Page 74 of The MacGregor's Lady
She was prepared to immediately enjoy the fruits of her surrender, a notion he wholeheartedly endorsed. This much, he could undertake happily, and so could she. They could bring each other joy and pleasure in abundance, and with marriage looming, they could do so without reservation.
And yet, he hesitated. “You are tired, Hannah, and it’s late, and we still have much to discuss.”
From drowsing in his arms, she was now quite awake and wrestling off her dressing gown. “I miss your kisses. If I’m to be pilloried for being a wanton, and you accused of worse behavior than that, I will at least have a kiss.”
He did not trust himself to stop at a kiss, and like an angelic chorus bursting into song, his male brain produced the thought:Nordidtheyhavetostopatakiss. An engaged couple was permitted all the liberties of their married counterpart, provided they were discreet.
He could be discreet, his cock cheerfully assured him, as discreet as hell.
Fifteen
Hannah assured herself that catching a ship from Edinburgh for Boston would be no effort at all. Asher would take her North, she’d linger long enough to ensure no one could accuse her of carrying his child—Though what would that matter, given the even worse conclusions Polite Society had already drawn?—and she’d leave this godforsaken land with or without Enid’s companionship.
That Asher understood how badly she needed to go home—finally, finally, understood—had to be what explained his capitulation to their mutual attraction. Hannah was too pleased at his belated attack of sense to congratulate him on it.
She regarded the man standing beside her bed, the man whose reputation was now at risk because of her. Of all the times they had sinned, an innocent situation would be what had landed them in trouble.
The thought broke her heart in four different pieces, only one of them for him.
“We can discuss anything you want in the morning, Asher. For now, please kiss me.” More explicit than that, she could not be, not with words.
When he might have subjected her to another spate of his infernal reasoning—wonder of wonders—he unbuttoned his waistcoat. Anticipation and relief started a duet in Hannah’s body in close harmony: a sweet melody and a throbbing rhythm. She shamelessly gawked at him as he hung his waistcoat over a chair then sat to remove his shoes and stockings.
His shirt came next, and because he’d turned back the cuffs, he could undo a few buttons and pull it over his head.
“That’s cheating, Asher.”
He looked up from undoing his trousers. A slow male smile revealed white teeth and impending trouble. “Shall I put the shirt back on, Hannah? Would you like to undo me buttons, then, unwrap your prize button by button?”
Ah, the burr. She adored the burr. “Now you’re stalling.”
A man could shuck out of his trousers and underlinen in nothing flat, and then he could stand there, all shadows and strength not three feet away, while a woman ached to touch him.
“I want you, dear heart, verra much.” His desire was made evident by the erection arrowing up along his belly. A peculiar male endowment Hannah wanted to study—some other time.
“I want you too.” She’d told him she wasn’t a virgin, and she had not lied—not in the medical sense—but her prevarication was making her anxious to get matters under way. “Come to bed, Asher, please.”
She was using please rather a lot. She’d use it more, willingly, if it would get him under the covers with her. What followed now, and possibly in the next several weeks, would be hoarded up against the rest of Hannah’s life, against all the arguments with her stepfather, all the maneuvering with the lawyers. She could endure those battles if she could have these pleasures with this man for herselfnow.
As he climbed into the bed, dipping the mattress so heavily Hannah rolled to his side, she admitted one serpent to her garden: consummating her dealings with Asher was a two-edged sword. She would have the pleasure and joy of the memory, but she’d have the torment of it too.
“Now, madam”—he slid an arm under her neck and brought her flush against his side—“did you say something about kissing?”
“In a minute.” She wrestled free of his embrace. “You distracted me, flaunting your wares. I have a few wares of my own… what?”
He lay on his back, his arms laced behind his head to reveal dark tufts of hair at his armpits. “Slowly, my love.”
Comprehension dawned. When Hannah would have drawn her nightgown straight over her head, she instead slipped a button at her throat through its buttonhole. “This nightgown has a lot of buttons, my lord.”
“I’m a patient man, though I’ll no’ tolerate any me-lording nor Balfouring when we’re abed, Hannah.”
Apatientmon.She hoped he’d speak Gaelic to her when their bodies were joined, hoped he’d say naughty things in any language—and mean every word. More buttons came free, and all the while, Asher watched her. When she would have crossed her arms to lift the nightgown away, he stopped her by using her braid to tug her down to him.
“Kisses, madam?”
The things he knew… How could Hannah have guessed that kissing him with her nightgown half-on, half-falling off her shoulders would be more inflammatory than were she stark naked? Soft, worn cotton took on sensual powers, dragging over Hannah’s chest, back, and arms as Asher levered up to set his mouth to hers.
He held back. She’d kissed him enough to know that this delicate tasting of her lips was intended to part her from her reason, and it was working.
