“Tha.” Euan nudged her gently, breaking her out of her reverie. “Tha,” he repeated commandingly, nodding down to her so she’d know she was expected to repeat what he’d just said.
Janet nibbled on her lower lip as a sense of awareness slowly stole over her.Tha. She’d heard that word before in the Highlands. It meantyes. If she repeated it, what exactly would she be agreeing to?
She moistened her lip nervously with her tongue, in the end deciding that there was no point in arguing with the man. If he wanted a yes she’d give him a yes. Begrudgingly, she narrowed her eyes at Euan and phonetically repeated the word she’d been prompted to say. “Ha.”
Almost immediately the Latin speaker followed up with a few more words of his own. He said…something. Something that made Euan smile for a fraction of a second before he lowered his face to hers and kissed her chastely on the cheek.
Congratulatory shouts rose up from the surrounding soldiers, many of them thumping the giant beside her on the shoulder, almost as if they were saying to him “job well done.”
Janet chewed that over for a moment. She stilled. Her back stiffened.
Her eyes shot up to meet Euan’s as she gaped open-mouthed at him. His answering arrogant smirk was all the confirmation she needed.
Good lord in heaven, the man had just married her. And worse yet, she’d agreed to it.
Chapter Six
Janet stood inside of the crude hut Euan had cloistered her inside of an hour past, wondering morosely if this pathetic place was to be her new and permanent home. The hut boasted but one room…one single, solitary room. A hay-strewn bed lay at one side of it, a kitchen-like area with a few clay bowls on the other, and a solitary chair in the middle. That was it. No tables. No more chairs. No anything. She hated it immensely.
Naked, Janet covered her breasts with her hands as best she could while she watched two village women remove the crudely made tub she’d just bathed in from the one-room hut. She nibbled on her bottom lip, hoping that the women would hurry up and come back with her clothes. She didn’t want to be caught unawares when her husband returned.
Her husband. Janet groaned. Good lord! How would she ever get out of this mess, find Morag, return to Nairn,andget back to the future? The task set before her was simply overwhelming.
The wooden door opened a moment later causing Janet’s head to shoot up. Her breath caught in the back of her throat and her eyes widened skittishly when she realized that the new occupant was not one of the village women that had helped to bathe her, but instead the very man she least wanted to see while naked.
Dusk was just beginning to settle over the Highlands, so there was still enough light to see the heat in Euan’s eyes as his black gaze raked insolently over her body. He was erect, very erect she could easily surmise, his penis bulging against the plaid he still wore.
He closed the door quietly behind him and made his way slowly towards her. Janet sucked in her breath and took a reflexive step backwards.
Euan stopped in his tracks, approaching her cautiously again, just as he had in the tent before tending to her knees. It was then that she noticed he carried a platter of some sort. Food. Against her will, her stomach growled hungrily in reaction to it.
“Hai.” He dipped his head. His blazing eyes raked over her flesh once more, lingering over long at the clipped tawny curls between her thighs, but he made no movement to touch her.
“Hi,” she whispered back. She gnawed on her lower lip and looked away.
It occurred to her that it was stupid to stand there shielding her breasts from his view when her mons was completely bared to him. But nonsensical or not, she continued to cup them.
Part of it was borne of fear, knowing what he meant to do to her and knowing equally well she wouldn’t have enough physical power to stop him when he did. But she had spent all day long with him, first while he tended to her knees and then again for the long trek on horseback to the rugged area of the Highlands they were now in. She was afraid of him yes, but not as acutely as she’d once been. He treated her too tenderly to fear him too much.
No, it was definitely more than fear that kept her hands cupping her breasts. It was also reflex, Janet’s naturally shy reaction to standing totally divested of clothing in front of a male.
Back home in the States she had endured all manner of teasing as a child and then again as an adolescent. Pudgy. Plump. Fat. Fluffy. Big-boned. Piggy. She’d heard every derogatory term imaginable coupled with her name, every euphemism there was to express the fact that she wasn’t a rail and would therefore never be as desirable as every woman wanted to be to the opposite sex.
But this man, she told herself staunchly, this man had captured her, made her his prisoner, taken her against her will, even married her for the love of God! If he wasn’t happy with the end result that was his own doing. Perhaps he’d even let her go once he realized his mistake.
Firmly resolved to get it over with while she was still angry enough to do it, she dropped her hands from her breasts and thrust her chin defiantly up. Her nostrils flaring, she stood there and waited for him to reject her.
His reaction wasn’t quite what she had been expecting.
Euan groaned, the fire in his eyes raging brightly, licking over every lushly rounded curve, every nuance of her fertile figure. He didn’t seem at all put off by her body. In fact, he gazed at her with such obvious desire that Janet’s nipples involuntarily puckered up for him and her breath caught for the briefest of moments.
Biting her lip, she glanced away, shaken by both of their reactions. Now what did she do? She’d feel like an idiot re-covering her breasts at this point.
And then the decision was taken away from her as she heard him put down the platter of food and come to her. Two large, callused hands cupped her breasts and gently kneaded them like soft dough. He plumped them up with his hands, taking the nipples in between his thumbs and forefingers, and massaged them from roots to tips.
Janet closed her eyes and gasped. “No. Please. No.”
From somewhere in the back of her mind it occurred to her that her voice sounded smoky with passion, not defiant with anger and fear. Euan didn’t speak her language, she reminded herself, as he began to massage her breasts and nipples into a deeper state of arousal. If she wanted him to understand that his touch wasn’t welcome, she’d better sound more forceful.
