Chapter 3

Harriet was keeping her distance, Sam lamented more than a week later while he walked to his lodgings. He needed to fetch a few notations to continue his work. The warm spring sun soothed his dark mood and gave a redder hue to his hair. Had it been warmer, his freckles would have surfaced.

Those delicious kisses threw him in a bonfire of craving he had never felt before. Now he had reality to go with the gnawing hunger that had lived in him since he met her. His nights became a blur of sleeplessness, a feverish roundabout of fantasies and self-relief did nothing to assuage his need. If anything, it made it worse.

He lived in a giddy frame of mind the afternoon after luncheon, imagining they would resume their exploits as they finished work. But when she excused herself and took supper in her chambers, claiming she must take an early night, his disappointment thrummed through his guts with a bitter note.

Next morning, she presented a cool stance, blocking him out of anything except the impending task. And it repeated every day since with tedious constancy.

Spending the night two doors from her drove him slowly insane. What had been the use of having a taste of the woman who would not vacate his head if it only whetted his appetite and kept him on the edge? This was getting fast to being unbearable. His hands fisted to white knuckles.

He entered his spacious set of rooms, a mere ten-minute walk from the professor’s, and gathered what he needed. His eyes fell on the whisky bottle he had brought with him the last time he had travelled to the McDougal. No doubt, a sip of it would offer a modicum of calm to his restive guts.

The lean frame sank in his favourite armchair, bottle and glass in hand. After the first dram, came the second. And then he did not count anymore.

Her insides had been febrile for a good many days. Since those kisses, to be precise. The purest and the most sensuous experience she ever indulged in her life. Not that she listed a legion with which to compare it. The little prior moments she counted told her something special took place in the study.

It cast her in a state of yearning completely foreign to her. The night after the kisses became a sweaty toss-and-turn affair roaring with images and dreams. It transformed her into a pile of lasciviousness which she did not have a clue how to manage. Between her legs she registered a constant swelling and dampening which was also new to her.

Like a coward, she retreated behind a wall of prim properness, afraid to give in, afraid to let go. Afraid to repeat her sad story.

Samuel had gone out, and she expected to find a modicum of reprieve. Ha! Who did she think she fooled? Said reprieve stood nowhere to be seen, but irksomeness answered the roll call. The possibility he might have gone to that bawdy house again and the acrid jealousy it invoked? Present, miss.

She lost track of time and could not tell how long she paced the poor carpet in her chamber. Her hair was loose courtesy of the countless ways her hands had run over it. Her exercise and breathlessness made her thirsty. Contemplating a cup of tea, she left her presently claustrophobic, even if pleasant, quarters to go make a cup in the kitchen. Mrs Marsh slept above the stables where the servants’ place was. It would be selfish to call her just for tea.

No sooner did she set foot in the hallway than she heard footsteps on the stairs. On the last tread, to be more precise. His tall frame appeared on the candlelit landing. Breeches, hessians, a white shirt, cravat undone, no coat. The open shirt front gap tantalised her with the view of a lean chest.

She looked as if in a spell, wide eyes on him as he made progress towards her. Stiff fingers tightened the shawl she had thrown over her shoulders. The movement seemed to attract his attention.

“Harriet,” he called all too silky. His voice and the fixed way he eyed her sent ripples of sensation through her nerves.

As he neared, she noted his flushed cheeks and bright green eyes centred on her. The man came back early for bachelors’ standards, she must admit. He halted a few feet from where she stood still in the thrall of seeing him. He bent his head to meet her gaze in the same way she had to tilt hers back to meet his. And then his attention caressed the wheat strands falling around her to reach her waist with wonderment. His long fingers came up to immerse in the silky mass.

“The first time I see it loose in seven years,” the words aired in a smoky note, which whispered in her ears too tempting for comfort.

“You’ve been drinking,” she stated, her body now leaning on the wall for support.

Dear me! Why pretend all that coldness when having him this near destroyed any vestige of decency she still possessed?

“Been to my lodgings,” he answered, bracing his hands on the wall on either side of her head. “A few whiskies, nothing more.” Now she scented it in him, mingled with his clean masculine tang.

This close, the heat of his body met hers, and it became increasingly more difficult to do the right thing, whatever it might be. Run? Stay? Pull him close? Or closer still? “You should sleep it off,” she recommended for lack of something to say. She was surprised and horribly relieved that he had not joined those good-for-nothings or visited the bawdy house.

