Bride For A Knight Page 0,78

trickling down his chest.

She swallowed and wet her lips, fascinated. Aching to stroke and fondle him, yet too awed to touch such magnificent male perfection.

He must've sensed her hesitation, for he shifted in the tub, opening his thighs a bit more to give her a better view. Or greater access. Tingly heat swept her at either notion. Nay, he was definitely not hiding himself now. Not that he should.

She was quite sure he was the most beautifully made man she'd ever seen. Watching her, he reached to capture a loose tendril of her hair, curling it slowly around his finger. "Touch me," he said, firelight reflecting off his own vibrant, auburn hair. "I'd meant to wait, would've abstained totally - or tried! But it is too late, sweetness."

His gaze went to her little bowl of warming oil, its heady violet scent already rising. The drifting fumes perfumed the air, intoxicating his senses.

"'Tis too late for warmed oil massages, too," he added, his voice turning husky.

"Too late as well for the removal of your shift."

He flashed her a smile, one that quickly spread into a roguish grin when her sapphire eyes deepened with her own desire and she stood to retrieve the bowl of oil anyway.

"There is another use for the oil," she said, placing one foot on the stool and easing up her shift's dampened skirt, her position leaving her fragrant woman's curls but a handsbreath from his face.

"Sweet Jesu!" The two words escaped between Jamie's teeth as he realized her intent. "Where'er did you learn such a wanton's trick?"

"From my sister, Maili," she explained, already dipping her fingers into the bowl.

"Her husband is also quite well-proportioned, though I canna believe he is so large as you. Maili told me if e'er I were to wed such a well-favored man, I might rub myself with warmed oil before the first few couplings and thus ease the joinings."

Jamie swallowed.

She touched glistening fingers to her sex. Holding his gaze, she began gently rubbing the oil between her legs, even applying some to the tender flesh of her smooth inner thighs.

It took Jamie all of a heartbeat to know what he wanted to do.

"Nay, lass, let me," he said, thrusting his fingers into the bowl of heated oil. "I will rub you."

And in ways that would make her far more ready for him than any scented oil, heated or otherwise.

"Come closer," he urged her, "and part your legs for me. Just enough so that I can see and touch you."

And she did, stepping so near that her sweetness hovered just above him. The rich musk of her arousal flooded his senses, making him drunk with desire. He touched his fingers to her then and a startled gasp broke from her lips. Pleased by the sound and the flare of desire in her eyes, he rubbed her, carefully massaging the oil onto her most tender, sweetest flesh. She trembled beneath his caress, her own fingers digging into the folds of her shift as she held the bunched material well above her thighs.

"Holy saints," she breathed, a great rippling shudder streaking through her when he ceased his feather light strokings and began sliding a slow, probing finger up and down the very center of her.

"Ach, lass, you are just beginning to explore pleasure." At last, Jamie flicked lightly at her most sensitive spot. "This will melt you as naught else," he told her, circling his finger over her quivering flesh.

Slow, deliberate circlings he kept up until she closed her eyes and began to rock her hips. She arched her heat against his hand, her hitching breath and the slick moisture damping his fingers letting him know it was time.

"I can wait no longer," he vowed, seizing her by the waist and lifting her into the tub. "I am sorry, lass, I would that it could've been otherwise."

"It is perfect," she cried, looking down to where he held her poised above him.

"You are perfect. Fully magnificent, and I would have no other."

She wriggled against him, her slick female heat slipping across the swollen tip of his shaft, a sensation almost blinding in its exquisiteness. Jamie threw back his head and clenched his teeth, unable to keep his hips from lifting in response, the tip of his iron-hard shaft sliding right into her.

Not the long fluid thrustings he burned to give her, sure, deep, and smooth. This was only a first tentative sheathing, her slick and tight wetness taking only a few throbbing inches.

Or so he thought