"Connor!" she cried, and in the same instant the ground beneath her feet disappeared. The pressure of his grip pulling her forward made Gabrielle helpless to stop her body from following.
The last sound she heard before hitting the water face-first was the deep, rich sound of Connor Douglas's laughter.
Gabrielle's belly took the brunt of the collision; her cloak and gown provided precious little padding against the slap of pain as she hit the water. Momentum, coupled with suddenly drenched, water-heavy clothes, dragged her under. Her breath burst from her lungs in a rush that made an explosion of bubbles scurry to the surface.
Connor had not let go of her hand. Gabrielle clung to his grip as she willed her quickly numbing feet, snarled in the folds of her saturated skirt and cloak, to find the soft, muddy bed of the loch.
The water had only been up to Connor's hips. She knew that if she could only find her footing, she'd be able to push herself to the top. Unfortunately, her feet were hopelessly ensnared; it seemed like the more she kicked and tried to work them free, the more tangled they became.
Panic, dark and blinding, clawed at her insides. With effort she swallowed it back.
C-c-cold. My God, she was soooo c-c-cold!
The frigidity of the water made her limbs feel unnaturally heavy and unresponsive. Just when she thought her lungs would burst from their burning need for oxygen, she felt a strong arm slide around her waist and haul her upward.
She broke the surface with several loud, choked, shuddering gasps that supplied an abundance of blessedly sweet morning air to her deprived lungs. Her teeth chattered against each other so violently that the clicks of them knocking together filled her head and drowned out the panicky throb of her heartbeat.
A tiny portion of her mind recognized the hard, strong body she was being held tightly against. A much larger portion recognized, and appreciated greatly, the heat that body emanated. It was a heat that washed through her, seeming to chase away the most desperate part of the cold that felt as though it had settled right into the marrow of her bones.
Gabrielle's eyes were closed. She opened them now and blinked away the droplets of water clinging to her lashes.
Green eyes narrowed, her gaze fixed with furious disbelief on a smugly grinning Black Douglas. Her lips were blue from the cold. She could barely feel them, and could move them only by exerting extraordinary effort. "W-w-why did you d-d-do that?!"
Would she understand if he told her? Nay, Connor thought, she would not, especially not in her current, indignant frame of mind. Showing her, however, as he'd promised himself before dragging her into the water with him, was something else again...
Connor angled his head, his mouth swooping down hungrily to cover hers.
Gabrielle's lips felt icy cold and, at first, unresponsive.
The heat of his passion soon thawed them.
Connor groaned low and deep in his throat and dragged the tip of his tongue over the crease separating her upper lip from her lower. Her mouth opened for him, and he delved inside the sweet inner recesses, darting and stroking and driving the chill from her with an intensity that stunned them both.
She squirmed against him, her feet finally finding their way free of her skirt and touching the floor of the loch. She stood on her own now, leaned forward, pressing her upper body against his.
Her arms stole about his neck, her splayed fingers combing through his wet hair, clenching, fisting it in handfuls so close to his scalp that the roots of his hair stung. Soon the gooseflesh-prickled skin on her forearms and shoulders was also warming as she drained the heat from his body and drew it into her own.
It was only as Connor began to slip his other hand around her waist, yearning to pull her temptingly soft body closer still, that he realized their fingers were still entwined. Without missing a beat, he diverted the course of his arm. Water dripped down his forearm as he lifted their linked hands, turned them at the wrists, then slowly, slowly stroked the quivering line of her jaw with the back of his knuckles.
"Beautiful," he whispered hotly against her lips. "Och! but ye be so ver beautiful."
&n
bsp; "You're blind to even think it," she replied with sudden shyness, and equal huskiness, against his mouth. A blush warmed her cheeks, the pinkness creeping up to her hairline, washing down the length of her neck.
"I dinny think anything, lass, I ken it." Connor pulled back and looked down into her eyes, breathtaking green eyes that swam with confusion and... aye, a hopefulness that yanked at the strings of emotion this woman had somehow, without his knowledge and certainly without his consent, wound in a complex web he'd never be able to untangle around his heart. "I be many things, but blind is not one of them. I see ye for exactly what ye are. And I like ver maun what I see."
"Are you saying that you meant those things you said to Roy Maxwell about me?" She caught her lower lip between her teeth. "Truly?"
"With all my heart, Gabby." His voice rang with a sincerity that was echoed in the flash of candor sparkling in his eyes. "I meant—I mean—e'ery word."
Gabrielle's mouth gaped open. The question hovering in her mind slipped off her tongue before she could stop it. "Then mayhap you like me well enough to...?"
The words trailed softly away. Her head spun and she leaned weakly against him, positive she would have collapsed without the support, her knees suddenly felt that weak and shaky.
Had she gone insane? Aye, Gabrielle thought, she must have. What other reason explained why she'd just come so perilously close to asking this man to—?
"What?" Connor prompted when she blushed harder and glanced away. He slipped his hand reluctantly from around her waist. Applying the crook of his index finger to the wet, silky underside of her chin, he nudged her mouth shut and at the same time brought her gaze back to his. He wanted badly to kiss her again, but sensed this wasn't the time. Later, he vowed, he would kiss her until they were both breathless and wanting. Right now, however, he'd a feeling she needed something much different from him. "Enough to... what, lass?"