“You were,” he murmured. “Until you did that.”
Jessalyn opened her eyes and stared up at him. “What?”
“Prepared yourself to be sacrificed on the altar of my selfish desire.” Neil kissed her on the tip of her nose. “Trust me. I won’t be selfish this time. I’ll give as much as I take.”
She hesitated a moment longer, seeking further reassurance.
“Put your legs around me,” he whispered, licking the seam of her lips, enticing her with little kisses that tasted of him and of her before he covered her mouth with his in a caress that left no doubt about the pleasure he had to offer.
When he kissed her like that she couldn’t refuse him anything. He lifted her higher and Jessalyn wrapped her legs around his waist as he moved forward in one smooth fluid motion and sheathed himself in her warmth.
Jessalyn cried out as he buried himself in her. He muffled the sound with his mouth and his heart began a rapid tattoo as he recognized it as a sound of surprise and increasing pleasure instead of pain.
“That wasn’t so bad, now was it?” He brushed her cheeks with his lips, then her eyelids, and finally, her mouth. He kissed her gently, tenderly, reverently, and held her as if she were precious and fragile.
She shifted her hips experimentally, then moaned as the pleasure began to build once again.
“And it only gets better,” he assured her.
“Better than this?” Jessalyn lifted her hips again, and this time Neil understood.
“Much better.” He struggled to go slowly, fought to maintain control and his body strained with the effort. Jessalyn tightened her hold on him. She put her arms around his neck and held on as he began to move within her. Gently, slowly at first, then faster.
She followed Neil’s lead, matching her movements to his until they developed a rhythm uniquely their own. She kissed him as they moved together—kissed his arms, his shoulders, his neck, his chin, the corner of his mouth. And she trusted him to lead her to that place that seemed just beyond her reach—the place where she became him and he became her—the place where the two of them became one. And then suddenly, she felt him shiver uncontrollably, heard him yell her name, and Jessalyn let herself go with him. The world around her seemed to slip away, there was only Neil and the almost unbearable feeling of pleasure spiraling inside her. Tears filled her eyes and rolled down her face as she clung to him. And in a moment of profound pleasure and heart-stopping wonder, she screamed her release. Neil tightened his arms around her, kissing away the tears as the sound of his name echoed around the room.
Chapter Twenty
Jessalyn opened her eyes, met her husband’s incredibly green-eyed gaze and panicked. She rolled off the bed in one smooth motion and headed for the door.
“Whoa …” Neil recognized the expression on her face and rolled with her. He caught up with her as she reached the door. He hooked his arm around her waist and pulled her back against his chest. “Easy, love,” he whispered, calming her. “You’re all right. Everything is all right.”
Embarrassed by her loss of control and by the trickle of liquid she felt sliding down her thigh, Jessalyn abruptly turned in his arms. “Ye dinna understand,” she blurted. “I’ve got to go. There’s work to do …”
“Ssh!” Neil placed two fingers against her lips to stop her flow of words, then bent at the knees and lifted her into his arms. He smiled down at her with an expression on his face that could only be described as tender satisfaction. “If you stay on your feet, you’ll lose the seed I planted inside you.”
“Oh!” She paled at his words. Her face lost all color and her eyes widened in surprise as she realized that the liquid trickling down her legs contained the seed necessary to create new life. She clamped her thighs together.
“Don’t fret about it,” he soothed, reaching out to smooth the worry lines from her brow. “You didn’t know …”
Jessalyn gave him a sharp glance. “I’m not completely ignorant. I know enough to know that making a baby canna be too hard. Young girls get themselves bred everyday.”
Neil winced at her terminology and at the white lie he was about to tell her. “Yes, they do,” he agreed. “But you’re not fifteen anymore. At your—” He caught himself in time. “At our age the making of a baby requires a bit more consideration and a great deal of practice. Besides—” He nodded toward the ceiling. “—nothing you could be doing up there is as important as what you’re doing down here with me.” Neil carried her across the room and placed her on the bed.
