His tone was admonishing, but he still hurriedly pulled me toward a secluded area amongst the trees, his chest rising and falling quickly with each step. He didn’t look back at me until he stopped walking, spinning to force my back against a wide-based tree, his cheek leaning forward to press flush against mine. “’Tis verra shocking.”
“Is it?” I enjoyed this exchange so different from any we’d had before. The evening he’d been drunk, he’d kissed me roughly—his own inhibitions dampened enough by the ale to permit him to treat me less gently than he had at any time since that night. I’d enjoyed that brief encounter very much. Every woman wanted to be cared for, to have a man take their time with them, and Eoghanan certainly did both of those things. In this instance, however, I didn’t want to be taken slowly. Now that Eoghanan was my husband, I wanted him to know that I trusted him to do with me what he wished. I wanted to feel as if I belonged to him and him alone. I wanted to be claimed by him.
“Aye, ’tis Grace. I canna tell if ye speak in jest or no.” He leaned his hips into me, the length of him pressing into my abdomen. “Ye see, lass,” his voice grew more husky every second, “it doesna matter how good the man, there is a bit of beast in all of us. ’Tis hard enough for us to no treat ye such when we know ye doona wish it; but when ye ask for it, Grace…” he paused, drawing in a shaky breath. “Ye should no tease a man with such things.”
I smiled against his cheek, slowly sliding my hand in front of me, bending my knees slightly so that I could reach underneath his kilt and wrap my hand around him. “Do I look like I’m teasing you? I care far too much about you to do that.” He groaned into my ear as I rubbed him. “I am entirely serious, Eoghanan. I need you. Now.”
He growled and removed my hand from him, raising my dress as he spun me so that my chest and face pressed against the tree.
“As ye wish, lass, but doona say that I dinna warn ye against this.”
Chapter 39
“We canna ride the horse the rest of the way. I’ll leave him with a man I know in the village. We must make the rest of the way on foot.”
I nodded, flipping myself over so that I could slide off the top of the horse. “Thank God.” He’d done as I’d asked him, much to my regret, and I had indeed been forced to ride the rest of our journey sideways, my thighs much too sore to spread them over the width of the horse.
After one more day of riding, we arrived at the smallest of villages that sat at the base of a tall cliff. Only one trail led up the hillside. While I could see that was where he intended to take me, I still couldn’t make out the final destination.
“Still tender are ye, Grace? I told ye I dinna think ’twas truly what ye wanted. I dinna mean to harm ye, lass.” He dismounted and gathered me in his arms, kissing me down the side of my cheek until his lips landed tenderly on my own. “I love ye more than ye can ever know. I would never knowingly hurt ye.”
“You didn’t. Just bruised me a little. It is not your fault. I brought it on myself.” I laughed against him. “I only wish I’d known just what I was asking for. I think perhaps I wanted to behave more adventurously than I truly am.”
“Aye, I feel much the same. I willna deny that no matter how I bury meself inside ye I love it enough to sell me own mother for a chance to do it again, but I want to see yer face when I make love to ye, Grace. I want to touch the verra piece of yer soul that is now shared with me own. ’Tis a wondrous thing that can occur with the pairing of two bodies.”
With my face resting against him, I breathed in his heady scent, undeniably male after so many days on the road. He smelled of sweat and earth, and sex. It was a comforting, surprisingly lovely smell, and I loved it. “You know, I don’t think there’s a single man alive that would admit to feeling that way.”
“Aye, and I doona think most men do feel as I do, lass. I am no a common man. ’Tis perhaps the poet in me that makes me so.”
“Hicumm….” The deep noise came from behind, and I twisted to find a man in his mid to late forties standing with his arms crossed and a pleased expression in his eyes. “If ye be a poet, then I am Laird of yer brother’s castle. Now, introduce me to yer new bride.”
Eoghanan stepped away to greet the man but kept one hand on the small of my back, nudging me along with him. “’Tis good to see ye, Tinley. This is me wife, Grace.”
I smiled and nodded to him, trying my best not to speak as to rouse the usual conversation that ensued as to the strangeness of my accent.
“Do ye have it ready for us?” Eoghanan moved to bring him the horse as Tinley answered.
“Aye, me wife helped in the preparations. I think ye will find it to yer liking. Doona ye worry about yer beast. I shall take good care of him until ye are ready to return home. There’s enough food to last ye a week if ye need it, though I expect the lass will grow tired of ye far earlier than that.”