Culross would not take her virtue, but before he returned her to the McQuoids, Culross would make up his transgressions against her by giving her enough pleasure to make up for the absence of a husband.
Holding Meghan’s hand, he guided her into the waiting bath.
The moment she sank under the surface, her eyes fell shut, and she moaned her pleasure. She lay as languid and unbothered as a mermaid taking sun from atop a rocky ocean outcropping. “It feels so good.”
Culross darted his gaze all over her. At last, Culross had the answer to the question that previously dogged him: where did Meghan’s freckles go?
He inhaled sharply.
Everywhere.
The answer was everywhere. They twisted in lines he followed with his eyes, until his breathing came in slow, shallow billows.
This was the price to be paid for absolution. Culross had this exquisite, tempting nymph, and he was about to run his hands all over her lithe body, taking nothing for himself.
Bracing himself against an inexorable lust, he rolled his sleeves up, and then knelt beside the toiletries set next to the tub.
He started with her lustrous, heavy curls.
With the Hartwell tiara abandoned on the side of the old Roman road Culross plucked her from earlier, coupled with her spirited fight, most of Meghan’s abundant blonde-brown curls hung in a tangle about her waist.
Two slender gold hair combs did all the work of the missing crown and pins. They held as firm as their spirited mistress.
Honed in on a particularly difficult snarl, Culross gently loosened the strands caught in the teeth of the combs. He attended his task with the same care he used when working twisted lines during a storm, and with none of the speed.
He nearly worked the last tangle free and froze; his gaze locked onto the well-known noble crest, and with it came a very timely reminder of just who it was Culross attended.
His nostrils flared.
Hartwell affixed a brand.
But how easily I removed it.
Primal satisfaction pulsed in his veins. Culross’s would be the most meaningful mark of all.
He pulled the bauble free.
Meghan winced.
His neck went hot at that brief lack of control.
“My apologies,” he said gruffly.
“I assure you, I barely felt anything. I am used to having my hair pulled much more than this, August.” While she chatted, her voice held a languor and the contentment of one who enjoyed her current situation. “When I was young, my brother, Campbell, and Cousin Arran were the absolute worst offenders,” she murmured.
A tic pulsed at that second reminder.
At last, he untangled the final strands and worked the gleaming accessory free. The hard metal still held the warmth of her head.
As Culross helped Meghan with her toilette, he ran through the first day of his mission—back to when Meghan had arrived in his rooms biting, clawing, and hissing like a hellcat.
He had anticipated a fiery resistance from the lady—and, as suspected, got one. The headstrong minx did not have a meek or submissive bone in her delightfully stubborn body.
The minute they were in his rooms, Meghan started like a fiery hellcat.
Taking a bite out of his flesh.
Hurling inventive curses.
