Perhaps it was her closeness or the lingering feelings from the stories. Maybe it was the recent memory of her, water glistening all over her smooth naked body, dancing in the spring like a selkie princess. Or perhaps it was her warmth. He didn’t even know if he started it or she did, but the next moment, their lips were pressed together.
It was a soft, gentle kiss at first, but it started to evolve as they leaned into each other. All of their sorrow, all of their lust, all of the excitement of the last few days poured out into that kiss. All of the love they’d shared for a boy now gone, all of the life they still had to live – all of it swirled around them, pulling their bodies closer together.
Ivor’s hand tangled in her still damp hair as her fingernails dug into his back. He knew he should stop, and yet their mouths danced together. Her lips parted slightly, and his tongue eagerly accepted the invitation. They pressed their bodies closer, holding tighter, and Ivor didn’t know if he’d ever let go.
The suddencrackof a distant branch caused the two of them to spring apart. Someone else was in the wood. Friend or foe didn’t really matter – it reminded Ivor of exactly why they were here.
“Get up,” he told her, though he cushioned his tone with gentleness so that she didn’t think he regretted the kiss. In all honesty, he didn’t think he’d ever regretted anything less in his entire life. “We need to keep moving.”
She nodded, blushing a pretty red on her cheeks. With that expression and wearing only his shirt and a belt, it took every bit of Ivor’s strength to force himself to move on and not tackle her to the ground here and now. “Where will ye take me?” she asked.
“Home,” he promised, though he knew that word meant something very different to her now than it once had. “I’m gonnae take ye home.”
Chapter Six
The Inn
They rode for several days, getting as far from the remnants of Clan Kinnear as they possibly could. Each night that they made camp, Eithne and Ivor slept in each other’s arms, reveling in the heat and the warmth and the closeness that brought with it comfort.
Neither of them had discussed it, nor had they addressed the kiss – and there had been a few more of those – but Eithne had never known it was possible to feel so safe with a man as she did with Ivor.
“We’re so far from home,” she commented as they approached night on the fourth day since it all happened. “I dinnae think I’ve ever been this far north without me…” She swallowed the wordparents,ignoring the sharp pain in her heart.
“Aye,” he said softly. “I’m nae one to travel this far north meself. I dinnae have a clan, ye ken, nae since I was a bairn, but mostly I make me home in the Lowlands these days. Up near where Kinnear was is about as far north as I go if it’s nae on a specific job.”
“A Sassenach mercenary!” Eithne teased, enjoying the distraction. “And here was I thinking ye a fine Highlander!”
Ivor laughed, the rumbling in his chest against her back, sending shivers down her spine. “Once, perhaps. Now I’m more like a naelander,” he joked. “Me friends are me home, nae matter where in Scotland they might be. I’ve never been one to settle.”
“Yer friends are yer family?” she asked, smiling at the thought a little sadly. Except for Neal and her siblings, Eithne had never had the opportunity to make many friends.
“Aye,” he said. She felt him hesitate, then he said, “Killian more than most.”
If it was anyone else, Eithne might have minded how he claimed her recently deceased brother as family. From Ivor, though, it didn’t feel so bad. She could hear the sorrow of the loss in his voice just as she felt it in her soul. He had loved Killian may be as much as Eithne herself had.
“And…yer lovers?” she asked after a moment.
“Me what?” Ivor asked her. His hands tightened on her waist, and an elaborate fantasy suddenly sprang into her mind – him pinning her to the ground, her beckoning him onward. “What lovers are ye speakin’ of?”
“Come now,” she chuckled, leaning back a little against him. “I already ken ye’re nae maiden, Ivor. Ye neednae play coy with me.”
As her body shifted against him, she felt a hardness where there hadn’t been one before, digging into her back. She swallowed, the speed of her heart picking up as she thought about what it would be like to stop the horse now, to turn and offer to help him deal with his new problem.
What would he feel like in me hand? What would he feel like between me lips with me tongue stroking him?
“I’ll nae deny there’ve been women here and there,” Ivor admitted. His voice had gotten deeper, gruffer, and it sent a shiver through Eithne’s whole body. “But none I’d classify aslovers.When ye travel as I do, ye dinnae have time for such things.”
“So ye’ve never been in love?” she asked, trying to talk about anything possible to distract herself from the building tension.
“I’ve thought I was half a dozen times, but nay,” Ivor said with a shrug. “Passing fancies, ye ken. I think when I find love, I’ll ken it. It’ll be something deeper. Something more.”
Eithne nodded. “Aye,” she said. “I always thought so, as well.”
“And ye?” he asked. “Ye’ve never been in love?”
Eithne smiled, though there was a sadness in it that she was glad Ivor could not see. “I always thought I’d grow to wed Neal,” she admitted. Her eyes filled with sudden tears as she remembered how he’d confessed to her just before…just before…
“He loved ye,” Ivor stated, no question in his voice at all.
