Beyond the Highland Myst(274)

"Quite a yawn. Lovely pink tongue, by the way. Do you recall how it feels when yours jousts with mine? I haven't forgotten. I want more."

Despite her resolve not to, she looked at him, fascinated.

"I want your tongue in my mouth."

She averted her gaze with effort.

"I want mine all over your body."

Lisa swallowed. "I am not interested," she said faintly.

"Doona lie to yourself, Lisa. Doona lie to me. You want me. I can feel it in the air between us. I can smell it."

Lisa didn't dare breathe. She harbored an absurd hope that he would just leave after declaring that truth and not force her to confront the enormity of it. She did want him. Desperately. Fantasies collided in her mind, daring her to relinquish her innocence and embrace womanhood.

He moved slowly toward her and sat on the edge of her bed. She scooted back hastily, her back flush to the headboard, and hugged a pillow to her chest.

"You enjoy looking at me, doona you, Lisa?"

She enjoyed doing more than looking at him. She liked fighting him with her kisses. Tasting the salt and honey of his skin.

With deft fingers, he untied the laces of his linen shirt and shrugged it off over his head. The muscles in his abdomen rippled, the curves of his biceps flexed. "Then look," he said, his voice rough. "Look your fill. Think you I doona recall how you gazed at me in my bath?" When his wide shoulders were revealed, she shook her head and sucked in a breath.

"St-stop that! What are you doing?" Lisa exclaimed. Lounging at the foot of her bed was six feet seven inches of dark, seductive man, with rippling muscles beneath bronzed skin; a warrior in every sense of the word. Fine black hair dusted his powerful chest and thick forearms. A finer trail of hair skittered down his abdomen and crept beneath the brilliant red and black tartan knotted at his waist. All in all, Circenn Brodie was the most desirable man Lisa had ever seen.

"Use me, Lisa," he encouraged softly. "Take whatever you want." When she made no reply, he said, "You have never been with a man, have you?"

Lisa smoothed the coverlet, her mouth dry. She had no intention of discussing this with him. She wet her traitorous lips and was appalled when they parted and said, "Is it so apparent?"

"To me. Perhaps not to other men. Why? You are old enough to have been with many men. You are beautiful enough that many must have tried. Did you find none to your liking?"

Lisa hugged the pillow tighter. In high school, she'd had several boyfriends, but they'd always seemed so immature to her. Catherine said it was because she was an only child, that she was more accustomed to being around adults. She'd suspected her mom was right.

"Did I take you from someone? A lover perhaps?" A muscle twitched in his jaw.

"No. There's been no one."

"I find that difficult—nay, impossible to believe."

"Trust me," Lisa said with a self-deprecating laugh. "Men were not exactly beating down my door." If they had been, they would have fled shortly after gaining entrance and discovering her financial straits and her caretaker role.

"Ah, perhaps they were afraid of you, because you are so much woman?"

"I am not fat," Lisa bristled. "I'm… healthy," she supplied defensively.

Circenn smiled. "That you are, but that is not what I meant."

"Well, I'm not too tall. A giantess wouldn't be too tall for you." At five feet ten, she had towered over many of the boys in her class until the last two years of high school.

"Not what I meant either."

"Then what did you mean?" she asked, feeling wounded.

"You are smart—"

"No, I'm not," she said. Anything but smart.

"Yes, you are. You were smart enough to realize it would be foolish to escape me at Dunnottar, and clever enough to deduce a way out of my chambers. Aye, even fearless enough to dare it. Tell me, do you read and write?"

"Yes." Inwardly, Lisa glowed. She was smart in the fourteenth century.

"You are persistent. Tenacious. Determined. Strong. You doona need anyone, do you?"

"I haven't had the opportunity to need anyone. Everyone's always been too busy needing me," she muttered, then felt guilty for voicing her most secret resentment.

"Need me, Lisa."

She searched his face. What had changed him? Why was he acting this way? It was as if he genuinely cared and sincerely desired her.

"Need me," he repeated firmly. "Use me to explore the woman who has never been given the opportunity to live. Take from me, need from me, and satisfy all that curiosity I feel burning in you. And by Dagda, let go of that maidenhead. Do you wish to live and die, never having known passion? Never having tasted what I offer you? Be bold. Take." He uttered the last word in a low, masculine tone.