“Do ye know what happened to me?” she asked.
Neil leaned over her and kissed her forehead. “Aye, milady. You screamed out your pleasure and then you fainted.” He climbed into bed beside her and pulled the covers back over them.
“I’ve never fainted before.” She frowned.
“You’ve never experienced the little death before,” he told her, pulling her close against him.
“The little death?”
“Yes,” Neil answered softly. “I believe the French call what happened to you le petite mort. The little death.”
“Do they?” she asked. “Are ye sure? I thought the French were romantics …”
“That’s what they say,” he replied. “Why? Don’t you believe it?”
Jessalyn gave an unladylike snort. “Not if the best words they can come up with to describe what happened to me is the little death. Highlanders are more romantic. We’d use the right words.”
“Oh?” Neil bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing aloud at her serious contemplation of the meaning of the phrase. “What words would you use?”
“I would call it ‘a glimpse of heaven,’ ” she announced in French. “Do ye suppose the French named it the little death because they believe death comes in such a way?”
A lock of her hair lay curled on the slope of her breast. Neil traced it with the tip of his index finger. “I think they were hoping it does,” he said. “That might explain why they’re always fighting us. They’re begging for the little death.” He wiggled his eyebrows and leered at her. “As were you, my lady.”
Jessalyn buried her face against his chest and blushed.
Neil pushed her hair back from her face. “What say you now, my lady wife? Did I disappoint you? Will we be needing your dirk?”
Jessalyn looked up at him. “Not this time,” she told him.
“This time?” Neil latched onto her words. “Are ye implying that there will be another?” He asked in his best Scottish burr.
“That depends, milord.”
“Upon what?”
“Upon whether or not ye were successful in getting me with child.”
Neil leaned over to brush her cheek with his mouth, then grinned and whispered, “There’s no way of knowing that for another month, milady.”
“Are ye sure?” Jessalyn shivered as his warm breath tickled the sensitive skin of her cheek and traveled to her ear.
“Verra sure,” he growled, gently nipping at her ear lobe.
“I suppose we’ll need more practice,” she ventured.
“That would be best, milady,” he replied, careful to keep the sense of elation he felt from showing in his voice, careful to sound as if he were giving the matter serious consideration.
“If I meet ye here tomorrow morning, can ye do it again?”
He held his breath, almost afraid to ask. “Do what, milady?”
“Give me another glimpse of heaven.”
Neil grinned down at her. “Aye, milady, I can do that. In more ways than you can imagine.”
“All right,” Jessalyn placed her hands against his chest and prepared to sit up. “We’ll practice again tomorrow.”
“If you’d rather,” Neil said as he covered one of her hands with his own and carefully guided it down his chest and over his belly to the part of him that was hard and straining for attention. “But there’s no need to put off until tomorrow what we can do today.” He wrapped her fingers around him and helped he
r measure his length.
“I dinna know …”
“There’s a lot ye dinna know, milady,” Neil whispered against her lips. “A lot yer aboot to learn …”
When Neil opened his eyes again he discovered the MacInnes sleeping soundly, her head resting upon his shoulder. He had no idea how long he’d been asleep. The oil lamp by the door had burned low and the inside of the trysting room was dark and chilly. The pinpoints of light from the arrow loops and the cracks and crevices along the outer walls of the castle had disappeared. Neil eased Jessalyn’s head off his shoulder and onto the pillow. He tucked the covers around her, then slipped out of bed and crept silently toward the hearth.
