Dark as night and filled with something she couldn’t fathom, either, the intensity making her drop her gaze to his chest.
Only then did she notice the two purple bruises in the shape of paw prints where the snarling wolf must have struck him—massivepaw prints.Without thinking, she reached out to touch his chest with shaking fingers, terrible remorse filling her.
“I’m so sorry, Conall…so sorry.”
Springy black hair beneath her fingertips, Lisette felt the beating of his heart, too, which had seemed to jump at her touch.She sucked in her breath and pulled back her hand, but he caught it with hard fingers slippery with soap.
“Lie back now and be still,” he murmured thickly, Lisette obliging him with no thought of struggling as he used his other lathered hand to caress her shoulders and then slip down over her breasts.
She gasped at the sensation, his darkened gaze holding hers as his palm rubbed lightly across her nipples, swollen now into nubs that tingled at his touch.
Yet she jerked when his hand slid down her trembling abdomen to between her raised knees, dipping into a place that tingled, too, as his fingers caressed her.
“Does that please you, lass?”
He had spoken barely above a husky whisper, while all Lisette could do was nod for the sigh escaping her throat.His fingers circling and circling, his thumb flicking at another swollen nub she knew lay at the heart of her thighs…for she had touched herself there before, though she had been hesitant and unsure.
She jerked again and moaned, trembling now from head to toe as Conall caressed her, the circling pressure of his fingers anything but unsure.Still he held her gaze and she could not look away, moaning and open-mouthed at the sensations she’d never before felt building inside her.
She could no longer lie still no matter what he had bade her, her legs shaking, her hips pressing as if with a mind of their own against the weight of his teasing fingers—ah, God!
Lisette stiffened and threw back her head, crying out at the climax rocking her, water sloshing out upon the floor…while a slow smile spread over Conall’s face that made her think he must be pleased as well by her response.
Somewhere in the back of her dazed mind, as she caught her breath, his hand straying up again to a hardened nipple, she was certain that he must be practiced at lovemaking to have brought her so deftly to such a state.Meanwhile she knew nothing—nothing!—of how to give pleasure to the man who was now her husband—
“The water is growing cool, Lisette.Stand up so I can rub you dry.”
She gasped at his low command, not sure at all if she could rise up on legs still trembling while he only laughed and hoisted her from the tub.
Dripping wet with her long hair plastered to her body, she stood before him while he gazed upon her in so hungry a manner, she shivered anew.
“You’re so beautiful, lass…so beautiful.”
It seemed he had forgotten all about toweling her dry, for in the next moment he picked her up into his arms and strode with her to the bed.
The next thing Lisette knew, she was lying there with him on all fours above her, his hands splayed on each side of her head and his knees pressing against her hips.
His eyes burning into hers and appearing black now, Conall so big and muscular that all else around her was blocked out but for him.
His breathing growing harder as his powerful arms seemed taut with tension.The masculine smell of him melded with the woodsy scent of heather filling her senses and making her breathe faster, too.
“I said I wouldna hurt you…but some pain will come with the bedding, Lisette, forgive me.”
She had barely nodded when he blanketed himself upon her and prodded her legs open with his knee, though it was his fingers again that made Lisette spread herself wider for him.
Teasing fingers slicked by the warm wetness of her body that made her squirm beneath his weight, her lips pressed to his ear.
“Oh, Conall…Conall!”
His name ringing around them, she made to scream at the piercing pain of him thrusting into her, but no sound came for his mouth covering hers.
His kiss fierce and possessive, his ragged breathing melding with her panting moans.
The pain was gone, something far more intense in its place, Lisette throwing her arms around his neck to hold him close.
To hold him tightly as he moved inside her, so deep that she knew little else but the weight of him upon her and the sensations building with his every thrust.
Still he kissed her, his tongue sweeping into her mouth at the trembling height of her release, Conall’s body shuddering, too, as he groaned out her name against her lips.
