Chapter 28
Her face was still, her blue eyes swimming with tears. He wanted to protect her from the sight of the ruins of the Sinclair Printing Company.
Let the world think what they would. Let those people standing in the street fascinated by the sight of a destroyed dream turn their heads and see him. Right now, his political ambitions faded beneath a very real need: to comfort her, and to ease her pain however he could.
“I can’t go home with you again,” she said once they entered his carriage.
He didn’t answer.
She closed her eyes and sighed. “You’re the most stubborn man.”
He bent his head down and kissed her nose.
“Do you want me to promise to leave you alone? I will, if that’s what you want. I’ll install you in one of the guest rooms, and you’ll be a chaste woman in the morning.”
She sighed. “That would be best, don’t you think?”
“Do you always do what’s best?” he asked, knowing she didn’t. Mairi was often improvident and rash, but her heart could expand to hold all of Edinburgh and probably Scotland.
“Yes,” she said, turning away from him.
He smiled at the lie. She was right, though, he had to give her that. He shouldn’t be taking her to his house. He should tell his driver to turn around and go a half mile in the other direction. There, he’d escort her to the door, wait until he was certain she was settled in, then return to his home. He would congratulate himself on his wisdom as well as his restraint.
He wasn’t going to do any of those things.
They entered his home from the rear, the first time she’d seen this approach. His garden, draped by night, was much larger than hers. She had the errant wish to see it, wanted to return in the daylight.
Instead, they crept through the back like thieves.
The tip of one finger skimmed along the top of her hand, a gentle guide.
Logan stopped in the shadow of a large tree, now denuded by winter. He grabbed her hand, his fingers resting between her knuckles, a curious pairing and one that was surprisingly intimate.
He wrapped his arms around her. She sighed into his hug, winding her arms around his waist. She still wore his coat. He must be freezing.
Before she had time to voice her concern, he bent his head.
His kiss was deep and terrifying, leading her to a destination she knew only too well. He fisted his hand in her hair. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on.
He smelled of smoke and fire and death and destruction and life and promise.
“Mairi.”
She shivered at the sound of her name. Closing her eyes, she allowed him to sweep her from the garden, inside the house and up the stairs.
Once in his room, he closed the door, shutting out the world.
She should leave. She should remember her reputation and his. She shouldn’t be here, wanting more than a kiss.
But she’d been without him for weeks. He was here and she could touch him as she’d wanted for too long.
She grabbed his hand with both of hers, pressing her lips against the base of his thumb.
“I shouldn’t be here,” she said, dropping his hand to wrap her arms around his waist and press her cheek against his chest. “I should be wise and sensible and demand you take me home.”
Leaning back, he tilted up her chin with his hand. “Shall we be neither wise nor sensible tonight? There’s a lot to be said for being unwise and rash.”
A glow started deep inside, brushing aside her sadness.
She should leave but she didn’t want to be anywhere else but here, with him, with his soot-covered face and his reddened eyes. She wanted to tend to him, to care for him, to cradle him in her body, and feel the joy of possessing and being possessed.
“I have no choice,” she said, and it was the truth.
Here she would stay because with him she felt safe, protected, and just for tonight, loved.
He should have bathed, washed the soot and stench of fire away, but he didn’t want to step away from her for a minute.
Her eyes widened with each garment he unfastened. When he removed her bodice, her hands fluttered in the air but remained at her sides as if she couldn’t decide whether to flee or fight him. She did neither, merely stood like a sacrifice, each successive item of clothing causing her to tremble more. Next was the corset cover, he thought it was called, a gauzy thing that only served to veil her.
He wanted her naked beneath him. Or naked above him, it didn’t matter. He wanted Mairi naked and joyous, her lips curved in a smile.
Above all, he wanted to banish the look of sadness from her face, offer her passion in exchange for grief.
He unfastened the busk of her corset, separated it by the simple matter of placing his hands beneath it and widening them. Her skin was so hot that he could feel it even with her shift in the way. She was still trembling, and that made him question whether he should hasten the task or slow it further.
He really had no choice. His body urged completion at the same time, strangely enough, his mind sanctioned it as well. He wanted to bring her joy. Have her recall him each day, each hour, for the pleasure he brought her, if nothing else. If she didn’t think of their discussions, if she wasn’t interested in his arguments, then let her remember his loving.
Let her hunger for him as he did for her.
