hand moved up her outer leg, around to her behind and squeezed briefly, before continuing up her back and then around to slide across her stomach, pushing her tunic before it as he’d done while “kissing” her earlier. Evina sighed and moaned by turn as his hand moved over her, and then cried out into his mouth when it slid back down, not stopping until it was between her legs.
Conran caught the sound and deepened his kisses as he began to caress her there, his fingers dancing across her damp flesh with a deft skill that soon had her raising her knees and shifting her hips into the touch. When his finger slid into her, she stiffened, and waited for the pain, but there was none. Still, she remained frozen for a moment, just experiencing his touch as his finger remained in her and he continued to caress the center of her excitement with his thumb, and then she couldn’t bear it anymore and began to shift her hips again, pushing back as he stoked her fire.
When her pleasure overtook her, Evina cried out into Conran’s mouth, but as before he didn’t stop. He continued to caress her, driving her back to the pinnacle again until she was crying out once more, her body shuddering with another release, and then another, and yet another, until she was sobbing her pleasure and clinging to him as if he were the only safe haven in a storm-tossed sea.
Chapter 10
“A bath?” Tildy asked with surprise. “Ye do no’ need a bath.”
“I bathe once a week every week, Tildy, and wish to have one now. Just order a bath for me, please.”
“But ye’ve done naught but lay abed since ye were injured. Ye’re no’ dirty.”
Evina scowled at her. “Me hair feels dirty and limp and I should like to clean it.”
“Aye, well, ’tis a bit limp and sad-looking,” Tildy admitted, and then heaved a sigh. “Fine. I’ll order ye a bath . . . but only if Rory Buchanan says ’tis all right.”
Evina glowered at the servant’s back as she bustled out of the room. She was used to having her orders obeyed at once, not questioned and considered subordinate to someone else’s opinions. Besides, Rory Buchanan had not even seen her wound. Evina had refused Conran’s repeated efforts to get her to let his brother check the injury, instead having Tildy tend to cleaning it and changing the bandages. Now she suspected she’d have to allow him to see it to get Tildy to agree to her taking a bath. Unless he decided she shouldn’t either. In which case, Evina suspected she could shout the order until she was blue in the face and would not get her bath. And she desperately wanted one.
Tildy was wrong. She hadn’t merely been lying about. She’d been writhing and moaning and sweating up a storm here in her room as Conran showed her some of the pleasure that could be had in a marriage bed. Last night especially, between the fire and the way he heated her blood, Evina had been soaking wet when Conran had finally gathered her in his arms, laid her in her bed and covered her up before slipping from the room.
He’d done it without saying a word, and she’d been too wrung out from what he’d done to her for her to protest or say anything to him. Now she was feeling a bit unsure of herself. His leave-taking had been rather abrupt to her mind. In fact, it had seemed as if he couldn’t wait to get away from her quickly enough, and she was worrying over the reason why. Had she displeased him? Responded too eagerly to him? Should she have refused to let him kiss and touch her? Was he disgusted by her eager behavior?
The kissing and touching business had been his idea, but perhaps it had been a test to see if she would allow it again and she had failed the test. Evina didn’t want to wait until later in the morning when he usually came to see her. She wanted to see him earlier than that. She planned to try to go below to break her fast, and she wanted to be clean, and as pretty as she could be, when she did. Purely for her pride’s sake, Evina assured herself. What other reason could there be?
“Where do ye think ye’re going?”
Conran stopped walking abruptly, and blinked at his little brother when Rory suddenly stopped