“Yer breathing.” He kissed her shoulder, gave her a squeezing hug, then palmed one of her breasts. “When ye dozed for a wee spell last night, yer breathing slowed. Ye were at peace. All soft and warm. Ye’re troubled now. Tense as a bowstring. What worries ye, Evie? I wish ye to find contentment in our life together. Are ye already regretting yer choice?”
She hugged his arm tighter around her. “No. I do not regret my choice.” Brutal honesty nagged at her to be as blunt and forward as Quinn. “But my conscience says I’m taking advantage of you. Using you for protection instead of—love.” There. She said it. The knot in her chest burned less and loosened a notch.
“I offered my protection.” He rolled her to face him and tucked a finger under her chin. “And who is to say that as time passes, we willna grow to love one another?”
“Have you ever loved anyone?” She didn’t know what made her ask. The words came out all on their own.
His dark brows drew together as he tickled the side of his thumb back and forth across her bottom lip. “I have known a fondness once or twice, but I wouldna say I have ever truly loved anyone.” His thumb stilled, and the intensity of his gaze held her prisoner. “But I believe I could love ye, m’wee hen. Quite easily, in fact.” His fingers slid along her jaw and combed their way into her hair. “Do ye think ye might one day be able to love me?”
“Possibly,” she whispered, thrumming with the building energy between them. The same ravenous force that had consumed them last night. “I do care about you already.”
“Well then.” He grazed her mouth with his. “Caring is a promising start, aye?”
“I agree.” She slid a leg up his side, her exhaustion chased away by the need to return to the mindless oblivion of blissful sensation. Everyone always told her to get out of her own head. Quinn provided that escape in quite a delightful manner.
He rolled her to her back. With an arm around her shoulders and a hand cupping her bottom, he returned to the slow rhythmic thrusting they had perfected last night. Their own seductive dance.
“I will love ye someday,” he rasped as the tempo increased and the thrusts became a delicious pounding. “I will love ye with all my being.”
“Someday,” she gasped, raking her nails down his back. “Someday, I will love you, too.” She arched to accept all that he gave. A keening groan escaped her as she peaked, and waves of pure luscious sensation washed across her.
He plunged to the hilt and halted, body taut and hard as stone. A fierce growling rumbled from deep within him. He threw back his head and roared, shuddering uncontrollably. Then he collapsed atop her, gasping.
When he went to roll to the side, she held him in place. “No. I like you on top of me.”
“I dinna wish to crush ye, m’love.” He propped on his elbows and pressed his forehead to hers. “I weigh a mite more than ye, ye ken?”
“I don’t care.” She slid her hands down his back, reveling in the sensations of a simple touch. Ripple of hard muscle beneath warm, smooth skin. Ridges of scars. Thefeelthat made up all that was Quinn. “I’ll let you know when I can’t breathe.” She held him tighter.
An insistent rapping on the door interrupted their serenity.
Quinn lifted his head and glared back over his shoulder. “Do you wish to die?” he shouted.
“Forgive me. We have received word that King John is imprisoned in the Tower of London.” Kendric sounded ready to charge off into the fray. “Additional castles have also fallen to Edward.”
“How close are they?” Quinn gave her a quick kiss and an apologetic smile as he leapt from the bed, yanked a pair of trews from his wardrobe, and stepped into them.
King Edward I. The summer of 1296. Evie struggled to figure out the exact date. She remembered this part of that long-ago history class because they had delighted in ripping apart that motion picture that had so inaccurately portrayed William Wallace and the beginning of Scotland’s first battle for independence. “The date. What is today’s date?”
Quinn halted halfway toward the door and gave her a puzzled look. “The date?”
“Yes. Today’s date.”
“Fourth of August, I believe. Why?”
Kendric knocked on the door again. “’Tis urgent we discuss this, Quinn. Their troops have nay gotten this far north yet, but we must be prepared.”
“He’s headed to Scone,” she blurted without thinking. “He means to take the Stone of Destiny along with the Scottish crown, the archives, and the Black Rood of St. Margaret. August 8th. Edward will seize all those things in four days.”
Quinn’s eyes flared wide. Shock and defensive leeriness registered in his stance. In his expression. In everything about him.
She covered her mouth with one hand and held on tight. Oh, bloody hell. What had she just done?
“Go to the library, Kendric,” Quinn ordered, without taking his gaze from her. “I will meet ye there.”
“As ye wish.” The war chief’s hurried steps faded into the distance.
“How close to King Edward are ye, Evie?” Quinn eased toward her as if stalking big game, and she was the dangerous beast in question.
