As she stepped across the room to hang up the gown, muttering about washings and spider webs, Kenneth squeezed his eyes tight.
In the days since arriving at Oliphant Castle, he’d been so good. He hadn’t followed her around like a lovesick pup, had he? He hadn’t accepted her offer of a visit to her chamber. He hadn’t pursued her, or wooed her, or anything he might’ve wanted to do.
Aye, he’d tugged his cock a bit at night, thinking of her, but overall, he’d focused on his mission.
He’d done a good job of forgetting the way she’d looked in that pool; her head tilted back as water ran down her tanned skin. The way she’d smiled becomingly at him, or the way the nipples at the tips of her pert tits had pebbled into little pearls under his gaze. The way his cock had reacted to the sight of her naked body.
And all it took was a glimpse of the shadow between her legs, hidden by that pale chemise, and all his control went right out the window. That window right there; the open one.
Right out the bloody window.
Ye’re no’ going to fook her. Ye just climbed out of a passageway! Ye’re no’ going to fook her. There’s a time and a place, and this isnae it. Ye’re no’ going to fook her!
Air moved in front of him, and instinctively, Kenneth opened his eyes. Leanna, her chemise all but falling over one shoulder, smiled teasingly up at him. Dimple! His gaze dropped to the promising shadow where the linen gaped just below the swell of her breasts, and he blurted, “I’m no’ going to fook ye!”
Idiot!
As he watched, her smile faltered.
“Really?”
He had to blink in surprise. She wanted him to? “Leanna, there’s a time and a place. We just came out of a filthy secret passage.”
“Och, aye.” She rolled her eyes, looking disgusted with herself. “Ye’re all nice and clean, but look at me!”
He hadn’t meant it that way. In fact, he needed to prove to her she was beautiful no matter how many spider webs or bits of bone fragments she might be wearing.
Tenderly, Kenneth took her shoulder in one hand and used the wet cloth, which he still carried, to wipe at the smudges of dirt on her fact.
“I am looking at ye,” he murmured as he cleaned. “And I’ve never seen a more beautiful lass.”
A flush climbed up her cheeks. “Really?”
“Really.”
Remembering the way she’d responded to his kiss there in the semi-darkness, he tried to concentrate on the task at hand. But when she joined him in his efforts, pulling webs and who knew what else out of her hair, he was distracted by something urgent and nagging.
His cock, which had absolutely ignored his stern lecture about this not being the time and place for a fook, was trying to get his attention.
She seemed to be disappointed we werenae offering her a fook.
Nay! He might’ve decided to marry the lass, but there was a dead body in those passages which needed addressing.
If ye want to marry her, mayhap we should just sort of…try her out? See how she responds?
He wasn’t going to “try out” the woman he was going to marry. The way she responded to his kiss told him the two of them were a matched pair.
Och, aright. Then mayhap another kiss?
Nay, another kiss would— Actually, why couldn’t he kiss her again?
Aye, ‘tis the spirit! A little kiss willnae hurt a thing.
As she pulled the cloth from his hand to finish the ablutions, he closed his eyes on a stifled sigh. He was far too old to be arguing with his cock, but Leanna made him think strange things.
“How about a kiss?”
It took him a moment to realize it hadn’t been him asking the question. Or his cock, for that matter. His eyes flew open, and he found her watching him intently, her cheeks still flushed, but a look of seriousness in her warm eyes for a change.