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She shook her head and removed her hand from his. “I did not intend to—”
“You appear feverish.” He sketched a touch across her forehead. Down her temple. Stroked a knuckle along her cheek. “Perhaps that’s why you lingered in the river today. To cool the fever.”
He could soothe the agitation in both of them by skimming away her clothes and plunging between her thighs. He had no doubt the cure would be a pleasure for them both. As he stood so close to her, breathing in her scent and her desire, he wondered if she understood the source. She had to be an untouched maid. Yet her wanton pleasure in baring her body said otherwise.
Or was he simply justifying what he wanted so badly?
“A fever,” she repeated, as if mulling over the idea. She nodded, and his passion-fogged brain wondered if she’d agreed as easily to his idea for a cure. “That was the magic.”
Her voice skimmed over his skin like sweet music, her soft confidence an invitation as far as he was concerned. Sharing her fever sounded magical to him. If only for a moment. If only to show a lonely maiden a kind of pleasure she would never know as long as she remained the caretaker of her drunkard father. He would not touch her for himself. He would touch her for her sake.
She looked so very…needy. Yes, that was the word he’d been searching for during the supper meal as Violet had trembled and shifted beside him. Her sweet hunger was so tangible he could all but taste it in the air between them.
“I know the cure for this kind of fever.” To free his hands, he planted the torch in the iron ring upon the stone wall near the door. “’Twill soothe the heat better than any icy stream.”
Eyes widening, she looked to the torch and then back to him again, as if trying to understand why he would linger here. But no—she must know. Her whole body undulated with the answer to her confusion. She practically writhed with need.
Reaching for her waist, he pulled her to him, sealing her body to his. Her breath huffed lightly over his skin as she gasped, but he did not allow this to dissuade him from plundering her mouth for a thoroughly intoxicating taste.
Chapter Three
In her mind, Violet protested.
Certainly she would have disapproved aloud as well, except the part of her brain in charge of cool reason had vanished.
Gently his lips moved over hers. Soft, warm, persuasive. Her heart beat wildly, her limbs immobilized by some alluring curiosity to see what would happen next as his kiss seemed to take complete possession of her.
Finn’s palms rested on her hips steadying her for the tender assault on her mouth. His tongue slid softly along the seam, startling her lips apart.
It seemed that had been his intent, his tongue and his body pressing into her. She might have been frightened by the unexpected invasion except that his every touch brought her exquisite—surprising—pleasure.
’Twas the fault of the herbs. She’d suffered all eve, forced to sit prettily and entertain a guest when her skin burned beneath her gown. And no matter that Finn had sounded like an arrogant knave to claim he knew the cure for what ailed her—apparently he did. Because everywhere he touched sang at the contact.
The fever in her cooled and burned hotter by turns—but this burning was a vast improvement to the nagging discomfort that she’d suffered through the supper hour. Wherever Finn touched—her waist, her back and her hips—melted and softened until she conformed to him. If that hadn’t undone her completely, his kiss robbed her of speech, teaching her a pleasure so wickedly decadent she did not know how she would live down the shame of it once they broke apart.
Arching up on her toes, she savored the moment, since she would have to face the aftermath either way. Surely she could linger just enough to take pleasure in the sweet art of kissing under an expert’s tutelage. And, aye, this man knew what he was about. For all his size and arrogance, he used his tongue with enticingly gentle skill that coaxed her lips apart and made her heart race for more. The stroke and slide of that possessive kiss made her limbs weak with desire.
Need.
A realization washed through her along with the longing. This was the cure for Morag’s horrid potion. The wise woman had not given Violet herbs to inspire love. She had prepared some foul mixture that merely produced unbridled lust.
“Nay!” She eased back, breathing hard and barely clinging to her dignity. “I dare not.”
Her chest grazed his with each deep breath. The slight pressure made her breasts tighten beneath her gown, a delicious friction that tempted her to press harder against the virile Highland warrior.
