Eliza tried to calm down, but it was a battle she was losing. “I know ours is a false betrothal,” she snapped, “but it angers me to see you with Lady Drummond—she has been very unpleasant to me. She makes me feel so small, and you sit there and let her do it. You never stand up for me. What kind of man are you?”
She raked him with a scathing glance from head to foot.
Duncan said nothing for a moment. He was confused and furious in equal measure, and he wanted to take his frustration out on her—and there was only one way he could think of to do it.
She looked so damn gorgeous when she was angry, her eyes burning with dark fire, her whole body as tense as a cat about to spring on its prey. He wanted to be that prey.
Duncan reached out and tried to pull her towards him. She was having none of it, however, and pushed him away as hard as she could so that he stumbled backwards, almost falling on the hard stone flags.
“What do you want from me?” Eliza demanded angrily. “Our relationship is false—it is all for show—a means to an end, but why does it sometimes feel so real? Why did you kiss me? I need the truth, and I am prepared to stand here all night and wait if I have to!”
She stood facing him, hands on hips, chest thrust out defiantly.
Duncan stood staring at Eliza for a long moment. He wanted her, his body was throbbing and hardening with desire, and he could sense that she felt the same. Her deep brown eyes were even darker than usual, and she was visibly trembling. And herethey were both in this small room together, out of sight and hearing of anyone else. Anything could happen.
Duncan reached out and pulled Eliza into his arms, meeting only token resistance this time. She smelled of rosewater, citrus and her own musk, a heady mixture that was beginning to make him feel a little light-headed.
“Eliza,” he whispered, “I promise you that I would much rather have spent my time with you than with Iona. You are funnier, more intelligent and far more beautiful. You are everything she is not!”
Eliza laughed cynically. “More beautiful? Is there something wrong with your eyes, Duncan? Iona is lovely.”
She waited for a few seconds, watching as he tried to compose a suitable answer, seeing that he was struggling with the words.
At last, he said firmly, “No, Eliza. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Eliza, and to me, Iona Drummond cannot hold a candle to you. She may be wealthy and know all the right people, but she is a snob who thinks everyone else is beneath her.”
“She is Scottish,” Eliza pointed out, trying to ignore the wonderful sensations that were flowing through her because Duncan’s firm male body was pressed against hers.
Duncan sighed in exasperation. “I care nothing about that.” Then his gaze softened, and he said huskily, “Eliza…”
Then he lowered his lips to hers with a tenderness that she could never have believed possible.
Eliza stopped resisting. In fact, had the world ended that second, she could not have moved out of Duncan’s embrace. He pulled her closer and Eliza felt something hard rubbing against her lower body.
His lips began to caress hers with more pressure and passion, and she returned it in equal measure, loving the taste of him.When his tongue invaded her mouth and began to rub against hers, she imitated him and heard him moan in pleasure.
Duncan drew away from Eliza with great reluctance and looked down at her, his eyes shining. “My god, Eliza,” he whispered. “You make me so glad to be a man. I want… no, I need you, lass. Let me show you how much.”
Eliza felt her cheeks redden with embarrassment. “Duncan, I-I have never… I don’t know what to do.”
Duncan gazed at her in disbelief for a moment. She was a virgin—he had never been with an innocent before, and the idea excited him so much that he felt himself hardening almost painfully.
“I can teach you,” he told her, his eyes glinting with wicked delight as he looked down at her.
“Will you?” Eliza gasped, then, looking at the tempting fullness of his lower lip, she touched it with her forefinger and Duncan sucked it into his mouth. The tickling sensation of his tongue sent pleasure straight to Eliza’s core, and she giggled. “Yes, please, Duncan. I want you to teach me.”
“I will be the best teacher you could wish for,” he growled, as a slow, wicked smile spread over his face.
Then he looked around the little room with a sinking feeling. It was hardly the place for a young woman’s introduction to the pleasures of love; he had no wish for Eliza’s first experience to be on a stone floor!
“You’re coming with me,” he whispered, then, to Eliza’s astonishment and delight, Duncan swept her off her feet and into his arms, and then he carried her via a circuitous maze of corridors till they reached the corridor where Duncan’s chamber was situated.
Eliza loved the feeling of being cradled in his arms and was amazed at his effortless strength, since they had climbed manyflights of stairs and walked along miles of corridors, but he had not stopped to rest once.
A few yards away from the door, he stopped and looked down at Eliza with an expression of uncertainty that she had never seen before.
The gravity of the situation had just hit Duncan. Once she had given him the gift of her maidenhead, it would be gone forever, and no other man would be able to claim it.
“Are you sure, lass?” he asked softly.
