Page 13
Dragging in shallow breaths—to inhale deeply simply hurt too badly—he concentrated on staying upright. Well, as upright as possible.
His pride smarted in no small manner.
Never having been shot before, he’d not considered how he’d respond, but he’d like to have believed better than this. It felt as if a hot poker burned non-stop in his chest and shoulder. Pathetically weak, freezing, and his stomach waffy from the loss of blood, he truly feared he’d pass out cold.
He’d prefer a stab wound. He was familiar with those types of injuries. Aye. Didn’t his body bear several scars from blades?
He sucked in an unsteady breath through his mouth.
God save him how he longed to surrender to the blessed darkness. To be rid of the permeating pain.
But Kendra would be frantic if he tumbled from the horse. She wouldn’t leave him. He knew it beyond a doubt. And until the blackguard who shot him was apprehended, she was in as much danger as he.
“Ye’re doin’ splendidly,” she soothed into his ear, her warm breath a delicate caress. “Just a little farther, and ye can rest. We’ll send for the physician, and in nae time, ye’ll be plucky as a fat goose.”
The whole while, she’d murmured words of encouragement. Not at all what Broden had expected from the prickly lass. She kept Sheik to a brisk, steady pace, but hadn’t sent him into a gallop or trot.
Likely because she knew full well, she wouldn’t be able to keep him in the saddle if she did. She probably fretted the pounding movements might cause more blood loss, too.
Which was bloody worse?
The hole in him or the soft, ripe mounds torturing him from behind? How many times had he yearned to touch those full, tempting pillows? The luscious curves that were forever off-limits to him?
Kendra was Liam’s cherished younger sister.
And she abhorred Broden.
She mustn’t ever know how much he wanted her. Not ever.
He did have his pride, after all.
Thank the divine powers that she’d never know arousal caused half of his tortured moans. With her strong thighs cradling his arse, the tantalizing length of slim legs revealed for his admiration, her bosom bouncing against his back, and her light and delicate camellia and lemony fragrance nearly driving him out of his mind, he was as randy as a stag in full rut.
A stag who’d been shot.
She’d be livid if she knew. Might even shove Broden off his horse and leave him to die in the heather lining the rutted track.
Kendra MacKay held him in the lowest of regard.
It hadn’t always been thus.
He clearly remembered the awkward, little hoyden trailing after him and her brother, hiding in draperies and eavesdropping, popping out from behind bushes, a ready grin on her round face, her hair tousled about her and usually dirt smudges on her cheeks or chin.
Then one day, she’d just stopped.
No hiding. No giggles. No impish smiles.
She’d never attempted to follow her brother or him again. In fact, afterward, he’d often visit and never set his eyes upon her. Almost as if she avoided him on purpose.
At first, he’d been relieved. As a man of three and twenty, Kendra’s obvious, youthful infatuation had made him uncomfortable. She was a child, for God’s sake. The beloved younger sister of his closest friend.
He’d done his utmost to kindly discourage her for years, and yet was puzzled by her sudden absence. Odd that all at once, she appeared to have comprehended and took to heart the hints he’d liberally dispensed for so long.
Later, he grudgingly admitted to himself, he’d missed her. Her precocious questions and dove-gray eyes wide with wonderment. Her unfettered laughter and mischievous antics. She’d been a delightful, brazen, spirited lass with a swift, playful smile and a keen mind. And an insatiable curiosity and joy for life.
Of course, once she’d bloomed into the sable haired, ivory-skinned, bowed lipped, scrumptiously curved woman now struggling to keep him in the saddle before her, he’d coveted her attention once more. Coveted a great deal more, in truth.
More of her forbidden fruit.
