“Are ye afraid to sleep?” he asked quietly as he rumpled her tunic up out of the way and cupped her bare bottom.
“I have much on my mind.” She found a knotted ridge of skin on his chest, a jagged scar just below his heart. “Dagger or spear?”
He slid his fingers up under hers, feeling the spot as though trying to jog his memory. “Ah, that be the one I got in Ireland. He caught me with a spade.”
“A landowner?”
“Aye, a father who thought I was the one who ruined his daughter.” He shrugged, lifting her head as he did so. “He didna realize I had brought him the man who had.”
“Did you force him to marry her?”
“She didna want him.” He chuckled and scrubbed his free hand down his face. “Said she hadna even realized he stuck it in her ’til her belly started swelling with his child. Said all he did was flop around on top of her and groan a lot.” He laughed harder, shaking them both. “The wee gal said she had already found a man with a much nicer willy. One who owned several sheep and more than one cow. She just needed her Da to come around and agree to the wedding.”
Unable to stop it, she snorted out a laugh. “Were you able to convince the man even though he almost killed you?”
“Aye.” He rubbed the scar as though the memory made it itch. “It wasna all that deep a wound, and his daughter shamed him in front of half the village. His wife bandaged me up and fed me a fine meal once it was all said and done.”
“What happened to your warrior who—” She cleared her throat and tried not to laugh again. “The one who bounced around a lot?”
Thorburn sobered and shifted beneath her with a heavy sigh. “Dead. Fell whilst battling the Normans in Ireland.”
“At least he died with honor.”
“Aye.” He propped a hand behind his head and stared upward. “He did at that.”
She tucked in tighter and hugged him with both her arm and the leg she had thrown across him.
“Are ye certain ye’re no’ afraid to sleep again?”
“Perhaps.” She hated admitting any form of weakness, but weariness and the promise she made to herself kept her from lying. “It will be dawn soon, anyway.”
He eased over onto his side and faced her. With a featherlight touch, he smoothed her hair away from her face. “Ye dinna have to fear sleeping. I swear to hold ye and stand guard, aye?”
She couldn’t help but smile. “Even a mighty warrior such as yourself cannot protect me from my dreams.”
“Aye, I can,” he argued with all seriousness, adding a tender kiss to his vow. “I shall be yer champion, m’lady. Yer protector. Whether ye be asleep or awake.”
She covered his mouth with hers before he could say anything else that would make the dangerous aching in her chest any fiercer. His urgent touch, the taste of him—she concentrated on nothing beyond the sensation every caress invoked. The physical kept her anchored to right now, this moment, where nothing existed but him, the darkness, and the pleasure to be enjoyed.
“You do not mind, do you?” she murmured while arching against him.
He rolled her to her back and settled in place with a hard, possessive thrust that promised to leave the joints of her hips pleasantly sore by morning. “Can ye not tell, m’lady?” he asked, working his hips faster.
The man fit her as though they were interlocking halves that created the perfect whole. She hooked her heels around his legs and pulled. “I believe I can,” she teased, raking her nails down his back and digging them into the muscles of his behind.
He bucked harder, just as she wished.
“Good,” he rumbled, slowing to catch the lobe of her ear between his teeth. His suckling of it made her swallow hard and wiggle beneath him. He reached down with both hands, clamped hold of her buttocks, and squeezed, yanking her to meet him thrust for thrust. “Good for the goose, good for the gander, aye?”
A shudder kept her from answering. She was so close to delicious oblivion. Had the man just said something about a goose? “You speak of geese?”
“I speak of anything to keep this going for as long as possible,” he growled, hammering harder and faster.
“Yes,” she agreed. She would agree to anything right now as long as it pushed her into the same wonderful bliss he had given her earlier. “More, my bear. More.”
“Aye, m’lady. More, indeed.”
*