Striking flint onto the kindling in the fireplace grate, Neil patiently nursed the small flames to life and with the light from the fire as illumination, he began to examine the room in more detail. He noticed the little details that had escaped his attention in the heat of passion—like the fact that the room was clean. Jessalyn’s father had been dead for over a month, yet the Trysting Room was free from dust and cobwebs. Jessalyn had known the room existed, but she had told him she’d never been inside it and he had no doubt that she had spoken the truth. She had been as surprised as he was when they’d entered it and discovered the wealth and the luxuries hidden there. The old laird had given Jessalyn a key upon her mother’s death, but had only relinquished his key to her as he lay dying. There were two locks on the yett which blocked the passage into the tunnel and two locks on the door to the room itself. Jessalyn’s key had unlocked one lock and his key had unlocked the other, so how had Callum MacInnes gained entry to the room without using the key he had given to Jessalyn?
Even if the old laird had kept the room himself after his wife died, who had kept it cleaned and readied since his death? Someone else must have been entrusted with a set of keys. Either that or there was another way into the room—a secret door or sally port hidden somewhere. Neil searched the room. The area around the fireplace yielded an alcove which housed a well shaft where a pulley system enabled the occupants of the room to draw water from the well, but no secret door. Neil tested the ropes. The pulley was well-oiled and quiet and the ropes were in good repair. Temporarily abandoning his search for the sally port, he drew several buckets of water from the well. He filled the clay pots and two large ewers with water and set the containers as close to the fire as possible. With luck, he would find a bathing tub and be able to provide the MacInnes with a hot bath and another lesson in lovemaking. If not, he would at least be able to provide her with warm water with which to wash. Moments later, he located a stone latrine and a brass tub large enough for two behind the painted screen. A large pottery bowl full of dried flowers and herbs sat on the back of the latrine. Neil pinched a few of the dried flower bulbs between his fingers to release the fragrance, then dropped the powdered remains into the tub. Admiring the fine craftsmanship, Neil noticed that one end of the tub was higher than the other and that the lower end had been fitted with a tap and positioned above an iron-grated drain in the floor. He closed the tap, then moved the screen from in front of the tub and placed it where it would block the view of the latrine, but allow the heat from the fire to warm the bathing area.
“What are ye aboot?”
Neil turned at the sound of her softly spoken words. Jessalyn was staring at him, her blue-gold eyes wide with wonder. “I’m aboot to make it possible for the laird of Clan MacInnes to take a hot bath.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her. “With me.”
Jessalyn pulled the sheet over her breasts, holding it in place with her arms as she sat up in bed and stared at him. “Are ye now?”
“But of course,” he answered. “And as you can see, I’ve everything you need. I’ve located a tub—” He patted the brass rim of the tub, then nodded toward the water heating by the fire. “And I’m heating the water.”
“What about ye?” she whispered provocatively.
Neil shot her a knowing look. “That, my dear countess, is your responsibility.”
Jessalyn lifted her arms and let the sheet fall to her waist. “But of course it is,” she mimicked his crisp British accent. “And as you can see, I’ve everything you need …”
His talents were wasted as an engineer, Jessalyn decided as he settled down into the hot water and lifted her into place atop him. He might be a gifted and innovative builder, but his true talent lay in his ability to persuade her to part with her inhibitions as she parted with her clothes. She sighed as he separated her womanly folds with his nimble fingers and guided himself inside her. It didn’t seem possible, but in the space of a few hours, Neil Claremont had persuaded her to forget the modest, ladylike tenets of a lifetime and to relish in the passion he taught her. Jessalyn could barely believe it, but here she was—completely naked and sharing a bathtub with a man. She laughed softly as Neil shifted his weight and sent waves of water rippling across her body and over the rim of the tub. She braced her arms against the top of it, using it for balance and leverage, as she teased him.
Neil placed his hands on her slim hips and anchored her firmly against him as he licked droplets of water from her breasts. He groaned his pleasure in her ear and his warm breath made her squirm harder.
“I cannot take much more of your style of torture, milady,” he warned as she raised herself up as far as she could before sliding slowly down his shaft and wiggling her bottom against him.
She clucked her tongue in sympathy. “Can you not, milord? Because I’m certain I can take quite a bit more if you’re able to give it.”
