Kresley Cole - [MacCarrick Brothers 03] (26 page)

“Oh, yes,” Maddy began in a scoffing tone, “he’s so attentive he comes by once a day.”

Another woman said, “No, no. He only approaches you once a day, but we often see him lingering nearby.”

“His expression is so dark”—Owena grinned—“and…
hungry
.” The women tittered, fluttering their ostrich-feather fans, scandalized.

But why would Ethan come by and not speak to me?
Maddy wondered, absently shuffling.
Why has he been so distant—
?

Realization hit her. Cards flew among the coterie.
Ethan is already falling for me!

Maddy mumbled apologies as she hastily scooped cards from the table and from one woman’s bucket hat. Yes, falling in love with her. And that was precisely why he’d been so cold!

“Shall I deal, Madeleine?” Owena asked, amused. “You look distracted.”

“Oh, yes, please,” Maddy said, her thoughts racing….

Although Maddy’s own mother hadn’t loved her, Quin hadn’t fallen for her, and even Ethan seemed not to like her very much at times, Maddy boldly believed she was a lovable person.

People generally liked her, and she’d always made friends easily. And if she turned on the charm? She was nigh unstoppable. MacCarrick didn’t stand a chance, she reasoned, and the poor man probably sensed his heart’s impending surrender—which would explain his increasing coolness.

Naturally he would put up a brusque front as a defense! For a bachelor of his advanced years, yielding to marriage was one thing, but yielding one’s heart was quite another.

And he’d already betrayed hints of his growing affection. Late into each night they touched and kissed and talked of nothing serious, learning each other’s bodies. He taught her how he liked to be caressed and wanted her to reveal what she desired from him.

He’d nuzzle her neck and her breasts so gently, kissing her lips tenderly. He’d compliment her, pleasure her, and then gruffly insist she sleep against him as he held her close.

Whenever they were alone in their cabin, he would walk around naked and unabashed—what male wouldn’t, with a physique like that?—and she would lie on her front, chin on her hands, gazing at him in wonder. As she studied his unclothed body moving, she couldn’t help recalling some of the scenes she’d witnessed in La Marais. Applying the general ideas to him, her curiosity grew each minute.

Every morning, she’d joined him at the basin to explore him as he struggled to concentrate on shaving. She’d run her fingers over his backside, then to his torso and lower, which always earned her a trip to the bed.

Her attraction to him was getting worse. Every encounter between them made her want two more, and her affection for him wasn’t far behind. Especially since he’d begun once again to demonstrate that sense of humor she’d enjoyed. Her heart melted each time he grated teasing words to her with a self-conscious grin.

At breakfast today, he’d looked out from behind his paper and said, “Have you been cheating when you gamble on board?”

“As if I need to. Winning against the passengers is as challenging as hunting cows.”

“Doona scoff, young lass,” he’d said, making his brogue low and rumbling. “Cows can be wily beasts.”

She’d batted her eyelashes as she asked, “Ethan, would you lay down your life to protect me if a cow had me cornered?”

“Aye”—he’d resumed reading—“I’d smite the bovine down.”

Maddy had laughed until he’d folded the paper down, with his brows drawn and his lips curling into that unpracticed grin.

She sighed happily. MacCarrick
would
resist her, of course.
Ah, but in the end, it will do him no good.

She decided, then and there, in the middle of a hand of blackjack, that she was going to make the Highlander fall in love with her.

The problem with telling Madeleine not to be underfoot was that she’d listened.

Ethan had expected her to make a friend or maybe two—not to gather up a gaggle of women to follow her around and emulate everything she did. They’d even stopped donning jewelry because she wore none.

Though Madeleine had proved to be charming and sociable, Ethan was still surprised at the sheer ease with which she’d made friends. Having never quite managed the feat himself, he’d always believed it difficult.

She played cards and gossiped with them all day, having no trouble staying away from him.

And this meant that if he wanted to see her, he had to pursue her all over the ship. He’d strived to stay away, passing most of the days in the ship’s club room. Since the majority of male passengers were gentlemen of leisure and landowners, the reading journals available on board consisted mainly of agricultural periodicals.

