Surprise shuddered through him. And anticipation. This sounded promising.
“I’d love to.”
She stopped about a foot away. This close, he read the nervousness swirling beneath her bravado. But he already knew she was brave. If she wasn’t, she’d have buckled under her stepbrother’s tyranny, instead of defying him by running away disguised as a boy.
Christabel Urquhart, now MacNab, was so strong, but she was also vulnerable. He felt a surge of protectiveness as he gazed into her exquisite face. The vows he’d spoken this morning took on a new weight. While he lived, he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her.
His touch was tender as he caught her face in one hand and tilted her chin up. At the contact, her breath caught and her eyes darkened, but she didn’t pull away.
Slowly he lowered his head and brushed his lips across hers. Swift heat enveloped him, although the contact was chaste and over in a second.
Quentin took a grip on his wilder impulses and gave her another of those glancing kisses. Her lips were so soft, full and pillowy under his. He resisted the urge to sink into the kiss and drink his full of her sweetness.
Kit gave a murmur of pleasure and shifted closer. Encouraged, the next time he kissed her, he lingered, taking a moment extra to savor her taste. With the following kiss, her lips moved beneath his with the beginnings of response.
He sucked her lush lower lip into his mouth, inviting her to open to him. When she made a faint sound of bewilderment, he retreated.
“You didn’t like that?” he whispered, lifting his other hand so he cradled her face.
Her cheeks were pink, and the heaviness in her gaze told him this gradual wooing achieved its aims. “It was unexpected. That’s all.”
“Shall I do it again?”
“Yes, please,” she sighed and closed her eyes as she lifted her face.
He went back to gentle kisses. When he flicked his tongue across the closed seam of her lips, instead of withdrawing this time, she parted to let him in. Fighting a surge of triumph, he slipped his tongue into the honeyed interior.
She made another of those soft sounds of surrender and the next time his tongue slid into her mouth, she dared to meet him with a flutter of hers.
He groaned and released her face so he could curl his arms around her and haul her against his shaking body. Because this careful seduction seduced him, too. Gentleness became harder to maintain when she twined her arms around him and pressed closer. She was vital and slender in his embrace and each time he kissed her, it became more of a battle not to plunder her mouth with all the passion rising inside him.
His kisses remained playful, although it was a struggle to remember her innocence, her fragility. He’d cut his throat before he let himself frighten her. She’d already been frightened enough.
Quentin raised his head and stared down at Kit through dazed eyes. She looked all rosy and befuddled, and he’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life.
A faint frown drew those winged brows together. “Why did you stop?”
“Because I’m trying to keep my head, and you’re so beguiling, it’s not easy.”
He laughed when she looked mighty pleased with herself. “I liked kissing you.”
“I liked kissing you, too.” A sudden uncomfortable thought struck him. “Do you know what happens between a man and a woman?”
By God, he hoped so, or he feared that he’d frighten her again.
The sardonic look she cast him was so much Kit, the insubordinate stableboy, that he laughed again. “I grew up around horses. I understand the basics.”
“With people, it’s not quite the same as a stallion mounting a mare.”
She made a face that made him want to kiss her again. “I hope not. The mare never seems to enjoy it very much.”
He remained caught between concern and amusement. “I’m not sure a woman enjoys her first time either. Although I don’t speak from experience.”
“But you have done this before?”
As her gaze sharpened on him, he blushed. “Kit…”
“I’m not supposed to ask that, am I?”
He caught her hand, as he remembered bonny Jenny McLeod, the jolliest widow this side of the border, who had turned his twentieth summer to magic. Here with Kit, he had difficulty recalling Jenny’s face. “Perhaps not, but, aye, I have done this before.”
Jenny had taken a raw, eager boy and taught him how to give and receive pleasure. The next year, she’d married a spice merchant and now lived in Glasgow. He hoped that she was happy. She’d certainly made Quentin happy for a couple of sunlit months.
Kit’s voice remained serious. “Emily talked to me about what happens. She said if the lover is kind, even the first time can be glorious.”
Quentin wasn’t sure he wanted quite so much insight into his aunt and uncle’s marital life, although anyone could see that the love they shared included a healthy portion of physical enjoyment. “That gives me an awful lot to live up to.”
She smiled. “If…if you mean it when you say you’d like to make this a real marriage between us, we’ve got time to get it right.”
“Lots of practice ahead?”
It was her turn to blush. “I…I hope so. If what is to come is anything like kissing you, I won’t complain.”
He smothered the thought of having Kit in his bed for hours on end. Right now he needed control, and that idea was a sure way to snap his restraint.
“I’ll do my best,” he said, smiling at her. “And I do want to make this a real marriage. I want to live with you and fight your battles and grow old at your side. What do you say?”
Kit’s grip on his hand tightened. “So you’re not angry at all that we had to marry?”
He shook his head. “I want you, Kit. I hadn’t worked out how I’d manage it, but I had intentions of courting you.”
“The laird’s nephew and the stableboy?”
“Sounds absurd, doesn’t it?” He went on to mention something that niggled at him. “Although a union between a mere laird and a countess sounds absurd, too. You could look much higher than me for a husband.”
She studied him as if she saw right to his heart. “You know, there is more to a laddie than his title. You’re a good man, Quentin MacNab. In every way that counts, I could look no higher than you.”
“You don’t know me.”
Her huff of amusement expressed utter contempt for that statement. “Of course I do. I’ve seen how you treat children and horses and dogs. I’ve seen how you treat Hamish and Emily. When we spent that night in the hut, I know that you were a perfect knight in shining armor. If you had any designs on my fortune, you had me at your mercy then. Yet I slept in your arms in complete safety.”
He lifted her hand to kiss her knuckles. “I have no designs on your fortune. I do however have designs on your person.”
“Why didn’t you try and kiss me at the hut?”
He shrugged. “Because you weren’t ready. Because you were afraid. Because you didn’t yet trust me.”
“I trust you now,” she said softly.
The words sounded like a declaration of love. Given what Kit had been through, trust was perhaps a greater gift than love, which didn’t mean that Quentin harbored no hopes of making her love him one day.