“Is something troubling you, my wife?” He glanced at her then, a devilish light in his good eye, and, for just an instant, flicked the tip of his middle finger over the heart of her womanhood. “You appear distressed.”
“I am fine,” she managed, her thighs tensing in reaction to the jolt of pleasure ripping through her at the single, fleeting touch.
“Then all is well.” He gave her a slow, knowing smile, then turned back to his men.
And, wanton that he was making her, she parted her legs in a shameful admission she enjoyed his lusty ministrations, and craved more.
Even here, in her seat of honor at the high table.
Comprehending at once, he nodded imperceptibly and implemented more simple flickings to his slow, sensual caresses of her beneath the table linens.
And she let him.
Indeed, she would have cried out if he stopped, for over the past few nights, she’d learned the potency of pleasure.
Her champion had proven himself well-versed in extracting pleasure from the mysterious spot that seemed to be the center of all carnal bliss.
Leaning toward her then, he brushed his lips against her temple, using the kiss to whisper in her ear. “When we’re retired to your bedchamber, I shall kiss you there,” he said, just as he pressed one fingertip hard against her.
Very deliberately, he began rotating the finger - only to lift it away before her need could shatter in the fierce release she now knew came swift on the heels of such concentrated rubbings.
Kiss me there?She almost gasped the words aloud, the thought almost pushing her over the edge.
Surely she’d misunderstood.
“Nay, you did not mishear me,” he murmured, his smile turning wicked. “I shall devour you all the night through and do not even think to try and stop me.”
Caterine disguised her gasp with a generous amount of hippocras, swallowing the potent wine so quickly, her eyes teared.
She struggled not to cough as she dabbed at her cheeks with the corner of her linen napkin and scanned the faces of those crowded round the high table. Relief filled her when no reproachful glances stared back at her.
No one seemed to have seen or cared.
At this late hour, many of the carousers were already sleeping off the heavy meal, their heads resting on folded arms, their snores blending with the general ruckus.
Others, including the young knight, Lachlan, and even James, had taken themselves off to join the hardiest of the celebrants dancing with great vigor at the far end of the hall.
And some, her husband’s hard-bitten Highlanders, argued over the matter of Sir Hugh and what to do about Kinraven.
“-and after he’s captured and confesses, we return to Kintail?”
Return to Kintail.
The words, spoken by one of the MacKenzie Highlanders, ripped through her sensual haze with the ease of heavy hands rending silk. She listened as others echoed the first man - all wanting to know when they’d be home again.
Her heart hammering, Caterine glanced at her husband, her braw champion. Seemingly unaware of her concerns, he met his men’s query with ease.
“By Yuletide, my friends,” he assured them, lifting his wine cup to underscore the promise. Not that any such firmly spoken words needed embellishment. The portent behind them slid down Caterine’s spine like chips of ice.
As if sensing her ill-ease, he withdrew his hand from beneath the table and touched the backs of his fingers to her face, gently smoothing a few strands of hair from her brow.
But for all his tenderness, the set of his jaw told her his planned return to Kintail was a matter he would not bend on. Not even for the breath-stealing intimacies he lavished on her behind her closed bedchamber door.
The knowledge – that he would leave – sluiced through her with a cold certainty as real and physical as his touch. She looked away, not wanting him to see her own steely resolve, her determination to keep him at her side.
At Dunlaidir.
* * *
