The Maclean Groom (29 page)

“You wretch!” she gasped, then shivered. Her brilliant eyes flashed with excitement. “Now look what you've done!”

Rory chuckled softly as his hands slid up to her breasts. “I'll help you mend the damage to your hair later.”

“You've caused enough damage. You'll do no such thing.”

She shoved against his chest, and he obligingly toppled over, taking her with him to land on the padded comforter at their feet. Bare legs tangling, he rolled beneath her to cushion the fall.

Startled, Joanna looked down at Rory, who was grinning like a naughty lad who'd successfully evaded a switching. He plucked a bluebell out of her tangled hair and tossed it aside. “There, 'tis bonnier than ever.”

“And who's going to repair the damage to this room?” she inquired with a cool lift of her brows.

“If you're a good lass and apologize, I just might help you.” He set her on the floor, rose to his feet, scooped her up in his brawny arms, and moved to the tub. “But first we're going to have that bath.”

“Rory!” she cried softly. “That really is indecent.”

“Would you believe, darling,” he said, “some cultures do it all the time. Men and women bathing together sounds like a sterling idea to me, especially if you're the woman and I'm the man.”

Scandalized, Joanna gazed up at her husband. His strong jaw was stubbled with a day's growth of beard. His eyes watched her with a predatory light glowing in their brilliant green depths.

The barbaric emerald twinkling in his ear and the primitive sea dragon etched on his arm should have alerted her, despite the holy medal hanging on his chest. He was a half-pagan warlord, experienced in the vices of the heathen world. Bronzed and sea-weathered, he exuded an aura of savage ferocity.

She'd have been blind not to notice that all the time she'd been pelting him with everything that came to hand, he'd been sexually aroused. The tension vibrating inside her own body had changed during their ridiculous, one-sided duel, though she'd scarcely been aware of it.

“Rory,” she murmured huskily. She unfastened the leather thong at the back of his neck, slid her fingers in the wealth of sun-bleached hair, and pressed her mouth against his.

He kissed her, his tongue thrusting and withdrawing boldly in a clear imitation of what would soon happen between them.

When he broke the kiss, he stepped over the tub's edge, sank down into the warm water, and settled her in front of him. He lifted her slightly and wedged her rump between his corded thighs, so she lay back against his solid chest, her head resting on his shoulder, her soaked locks floating
in the water around them. His rigid manhood pressed insistently against her bottom, and there was no mistaking his intent.

His arms around her, he cupped his hands and rinsed out her hair; then he lathered the cloth with perfumed soap.

“I should have ordered a bath,” he said with a chuckle, “and scrubbed Joey Macdonald down the first day I spotted the cheeky lad standing beside Father Thomas, all covered with soot and grime. 'Twould have saved me a great deal of time and aggravation.”

He ran the soapy washcloth over her breasts, rubbing gently back and forth across her nipples, and the strength of her own arousal came as a shock to Joanna. She'd felt so cross with Rory when he'd first come into the room that she hadn't realized until now he'd been playing with her in a sexual way, teasing her and then using her sense of humor to overcome her resistance.

The cloth in his hand began an unhurried descent down her belly as the water lapped about them. He bent his head and kissed her ear, his tongue following the curves and dipping into the hollows.

“Joanna,” he said softly, “I didn't compose the ballad that Fergus MacQuisten sang at our wedding feast. Nor did I write the words.”

“I know,” she replied with a contented sigh.

“You do?”

She nodded, enjoying the hedonistic pleasure of sharing a bath with her husband. His soapy fingers glided over her wet skin, beguiling and seductive as he bathed her most intimate places. Shameful and indecent it might be, but 'twas marvelously agreeable, too.

“Who told you?” he asked gruffly.

“Hm?” she murmured. “Oh, no one. I just knew that you didn't write it.”

He paused, and she could tell he wasn't flattered by her assumption—even though it had obviously been correct. His deep baritone rumbled in his chest as he continued his tantalizing endeavors. “How did you know, lass?”

She smiled at the annoyance in his voice. “I just knew the man who compared courting a lassie to feeding carrots and apples to his horse couldn't have written that romantic verse or the hauntingly beautiful music that went with it.”

