robes with them.”
“Really?” Her brows fell together in puzzlement. “To be frank, I thought you would go straight for my… my breasts.” She finished in a whisper.
“Oh, I’ll get to them,” he vowed. “But they have to ask for it, first.”
Ask for it? “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yer shoulders,” he reminded. “Slowly. Feel the softness of the skin there.”
She followed his dictate, undoing a few clasps and sliding her ghostly robes from her shoulders with her fingertips, taking a moment to feel the soft glide of her fingers over smooth and velvety skin. It was lovely. It relaxed and revitalized her all at once.
“Lower,” he pressed.
Her robes hung onto her nipples, almost exposing them to his eyes that appeared to glow in her intensifying light.
“I-I’m frightened,” she admitted. Even though this time there was no tearing and rending of garments. No violence. No pain. There was still danger. Danger of degradation. Of shame and rejection. Of judgment and failure. She couldn’t bring herself to bare her body to the greedy eyes of a man. “Maybe I should just lie down.”
“Excellent idea.” He locked eyes with her, and they simultaneously lowered their bodies to the smooth stone of the grotto. His hazel gaze remained steady on her own. Never once wavering, never drifting to other parts of her bared flesh. He sustained her, strengthened her, staying with her until she was prostrate on her back and he on his side next to her, his head propped onto one palm sustained by his elbow.
“All right.” She let out a shaky breath. “All right, what would you do next? Now that I’m lying down.”
He took more breaths, as though choosing his words very carefully. “When you open your robes, doona focus on what ye expose of yerself. Just run your fingers along the underside of yer wrist and forearm.”
She frowned at him again. It seemed as though he focused on the strangest parts. No other man had ever even mentioned her wrists or forearms. Never looked at them. Touched them. They were mundane parts with no particular erotic draw. “Are you entirely certain—?”
“Do it. Just with your nails. Score it lightly.” He gave her an impatient look that dispelled much of her earlier tension and brought a smile to her lips.
She lifted her shoulders off the ground, and shrugged her robes away, scoring her tender skin with her nails.
Pleasure. There it was. A hollow, aching pleasure skittering along her skin in such a way, that if she tried to define where it was, it would disappear. The acute response danced along her nerve endings with such intensity that her back arched and her thighs clenched.
“Now,” he stated tightly. “They’re asking for it now.”
“What?” she tried to latch onto his words through the gathering fog in her brain. She was more concerned about what was going on below.
“Yer breasts,” he gritted out. “Yer incredible breasts. They’re begging to be touched.”
They were? She glanced down. They were. She was certain of it now. The pert mounds with small, pink tips quivered with her unsteady breath. She risked a glance back up at Daroch, who was staring at them in a most peculiar way. As though he’d never seen their like before. He swallowed convulsively. Once. Twice. His tattoo intensifying the movement of his throat.
“I don’t know if I can,” she whispered to him.
“Oh, ye can lass.” His command sounded more like a plea. “Ye must.” His chest now scissored with breaths that flared his nostrils with every intake.
“How?”
He dragged his eyes away from her breasts and back to hers and with a blink, the gentleness had returned. “Close yer eyes,” he murmured. “Doona think about what ye should be doing. Let yer body tell ye what it wants ye to do.”
Kylah snapped her eyes shut and instantly felt better. “What it wants you to do,” she corrected breathlessly, feeling braver now, protected by the darkness behind her eyelids.
“Christ woman,” he cursed. More breaths. Not as deep and slow as before, and their increased pattern did something else to Kylah that she’d not expected. It sped her own breaths to match his. Daroch was enjoying this, though he’d not admit it to her. He garnered a pleasure of his own from teaching her this.
She wondered what it was. What it felt like for him.
The ache between her thighs intensified and her breath hitched. She reached her trembling hand to hover over her bare chest and awaited his dark instruction.
“Palm it,” he commanded, shorter and less