“Thank ye,” Ivor said as they settled into the fine room that the innkeeper had set aside for them. It was one of the larger in the place, a large double bed in one corner and a blazing fire in the hearth of the other. A warm sheepskin rug decorated the floor. It even had a separator between the tin bathtub and the rest of the bedroom.
The serving girl smiled, nodded, and left. The door shut, leaving Ivor and Eithne in the room alone.
She dropped his cloak almost instantly, standing there once again in only his shirt, and Ivor tried his best to keep his eyes from how pleasant her curves looked underneath. “Good God above, but I’m exhausted,” she said. She stretched in a yawn, the action lifting the hem of her shirt dangerously close to her private area.
He cleared his throat. “Get into bed then,” he said. He walked over to the small cupboard next to the fireplace and drew out a thick woolen blanket. “I’ll take the rug.”
“What are ye saying? It’s a big enough bed for two,” Eithne said with a frown as she lay down.
Seeing her lying there on the bed was almost too much for Ivor, especially when she groaned in satisfaction when her head hit the pillow.
God give me strength.
“Nay,” he said firmly. He lay down on the rug. “I’m sleeping here.”
“Nay, get into bed.”
“The floor’s fine.”
“Ivor!”
“Eithne.”
The arguing went back and forth, Ivor stubbornly refusing to move. At some point, the candle in the room went out, leaving them bickering in the dark. Ivor took the opportunity to remove his trews, as it had been quite some time since he’d had the joy of sleeping in his smallclothes.
After a long while, though, Eithne fell silent. Ivor waited, then decided that sleep must have claimed her. He rolled his eyes and smiled, then tucked his arm under his head and pulled the blanket over his shoulders. It was time to get some sleep.
He didn’t know how much time passed before Eithne’s voice echoed through the haze of sleep.
“Ivor?” she whispered. “Are ye awake?”
“What’s the matter?” he murmured back.
“I’ve forgotten how to sleep without ye,” she admitted. “Please come to bed with me.”
And when she phrased it like that, it would have taken a much stronger man than Ivor to resist.
Chapter Seven
The Lovers
Eithne had really meant it when she said she wanted Ivor’s presence to help her sleep, but the second that his warm body slipped between the covers next to her own, that was all forgotten. She was suddenly hyper-aware of how his bare legs felt against her own and how his arms felt when he wrapped them around her.
She rolled so that she was facing him; her chest pressed up against his body, their faces inches away from one another. She’d never felt this level of tension before, like the air just before a storm, the lightning crackling in the air and waiting to strike.
“Ivor,” she whispered.
He swore in colorful Gaelic. “I’m only a man,” he groaned, and then his grip on her tightened, pulling her close.
She gasped as he crushed his lips to hers. Her mouth eagerly opened, accepting his tongue and returning with her own, her hands gripping his back, his hair. She knew that this time they wouldn’t stop, and she knew that, no matter what, she didn’t want to.
They rolled so that he was atop her, his hardness pressing into her stomach, his lips moving to her neck as his hand worked its way down. “Eithne,” he muttered. “Eithne.”
“Aye,” she replied, shuddering as his fingers found bare skin just under the hem of his borrowed shirt. “Aye.”
That seemed to be all he needed to hear. Suddenly his comforting weight was gone, and Eithne nearly wanted to cry at its absence. But he only slid down to the foot of the bed, kneeling at her feet. He grasped her ankles, lifting them over his shoulders and leaving them to rest there.
“What—what—?” Eithne asked breathlessly, the word breaking off into a desperate high-pitched moan as he slipped one hand under her buttocks and kneaded the skin there.