He halted as he considered her reply.

“Don't stop,” she begged. A delicious languor curled through Joanna, and she released a long, appreciative sigh. “Who did compose the ballad?”

“I'll tell you after our third child is born,” he said, kissing her temple. Joanna could tell he was smiling.

He touched her beneath the water, playing with her gently. The warm ripples swirled around his gifted fingers, creating tiny rills of pleasure.

“If you knew,” he continued in a serious tone, “why didn't you say something that day? As MacQuisten sang the ballad, you looked at me as though you believed I'd composed it.”

“Because I assumed you'd asked Fergus to create a tender love song especially for me. And the fact that you
wanted
me to believe you'd written it touched me deeply.”

“I may not be able to write songs,” he murmured in her ear, “but I can play your sweet, lovely body, Joanna, till you're sighing for me like a wee magic harp fashioned by the faeries to drive a mortal man insane.”

The warm bathwater swirled around Rory's dexterous fingers, enhancing each touch, each light brush of his callused fingertips over her delicate folds.

When she was sighing like a faery harp beneath his caresses, Rory lifted her up in his strong arms. Leaving the tub, he laid her, dripping wet, on the bed, with her knees bent, her legs dangling over the edge of the mattress. To Joanna's surprise, he didn't join her on the bed, but knelt on the floor in front of her. His hands sliding over her sleek thighs, he lifted her legs over his broad shoulders.

“What are you doing?” she asked with an embarrassed little laugh. She couldn't imagine what he intended next. She tried to sit up, and with one quick tug, he tipped her flat on her back again.

“This comes under the bridegroom's responsibility,” he said, his sea-dragon eyes sparkling with devilment.

“What's that?”

“Teaching you something new every night.”

“And all I need to do is enjoy it?”

His wide grin was positively wicked. “I'll think of something for you to do later.”

Rory smoothed his open mouth across the sensitive skin of her inner thighs and nipped her gently. She could feel his warm breath drift over her and the prickly graze of his whiskers. Her heart thumped wildly against her ribs as he parted the tight curls that covered her mound.

Holy heavens
.

Dragon's tail or no, he was half-savage. Like some great primitive beast, he nuzzled her with his lips and tongue.

“
Rory!
” she gasped.

This had to be something he'd learned from the sea nymphs. Who else would do such a scandalous thing?

Joanna jerked in convulsive reaction as he touched her with the tip of his tongue, his hands reaching up to fondle the tightened buds of her breasts at the same moment. The feeling that knifed through her body bordered on ecstasy.

“Oh, my,” she breathed. “Oh, my.”

She now had no doubt about the truth. The chiefs of Clan MacLean cavorted with mermaids. That's why he'd wanted to bathe in the tub with her. 'Twas the blatantly sensual lure of the water lapping around his manly parts. And that's why he wanted her hair loose and dripping wet—so she'd remind him of a redheaded sea nymph.

He laved her delicate folds, moist and warm and scented from the bath, moister and warmer now from his skilled mouth and tongue. The world around Joanna shrank to just the two of them as he taught her the incredible pleasures he could give.

He held her hips imprisoned in his large hands, and she writhed beneath his erotic stimulation till she cried out his name in breathless female surrender. Floating in a languorous haze, Joanna realized that Rory rose and bent over her.

“I know you must be tender, darling,” he whispered. “I'll be very gentle.”

As the exquisite pleasure throbbed and pulsed through her slick, engorged tissues, Rory spread her legs and entered her carefully. The feeling of pressure and incredible fullness seemed so right, she sobbed in relief and longing, wanting to have more of him and still more. She wrapped her legs tightly around his lean flanks, refusing to let him be gentle.

“I need you, Rory,” she said, her words hoarse with emotion. “I need you inside me like this, hard and strong. I feel like I'll never get enough of you.” She arched upward, moving her hips against his straining loins.

“Then come with me, darling,” he said, seeming to understand her frantic state. “Come ride with me through the stars.”

