Reade had made a game with him, competing to see who could nail in the most posts in the shortest time, which led to a teasing and shoving match after the midday meal, then to finding swords and practicing their sword play in the courtyard between the barns and the tower. He’d regularly bested his brothers, but with increasing difficulty, and Reade pushed his younger brother to his limit. Conall was developing a strong fighter, and with his slight height advantage came a longer reach. This day, Reade had to push himself to avoid the blade tip at the end of that reach before he kicked Conall’s feet out from under him and gained the upper hand. He smacked Conall’s right arm with the flat of his blade.
“Switch arms. Ye favor your stronger arm, as ye should. But what will come of ye if your sword arm is injured? Make sure ye can fight equally well with the other.”
Maddock had noticed their sword play from a window and sauntered into the courtyard to encourage his younger brother and offer advice. Conall tried his best left-handed, and Reade had switched his broadsword to his left hand as well. Reade was much stronger than Conal with his left, having had that sound advice earlier in his training. Conall hadn’t fought cack-handed before, and it was obvious. Reade disarmed him and instructed his younger brother to practice with his weaker hand.
Sword practice hadn’t been the best idea shortly before the evening meal and finding his chambers. Nothing got a man’s blood boiling and his cock hard more than a good fight. And once the fight was over and he had helped Conall regain his feet, Reade longed to race up the stairs, thrust Blair up against the wall, and pound his cock inside her until she was crying out his name.
And those thoughts only made his man’s staff pulse and throb even more. His need was like a raging animal that would soon burst free from its captivity.
What was he going to do?
Reade waved off his brothers as Maddock showed Conall some finer points of stance for his reach and made his way toward his chambers. He was sweaty and covered with a filmy layer of dirt and sweat. ‘Twas too late in the day for a trip to the loch, and the water was yet icy. Conall and Maddock might not have minded a chilly swim if they went for a swim before supper, but Reade didn’t care for an ice-bath. He planned to grab a bucket of water from the kitchens on his way upstairs and wipe his body clean before joining Blair at supper. She didn’t need a stinky Highlander who reeked of sweat and cow fawning over her.
When Reade opened thedoor to his chambers, the last thing he expected to see was Blair sitting in a hard back chair in naught but her gossamer chemise, damp and gathered high on her lap, with one slender, well-formed leg extended to another hardback chair. She held a dripping cloth in one hand, which froze against her thigh when Reade strode into the room.
Her eyes went wide as he halted where he stood, staring at her bare expanse of leg. He expected her familiar scowl to turn on him. This time, her face remained soft, her impossibly blue eyes relaxed, almost as though she didn’t mind his interrupting her bath.
Reade stepped slowly into the room and closed the door behind him, his body tense and his face riveted onto her body.
Without a word, she turned her head back to the cloth and resumed wiping her leg. The cloth dragged across her skin, farther up her leg and under the hem of her shift, like the caress of a lover’s hand.
Oh, he wanted to be that cloth.
Reade forgot to breathe.
Had he ever seen anything so enticing as that cloth lingering across her smooth thigh? As the water droplets coursing over her skin to her treasure beneath the hemline of her shift?
Everything in his body screamed to touch her thigh, for his finger to follow those water drops, to discover the mystery between her legs . . . His cock thickened under his kilt, and he groaned.
“What are ye doing?” he asked, his voice little more than a harsh whisper in the still air of his chambers.
“Having a wee bit of a bath.”
“Here?”
She lifted her head, her brow furrowed. She glanced around the room. “’Tis my chambers as well as yours, aye? Where else might I bathe?”
Blair returned her attention to her ministrations and shifted in her chair, moving to work on her other leg. The cloth slid up the supple expanse of her leg. Reade’s heart battered in his chest in a wild cadence, a drum at midsummer that pounded harder and harder until he thought his chest and his cock might explode.
The cloth moved higher between her thighs, drawing the hem of her chemise with it.
“Why do ye no’ hide from me?” he rasped.
She gave him a sidelong look. “What need have I to hide? Ye are my husband, are ye no? ‘Tis your chambers, aye? And ‘tis only a bath, after all.”
Nay, she was wrong. This was more than a bath. It was an enticing dance, one that drove him uncontrollably to the brink.
“’Tis more than a bath,” he choked out and moved to her. His arm shot out and curled around her waist, lifting her from the chair and pressing her svelte form against his body. Every part of him was hard – his chest, his thighs, his manhood – and he crushed her against it all.
He would have her know his need. How badly he desired her. His mind might be conflicted, but God help him, his cock wasn’t. His manhood had one purpose only – to drive deep into her womanly sheath and claim her as his wife in full.
Blair gasped at the ardent furor of his embrace, her slender hands gripping his shoulders. The cloth had fallen from her grasp, forgotten.
Her face turned up to his, and her rosebud lips parted in surprise. Reade didn’t hesitate. His lips crushed against hers, grinding into her teeth and parting her lips wider to accept the breadth of his tongue that licked and tasted and wanted to taste more.
He longed to taste every inch of her.
She didn’t protest, she didn’t fight – in fact, her arms threaded behind his neck as she curled into his chest, leaning in to the kiss and opening her mouth more to accept his tongue, sucking on it lightly.
