“Tha?” he asked again, louder, angry now.
She nodded again, assuming he hadn’t seen the small gesture.
“Tha?” he bellowed, thrusting his fingers in again and pinching one of her nipples.
Janet’s eyes widened nervously. He wanted her to say it—aloud. He wouldn’t settle for anything less.
She swallowed harshly as her gaze clashed with his for a final time. Clearing her throat nervously, she nodded once more. “Tha,” she agreed quietly.
With an arrogant grunt, he began to massage her clit with one hand and the nipple he was still latched onto with the other. She groaned, her head falling limp as he rewarded her for her compliant answer.
And then he was impaling her all over again and Janet thankfully had to concern herself with rational thought and worries of ownership no more.
Chapter Eight
Janet had been surprised when Euan had awoken her a few hours later indicating that they were going to depart this place where they had shared so much passion together. He had taken her again, thrust himself into her with a groan as though he couldn’t seem to help himself, as though her body was the most soothing place in the world for him to be. He had brought her to orgasm at least twice, maybe three times. She had been so groggy with pleasure and peaking she could no longer remember.
Euan had given her a new dress then, a floor length green number that was not only quite beautiful, but also more appropriate for his world. She could only assume that he’d somehow acquired it during the bath she’d taken after he’d married her.
And then he had taught her several new words by leading her outside and pointing to various things. He had been patient in his instruction, which had surprised her. She didn’t know why she was surprised really, for he’d been extremely gentle with her ever since he’d captured her.
Perhaps she’d been taken aback because of the way Euan bellowed orders at his men. She’d quickly surmised that he was the leader amongst the group for everyone catered to him efficiently and unquestioningly. If he barked out a command, it was obeyed and answered instantly. It was through these exchanges that by the second day of their journey from the village Janet found herself picking up more and more words from Euan’s tongue.
Janet was pleased that she seemed to be learning key words and phrases from his language rather rapidly. Not enough to where she could yet carry on meaningful conversation—they’d been together but three days after all—but enough to where she was slowly beginning to comprehend what he meant without his having to point at whatever word or action he was trying to describe.
The past three days had felt much like a dream to Janet. Riding through the Highlands on horseback, the brisk winds hitting her in the face, stopping to look at the wares of the occasional nomadic craftsman, making camp—and making love—with her husband at night.
Her husband.
The knowledge that she even had a husband, let alone one that had died hundreds of years before she’d been born, was what felt more surreal than anything else. And weirder still, she wasn’t altogether certain how she felt about it.
Three days ago Janet would have escaped Euan at first opportunity. Today, if given the choice, she wasn’t certain what she’d do. Such an admission was not only startling to her, but terrifying as well.
And Morag—oh how she missed Morag. Janet had no idea at all as to how her best friend was faring. Morag and her captor, a man Janet could safely assume was now Morag’s husband, had ridden out ahead of she and Euan the morning following the weddings.
Where Morag had been taken Janet couldn’t even begin to speculate. Worse yet, she wasn’t well-versed enough in Euan’s tongue to put such a higher level question to him. It was one thing to be able to ask for food and drink, quite another altogether to express feelings and concerns. She felt as though she were floating along like a piece of driftwood, unable to control her own destiny and uncertain as to where the waters would lead.
On the fourth day of their journey their entourage had been attacked by a group of bandits that outnumbered their party three to one. One minute Janet had been eating an apple as she rode in front of her husband on his mount and the next she was startled into dropping the piece of fruit by the sound of ear-piercing war cries followed by the thunder of hooves as a group of sword-wielding men assaulted them from the south.
Wide-eyed, her gaze had shot up to Euan’s. He had paid her no attention, dashing off toward a tree with thick, high branches instead, and placed her into it for safe-keeping while he’d galloped back to charge directly into the fray.
Janet had been frightened. Not only for herself, but for Euan as well. Tears of frustration and terror had welled up in her eyes as she’d watched him ride off, watched him engage in a fight in which the numbers greatly out stacked any hope of a Donald victory.
A Donald. Janet now understood that her last name was Donald, or MacDonald. Apparently the two names were interchangeable, but since she knew from her own time that “Mac” meant “son of”, she could assume that in these times the “Mac” was dropped as redundant, leaving whatever name was behind it to stand solo.
Not that she’d thought about something as inane as name trivia as she’d watched the skirmish unfold. She had considered the naming business later on, after the Donalds had surprised her by quickly vanquishing the threat to them.
It had been chilling, watching her husband kill men before her very eyes, watching as his heavily-muscled and vein-roped arm had bore down on men with such force that his sword had neatly sliced through their now dead carcasses like butter.
He had worn that mask again, that stony façade that was so much a part of him…a part of him that was always in place save for the moments of passion they claimed together at night. But she supposed such a mask was necessary in this world, a needed way of severing all emotion from whatever job had to be done in order to keep your wits—and life—intact.
And so now here she stood on the fifth day of her journey, gazing out into the frigid Highland waters from shore as she watched a large boat being made ready for them to take to…well she didn’t know where precisely, could only conjecture from the bits and pieces of Scottish history she’d gleaned while working in Nairn.
Janet knew that the clan MacDonald heralded from the Isle of Skye, that tiny dot of an island in the Hebrides where a man known as the Lord of the Isles had ruled as a king of sorts over the Highland clans in medieval times. She could only surmise, therefore, that since her husband’s last name was Donald, or MacDonald, Euan must be of this lord’s direct clan.
Janet felt weary, tired and bone-weary from their long journey. And she was confused, still overwhelmed by everything that had taken place this past week. And what’s worse, at least to her way of thinking, was that she deeply suspected that she was beginning to grow feelings toward her husband that she wasn’t particularly interested in having. Attached feelings. Caring feelings. Feelings of…love.
It was just that he was so…good to her. Euan made her feel special and loved and desired—three things she had never felt for a man back in her own world, most likely because no man had ever felt them for her either. The way he looked at her, the way he held her as though he’d never let her go or let anyone take her from him…it was heady stuff. Heady stuff that had little by little evolved into a deeper affection for him.
