“Aye, and a pleasure it is, as usual,” he replied, his green eyes moving slowly over her.
The compliment, so unexpected, made her blush. But his eyes, in their slow perusal, ignited a warmth.
Kimberly was suddenly too flustered to continue to upbraid him. And besides, he needed to be informed about the little experiment they had planned with Ables, among other things. In fact, she had intended to stop by his room in the morning to do just that. So it was just as well that he was there. Highly inappropriate, but well, that seemed to always be the case with this man.
So as she headed for the next lamp, she started with, “They found the horses.”
“I know.”
She raised a brow at his tone. “You don’t sound too happy about it.”
He shrugged before leaning forward in the chair, his elbows on his knees. “Because I wanted tae find them—and sit on them, till the thief showed himself.”
“I believe the duke is doing that.”
“But I dinna trust him tae do it right. He’ll have tae many men in there, and in the surrounding woods, I dinna doubt. They’ll be giving themselves away and our thief will be gone for good.”
Put that way, it didn’t sound at all encouraging, so she told him her other news. “Well, I’ve come up with another way to end the thing.”
Now he raised a questioning brow. She noticed that his face was looking better, some of the bruises already faded and the lump on his forehead gone. Even his lips had returned to their normal size, though several scabs remained. But with only the one lamp going, and that not very bright for such a large room, he was looking too damn handsome again by half.
When she realized she was still staring at his lips, Kimberly blushed again and blurted out, “The duchess is going to arrange it, for tomorrow or the next day at the latest, an experiment.”
She finished quickly with the lamp on her vanity, then moved to toss the twig back in the fireplace. But turning back to face him, she found that the extra light didn’t help. He was still so mesmerizing with his dark auburn hair lying against the white shirt he wore, the light catching the seldom seen reddish tints, his light green eyes watching her intently…
“What experiment?” he had to prompt.
She actually had to think for a moment, to remember what they were talking about. That produced still another blush that she could only hope he didn’t notice.
“I paid Ables a visit today,” she said. “And proved, to my satisfaction at least, that he doesn’t know your voice a’tall. So we’re going to have him listen to you and a few other Scotsmen, and he’ll have to point out which is you. He won’t be able to do it. He’ll have to guess.”
Lachlan was silent for a moment, mulling that over, before he pointed out the same thing Megan had earlier: “He could get lucky.”
“Yes, and that’d be rotten luck—for us.” She sighed. “If it doesn’t work and if…well, if the time runs out without the thief being apprehended, I’ll own up to where I was that night.”
She’d managed to surprise him. He stood up, reached her in seconds, surprising her now, and causing her a great deal of internal alarm with his nearness.
And rightly so, she quickly found, because he grasped her face gently in his hands to ask her, “You’d do that for me, darlin’?”
His gaze was too intense, forcing her to lower her eyes. And his touch, dear Lord…
“I’d have to,” she confessed in a whisper. “I’d have no choice. I couldn’t let you be sent to prison for this, when my being with you at the time proves—”
His kiss cut her off before she got any further. And somehow she’d known it was going to happen. She could have prevented it, moved away—maybe. But now, now it was much too late. Now she had the taste of him again, the roughness of his scabs, the softness of his tongue, the scent of him intoxicating her senses.
His lips moved carefully over hers at first, almost hesitantly, yet there was a firmness now in his hands to keep her captive for the moment, in case she thought to end the kiss. She had no such thought, none at all. She knew she ought to, but…“ought to” never did seem to work when she was around Lachlan MacGregor.
Her senses were alive again, wildly alive, rippling with exciting anticipation. From the heat on her lips, the fluttering in her belly, the tingling in her breasts, and his body wasn’t even touching her yet, just his mouth, just his palms on her cheeks.
She sighed into his mouth, put her hands against his chest, not to push, to touch, and it seemed it was a sign he’d been waiting for, because he then gathered her fully in his arms, fitting her curves to his hollows. His tongue thrust more sensually now, deeply invading her privacy. His hands roamed her back and hips, pressing her closer to his hardness, closer to his heat, then finally lifting her, carrying her, laying her carefully on the bed.
She knew what he was going to do. Somewhere in the deepest recesses of her mind, she knew that what shouldn’t have happened before was going to happen again. But she was bedazzled by the pleasure he’d created and continued to lavish on her, the heat of his large body surrounding her now, the gentle caresses of his hands upon each bit of skin he uncovered as he slowly undressed her. She knew…and there was no part of her willing to stop him. If anything, she wanted him to hurry.
But he was not going to rush something he’d dreamed of nightly since he’d last held her thusly. He’d ignited a fire and he was going to fan it slowly, and fan it he did.
She trembled when his tongue circled her ear, then delved inside it. She groaned when it soon flicked and teased the hard little nub her nipple had become. But she soared half off the bed when it licked a path down her belly and then…God, she couldn’t let him do that! But she was powerless in her desire, mindless in her ecstasy, and he was so damned determined to know every facet of her, to bring her every pleasure.
It was a pleasure almost too intense as it took her and swept her along on its pulsing waves. Even the aftershocks were profound, so much so that when Lachlan entered her, filled her with his warm flesh, and buried himself to her core, she climaxed again within seconds, and minutes later, yet again, when he groaned his own release.