He got to his knees in front of her. He had never acted this way in front of any woman, but then she was not like any other woman. He reached up and unfastened her skirt, coaxing the button free, then working on the tape of her petticoats. She hadn’t worn a stiff hoop, but then she wasn’t a doyenne of fashion. Most of the time she didn’t wear a bonnet.
“I missed you,” he said. “All those days you were away.”
She didn’t speak, but he didn’t expect her to respond. When she was feeling vulnerable, Mairi retreated to silence, a condition otherwise alien to her.
“I thought about all of those things that I would have told you if you were here,” he said.
“Council matters?” she asked, a sparkle in her eyes. “To think that I might have overlooked a great source all along.”
Her fingertips danced along his cheek, rested beneath his chin in a tender touch.
His heart swelled at the curve of her smile.
He slid her skirts and petticoats over her hips and down her body, taking his time.
She was trembling more now, clasping her hands before her, her gaze on his face. From time to time he would look up to find her eyes intent on him.
“What are you thinking when you look at me that way?” he asked.
Would she answer him?
Surprisingly, she did. “How I feel like a maiden before you,” she said. “How you, a braw Highlander, seem from medieval days.”
“Do I?”
She nodded. “It’s your fault, you know. That first day, in your kilt. Was I supposed to ignore the sight?”
“Or that day you touched my truss,” he said.
“Your holster,” she said, correcting him with a smile.
He had never known a time like this, torn in two by lust along with amusement. Then there was the tenderness that nearly swamped him and stole his breath.
He bent to unfasten her shoes, slowly unlacing them with the same care he’d taken for her garments. Now, he rolled one stocking over her perfectly formed knee and then down her beautiful leg. She placed her hand on his shoulder as she lifted her foot. He repeated the action with the other leg, both of them silent.
Kneeling there, sitting back on his heels, he studied her. Clad now only in her shift, she looked like a pagan goddess.
“Let down your hair, Mairi,” he said, wanting to complete the picture.
Without questioning why, she did, slowly removing the pins and letting them drop to the floor, while he remained still and silent and in awe of her beauty. When she was done, she threaded her fingers through the mass of her hair until it hung below her shoulders.
“Not a pagan goddess,” he said. “But Aphrodite.”
“Are you my shell, Logan?”
He would be anything she wanted, anchor, helpmate, or supporter.
She shivered, and he realized she was cold. Standing, he took her hand and led her to the fire. Then he bent and grabbed the hem of her shift, pulling it over her head until she stood there revealed and simply Mairi.
“Do you know how beautiful you are?”
“I’ve never been called beautiful,” she said.
“Then I can only think the world is foolish, and I’m the only wise man alive.”
She smiled, shaking her head.
“I want to hold you in my arms all night,” he said.
“Please make sure all my garments are in the same room this time,” she said.
His grin widened.
“I have no intention of going through your house gathering up my clothing.”
He laughed. “I don’t remember your doing that,” he said. “I seem to recall that was my task.”
He pressed himself to her, feeling a tenderness for Mairi that he’d never before felt for another human being. He thought he’d understood passion in his infrequent encounters, but being with Mairi was different. He didn’t want her surrender as much as her complicity.
In this, she was his partner, his other half, his separate match that had been missing all these years.
Her breasts were beautiful, full and tipped by eager nipples standing erect like a beacon for his lips. He loved the sound she made when his mouth grazed them, when his tongue licked first the one then the other.
He took her to his bed, placed her on the mattress, covering her not with a sheet but his body. Slowly, he touched her everywhere, anointing her with his mouth, kissing each curve, relishing her moans.
When it was time, he entered her slowly. He paced himself, raising up on his forearms, bending his head to kiss her gently and inhale her gasps.
He wanted to stretch the moments thin, drive her insensate, until she begged him to bring her to fulfillment. Her hands flattened against his shoulders, then clutched him before trailing down his arms.
Her long, slow moan accentuated his next thrust. When he pulled out of her, her legs widened, her hips arched up to keep him nestled there.
She was driving him mad.
But it was a reciprocal madness, because her hands were on his buttocks now, nails digging into his skin. Again and again she arched upward to meet him and subsided reluctantly.
Had she experienced enough to know how wondrous this was? This was a perfect pairing, bliss so exquisite that his vision grayed.
Just when he thought he couldn’t take any more, she shivered in his arms, tightening around him, milking him. He came in a gush of release, uttering a prayer of thanksgiving that he had brought her to fulfillment first.