Children of the Moon 04 - Dragon's Moon

know he would protect her virtue with his will. Instead it came out almost a plea.
    He was a healer, damn it, trained as a warrior. He could command his base urges. He would control them .
    “Lais…”
    He groaned at the innocent need in her voice. “No,” he said again.
    “I feel so strange.” She touched her own nipple and then jerked her hand away with a moan. “What is happening to me?”
    But they both knew, no matter how pure she was.
    “You must ignore your desire,” he said from a jaw clenched with the need to say something else entirely.
    “Why?”
    “You know why.” She was a human woman, her virtue an important commodity in the negotiation for her marriage. And so he reminded her.
    “I am not interested in marriage.”
    “Because of that fool your father promised you to? Ualraig is a coward infected with cruelty. He is no indication of what a Chrechte man might be in marriage.”
    “So you say.”
    “Do you think Talorc would ever beat Abigail?” he asked Mairi, to make her stop and think.
    To show her irrevocably how wrong it was to believe her father and Ualraig true examples of how an honorable man would treat those dependent on him.
    “I do not think so, but I do not know,” she said, shocking Lais with her doubt. “I have been here but a day.”
    “And what have you heard of the Sinclair before that?” Highlanders kept to themselves, but gossip traveled with the winds it seemed at times.
    “His reputation in battle is ruthless, but there are no rumors that he hurts those closest to him. Only a man may hide his ugliest sins.”
    “If you think so little of our laird, why did you come to the Sinclair holding?” Lais surprised himself at how defensively he reacted to Mairi’s words.
    He had only joined this clan weeks ago, but the Sinclair was a Chrechte with no smirch to his honor.
    “I don’t think badly of him. I am merely pointing out that trust does not come so quickly.”
    “You trust me.”
    “I do.”
    “Why?” But he knew.
    They were mates, though he would not claim her.
    “I do not know.” Her brows drew together in a troubled frown. “I only know that from the first moment I woke to see your face last night, I have felt safe in your company.”
    “I am a healer.”
    She rolled her eyes, letting him know what she thought of his answer. “That is your answer for everything.”
    He shrugged and it made his hands slide across her soft skin. She caught her breath, though it was clear he had not hurt her. He had to bite back a moan at the feel of the feminine silk below his fingertips.
    “I want you to touch me,” she said in a tone filled with sweet feminine need.
    To ignore it cost him dearly. “No.”
    “Yes.”
    “Mairi,” he warned.
    “You can caress me with pleasure without compromising my virtue. It is done by many courting couples.”
    “What do you know of this type of touching?” he demanded.
    “I have heard things.”
    He narrowed his eyes at her. “You have not allowed another to touch you thus?”
    “Of course not.” The scent of her arousal mixed with that of anger. “What kind of woman do you think I am?”
    A sweetly innocent one. “I promised to protect you from both myself and your desires.”
    An honorable Chrechte did not break his promises.
    “I trust you to do so, but your vow did not include not touching me at all.”
    “It did.”
    “No, it did not. If so, you could not have healed me. Your promise was to protect my virtue.”
    “And I will.”
    “Yes, you will. You will not take my maidenhead.” She grasped his wrists and tugged.
    He was Chrechte and she was a human female; her strength nothing compared to his. And yet his hands moved where she guided them, up the scant inches that left her breasts no longer naked.
    Because they were covered with his hands, the nipples pebbled against his palms. Carefully arching into his touch, she licked her lips, her eyes going unfocused. Her fingerstightened around his wrists, but she made no move to guide him into a more titillating touch.
    “I like that,” she said breathlessly, the blue depths of her eyes shining with a happiness he could all too easily find necessary to his own. “Having your hands there. Am I compromised now?”
    Her naïveté touched him in a place he thought none could reach. He smiled, shaking his head. “Not yet.”
    She moved his hands again, just a little, so his palms abraded her sweet buds. She moaned. “That tingles all through me. Surely, now I