about enlightenment on the morrow," she blurted, then scooted out of the chamber.

"You are bold, indeed, Isolde of Dunmuir," he called out as she shut the door. "A fine bold lass."