Page 59 of Lady Len and the Mysterious Mac

“Show me,” he whispered, but it sounded more like a request than an order. “Please?”

Goading, demanding Silas made her strong and angry, but tender, vulnerable Silas was dangerous. She’d do anything, reveal anything he asked when his voice turned plaintive like that. She let him help her out of the shift, and he gasped at the state of her before inspecting the plants tied into her clothing. When he finally lifted his gaze to hers once more, he looked stricken.

“Don’t touch,” she cautioned him in case he didn’t recognize the nettles for what they were.

“What have you done?” he whispered.

She closed her eyes again, more tears leaking out, trickling into her ears, but still she could see that look upon his face.

“Shh,” he said, smoothing her hair once more. “Dinnae cry.” Then he took the damp cloth, rinsed it again in cool water, and returned to kneel alongside the bed to sponge the weeping sores that so much contact with the nettles had wrought.

His ministrations brought such relief that she began to cry harder. She’d missed Jory’s companionship, but also her touch and the sense of being cared for. She ached for friendship and for connection, even for Maggie’s mindless, dreamy prattling as she brushed out Ellen’s hair. She had longed for it, and yet she didn’t deserve this compassion. She had accidentally developed feelings of a sort for the mysterious letter writer. She’d gone to meet him on her own—she, a married woman, and to this impossibly gentle man who would have killed Blair to protect her, if she’d allowed him to. She’d done that to him.

Her skin washed clean, he took the rest of the burn out with the pot of salve he’d used before, kissing her as he went, as though he could kiss the rash away and murmuring, “Never again,” over and over like a benediction. “Promise me,” he whispered, touching his forehead to hers and she could only nod.

Silas eased her onto one side so he could reach her back, and under his sure and steady touch, she began to doze, but her dreams came in fretful bursts, images of fire and prickly thorns. She jerked awake the moment he rose to leave.

“Don’t go,” she whispered, and he immediately sat back down, placing the pot of salve on the floor.

Ellen remained on her side, her back facing him, but she heard him pull his sark off over his head, and she realized that was all he’d been wearing in his haste to reach her.

Then he slid under the bedclothes, not quite touching her, lying flat on his back, one arm crooked under his head, so still, like he was afraid to move, afraid to brush up against her.

Even so, his presence was a comfort, solid and warm beside her, and she found herself leaning backwards into him.

Si nuzzled into her neck, then rolled onto his side to meet her, cradling her close. He lifted the tangled, damp hair away from her neck and kissed her behind the ear, feather-light, but lingering, and for some reason, she began to cry a third time.

Immediately, he backed away, but Ellen caught his hand in hers and cradled it around her, burrowing into him. He held her tight and whispered, “You’re safe now.”

She tried to still the tiny spasms that crying caused, knowing he felt each one, and he spread his fingers wide across her belly as though trying to catch them for her.

He kissed her neck once more, her ear, her temple, breathing deeply into her hair, and she turned her head back to catch his lips, wanting him, needing him to consume her and to allow himself to be consumed. She kissed him hungrily, greedily, sucking his bottom lip until he groaned, until she had to stop to catch her own breath.

She could feel him hard against her, and her first instinct was to shy away—but why? Because a nice girl ought to? Because it might hurt? Lady Len wouldn’t shy away, not from her own husband. And so, tentatively, curiously she reached behind her, but all she found was his stomach, the angular bone of his hip, rough, curly hair. She shifted a little and then reached between her own legs and found the tip of him, softer and wetter than she would have imagined for something that had seemed so solid digging into her from behind.

His breath came in short, hot gasps when she stroked his manhood, and it jerked as if alive and responding to her touch all on its own.

Then he reached down to take her hand away, kissing her cheek to distract her.

“Let me?” she asked in a strong, unmistakable whisper, the voice of Lady Len, and his hand fell away instantly, landing instead on her center, which responded to his touch much as he had to hers.

They held each other like that for a moment, and Ellen was certain that she needed more. As if reading her mind, Si kissed her shoulder, his right hand reaching up to make lazy circles around her breast.

It was dizzying. Maddening. Her nerve endings exploded and distracted her when what she wanted was to concentrate on exploring and performing the same dark magic on him. She ran her thumb around his silky tip and he jerked again, and Ellen slid down lower in the bed so his member was poised right where he was touching her between her legs.

“Are you sure?” he whispered, not removing his hand from her breast.

“Please?” she begged, and he chuckled, tipping her head back to kiss her lips, distracting her so she forgot to brace herself against the pain, and then he entered her with another surge of heat that filled her up, and yes, it hurt, deliciously.

He paused for a moment, and her awareness skittered through time and space alighting on everything at once, on his breaths shallow against her cheek right before he swirled his tongue around hers, on his salty, mossy scent, and the softness of his skin. Then he began to pump in and out while teasing higher up with his fingers.

She moved with him, like a dance they were only just learning the steps to, and she saw music in flashes and sparks, and she heard moonlight, and she whimpered though she was anything but sad, and when she turned back to gaze at him in wonder, she became a caterpillar trapped inside the amber fossils of his eyes, about to burst out as a butterfly all shiny and newly formed.

Chapter Seventeen

In the wee hours before dawn, Si reflected on the exact moment when his resolve had crumbled. With Len still cuddled close against him, sensual flashes of the night before played through his mind, making him grow hard all over again. He buried his face in the back of her neck, drinking in the scents of lavender and delicate perspiration blended with dock leaf salve.

There’d been no ulterior motives when he’d gone to treat her hive-ridden skin. But then she had begged him to stay, and for a moment he’d forgotten his reluctance. And then she had touched him, and he’d chosen to forget everything else.