Page 83 of The Laird's Masked Passion

“I should sleep.”

“Aye.”

“I should forget what I saw.”

He said nothing. Her fingers tightened on his sleeve. Then, in a voice so low it scarcely crossed the space between them, she asked. “Could ye… show me?”

Every part of him went still.

Elspeth’s eyes widened, as if she had shocked herself more deeply than she had shocked him. “I didnae mean?—”

“Aye,” he nodded, his voice roughened past courtesy. “Ye did.”

Her blush rose fierce and bright. “Only because I dinnae understand.”

“Then understand this first.” He cupped her face in both hands, forcing himself to be still when his blood was anything but. “I will touch ye only while ye want me tae. If ye tell me nae, I stop. If ye push me away, I stop. If ye grow frightened, I stop whether ye ask or nae.”

Her eyes searched his. “And if I dinnae?”

His thumb brushed her lower lip. “Then, wife, I am going tae put me mouth on ye until ye forget every foolish fear anyone ever taught ye.”

She trembled. Colin waited.

At last, Elspeth whispered. “Show me.”

He kissed her then, but he kept it slow. He tasted the surprise on her lips, the uncertain hunger, the little catch in her breath when his tongue touched hers. She opened to him with such sweet inexperience that his hand tightened in her hair.

He walked her backward until her hips met the edge of his desk. Her fingers slid uncertainly up his chest, then gripped the fabric of his shirt when he kissed her throat. The small sound she made nearly undid him. He gathered her shawl and let it slip from her shoulders. It fell around her feet in a soft hush.

Moonlight laid her bare in suggestion, not in full, but enough for him to see her pebbled nipples. The shift was thin linen, modest by daylight and treacherous by fire-glow. He could see the shape of her breathing, the curve of her shoulders, the tremble she tried to master.

He kissed the place where her shoulder met her neck. Her head tipped despite herself. He smiled against her skin. His palm moved slowly over her side, down the curve of her hip, then back again, teaching her that touch need not hurry to be ruinous. She watched him as if he were both tutor and threat. When his fingers found the hem of her shift, he paused.

“Tell me.”

She knew what he asked. It cost her. He saw that. But she lifted her chin, though her eyes were dark with embarrassment and want.

“Dinnae stop.”

Colin sank to his knees.

Her hand flew to his shoulder. “What are ye daeing?”

“Showing ye.”

“Like—”

“Aye.” He kissed the inside of her knee through the linen. “But better.”

“That is a very arrogant claim.”

“I mean tae prove it.”

Her laugh broke into a gasp when his hands slid beneath the shift and parted her knees with careful pressure. He could feel how rigid she was, how frightened by wanting and determined not to confess it. So he took his time. He kissed her thigh, her hip, the tender skin above the place she tried instinctively to hide from him.

“Sweet, stubborn lass. So wet from watching, and still ye would stand there arguing with me as if I couldnae see how badly ye wanted tae ken.”

“Colin,” she gasped, scandalized.