Page 63 of In Bed with her Highland Foe

“Ye must have come with a reason, Kyven,” he said softly, resting back and lacing his hands behind his head as he closed his eyes. He looked completely free, settled and comfortable, everything she was not but longed to be.

“Something has been plaguing me mind, well, many things have,” she whispered, her eyes darting down his exposed chest. “I…” Her chin was suddenly tapped, and she looked up to find Gilchrist had opened his eyes. He was watching her, a small smile on his face when he had evidently noticed where she was looking.

Dinnae mention it, Gilchrist!

She spoke fast all of a sudden, before he could draw attention to her gaze.

“Ye spoke the other day about sharing yerself with someone ye love. What is that like? Nae just the intensity.” She held up her hands before he could speak, remembering that particular description. “I mean… how does it change things between ye?” she asked, breathlessly.

He sighed, gazing up at her from his position on the cushions. For a minute, she thought he would not answer, then abruptly, he moved. He reached up, snaking around her waist with his arm, his hand cupping the curve of her waist in her robe, then pulled her down to the bed, so she was nestled in the curve of his shoulder, her head upon his bicep, using it for a cushion.

“It changes everything,” he whispered. “Ye nay longer tiptoe around one another. Ye ken how the other feels.”

She held her breath, her hands cupped together in front of her. It seemed like the perfect chance to speak her mind, to tell him that her heart was his, if he wanted it, to tell him that all this closeness, all this intimacy between them was the greatest connection of her life.

Yet the words would not come, and the silence extended between them.

“Sleep, Kyven,” he whispered after a minute or more. “Ye are safe here.”

She closed her eyes, trusting in his words.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Gilchrist opened his eyes, noting the sound in the room. He lifted his head to see Lottie was perched on the windowsill in the moonlight, peering out of the glass. She was a clever cat, and when she needed the toilet in the middle of the night, she opened the window, nudging the latch with her nose. She did so now and slipped out of the gap, clambering across the rooftops in the darkness of the night. The window swung shut in the wind behind her, and Gilchrist lowered his head back down to the pillows again.

The sound of soft breathing beside him made him fall still.

For a wild second, he wondered who it was, then everything came back to him, about the night before and how Kyven had crept up to his door, coming to see him with barely an explanation.

Ye have some explaining tae dae, Aaden. How on earth did ye plan this?

Kyven sighed in her sleep, and he raised his head enough to look down at her. She was rather hard to make out in the darkness, the glimmer of moonlight alone coming through the window and falling upon her face. She was quite beautiful, her hair sprawled across the pillow and her freckled cheeks perfectly still.

“Ah, Kyven,” he whispered, involuntarily.

She nuzzled deeper into his arm in her sleep, her back to his side. He couldn’t help it as he turned to face her, wrapping his arm around her and pulling her toward him. She sighed, as if contented.

This is what we both want, isnae it?

He was so certain she had come to say she cared for him the night before, but then she had fallen asleep so easily in his arms, that he second guessed himself. Perhaps she had come for another reason after all. Her rear wiggled a little against him. Something squirmed in his lower abdomen, a soaring excitement and pleasure that had a sudden and mortifying effect.

Nay, nay, nay! Nae now.

Yet he could not stop it. His length had hardened beneath his trews. As he looked at Kyven, fearing she would notice, he saw her shoulder above the covers. She had shed the embroidered robe at some point in the night and only wore her chemise. The feeling of her nearly bare body against his, the curve on the side of her body, hinting at her breasts, had his length hardening all the more.

Nay!

He tried to shift his hips back away from her, but it was too late. She had stiffened in front of him, her breathing no longer smooth and settled, yet halted altogether.

“Gilchrist?” she whispered.

“Nay,” he pleaded with her not to say it, glad it was dark, for she would not see just how much his face was flushed red in embarrassment. Still, she did not turn to face him at all. She stayed in his arms, her whole body rigid like a plank.

“Is that…?” She actually reached back with her hand and he jerked his hips away, sitting up and moving back from her. “Gilchrist!” She turned to sit up.

“Shh!” he pleaded, glancing at the door, fearing someone would hear her cry his name in that way and wonder if something else was happening in this room.

“Are ye…?” She was on her knees, turning to face him now. Tortuously, the shoulder of her nightgown had slipped down, revealing the bare skin of her shoulder, the top of her arm, and even part of the curve of her breast. He could have groaned aloud, had it not been this humiliating.