“Sleep is the last thing I want to do at this precise moment,” with that, his head lowered even more until his mouth touched the pulse on her neck.

The intense shock of pleasure it produced made her exhale and dip her head back to give him more access.

He took it and opened his lips wider to close them on her frantic pulse. “Why do you let an ugly sod like me touch you?” he asked as his lips dragged down the column.

“You’re not ugly,” she blurted as her hands abandoned the shawl to hold on to his masculine shoulders.

He pressed his utterly aroused body on hers, her softness receiving him with such good will. “No?” he replied, nibbling at the lobe of her ear. “What am I?”

If only she could tell him that his being hard for her was the most beautiful thing in the world. But she settled for, “A very handsome young man,” she almost lost her voice in the maelstrom of sensations he created.

“Sweet of you, but the most stunning woman in the Empire cannot think me the least good-looking,” the grave praise came wrapped in urgency.

If he could test her wetness, he would not say such nonsense; his words ever increased her awareness, shamelessly so.

One of his hands sneaked into her prudishly plain nightgown. But he gave up when the strict neckline prevented him from going farther. So the aforementioned hand undid the front buttons with an ease she would attribute only to an experienced man.

As if reading her mind, he said. “I’ve done this thousands of times in my dreams,” the drawl reverberated on her skin to worsen the swell and dampness between her thighs.

And then he pulled her neckline open just to stop short when he gaped the fabric to uncover her breasts. A very manly grunt vibrated in his throat as his bespectacled eyes focused on her globes. Reverently, he lifted his large hands and cupped them, fingers appreciating the texture, the size, the weight. His tall frame pressed more on hers while his curiosity brought him closer. His thumbs feathered the dusky nipples, back and forth, forth and back, marvelling in their plucking. The thumbs tried again unconcerned as to the devastating effect they had on her. He released an awed breath in the act of exploring her nipples as though he had found a new specimen and wanted to learn every single thing about it. As if this was not enough to weaken her further, he had this great idea of pressing the peaks between his thumb and forefinger with a pressure that was there and was not there at the same time, which nearly drove her insane.

At this, she emitted unavoidable moans. In the dim light, they were two bodies moving to the music of passion. “Do you like it?” His mouth followed his fingers, and she felt as if steam poured from every pore.

Those long fingers undid more of the buttons and in seconds one of her nipples dived in a hot, whisky-coated mouth. He licked and tasted it as though she was made of porcelain, his lips moulding to her, but never pulling on the dusky delicacy.

“Harder,” she pleaded out of breath.

He did not shy away, quick-study that he proved to be. His suckled her breast like his life hung by a thread. To gain more access, his masculine thigh wedged between hers, crushing the centre of all her agony mercilessly. She saw stars as it orchestrated with how his teeth were treating her breast. And then he did it all over again to its twin. Only better, savouring her in hard, fierce suckles.

“Harriet,” He raised a worried expression to the sounds she uttered.

Threading her fingers in sleek hair, she pulled him back to her, hips seeking more pressure from his thigh. “Don’t stop, I beg you.” Seemingly understanding, he gave all she demanded. And moved his thigh, alternated nipples, tangled a hand in her hair. On and on, he kept going.

Blast it all, but these Scots were a hot-blooded lot. They had no fear of this carnality, of the instinctual level to which they were descending. Of the sheer torture to which they condemned the poor woman who made the witless decision to fall in their arms.

Something happened on that needy spot, on the folds, on the place he would be so welcome. And then it happened with more intensity. And more tension as her hips moved blindly.

Until she broke apart with a long, surprised groan. So delicious, so consuming, she forgot her name, her king, her country. “Samuel!” she breathed at last.

But he did not interrupt his rubbing on her. If anything, he quickened it. With the abrasion of his body on hers, she registered his cock bigger and harder. The friction was doing it for him too.

“Bluidy hell, Harriet,” he fell back on his brogue. “What is it ye’re teaching me?” looking at him, she saw beads of sweat on his forehead.

Well, the same he had just taught her. A pleasure beyond her wildest imaginings.

He grunted on her ear, and she put her thigh forward to make it better for him, causing his breathing to quicken. His body sought the finish line as if its life depended on it. The sensitive skin on her thigh, covered by mere cotton registered his member twitching, expanding. At the same moment his head fell back, expression crumpled, his neck and face washed in angry red. Next she knew, the rock-hard part of him pulsed, vibrated. And pulsed more until a hot dampness transferred to the cotton. He had found release.