He lowered his head and kissed her nipple. It was gentle, barely a breath of a touch, but it drew the heat inside her up and to him, linking them together somehow, swelling the vitality inside her.
Even in the peculiar heated state she found herself in—adrift on the sensations he introduced into her—she tensed in his grip. Decorum forced her reaction. She was shocked at his intimacy. She drew back. “Master Lennox, please...”
Don’t.
Please don’t. That’s what she had intended to say, but she stumbled on the words.
He swooped, kissed her other nipple, this time fiercely.
“Please, Master Lennox, I cannot bear it.”
He lifted his head, but his expression had turned serious. “I cannot help but wonder at this,” he said gruffly, and she realized his whole body was tense with withheld pass
ion.
She stared at him, unable to believe that this man wanted her. It was there in his eyes, though, in every touch and action. “Wonder?”
He sat alongside her on the edge of her bed. “This, it seems so unnecessary, for you are a desirable woman, Mistress Chloris. As lush as a ripe fruit and just as tempting.”
The man was every bit the seducer Jean had suggested, and Chloris leveled her gaze at him, battling to control her senses, for they were driven wild by him.
“I do not sense that you are barren,” he added.
Reference to her malady made her emotions tumble. “It is almost certain. I have seen a physician in Edinburgh, the best of his profession. But you’re attempting to distract me from what just occurred.”
His eyes narrowed. “Perhaps it is your husband who is barren.”
“No.” She shook her head. His comments did nothing to quell the tension she felt.
“If you were to take a lover, it would prove the matter,” he added.
Chloris expected to find mischief in his eyes, but his expression was quite serious. She sighed. “How convenient to have a man in my bed, should I feel your suggestion was appropriate.”
That made him smile. “I take it you do not have a lover, or have you?”
“No.” It was a suggestion she’d heard many times before, though, from her friends and acquaintances in Edinburgh. She’d even been offered the opportunity of an introduction to a suitable man who would be willing to undertake the task. “If I were to take a lover...I would not do it to prove my husband was at fault. I am loyal to Gavin. That’s why I...” She beseeched him, searching his eyes for understanding.
His eyebrows gathered. “Loyal, through love?”
Duty.
His question was too much, worse than the intimate touch, the heated kiss. She forced herself to nod and then turned away. “I fear I am and always will be a failure to my husband.”
Leaning closer, he stroked her hair back from her forehead with a tender touch. “Is that what burdens you so?”
Why was it she was compelled to share her thoughts with him, to be honest about things she had never told anyone? “It disappoints me greatly, I cannot deny it.” She pursed her lips a moment. “I am, however, not prone to melodrama over such things.”
Once again, he smiled. “But you do carry a secret burden, something you have shared with no one, not friends or kin.”
Tensing, she shook her head.
“I sense it in you. If you tell me what it is, I will be more able to help you.” There was a firm, commanding tone to his voice.
“You’re my last chance.”
“And we have made progress. It is that important to you?”
“Would I have put myself at risk with a stranger if that were not the case?” She turned her face away.