“What difference is there in a day?”
“I want to find out a few more things, if I’m able.”
Shawna sighed with exasperation. “But?—”
“Do not leave my brother’s side. Do you understand?”
She pulled away angrily from his touch. “I understand that I have gone through my own hell for many years now! Iunderstand that you have frightened me, bullied, condemned me, and mocked me, and still?—”
“Ah! And saved your life upon occasion!” he reminded her, a sizzling spark in his deep green eyes.
“Only to torment me longer!” she accused him.
A smile curved into his lips. “’Tis pride,” he said softly.
“What?” she murmured suspiciously, drawing her blanket more tightly across her breasts.
“Pride, my lady.” He left his seat upon the trunk, hunkering down before her on the ledge, not touching her, yet meeting her eyes with a wickedly strange green fire in his own. “I was the heir you see, the fine young Douglas, groomed to take his place in the political and social echelon of the Highlands! I was supposedly such a strong man, destined to be a leader. And one night a lass comes to me in a sheer gown…and I am made the fool. Very nearly killed—but sent to a strange—yet living—hell instead. It was not easy to forgive you.”
Shawna shook her head, searching out his eyes. “But I swear to you?—”
“I believe you.”
“What?”
“I believe you,” he said very softly. “I believe that you were as arrogant as I?—”
“Indeed!”
“Indeed!” he said and smiled deeply. “Arrogant, in that you thought you could flirt, kiss, and tease—and keep the laird’s young heir busy while your family saved your cousin’s arse.”
“Oh, really!”
“Aye!” And he laughed then, drawing her suddenly against him. “You did not intend what you got, any more than I might have imagined the result of the night’s work.”
“David—” she gasped in protest, yet the shiver that shot through her as he drew the blanket from her shoulders, lettingit fall to the earth, was not from the cold. He pressed her firmly back to the ground, the length of his body following hers, blanketing it. His eyes remained locked with her own, amused, amazingly tender.
“M’laird…” she whispered, suddenly wondering why this should seem so different, why she should feel so vulnerable. She had risen naked from the loch with him and been so accustomed to him that she had hardly noted her state. Yet his tone now seemed so tender that it brought a strange fear racing into her. She wanted that tenderness from him. Yet circumstances between them remained so very tense, and she was afraid to reach for what might be far too quickly snatched away again.
“Aye, m’lady, ’tis hard to forgive a woman for making a fool of a man. Especially when he craved her far too deeply when he fell!”
“David—”
His mouth covered hers, slow, gentle, at first, then forcing her into a deep, wet, open-mouthed kiss that seemed to go on forever, his tongue plunging deeply, ravaging subtly, then moving with sensual, gentle abandon again. Her hands had laid against his chest. Now they moved, stroking the deep, rich, crisp dark hair that grew upon it, easing away the swatch of Douglas tartan crossed over his flesh. He shifted against her, touching in turn, the stroke of his palm and fingers cradling her cheek, his thumb running from her throat to the valley between her breasts. His thumb and forefinger found her nipple, rolled and rubbed it, sending fiery bursts of flame and heat through her breast to her whole body. She moaned against his kiss, instinctively arching toward him, her own fingers falling lower upon his chest to tangle into the rest of the Douglas tartan that covered him.
Impatiently, he tossed away the woolen fabric himself, drawing her hand down to encompass the fullness of his arousal.
She was cold no longer. The fire he had built in the cavern seemed to warm the length and breadth of it. Golden light bathed them in a sweetly burning heat. His very breath was a touch of fire, singeing her flesh.
Her lips brushed over his chest. His fingers dug into her hair, for she teased with her kiss and her tongue while her fingers stroked and manipulated. Life and fire seemed to burn within against her touch. The strength of his ardor created a new trembling within her, a growing hunger that coiled and burned into the center of her being.
“Aye, lady…I can bear no more!” he groaned, his whisper deep and guttural as he captured her wrists, drawing her hands above her head as he straddled her body. “’Tis safe, I think, to say that you do, indeed, seduce…”
“Laird Douglas!” she whispered in protest. “In truth, you know that you are the one to prey upon the weakness in a lady who…”
“Aye?” His fingers curled into hers, holding them fiercely. His eyes impaled her there, as did the tension in his features.
She shook her head. His lips found hers again, slow, deep, passionate.