“Was fighting fun for you?” she asked pointedly, wiping his cheek clean. “Are you that much a brute?”
“That’s what they say,” Kyle replied, his voice growing softer as she wiped the blood from his lips. Their faces were close now as she softly scrubbed the mud and blood away from his neck, and Laila felt her heartbeat becoming more and more rapid.
“What were you fighting over, anyways?” she asked, trying to stay on track. She felt a warmth stirring deep within her, the same one as that morning. Then his hand came up from the floor and took hold of hers, causing her to stop mid-motion. He held her hand gently, the wet cloth laying still on his bare chest, and she felt fire in her belly, ignited suddenly with the lightning bolt outside the window.
“I fought fer ye,” Kyle practically whispered. She could smell the ale on his breath, but more powerful was the smell of the rain and the sweat on his chest and his neck, and it was enthralling.
“Well, that was foolish,” Laila said, trying to break away as fast as she could. She stood suddenly, returning the cloth to the washbasin, feeling the race of her heart and the fire down below. She turned back around and went toward the door, but Kyle moved with a speed she would have thought impossible in his state, curling forward and practically springing toward the door. He met her halfway and caught her arm with his firm, comforting grip, spinning her around to face him.
Their noses were an inch apart as he leaned in and whispered, “I don’t think so.”
Laila was speechless. Her face was flush, her heart was ablaze with excitement and anxiety, and her legs were locked in place as her eyes drifted up to meet his. His grip on her arm felt secure, like a port in a storm, and his warm breath brushed against her lips as he leaned a bit closer.
“I wonder what it’s like,” he whispered, “tae kiss an Englishwoman.”
Their lips touched, and what began as tentative contact quickly became a fierce embrace. Laila felt his hands moving up her arms and his hips pressing forward, and her entire being lit up with an electric charge as she pressed back, drinking in his lips like they were an elixir.
She felt his hands moving down again, sliding down her arms and grabbing hold of her waist, and the fire within her rose higher. He pressed up against her hips, pulling her even closer, and their bodies began to writhe, their hips and chests melting together with gentle gyrations. Laila felt the heat of his body enveloping hers, the firm cuts of his muscles as her hands danced across his back, and she wanted nothing more than to surrender herself to the crashing wave of desire.
Then she remembered where she was. In a split-second decision, she bit down on his busted lip, and he recoiled with a cry, and at that moment, she spun around and rushed out of the chamber, caught between the urge to survive and the passion she had felt in that perfect kiss.
