The Viper (Highland Guard #4)(31)

His mouth went dry. Nay, watered. His memories hadn’t done her justice. Perfectly round, big and lush, the ni**les were peaked like two tiny berries waiting to be sucked.

Lust hit him hard. An entirely different kind of lust. It was hot and visceral, claiming every inch of his body. His muscles shook with restraint.

She gasped, quickly covering herself with the edge of her mantle. “Don’t,” she cried. “Don’t look at me like that.”

Something in her voice penetrated the haze of desire. He lifted his gaze back to hers.

“What are you going to do now, rip off my clothes like I’m nothing but a piece of flesh to serve men’s pleasure?” Her voice broke in a dry sob. “Throw me down on the ground and tell me that I asked for it? That I deserved it?” She cupped her br**sts and held them up to him defiantly. “That this is all I’m good for. That because I look like a whore, I must be a whore.”

He swore softly. Not just because her words shamed him—which, surprisingly, they did—but because of what she was revealing. Suddenly, it all fell into place. He understood the wariness and at times almost hurt reaction to his desire.

God’s blood, what had Buchan done to her? If the bastard were before him right now, he’d kill him.

His fists tightened at his side. “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me what he did to you.”

She gave a harsh laugh. “You want all the salacious details?” Her eyes narrowed, and then grew heavy-lidded as her face transformed into the exaggerated mask of a wanton. Her voice grew soft and husky. “Do you want to know exactly how he taught me to pleasure him?” Her eyes slid down his body, resting on the tightening bulge between his legs that didn’t know how wrong it was to respond. Her tongue slid with feline calculation over her bottom lip. She leaned forward, looking up at him from under her long lashes. “Should I show you, Lachlan? Give you a demonstration of my skill?”

“Stop it.” He grabbed her, angry at his reaction as much as he was at her for acting like this. “That’s not what I meant.”

The mask slid from her face, replaced by the hurt anger that had been there before. “What, then? Do you want to know how he forced me to do my wifely duty from the time I was fifteen? Fifteen, Lachlan. Not much older than Mary and Marjory.” He grimaced with disgust. She took note of his reaction and dug her sword in deeper. “But it wasn’t enough that I submitted to him, that I became more whore than wife; I was supposed to enjoy it, and when I didn’t he tried to force that, too. Can you imagine what it’s like to be so utterly powerless? To have your every action controlled?” Aye, he could. “To be forced to do something and then be punished with accusation and suspicion for not enjoying it? Because surely if I was not getting pleasure from him, I must be finding it somewhere else. With a mouth and body like this, what else is there?”

Lachlan was shamed to realize he’d jumped to similar conclusions. Was he wrong about what he’d seen with Bruce?

“Not all men are like that,” he said quietly.

She made a harsh scoffing sound that was almost a cry. “I see the way you look at me. Do you deny that you want me?”

He gave her a hard look. “Nay, I won’t deny it. You’re a beautiful woman. But I’d never force a woman to do anything she didn’t want to do.”

As bad as it had been with Juliana in the end, the idea of bullying her or using his physical strength to control her had never occurred to him. Only a weak man would try to dominate someone he had a duty to protect.

“You expect me to believe that? With all the fighting you’ve done? It’s common for men to take their ‘spoils’ of war.”

“Among some men perhaps, but not me. Despite what you might think, I do have some principles. There are some lines not even I will cross.” He held her gaze so she would see the truth. “An unwilling woman is one of them.”

Her, he meant, her. He wouldn’t touch her because he thought her unwilling.

Of course she was unwilling. His touch had momentarily confused her, that’s all.

Bella had never felt anything like it. The gentle caress of his hands and fingers on her leg had flooded her with a myriad of unfamiliar sensations. Wicked sensations. Delicious sensations.

Her skin had prickled with sensitivity. She’d been achingly aware of each point of contact, of the warmth of his fingers, of the hard scrape of his calluses across her skin, as he explored her ankle. She’d held her breath when his hand skimmed over her calf and for a moment, she’d thought—God, even hoped—that it would inch higher.

Heat radiated to every corner of her body, concentrating in a warm twitchiness between her legs. Desire. It was desire. She’d thought herself incapable of responding to a man’s touch. She was wrong.

Lachlan had been touching her so tenderly that for a moment she’d thought he might be different. That maybe this strange connection between them meant something. That maybe, just maybe, he might actually care for her.

Which made the look in his eyes when he’d glanced down at her wet chemise all the more cruel. He saw her br**sts and not the woman. No man had ever looked beyond. Just once, she wished a man could look at her.

All he offered was the very thing she’d just escaped. She would never go through that again.

Now she just felt foolish. One soft touch and she dissolved into a pathetic, lovesick schoolgirl. Was she so desperate for someone to care for her that she’d find emotion in a touch?