Page 40 of Lady Len and the Mysterious Mac

How could he be so close and so familiar, and yet still avoid the marriage bed? What did he want? What was he waiting for? And why did she care? Except that she was beginning to welcome any pain it might bring as atonement for her sins.

When they finally reached the hidden spring, Jory and Ellen turned their backs to help each other with their lacings, while the men stripped down to nothing and settled into the steaming spring. Then they joined their husbands, each wearing only her shift.

The pool was deep, the water covering Jory’s shoulders when she was settled, though it only rose as high as Silas’s chest. Ellen, however, had to keep her chin constantly tipped up away from the water.

“All right?” Silas asked her.

She smiled and nodded quickly, though in fact she wanted to go straight home. The heat was irritating her not-yet-healed hives, and her neck already hurt from the angle that was keeping her from drowning. But Lady Len would not run home. Lady Len would find a way to make the most of it.

“You’re not,” the MacKenzie said, frowning.

Ellen was ruining his kind gesture towards Jory, and she chewed the inside of her cheek hard.

“We could swap sides,” Jory suggested.

“Of course,” Finn agreed, though Ellen couldn’t see how an altered arrangement would make enough difference to matter. She was shorter than Jory by a good few inches.

“Nae,” Silas said, his alder-colored eyes piercing hers like splinters. Then he slid closer to her, put a hand on either side of her hips, and lifted her onto his lap, settling her so she straddled one broad thigh, the water now comfortably receding to her collarbone, with the added advantage that she could rest her head against his shoulder if she’d allow herself.

Jory sighed contentedly, scooting into Finn so she could lean against his broad frame too, and he draped an arm around her, pulling her close.

Ellen caught him sniffing her cousin’s hair before they both closed their eyes, completely relaxed. She was, however, anything but relaxed, as her heart pounded and Silas’s chest rose and fell in tandem with her breathing, his manhood periodically nudging against her thigh. The first time, it made her jump, and Silas tensed like he wanted to soothe her but was holding himself perfectly still.

Each time it happened after that, she heard and felt him swallow, but he offered no other acknowledgment of it, didn’t squirm or adjust his seat. She resolved that if he could ignore it then so could she, for Jory’s sake. The last thing she wanted to do was repay his kindness by embarrassing him. Only she was going to need a great deal more stinging nettle in the days to come.

Chapter Twelve

Before they even left the spring, Si was out of his mind with lust. It had been a mistake, not taking a third horse. Then at least the lass could have ridden back with her cousin instead of sitting on Uinnseann with his aching erection at her back, both of them pretending not to notice.

He’d known better when he pulled her onto his lap in the spring. He was already growing hard just from her nearness, from the way the corner of his eye caught her damp shift clinging to her bosom. It had been sweet torture.

But his lap had been the best solution, and she’d taken her seat willingly enough, not quite relaxed, but more at ease than she’d been upon the horse. At first, she’d seemed startled by his hardness, and he kept quite still, thinking of his father and flexing his thigh muscle to make it go down. It didn’t help for long—how could it, with her soft bottom nestled against him, her lavender-scented head tucked perfectly under his chin?

Maybe he imagined it, but by the time they left the spring, he could swear she was purposely leaning her left knee towards him, searching out his cock, which made the thing oblige in an instant. And Lord, but it would have been so easy, even with Finn and Jory right there, to have let his fingers drift down to the hem of her shift and then back up to the sweet spot that called to him between her legs. Or better yet, to have adjusted her position on his lap so he could enter her, filling her completely, and if she was as good at being stoic as she pretended to be, bring her to completion without the others being any the wiser.

But no, based on her hushed little comments that she just couldn’t keep inside, something told him she’d be deliciously noisy in bed if she could just let herself go. All of that was a dangerous line of thinking, so Silas turned his mind to plans, to fallow fields and seedlings on the windowsill, to science.

The lass shivered when he helped her down from the horse, her clothes soaked through after pulling them on over her sodden shift.

“We must get you warm and dry,” he said, offering his hand to lead her up the stairs, leaving his guests to fend for themselves.

She nodded, her impossible blue eyes made more so by the gentle flush upon her cheeks.

Upstairs, her fingers trembled as she tried to untie her stays, and in that moment, Si came to a decision. He couldn’t completely avoid her forever.

“Let me help?” His voice sounded small—a question, not a command—the only part of him, perhaps, that could ever seem small. His lips were so close that when she nodded her consent, he could practically taste her.

She sucked in her cheek as he swept her damp hair over one shoulder and unknotted the ribbons, allowing his fingers the touch they so craved, helping her out of the stays and then the skirts until at last she stood shivering, once more wearing nothing but that damp, linen shift.

The translucent garment clung to her, highlighting the curve of her breast and hip, her nipples and the soft patch of her bush on full display. Si swallowed. It was his last chance to walk away.

There were laces tied just below the hollow at her throat, and he tugged playfully on one string, not hard enough to loose it, but enough to make his intentions clear.

“This too,” he whispered. “You don’t want to catch a chill, milady.”

Boring into him with those deep sapphire eyes, she untied the bow and allowed him to pull it off, leaving her naked and trembling before him. Instead of the creamy white skin that he’d imagined since the day they met, he found her covered in angry red hives that hurt him just to look at. Was she allergic to her bed linens or something in the water at the spring?

“Mercy! What is this? Did the water cause this?” he asked, grabbing the blue and grey tartan that had not yet moved from the back of her armchair and draping it around her.