“Thank you,” he replied hesitantly. “I… are… are you all right in there? I can come up to help if you need…?”
Toby shook her head. “We have made do,” she said, then she looked over her shoulder briefly before turning back to the men below. “Althel has made some soup. He is trying to find some rope so that we can lower the pot down.”
Tate was still looking at her as if unable to move his eyes off of her. “That was generous of you,” he said. “Have you fed the wounded?”
“We have.”
“What is the tally?”
Her smile faded somewhat. “Twenty nine injured and eleven dead. I should like to remove the dead as quickly as possible. They are beginning to smell.”
Tate nodded, looking a few feet away to where they were reconstructing the stairs. “It should be an hour or so and we’ll have access to do that. In the meanwhile.…”
He suddenly began looking around as if hunting for something. Toby didn’t know how he did it, but as she watched, he collected two pieces of a broken ladder, somehow put them together, and climbed his way up the side of the keep to the open door. Before she realized it, he was standing in front of her.
All Toby could do was stare at him, a smile on her lips and her hands trembling with the thrill of seeing him in the flesh before her. She was so very glad to see that he was unharmed; more than that, he looked positively healthy. Other than the fact he was covered in dirt and sweat, he looked wonderful. She didn’t even see any wounds on him; not a nick.
She hadn’t realized that she was backing away from him as he moved closer. As she bumped against a wall, she found herself riveted to his storm cloud eyes, seeing emotions reflected in the dark depths that were puzzling and new. Her heart was beating so fast that it ached.
“I… I am glad to see that you are unharmed,” she managed to stammer.
He continued walking towards her until he was up against her body; Toby could feel his cold armor on her flesh, his face looming inches above her own.
“You said that,” he growled gently.
“It… ’tis true.”
The smile playing on his lips broadened. Toby’s limbs went weak with a painful sort of tingle; she wanted to throw her arms around him but dare not make a move. She had no right to touch the man. The self-restraint was agonizing as her palms began to sweat.
“Elizabetha?” he asked softly.
Toby could hardly speak for the excitement bolting through her body. “Aye?”
“I must do something now but I want assurance that you will not be offended.”
“Offended by what?”
“I do not want my eyes gouged out.”
“I… I will not gouge your eyes out, I promise. But what are you going to do?”
His response was to cup her face between his enormous palms, his dark eyes boring into her as if to drill holes through to the other side. Toby gazed up into his handsome face, unable to think or breathe, as his lips very gently came down on hers. It was soft and warm and wonderful. Her eyes closed of their own accord, her focus on his tender lips as they suckled her gently. Having never been kissed by a man before, she had no idea what to expect. All she knew was this was more, and better, than she could have ever dreamed.
Her self-restraint vanished and she threw her arms around his neck about the time he wrapped her up in his enormous arms. Together, they enveloped each other in a tight embrace. Tate suckled her top lip, her lower lip, his tongue finally licking at her mouth, silently pleading to be admitted inside. Toby opened her mouth slightly and he invaded, gorging himself on her sweetness. He suckled her tongue, a delectable little morsel, kissing her more fiercely with each passing moment.
His arms were wrapped tightly around her slender body, his hands clutching at her. Toby responded to him as if she had been doing it all her life, so familiar with the desires of a man she had never even touched. She sensed his passion, matching her own, understanding in that brief contact just how powerful it was. The spark that had been kindled with the first tender kiss was exploding into a raging fire.
They lost all concept of time, fueled by the eruption of their first taste of one another. Tate ended up bumping Toby’s head against the wall during his tender offensive, hearing the soft thud and immediately apologised. But Toby just rubbed the back of her head and laughed.
“No harm done,” she murmured, her lips swollen and red from his furious kisses. The hazel eyes focused on him, drinking in his glorious face. “I… I must confess, I have never… that is, I never expected to….”
He smiled, kissing her again just because he could. She was delicious to kiss. “I know,” he murmured against her mouth. “I never expected to, either. But I am glad that I did.”
She looked at him with amused curiosity. “Did what?”
He kissed her again, very tenderly. “That,” he breathed. “May I have your permission to do it again sometime? Perhaps many sometimes?”
Toby was breathless. “I… I am not sure.”
