She uncovered the tray and gasped with delight. “Plum pudding!”
Fifi threw her arms around him and planted a sweet unguarded kiss on his mouth, all stiffness and uncertainty gone. His tactic had worked. But before Slade had time to blink, she’d already released him and was delving further into the tray. But her bergamot scent mixed with the warmth of her flesh lingered on him. It sent a surge of blood straight to his groin.
“How did you know I liked plum pudding?” she asked as she picked up the small bowl and spoon.
He set the sherry down next to the tray. “I recalled your exuberance during dessert at the hunting lodge the day Lucia arrived.”
There had never before been a more erotic sound to escape a woman’s lips than her moan after she’d taken her first bite that day. The sound had heated his blood and haunted his nights since.
He proceeded to pour himself two fingers of whisky. “It was also a peace offering of sorts,” he added.
Fifi planted herself on the edge of a gray velvet ottoman at the foot of the canopied mahogany four-poster bed, with blue velvet hangings and a plush cream counterpane. The subdued firelight from the candelabra glinted off the polished wood, but also danced temptingly in Fifi’s hazel eyes.
She stilled before taking her first bite, a delicate brow arching. “A peace offering?”
Slade meandered over to the mahogany chair next to the ottoman and sat down with his whisky.
He leaned back into the chair, took a sip of the golden liquid, savoring its fire as it rolled down his throat. “I take full responsibility for throwing us into this hasty marriage. I didn’t have a chance to properly court you.”
Fifi’s entire countenance softened, and her gaze lowered, her expression intimate at his declaration. “I was the one who ask you to kiss me at the Black Hog’s right before Egan showed up, if you recall.”
She had shocked the hades out of him. “Yes, I do,” he said.
Slade had never been as aroused as he was that morning in the hallway when she’d asked him to kiss her. Her sensuous request had lit a fire in him.
Fifi took her first bite of the plum pudding. Her eyelids completely dropped, and the familiar little erotic moan of pleasure escaped her lips hardening his already stiff groin. Hishand tightened around his glass as he took another sip of his whisky and shifted in his chair.
After chewing and swallowing, she considered him from beneath lowered lashes. “I wanted to marry you regardless of Egan’s ultimatum,” she said.
Her words shocked him, yet again. He never imagined that his little friend from all those years ago would grow up to be a beautiful, desirable, and seductive woman, who would set her sights on him. And even more shocking was the fact that he realized in that moment she had always belonged to him. She danced in his blood, his flesh craved hers, and his soul had always been seeking hers. The parts of his entire being all coalesced to a pure sweet harmony that was Fifi, a tune played by his beating heart.
“Did you?” he whispered.
She cleared her throat as if considering her answer. Her action of licking plum pudding crumbs off her lips, gave him the ridiculous urge to suck the sweet dessert off her tongue.
“I find it’s better to have the protection of a husband while in the Highlands,” she said.
He chuckled, fingering the cool smoothness of the glass. “Well then, I’m pleased I could offer my services.”
Her cheeks turned a darker shade, and it occurred to him she was staring at his legs. Slade glanced down, recalling he’d worn a MacLean tartan kilt, with its distinctive black stripes upon a field of yellow, for their wedding. His knees were now wide apart in a relaxed albeit exposed manner.
She blushed in the most adorable way. “I’ve never seen you in formal Scottish regalia before. It becomes you,” she said.
Male pride stretched the corners of his mouth upward. “You no doubt find me devastatingly handsome,” he teased.
She rolled her eyes yet grinned, in a pure, unguarded way, an indelible remnant of the carefree lass she’d been.
Slade swirled the remaining whisky in his glass and eyed her as she finished up her dessert and drank from the sherry he’d poured. He tilted his head back and finished his own drink.
He rose and meandered over to the nightstand. His glass clinked as he set it down. Slade stepped over to the bed and sank into its luxuriousness, one elbow propping up his lounging body. “Come, join me,” he said.
He saw the second her countenance stiffened. But she slowly and with caution in her fluttering eyes, moved towards him. She stopped an arm’s length away, avoiding his gaze. His eyes were drawn to the tremor in her hands as she untied the knot at her waist. She removed the dressing gown and tossed it on the nearby divan. The uncertainty and hesitation in her movements made Slade’s body go very still. Wasn’t it the groom who undressed the bride?
The removal of her dressing gown revealed the same diaphanous night rail he had seen the night at the hunting lodge, the same one that had been in each and every erotic dream he’d had of her. And just like that night, her areolas were now tantalizingly visible through the thin material. Slade was now as hard as iron, and wildfire rushed through his veins.
She stood straight and faced him. His heart thumped a maddening rhythm as his eyes moved, slowly devouring the entire delicious outline of her exquisite figure through the thin material, ending in shapely, stocking-clad legs and tightly fastened creamy soft leather boots. If he were capable of stringing coherent words together, he might have asked why she still wore her boots.
He was utterly and completely entranced as she took a deep inhalation as if for courage and lifted her night rail off in a single swoop revealing her naked body.