He bent over her, plunging in swift, strong strokes, building a faster and faster tempo. Where that morning he'd been steady and rhythmic, tonight he pumped wildly into her body, taking Joanna on a breathless ride. They climaxed together, their bodies shuddering in their release.

Her husband slipped his hand beneath Joanna's rump and, rolling over, brought her up on top of him. Her body clenched him reflexively, and he groaned. “Ah, Joanna, 'tis an old man you'll make of me before my time, but I'll enjoy every minute of getting older.”

She lay on top of him, panting. As her heartbeat slowed and her breathing returned to normal, she pushed up, bracing her hands on his shoulders. The strands of her long, wet hair dangled about them.

“What was it like?” she asked with a curious smile. “Doing it under water?”

He looked at her blankly. “Doing what under water, lass?”

“This.”

“This?”

She frowned, surprised and a little annoyed. He was usu
ally far more astute. “What we just did,” she explained. “What was it like, doing it under water?”

Rory slid his hands up her back and lifted the damp locks away from her shoulders. “Joanna,” he said with a bemused expression, “why would you think I've coupled with a woman under water?”

“Oh, not with a woman!” she exclaimed. “With a sea nymph.”

A crooked smile creased his sharp features, his green eyes danced with suppressed merriment. “What makes you believe I've coupled with a mermaid?”

“All Macdonald children are told how the chiefs of Clan MacLean cavort with the water sprites. And that the MacLean chiefs have dragon tails, which are snipped short at birth so they can hide them beneath their plaids. That's why, this morning, I wanted to get better acquainted. I wanted to find out if it was true—if you really did have a dragon's tail.” She giggled happily. “But you don't.”

“You mean…when you were fondling my bare buttocks…you were trying…to discover…” A look of sudden comprehension lit his face. Then he roared with laughter. He bellowed so hard, she bounced up and down on his chest. “Oh, God, Joanna!” he cried between hoots and guffaws. “Oh, God, I don't believe it!”

“Shush!” she told him. “You'll wake everyone in the house.”

He wouldn't stop laughing—or couldn't. She wasn't sure which. Finally she grabbed a pillow and smashed it over his face. That finally shut him up.

He lay there so still, Joanna grew afraid she'd smothered him. “Rory?” she whispered, lifting the pillow.

He immediately brought her face down to his, kissing her passionately. All of a sudden, he started laughing again. He laughed till tears ran from the corners of his eyes.

“I'm going to start getting angry if you don't stop laughing at me,” she threatened.

He kissed her again. “Darling of my heart,” he whispered against her temple, “how did I ever get so lucky?”

At the loving Gaelic endearment, Joanna became absolutely still. Grandpapa had been the only person who'd ever called her that. Anguish welled up inside her, flooding her already overwrought emotions to the brink. She pushed back and looked into her husband's mirthful gaze, her heart breaking.

Unable to help herself, Joanna burst into tears. She slumped down on his chest and buried her face in the curve of his neck. “Oh, Rory,” she sobbed, “why did it have to be you?”

Stunned, Rory cradled his wife in his arms and listened to her heartbroken sobs. He stared at the green silk canopy above them, fighting back the galling disappointment. He'd hoped that tonight Joanna would tell him she loved him. Instead, she was crying her heart out because he, Laird Rory MacLean, was her husband.

 

Rory and Alex stood in the kitchen the next morning, eating oat porridge and hot buttered scones. The weather had cleared, and they intended to make a tour of the Archnacarry fields. As laird of Kinlochleven, Rory would need to become familiar with the yearly routine of plowing, planting and harvesting crops, as well as the raising of the sturdy, long-haired Highland cattle. Before setting out, he planned to return upstairs to get his weapons and to check on his wife, whom he'd left peacefully slumbering in the midst of the shambles they'd created the night before.

Suddenly the door leading from the great hall banged opened with a crash. The two lairds turned in surprise to find Godfrey Macdonald holding his sword on Archnacarry's steward, Malcolm. Immediately behind them came a hefty Macdonald man-at-arms with Raine held fast in his grasp and the blade of a dirk laid across her throat. Though pale with fright, the lassie remained calm.