Ethan was out of study with the subject. He could man a howitzer and shoot a target between the eyes from half a mile away, and he knew the comprehensive geopolitical conditions of every country in Europe and Asia, but the newest farming techniques for loamy soil proved foreign to him.

He’d decided that since he was traveling to Carillon, one of his working estates, he could examine the operations while he was there. So he’d dived into the journals, intending to learn—and to keep his mind from Madeleine.

But staying away proved challenging, knowing what awaited him. On the few occasions he’d approached her, her face would light up, making it all the more pleasurable to see her. No one in memory had smiled upon seeing him, and he always had to stifle the urge to look behind him.

Today, the longest he’d made it was an hour before he’d found his feet eating the distance to wherever she was. Even merely watching her from afar was agreeable to him.

So he spent the days in a state that he could swear was close to bloody pining, counting down the hours until night when he could have her all to himself.

He, Ethan MacCarrick, craved a woman’s attention.

And he felt himself lowering his guard around her. He’d actually caught himself wondering what she would think about Carrickliffe, and about his brothers and their wives—and, ach, that sounded odd.

Madeleine was already friends with Jane. This situation could get tricky if Ethan hurt the girl terribly.

What had Quin predicted? That Ethan wouldn’t know up from down anymore?
Bully for you, Quin, you’ve got me pegged.
His lips curled.
But she chose me over you, you sod.

Things used to be cut-and-dried for Ethan. He used to be detached from others, but now he wasn’t so sure. At least with her. Even as he looked hard for things to dislike about her, at every turn he was burdened with additional examples of how well she fit with him.

Each night he and Madeleine indulged their lusts. He’d experienced more pleasure at her hands than he had in a decade before. He
could
get used to that—if he wasn’t careful.

Toward dawn, they continued their nightly battles in bed wherein he attempted to get her to sleep against him instead of balled up in that way that made his chest feel uncomfortable.

If someone had told him a week ago that he’d be fighting to make a woman cling to him in sleep, he’d have laughed.

If he could just have her fully one more time, he thought he could beat this constant need. So every time he touched her, he would take more. He kept his fingers inside her longer, wanting her to crave the sensation of being filled, to train her body to hunger for his. If the situation had been reversed, this would have been the way to make him want more. Conditioning.

He knew he was playing for more now, though he didn’t understand precisely what he wanted from her.

Yet she remained unfaltering. He was beginning to believe she truly wouldn’t sleep with him outside of marriage. If so, once they landed he would only be able to put her off for a few weeks before she demanded matrimony. Or she’d leave.

Now neither of those scenarios was acceptable.

A plan began to form. Other women had enjoyed his coarse treatment. Cold and domineering had served him well in the past, getting him into the skirts of more women than he could count—it could work with her as well.

Twenty-nine

T
hat night after they’d eaten, shared a bath, and were both naked in bed, Ethan proved Maddy’s theory again and again.

Though he plied her with champagne, he was brusque and distant with her—which amused her because she viewed this as the desperate, last-ditch defense of a rattled bachelor.

She could handle his moodiness. It wasn’t difficult because the idea of sharing a life with him appealed to her more and more, especially after a day like today—she’d left food on her plate and had enjoyed tea without hauling water up to her window; tonight, after their light, teasing touches in the bath, the promise of complete pleasure lingered between them.

“Ethan, I’ve noticed you’re cross with me tonight for some reason,” she asked innocently. “Have I done something to offend you?”
Besides threatening the wall around your heart.

“I want to take you,” he said curtly. “You’re supposed to be mine, and I’ve already claimed you. Tonight I mean to be inside you again.”

“Honestly, Scot, your moods confuse me so. I can hardly keep up with them. Maybe it’s the champagne and I’m overly sensitive, but your treatment of me is very erratic—”

He pressed her shoulders to the mattress, levering his massive body over hers. But she wasn’t afraid in the least. “Just lie back, wench.”

She snickered. “Did you call me
wench
? Well, you certainly dated yourself there, didn’t you? Sometimes I forget how old you are. What’s your age, anyway? Thirty-seven? Thirty-eight?”

