Maxwell rose higher above the edge of the bed, scrubbing the heel of one hand against his eye while propping his head with the other. “I am Maxwell. Ye would think ye’d remember the name of the man who called ye away from death’s door.”
“Called me away?” Trish stared at the hairy, green-eyed man propped on the side of her bed. A nagging sense of having forgotten something very important gnawed at the back of her mind. He did seem a little familiar. But that still didn’t explain who he was or why they were both naked in the same bed.
“Aye.” Maxwell nodded, then stretched with another jaw-cracking yawn. Scrubbing his fingers through the mat of curly hair on his chest, he nodded toward the hearth. “The coals are low and the room is cold. Now, can I get back in the bed?”
“Are you crazy?” Trish stretched and grabbed an iron candleholder off the shelf above the bed. “I may be small but don’t make the mistake of thinking that I’m helpless.” Waving the weighty weapon toward a plaid tossed across a chair beside the hearth, Trish pulled the covers closer about her chin. “There’s a wrap. You can cover up with that while you explain who you are.”
“God’s beard,” Maxwell grumbled as he pushed himself up from the floor. “’Tis a sorry day when a man saves a woman’s life just to get ousted from a warm bed and sent to sit by a dying fire.”
Wow.Trish arched her brows and bit her tongue against the desire to emit a low admiring whistle. He must not bethatcold. She didn’t attempt to look away as Maxwell paraded across the floor. Trish had to admit the man looked damn sexy…coated with a heavy dusting of reddish-brown hair or not. Leaning to the side to improve the angle, Trish followed him with her gaze. She’d always been attracted to the burly type. They cuddled better after a good romp in the sheets.
As Maxwell bent to retrieve the plaid, he grinned over one shoulder and winked. “I’m verra glad ye seem to be enjoying the view.”
Trish shook herself and snapped her sagging lower jaw shut. She hadn’t meant to stareorget lost in a fantasy trip. Brandishing the candlestick higher in the air, she motioned toward the chair. “Never you mind about what I’m enjoying. How ’bout you just sit over there and start explaining.”
Maxwell’s deep-green eyes sparkled with mischief as he raised his arms over his head and stretched long and slow.
Trish squirmed in the bed as she caught him watching her. She didn’t know why he complained the room was cold. It felt pretty damn warm to her.
Maxwell peeped around a bulging bicep and flexed layers of hardened muscles in the reddish glow of the hearth before wrapping the plaid about his waist. With one hand and the ease that Trish would pick up a pencil, he hefted a log the size of Trish into the dying coals.
Trish didn’t miss how the muscles of his back rippled as he stirred the fire.Dammit.How could she not remember playing in the sheets withthat?Running her tongue across her lips, Trish frowned as she tasted chapped and broken skin. She raised her fingertips to her mouth, patting gently against the tender broken flesh stretched across her lips. “What is wrong with me?”
Maxwell crossed his legs at the ankles, folding his hands across his stomach as he leaned back in the chair. “Nothing now. But ’twas little more than a few hours ago that ye were about to meet your maker.”
Trish pinched the bridge of her nose, rubbing the inside corners of her eyes. Nothing Maxwell said made sense. Bits and pieces of strange thoughts filtered through her mind. Were they memories or just bad dreams? “For my sake, could you please just start at the beginning and give me a quick rundown?”
Maxwell settled his head against the high back of the wooden slatted chair and stared unblinking at the ceiling. “The beginning. Well let’s see. I suppose the beginning would be the part where ye suddenly appeared above the tables in the library of magics, in the midst of a howling wind with a young boy clenched in your arms. Ramsay survived the trip through time quite well but you were near fatally injured. Young Keagan figured out that only those who are fully blessed and active in their magic are able to survive navigating the web of time and bring their souls along with them. Ye see, young Ramsay’s a magical MacKay but you, my dear, are not.” Maxwell paused, inhaled a deep breath, and then continued, “So, the only way to save yer life was to intertwine yer soul and meld your latent magic to another soul’s dormant gifts. Keagan said we must anchor ye to a soul in this time.” Maxwell thumped his hand to the center of his chest. “That would be me.”
Trish stared at the grinning man, her head pounding with the information he’d just spewed in a single breath. “You have got to be kidding.”
“If ye think I’d go to the trouble of weaving a fantastical tale such as that just to get in a woman’s bed”—Maxwell paused, then his eyes narrowed—“then ye’d best think again because Maxwell Sullivan has ne’er been that desperate for a woman to warm his sheets.”
Trish closed her eyes, massaging her temples as she sorted through everything the man had just said. She remembered now. Burying her face in her hands, she groaned out loud. “I can’t believe I’m sitting here naked in the year 1424.”
“Aye. Well.” Maxwell chuckled a warm deep laugh. “Ye are doing it quite well.”
Great. Just what she needed right now. A freakin’ comedian. Trish raised her head, propped her elbows on her knees, and rested her chin in her hands. “You still didn’t explain why the two of us woke up this morning. Together. Naked.”
Maxwell scratched his chin and grinned down at his feet. “First of all, it willna be morning for quite some time. Secondly, when two souls are joined, the bodies are…” His words trailed off into suggestive oblivion.
Trish sat bolt upright. “Are you telling me wedidit?”Holy crap!She hadn’t forgotten the details of a sexual encounter since that unfortunate pairing in college. A residual shudder rippled across her flesh. She’d never getthatdrunk again no matter how many centuries she wandered through. Lifting her gaze to Maxwell’s amused expression; she waved the candlestick across the bed. “Well? Answer me. Did we have sex or not?”
Maxwell rumbled with another deep chuckle. “Not, lass.” He pulled himself up straighter in the chair. “I’d never foist myself on a helpless woman. ’Twould be a truly dishonorable thing to do…taking advantage of a maid who is not in control of her body? Ye insult me with such a question.”
Trish wilted back against the pillows and stretched out her legs. Remembering Maxwell’s words, she straightened again and shook the candelabra in his face. “So, what the hell were you going to say about two bodies are? Are what? Finish it!” She’d never met such an infuriating man in all her life. Too bad he’d saved her life because if he didn’t stop teasing her with half-explanations, she was going to be forced to kill him.
A teasing grin peeped out from beneath Maxwell’s mustache, curving his full lips to the side. “Ye didna give me time to finish what I was about to say. When two souls intertwine, the flesh of the bodies becomes exhausted with the joining. To seal the binding of the souls, the two must touch while they rejuvenate together. Two beings traveling the realm of sleep in a pairing is one of the most unifying acts for joined souls since the dawn of man.”
They’d slept together.Really slept.Trish eased out a relieved sigh.Good.Nothing else had happened.Perfect.Trish squirmed among the pillows. If she hadn’t wanted anything to happen, why did she suddenly have a vague feeling of disappointment?
Maxwell pushed himself up from the chair and stretched again, raising his long arms toward the ceiling. “Now that we’ve settled that, what say ye to getting a bit more sleep?”
Trish stared at him; disbelief dropped her chin to her chest. Was he seriously thinking about climbing back into bed with her? Naked? She had two words for the man:Hell. No. Trish tossed the metal candlestick to the floor with a resoundingthunk.Waving a hand toward the door, she slid down into the covers. “You can sleep all you want. Out there. Somewhere. In another room.”
“But—”
“But nothing.” Trish rolled over on her side with her back toward Maxwell. “You said you wouldn’tfoistyourself where you weren’t wanted.”
