*
It was hervery first kiss.
With a man that was.
But Ailsa admitted that she’d snuck into the stables to peek at one of the maids who had ventured out to meet her lover. Now, that sin seemed to have been a very wise choice.
Ailsa slid onto the bed. The linen was soft against her bare feet and lower legs. She leaned down, her hair falling like a curtain. It was sad to have such a moment marred by thethreat of being entombed in this chamber. Diarmuid was a fine, handsome man.
He is your husband…
It didn’t feel as if he was. She hesitated, hovering over him. So close, she caught the scent of his skin. It was unexpectedly pleasant and tinged with something else. A new sensation snaked through her. This time, when her cheeks heated, it wasn’t uncertainty or nervousness.
No, now she felt a stirring of a desire to get on with pressing her lips against his.
It was wholly unexpected but reminded her of the memory of watching that maid. Ailsa stroked the sides of Diarmuid’s face with her hands first. Doing it slowly. She smiled, delighted by the way touching him pleased her.
Would he like it?
She leaned over, pressing her lips against his.
Diarmuid, though warm, felt cold. His responses felt so very cold to Ailsa’s touch. Ailsa stroked down to his chest to test if his heart was still beating. For long moments there was no motion beneath her fingertips.
“You have so many years left to live, Diarmuid,” she implored him.
The need to see him live sent her back down for another kiss. Suddenly his chest rose, and she felt a strong thump from his heart.
“Yes,” Ailsa gasped in relief. And she followed with another gasp when Diarmuid opened his eyes.
Chapter Six
Their gazes fused.
It was her turn to feel as though her heart stopped. She suddenly understood why poets referred to the eyes as the window to one’s soul.
She felt connected to Diarmuid. When his heart thumped, hers answered. She would have sworn that some sort of current passed between them. Without a doubt, she knew that she would see his eyes in her dreams until she drew her last breath.
His eyes narrowed. “Who are ye?”
Ailsa was trying to think of a way to begin an explanation when he surged up off the bed, turning her, and pinning her beneath him.
He was a powerful beast…
“What are you doing?” she gasped.
His expression was tight. “I would have recalled managing to seduce a lass as fair as ye. Are ye here to finish me off since the first blow did nae put me in my grave?”
“Someone hit you?” Ailsa was thinking out loud. That sounded better than panicking at least. His expression was hard and fierce.
His eyes narrowed in response. “As if ye do not already know it.”
“I don’t know anything about how you came to be in this chamber,” Ailsa defended herself.
“Ye called to me,” Diarmuid accused her softly. “Who set ye out as bait for me? Name them, and I might be lenient with ye.”
“Your father locked me in here. You were on the bed looking more dead than alive,” Ailsa insisted. She strained upwards but only managed to press her body against his. Diarmuid’s lips thinned and there was the stirring of something against her belly.
Her mother had told her what that something was…his male parts.
