Admiring female gazes were something Erik had plenty of experience with, but he couldn’t recall ever having been that physically affected by it. He’d felt another deep swell of satisfaction, but this time much lower—and much harder.
But not nearly as hard as he’d been when she’d put her hands on him. Erik frowned. He’d felt as if he was jumping out of his damned skin. Having her hands on his chest, then low on his belly, her fingers so close to his cock, had driven him mad with lust. He’d ached to pull her down on top of him.
He was sure everyone in the room had been aware of his reaction—except for Ellie. But she’d felt it, too. Her awareness and curious glances low on the plaid had only increased his agony.
His lust for the little nursemaid was becoming harder and harder to ignore, and now that he knew she felt the same way …
It almost made him reconsider his intention to spend the next few days with her. But once training was done for the day, there was little he could do until he could leave to meet the McQuillans, and she deserved a little fun. It would be an annoyance, but lust wasn’t anything he couldn’t control.
She stood up to fiddle with the fire, more to have something to do, he suspected, than because it was necessary. When she returned to her seat on the rock opposite him, she was once more composed and looking at him in that no-nonsense, straightforward manner that he was growing rather used to.
She did have his mark, he thought. She didn’t let him get away with anything. It should bother him, but instead it felt oddly relaxing to have someone who didn’t expect something from him. She didn’t chatter or flirt the way she was supposed to, which meant that they ended up talking about all kinds of things—personal things.
If only she weren’t so nosy and observant. He couldn’t believe she’d noticed the tattoo on his arm. He knew she already suspected he wasn’t what he claimed; he could only imagine what she would think if she realized he had a lion rampant—the symbol of Scotland’s kingship and the mark borne by all the members of the Highland Guard—tattooed on his arm. How long would it take her to suspect his involvement with Bruce and the rebellion?
Not long, he’d wager.
She pinned those big, green-flecked hazel eyes on him and arched one delicate brow. “So, did you always want to be a pirate, or did having all those opportunities to save orphans and nuns merely appeal to you recently?”
He chuckled. He should have known he wouldn’t be able to put her off so easily. “It’s in the blood, remember?”
“Oh, I remember,” she said with a quick scan of his face before returning her gaze to his. “But why do I think there’s far more to it than you are telling me? What would drive a man like you to become an outlaw?”
A man like you. Her faith in him—despite what he’d told or hadn’t told her—sat uneasily with him. The lie that had seemed fine in the beginning no longer satisfied. It seemed wrong.
But ignorance of his involvement with Bruce was safer—not just for his mission, but also for her own safety. Edward was on a rampage and didn’t seem to care who was crushed under his heel.
He couldn’t tell her the entire truth, but he supposed there was no harm in telling her some of it. “The usual reasons, I suspect. My clan’s lands were stolen. We did what we had to do.”
He expected her to argue with his premise, but she just stared at him thoughtfully. “Stolen how?”
Knowing he was treading dangerous ground, he spoke carefully. “My father died when I was young. One of my kinsmen thought to take advantage of that fact. He pretended to be acting on my behalf, but claimed my lands for himself.” John of Lorn—the grasping MacDougall bastard—thought he should control all the Isles, whether the lands belonged to someone else or not. “He would have killed me had another kinsman not taken me into his service. I owe him everything.”
She looked at him so intently that he feared he’d said too much. “Even if you were forced into this way of life initially, you must see that this can’t go on forever.”
“What do you mean?”
She pointed to the gash on his stomach. “I can’t imagine pirates live very long lives. One of these days, your pursuers are going to catch up to you.”
If only she knew the truth. His situation was much more precarious than that. There was a very good chance he could be dead inside a week.
They were about to launch an attack with a few hundred men against the full force of the most powerful army in Christendom. Even if they met with success, there was no guarantee that men would rise to Bruce’s banner—they hadn’t before, and Bruce had been in a much stronger position then.
By any rational estimation, Bruce and his followers should be doomed to failure. But Erik still believed they could win. They were going to fight a style of war that Edward—that no one—had ever seen before. Highland warfare. Pirate warfare. Edward wouldn’t know what hit him.
“I’m a very good pirate,” he said with a wink.
She made a sharp sound suspiciously like a snort. “I don’t doubt it. But surely you want more from life than being chased from island to island with little more than a cave and a woman or two waiting for you at every port?”
It sounded just fine to him, but he suspected he was about to hear more about why it wasn’t. He was probably going to regret asking, “Like what?”
“Marriage. Family. Love.”
He grinned wickedly. “I have plenty of that.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s not the same thing.”
There she went again, thinking she knew best. Of course he would marry … eventually. But it would be to increase the power of his clan. If he liked and was attracted to his wife it would be more enjoyable, perhaps, but it wasn’t necessary. His parents had gotten on well enough, from what he recalled, and it had been far from a love match in the beginning.
