Most surprising of all, however, was that while Gabrielle found herself mouthing the familiar lyrics in her own language... she couldn't help but wonder how the words would sound in Gaelic. A bit harsher, yet she'd a feeling the no-longer-so-foreign tongue would add a harshly passionate texture to the complex ballad of love, deception, and bittersweet reunion.
Connor's arms were lifted, his hands smoothing water from the dark hair plastered to his scalp and the back of his neck. What was it, she wondered, about the nape of a man's neck, that gently curved expanse between shoulder and hairline, that displayed vulnerability in even the fiercest warrior? Or Border reiver?
Gabrielle's mouth went dry as she watched the water sluice down Connor's spine. His skin was slick, his flesh a shimmering shade of bronze in the early-morning light. If he'd been close to her, she would not have been able to resist the temptation to angle her head and lick off the silvery droplets of water beading on the shelf of his shoulders. They would taste crisp and sweet, she knew, her tongue curled against her palate in thirsty anticipation.
The humming stopped abruptly. His hands, which had been working the excess water out of the shaggy fringe of his hair, stilled. Awareness pulled taut the rigid sculpture of muscles in his back and shoulders.
Connor turned his head, his neck craning as his gaze sliced through the hazy morning. He didn't scan the bank. It was as though his gaze was a magnet and she a motionless chunk of steel standing on the edge of the clearing; his attention was drawn to her with a force that astonished them both. And once there, it refused to budge.
The chirping of birds overhead receded, the sound chased away by a loud thumping.
Curious, Gabrielle traced the noise back to herself; it was the throbbing of her heart in her ears. Her vision darkened around the edges, tunneling down until all she could see, all she wanted to see, was a wet, naked Connor Douglas: his gray eyes, piercing and narrow and intense.... his dark hair slicked back against the cup of his scalp... the morning light kissing each angle and plane of his harshly carved face. His skin was a wet temptation to her palms; her fingers ached to find out if his flesh really felt as wonderfully warm and slippery as it appeared.
Everything around her faded to insignificance.
She felt as though her entire world consisted of herself and Connor Douglas, and nothing else.
Gabrielle's lips parted. She'd sought Connor out to tell him something, something important, yet the words she'd been about to voice died on her tongue unspoken when he lifted his arm and extended his hand to her. The sound of water drops falling from his skin and back into the glossy loch trickled in her ears like the first refreshing splashes of a gentle rain falling on a scorching summer day.
Her attention fixed on his hand. While she couldn't see it from this distance, she remembered each thick, powerful finger, remembered the short, springy dark hair on the back and between the first and second knuckle, the way it teased her fingertips. It was a hand capable of wielding a broadsword with deadly precision: Tis in my hands she is now, and in my hands she stays. A hand also capable of caressing a woman's body with a gentleness that was soul-shattering: Ye've no objection to me doing this... tonight and all the nights after?
Her gaze traced the length of his forearm, up over his shoulder, past the hard, darkly stubbled square of his jaw. Higher. His attention narrowed. The muscle in his jaw ticked. His gaze was intense and... aye, it hadn't been a trick of the hazy morning light, there really was a glimmer of uncertainty in his penetrating gray eyes, a flash of vacillation that tightened his expression as he watched her.
The sight touched her, way down deep, in ways a curtly uttered command for her to come to him never could have done.
Gabrielle's legs moved of their own accord, carrying her past the place where he'd carelessly tossed his clothing in a wrinkled heap upon the grass. Her feet felt heavy, her knees weak and shaky, yet somehow the latter found the strength to support her and keep her upright.
Rose brocade dragged over the grass as she took one step.
Two.
Three.
She stopped hesitantly on the bank, so close to Connor now that she no longer had to imagine each droplet of water clinging to his skin—she could see them, if possible her gaze could feel them. The sight made her stomach do strange little flip-flops, made her breathing uneven and shallow, made her heart pound hard until her head felt dizzy, her senses spinning crazily from the sudden onrush of blood, lack of oxygen, and the tidal wave of raw sensation that being within touching distance of this man always seemed to cause.
Relief seeped through her. Up close she could see that no fresh wounds marred his skin. No trace of blood, dried or fresh, clung to his wet body. It wasn't until Gabrielle had assured herself that Connor was unharmed that she realized how very worried she'd been that he would somehow get hurt while returning Roy Maxwell to his family.
She breathed in a deep sigh of relief. It was then that a new scent reached her, mingling evocatively with the fresh morning fragrance of wildflowers and grass and pine sap. It was the unique, musky male scent of Connor Douglas, and it was a scent to savor.
His arm was still raised, his hand palm up—the skin there puckered slightly from the water—and extended toward her. It was a conciliatory gesture, yet at the same time a beckoning one. It tugged at a place deep down in her soul that she found almost impossible to resist. Almost.
If she reached out—as she was oh so tempted to do—her fingertips would graze his. Connor's would feel warm and wet, Gabrielle knew... even as she commanded her hand to stay exactly where it was, hidden beneath the thick folds of her cloak, so he couldn't see how much he affected her, how badly she was shaking.
The memory of why she'd sought him out came at her in a rush. Her breath caught, for as the reason played in her mind, it was easily recognized for what it was. An excuse to see him.
She'd not come to tell him anything he wouldn't have learned from one of his men upon returning to Bracklenaer—probably from Gilby, who was now up and about and, when not complaining about his wound, was busy practicing on anyone who'd tolerate the cusses he'd learned from Mairghread that fateful night in the tunnel.
The reason Gabrielle had given herself for being here, she realized now, was a deception, and not a very good one at that; the reason was embarrassingly shallow, flimsier than a battle shield constructed of a material no more substantial than a strip of diaphanous gauze. Only now did she understand that she harbored more deep-seated and intense reasons for disturbing Connor's bath. And only now—slowly, slowly—did she begin to realize exactly what that reason was and, more importantly, what it meant.
When she'd approached the edge of the loch, she had been dazed and only partially aware of what she was doing. Now, when she slipped her hand from beneath the warm folds of her cloak and lifted it, the motion was done with silent intent. Gabrielle knew exactly what she was doing.
Her trembling fingertips brushed Connor's. She was right, his skin felt every bit as warm and wet and wonderfully slippery as she'd imagined it would.
Because she was standing on the bank and he in the loch, he had to tilt his head in order to continue holding her gaze as he turned and took one small step in her direction. The concealing surface of the water rode temptingly low on his hips as his wet palm slid along the length of her dry one.
Then, suddenly, with a flick of his wrist they were palm to palm, the pulses in their wrists beating against each other as though vying for speed. One by one his fingers curled inward, linking and weaving with her own.
Connor's grip was possessively firm, but not painful. Gabrielle could easily have pulled away from him... if she'd wanted to.