“I’m more than able.”
Before she knew quite how he managed it, Neil lifted her off him, turned her so that she faced the opposite direction and knelt behind her. He molded himself to her buttocks and slipped inside her.
Jessalyn gasped as he began to move behind her. In and out. Faster and harder until his final thrust sent water cascading over the edge of the tub and across the floor and they both collapsed against it in an explosion of passion and need.
“I have lived long enough to bring an Englishman to his knees,” Jessalyn quipped when Neil disengaged himself and helped her to her feet. She stood ankle deep in bathwater as she turned to face him.
“Your accomplishment wasn’t so impressive,” he told her. “There isn’t a man alive—English or Scottish—who wouldn’t gladly fall to his knees for the pleasure of tasting you. But I—” He smiled as he traced his index finger from her bellybutton to the triangle of dark auburn curls between her thighs. “I have made a Scottish laird, the bravest—the fiercest of all warriors—beg for mercy.”
“I canna believe it!” she teased. “A Scottish laird begging for mercy? Impossible! Surely you were mistaken.”
Neil caressed her with his finger as he pretended to ponder her words more closely. “So I was,” he agreed at last. “For I believe the lady in question is a beautiful English countess and she wasn’t begging for mercy—” He lowered his voice until his words seemed to rumble in his chest, becoming a husky, seductive growl.
Jessalyn caught her breath in anticipation. “No?”
“No,” he replied. “She was begging for more.”
“I’ve heard that about English countesses,” she managed, her breath ragged with need.
“What?” he demanded.
“They can never get enough,” she pronounced with a sigh as he lavished her aching center with attention. “They always want more.”
Jessalyn rolled off her husband’s chest and onto her back. “Great Caesar’s ghost!” she exclaimed. “There’s a looking glass above us!”
“Uh hmm.” Neil nuzzled her ear.
They had carried their lovemaking to the bed and as Jessalyn stared up at the underside of the canopy, she blushed at the sight of her bare-breasted reflection staring back at her. “I’ve never seen such a thing. Have you?”
He laughed.
“You watched while we …”
“I peeked,” he admitted. “But only occasionally. However ent
icing the opposite view, I was more enthralled with the real thing.”
Jessalyn blushed more deeply and buried her face against his arm.
“Innocent,” he murmured, pushing her hair back from her face so that he could see her expressions.
“Not so innocent anymore,” she protested.
“Still innocent enough not to know that high-class whore houses in London have looking glasses mounted inside their canopy beds,” Neil said.
Jessalyn raised her head and looked at him. “They do?”
“The most expensive and exclusive ones do.”
“I still canna believe it,” she whispered. “All these riches have been hidden away while we were starving.” She looked at Neil. “We could have used some of these things to buy food and clothing …”
“Don’t!” Neil placed two fingers against her lips. “This is your heritage, milady. To sell it would be sacrilege. Your father preserved it for you and your children.”
“But we’ve been starving … Our kin have died from lack of food when there was wealth hidden away.”
“Your father starved as well,” Neil reminded her. “You cannot blame him for protecting this wealth. He sold everything he dared. If he had tried to sell or pawn any of these masterpieces—” He waved an arm toward the da Vinci and the Rembrandt. “—the Crown would have sent soldiers to ransack the castle. Eventually they would’ve located this room and confiscated the contents and you would’ve had nothing.”
“Except you.” She kissed the pads of his fingers. “The handsome rich English lord my father tricked into marrying me.”
He froze. And Jessalyn instantly regretted her words.
Neil stared at his wife’s face. He knew what she wanted. He knew that after giving him so much of herself, the MacInnes needed to hear him say the words. He couldn’t promise her he would stay in Scotland. And until he knew whether or not Spotty Oliver intended retribution for his disappearance from Fort Augustus, Neil couldn’t promise to take her home to London. The best he could offer was the truth. “However it came about, I do not regret our marriage.”