“Could you not give me a chance to right myself?” she demanded while laughter erupted from the men riding behind them, making her face flare bright red as she twisted around to glare at him. “Stop at once and let me down! Let me down!”
Cameron thought to oblige her, but her indignant wriggling made him wonder if he held her fast, mayhap she would cease her endless chatter and leave him in peace. Certain that if she’d had a knife sheathed in her belt, she would have pressed it to his own throat by now, he held her all the more tightly against him so that she couldn’t struggle.
“Temper, Aislinn, temper,” he grated, glad to have a chance to teach her a lesson. “I swore tae protect you, remember? What was I tae do? Let you fall and injure yourself?”
“I-I wouldn’t have fallen!” she sputtered, balling her fists and flailing her arms. Cameron quickly caught them and pinned them within his embrace, and now she really couldn’t move, her rump wedged even more securely against him.
The sensation wholly new to him, to hold a woman so closely, Cameron swallowed hard at the heat rising in his loins—och, not the only thing rising!
Still his men chuckled behind him, a glance over his shoulder telling Cameron that one of them had grabbed the reins to Aislinn’s mount, the stallion trotting alongside the man’s horse.
Meanwhile she had grown ominously silent, which was exactly what he had wanted.
Damn Conall, to share with her something Cameron had never discussed with anyone! His own private pain! His own private torment! Had his men heard much of what she’d said over the clopping hooves? God help him, he hoped not.
Yet for the first time since boyhood, his tongue had not grown thick at what little he’d said to her—aye, her chatter distracting him in spite of his anger.
Would she refuse to honor his commands for the entire journey? If she had reined in her horse and fallen back as he had demanded, she wouldn’t be seething in his arms—aye, for he sensed she was no doubt plotting how to best him.
Cameron knew he should call for her horse to be brought forward, if only to quell his men’s amusement at her expense, which must be further infuriating her. Yet the warmth of her body was so stirring a sensation, one he’d never known before, that he could not bring himself to utter the order.
Her taut bottom flush against him—och, could a woman be so lithe and yet so wondrously rounded? Cameron felt his throat grow tight for another reason than the affliction that had so long plagued him.
His lower body swollen and rigid.
Desire like flame ripping through him.
The sun-warmed scent of her hair, her skin, overwhelming him.
Every motion of his steed driving the curve of her rump against him—och, God, had there ever been such sweet torment?
Aislinn had tensed, too, and seemed to tremble within his embrace, her head leaning back against his shoulder as if she’d given up on any thought to fight him.
She had grown so quiet… too quiet.
That realization made Cameron snap out of the daze that gripped him, as if he’d been doused with cold water—Aislinn at the same moment grabbing the reins from his hands to jerk upon them with all of her might.
Squealing, his horse reared.
Both of them sliding backward and tumbling to the ground with an astonished curse from Cameron and a shriek of outrage from Aislinn.
She rolled away from him and jumped to her feet with her fists clenched and her feet squarely planted, while Cameron rose to stare at her in awe.
Her blue eyes ablaze. Her cheeks flushed bright pink. Her expression more chagrined than infuriated as she seemed to fight to catch her breath.
His breath came hard, too, but one glance at his men, who had stopped their horses and looked on in consternation, made Cameron recover himself.
He strode over to his horse, which tossed its head and nickered at him nervously, and calmed the creature enough so he could once again mount.
One of his men had brought Aislinn her steed and she had mounted, too, her expression unreadable but for the dark turbulence of her eyes.
Something had changed between them; Cameron could feel it as surely as he breathed, and he wondered if she felt it, too.
A fire burning brightly now, which he realized as they set out again, had been smoldering inside him from the moment he had first set eyes upon her.
Aislinn.
He could no longer leave her with King Robert, mayhap never to see her again, than he could deny that he wanted her.
