Once inside the tent her fingers tore at him, unleashing the scabbard around his waist.
“Take the chainmail off before death captures you into a greedy fist!” she advised. Breaking free from his grasp, she stomped toward the linen bath sheet she had made use of earlier in cleaning the seawater from herself.
Stepping before him, she demanded, “Tunic as well. Any fresh wounds?” Her eyes searched even as he pulled the tunicover his skull. Bruise under the right rib;thatwas there after battling in the storm. The stitched wound on the shoulder was quiet looking – good. Hands? She grasped his fingers after his tunic hit the soil beneath their feet.
“’Tis a query which I should cast upon you, my Cluaran; how fares your leg?”
Her eyes narrowed in the light from the oil lamp. A second bruise on his shoulder. “Do not worry for this; simply a scratch, all is vastly improved since you took your leave,” she replied then questioned again, circling his back, “Any fresh wounds?” Her hands dragged the linen across the muscled terrain of his back, almost resembling a set of wings at its shape and width. By all above, he was magnificent.What are you doing? Injuries are supposed to be checked, not sizing him up like a slab of beef.
“Simply the knuckles, Cluaran. What have you gathered here?” She looked up after she returned to his front, finding he was staring at the far corner.
“The fruits from my anxiousness at being left behind bore a grand want to gather honey, a basin with clean water, fresh garments” – she rattled off the list at the pile beyond their pallet – “all for your return.”
“Who gathered all those into this tent?” He glanced up at the taller tent height he was now standing in, then pointed toward the tent’s far side. “Even chairs with a table?”
The muscles on his torso, how they rippled…focus, dammit!“Lower!” Her fingers with the linen sheet began ruffling his hair, drying the strands while he bent over aiding in her reach. “My idle hands grew weary from worry – purpose they needed and purpose they found! Callum helped at my request; I made certain this was prepared for your return.” She met hisexpression when he stood, which turned blurry as she blinked by emotion. “I felt a great need to have this here, so I would know…” Her words trailed off.
“I would return.”
She used the linen for dabbing her eyes. “Aye, my knight.” She then took the linen strip lower, beginning a sway over his torso, drying every muscle and ridge and trench which led toward his manhood. It was like wiping a granite wall in a cave, oh my. Everything tightened on him at her touch, including the top of his braies which pressed his chausse from his arousal. “I have had much time to think in your absence.”
He grasped her wrist gently as her eyes rose, locking with his. “Aye?”
She draped the linen over his wide shoulders, then grasped the cloth in her fingers. “The storm has passed, Aonghus,” she murmured when a slight grip of shyness flickered within her. “The Northmen have been forced from our shores. In the wake of the evening’s events with you at the helm, they must leave lest the remaining starve.” Her fingers strayed over his torso, the tiny hairs almost standing at attention. “I have made my choice; my heart chooses us. Our accord was we would speak upon the matter once we returned to the Royal Castle in Ayr. After the dire times filled by peril directly before this eve, I find the wish to wait for our return there stifling. Iyearnfor your hands upon my flesh, for you to lie with me, directly now. This desire has turned fierce after hours spent this eve fearful for your return.”
“You are certain?” he asked softly, his finger tracing a gentle line down her delicate jaw; she quivered. “Once I seek your embrace, I fear to halt will be too great an ask.”
She covered her palm over his, then lowered both onto her heart, which pounded quick as a filly’s while galloping over the Highlands. “I have waited forsolong,” she whispered fervently. “I thought upon a time my love would never find another.” Her thumb brushed over his roughened knuckles. “I look upon you and seemyfate. More than anything, my Scotsman – take me and make me yours for all time.” At her consent, his lips captured hers.
Chapter 41
Was the innocent look shining in her eyes up at him as she declared her feelings like anything he had ever beheld before? No. The moment was upon them. Their moment – she had made her choice. A decision he would not force, only respect. However, even if a flood washed over him the effect could not have been greater when his desire hit him all at once. Had he been lying to himself to preserve his sanity about how much he wanted her, all of her? Aye. Every last delicious speck of her.
Deepening their kiss, somewhere in the far corners of his mind he expected to open his eyes and find himself back in Stirling upon his empty pallet in the guard’s chambers awaiting Sir James’s next sour order for him to fulfill. There was simply no way this was real. To have won a lady’s affections or desire or love such as he now held in his arms wasn’t possible.
The tenderness she’d shown at gathering the belongings into their tent in his absence had been enough to grant a rich joy, but the emotions she bestowed…was it real? His palms lowered, cupping her backside, raising her feet from the soil. Soft and warm and his. A tiny groan from her caressed his mouth at his forbidden touch. She was real, all of her, and he would take his time indulging her every passion.
Stepping closer toward the pallet, he set her back onto her soles as his lips left hers to explore more. His palms went for thegown’s hem while his lips brushed over the gentle line belonging to her jaw all the way up toward her lobe, where he playfully captured the tiny morsel in his teeth. A gasp of pleasure filled the air, with her fingers tightening on his neck.
“Aonghus?” she murmured. Her palms stroked down the notches of his spine in an erotic way.
As he lifted the gown over her head, followed by the chemise, he paused. “Aye, my Cluaran?”
“My cries of passion,” she advised, leaning closer; her bare breasts rubbing his torso caused a growl to emanate from his lips. “You must capture them as in the stables, or we will wake the entire encampment.” He leaned forward, grinning against the flesh on her neck when he began nibbling – his practical lass.
“Aye.”
He lowered her onto the pallet while her fingers with his yanked at the ties on his braies and chausse, which met her garments, forgotten onto the ground.
Her fingers went seeking his arousal, but his hand on her wrist paused the action. Meeting his gaze, a curiosity lining her expression, he declared in a throaty tone, “Nae, my lady, this eve is for you.”
In care he laid her back onto the pallet then took onto his knees, admiring the sight before him. Skin flushed by desire. Enchanting. It mattered not that her instinct in sense was soon to be cast into the winds –shewas enchanting, not the element unto her grasp. Her. It was always her, from the first time he held her close in the yew tree and every moment since.
As he lifted her wounded leg carefully, his lips grazed over her inner ankle then higher toward the covered wound. Softly hepressed a kiss there. The course fibers in the linen scratched his nose. If he could take her pain, make it his, he would sell his soul to hell’s gatekeeper in declaring it so. Softly he brushed his cheek against the nubby textured cloth. Her hand rose to cup his jaw at the action.
“My Scottish knight.”
***
