A few minutes later, he heard the sound of water sluicing off a body. Her body. That of hiswife. Helplessly, he imagined her rising from the pool like the birth of Venus from sea foam.
“Could you hand me my towel and dressing gown?” she asked, far too close for his comfort.
He nodded. She had rendered him mute. Eyes shut tight, he stretched the items behind, her fingers brushing his as she took them.
His arms trembled with the force of holding himself back.
He couldn’t bear this. They should return to the keep before his control splintered. He cleared his throat, intending to propose just that, when she sat down beside him.
Reflexively, he glanced at her.
She was, thankfully, dressed.
However, water droplets clung to her fair skin and his locket glinted around her neck, dangling just above the swell of her bosom.
Lord help him.
Oblivious to the crisis consuming him, Isla tipped her face toward the sun.
“Mmmm,” she moaned. “The sunlight feels divine.”
She had no mercy. His sweet, naive lass had no idea how torturousevery sound and movement had become. How she was unraveling him bit by bit.
The rustling silk of her dressing gown, gaping open at the neck.
The lift of her chin exposing the smooth column of her throat.
The gooseflesh pebbling the skin over her collarbones.
Unaware, she tilted her head toward him and used her towel to wring more water out of her hair, causing the open collar of her dressing gown to sag, exposing a wee glimpse of her creamy bare shoulder.
Och.
He needed to leave.
Tavish lurched to his feet.
“I’ll just . . .” What? Return to the castle without her?
“Leaving?” she asked.
He made the mistake of looking back at her.
She sat upon the grass in a disheveled heap, hair pulled to one side. Never had she looked more lovely.
She raised a hand, an unspoken request to help her up.
Swallowing, Tavish grasped her hand, still cold and slightly damp from the water. Her touch seared.
Something flickered in her gaze. A ripple of awareness. Of want. Her eyes dropped to his bare chest, as if unable to help herself.
And he knew.
His bonnie wife was every whit as affected and yearning as himself.
Her actions had been a provocation.
A deliberate seduction.