“I’m thirty-
three
.” Looking completely at a loss, he released her. “Am I…do you think me
too
old for you?”

“Not at all, Ethan,” she answered honestly.

“Then admit it, you will no’ sleep with me because of my scar. I’d never had any trouble seducing before I received it—”

She laughed then, clutching her stomach, rolling on the bed. “You’re fishing for a compliment!”

“Are you mad? Stop bloody laughing!”

After several tries, she finally did. “I’m sorry, I just didn’t imagine you would be so vain.”

“I was no’ fishing for a compliment.”

“Then how would you explain your comment, when you know very well why I won’t sleep with you, and you know it has
nothing
to do with your appearance? And so, to appease your hungry vanity—”

“Damn you, witch, I am no’—”

“—I will tell you that I find you utterly attractive, handsome, and virile.”

His words seemed to die in his throat. His brows drew together as if he’d been confounded.

“I was going to tell you that morning in Paris,” Maddy said, “but you kept ridiculing my poverty, and I didn’t want to relinquish the one chink I’d uncovered in your armor.”

He looked away when he asked, “And the scar?”

“I’m sorry you were hurt, in whatever mysterious fight you were in.” She brushed her fingertips along it. This time he accepted the touch, his eyes briefly sliding shut. “But the mark highlights the fact that you’re a strong man, who’s been honed by a hard life.”

He scrubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “I doona understand you.”

“This is all a test, isn’t it? You want to see how deep my affection for you goes or to determine if I’ll be able to put up with your surliness and tolerate you in marriage.”

“Aye, if that’s what you believe. And only one thing can prove it—and that’s for you to let me have you now.”

“Scot, that’s not fair.”

“Do you no’ want to convince me?”

She nibbled her lip, wondering how he would react if she attempted something she’d seen again and again and had always been curious about. He certainly didn’t seem the type to chastise her for being overbold.

“I wonder if”—she pressed a kiss to his chest—“there might be something else I could do to prove my affection.” Another kiss lower. His entire body tensed, and his thick erection pulsed. “Something I’ve been imagining.”

“You canna be talkin’ about,” he shook his head hard, “about
that
—” He hissed in a breath when she nuzzled the trail of hair below his navel, letting him feel her hot breaths. His hands shot out to cradle her face, and he rasped, “
Ah, you beautiful lass, you are….”
He shuddered, drawing his knees up around her. “You’ve been…you’ve been thinking about this?”

“Uh-huh,” she murmured, kissing the rigid indentations of his stomach. “When I watch you shave.”

“You canna tease me with this.” His brows were drawn as if he were in pain. “You doona know how badly I want it.”

“I’ve always been curious to try this.” She slowly rubbed her cheek along his shaft, making his knees fall wide open.

“Pull your hair aside. I want tae see you takin’ me.”

Once she’d pulled her hair over one shoulder, she leaned down again, letting him feel her breaths against the slick crown before she flicked her tongue over the slit.

His eyes rolled back in his head.

His reaction emboldened her. He needed this, truly ached for something she could gladly give him. When she circled her tongue around the smooth head, closing her eyes in bliss, she discovered that she ached for it, too. Enthralled with this new delight, she teased and played, wanting to do this all night.

“Ah, God, that’s it,” he grated. “Now take it in your mouth….”

She hesitated, then ignored his command, beginning to feel a kind of power with the act. Again and again, she lapped at the moisture on the crown until he was arching his back, seeming in anguish.

“I have no’ had this in a verra long time,” he said, choking out the words. “Play later.” He grasped her head in his shaking hands, easing her down.

But she drew back. “I want to savor my first time.”

“Indulge—me,” he growled.

“What if I said no?” She pursed her lips and blew against him, making him shudder and buck his hips. “Looks like I hold all the cards—”

Like a shot, he grabbed her by the waist, tossing her to her back. As she sputtered and cried out, he pulled her around, positioning her so he could repay her in kind. He appeared menacing over her as he clutched her wrists under her back, pinning her so she couldn’t move.