Chapter Five #2
He wouldn’t rise to her mood. He maintained an even, steady tone with her.
Nicola didn’t know why she was irritated with his attempt at lightheartedness; perhaps it was because she had been so worried and he wasn’t.
He wasn’t concerned for his injury in the least. She wasn’t sure how to deal with his nonchalance.
Sighing, Nicola picked up the bottle and held it out to him.
“You may as well drink,” she said. “Mayhap it will indeed ease your pain.”
He reached out, slowly, to take it from her. His fingers moved across hers, briefly, but he might as well have pinched her from the way she jumped. He took a long, deep drink, smacking his lips with satisfaction.
“Irish whisky,” he commented.
“You know it?”
“Aye,” he set the bottle to rest on the bed beside him. “Another drink and I can tell you what city it was aged in and, more than likely, by a professional or an amateur.”
He took another drink. “Well?” she said.
He licked his lips as he looked at her. “Dublin. Professional. Aged in a beechwood cask as opposed to oak to temper the flavor.”
Nicola’s eyes twinkled with some mirth at a man who could so easily identify an alcoholic drink. “There was a time when ale and wine were sufficient enough,” she said. “Now whisky fills the flask of every soldier from Kent to Northumbria.”
“It takes less to get a man drunk.”
There was a knowing gleam in her eye. “Including you?”
“I do not get drunk,” he replied, almost stiffly. “It dulls a man’s senses. And I must have all of mine.”
“You are different from the rest, then?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that most men look forward to getting uproariously drunk and care not about their wits. But you do?”
“I do. In my line of work, it is imperative.”
Janet entered the chamber bearing silk thread that was nearly transparent and a bone-sharp needle. Nicola took the items and sent the girl back down to the great hall where there were many men in great need. She could handle le Bec on her own.
Kenton watched her carefully as she prepared for the coming task.
She seemed quite unwilling to look at him as she laid out precise measures of thread.
But she did look him in the eye, apologetically, right before she doused his open wound with the straight, pure whisky.
Kenton didn’t react to the excruciating pain other than to close his eyes a moment. Nicola bent over him and went to work.
Her stitches were tiny and swift. She was temptingly close, biting her tongue as she worked quickly and surely.
Kenton watched her face, feeling her breath on his shoulder and her hair against his flesh.
It was one of the most arousing moments he could ever recall, having her so close yet knowing it was inappropriate to touch her, at least at the moment.
He wouldn’t give in to his lustful impulses as he had before.
She was being standoffish and he was sure their kiss earlier had everything to do with it.
He started to get that strange tightness in his chest again and he turned away.
“Is this paining you?” Nicola asked.
He shook his head. “No.”
“I’m almost finished.”
“Good. I need to return to the progress of the siege.”
She stopped in mid-stitch. “You are going back to the battle?”
“Of course.”
She looked at him, completely baffled. “But this is a serious wound,” she said firmly. “You must rest. You lost a goodly amount of blood and….”
He reached up and put a hand on her arm before she could gain a head of steam. “I have cut myself shaving worse than this,” he insisted quietly. “Though your concern is appreciated, it is unnecessary. Finish your stitching and that will be the end of it.”
She stared at him, unsure how to react. Frustration was the first thing that came to mind as she bent back over him and finished the last few stitches.
“I can see that I am wasting my time,” she punctuated her words by stabbing him perhaps a little harder than necessary.
“Therefore, your wound is now sealed and you are free to go out and make yourself another hole, bigger than this one. And don’t think I’ll lift a finger to help you. ”
She gathered her things in a huff. Kenton lay there, watching her vent, smirking at her animation.
When she passed too close to the bed, he reached out and grabbed her.
One good yank and she was practically laying across his outstretched body, twisted so that her face was in his. Kenton’s eyes devoured her.
“Madam,” he said slowly, “not only will I not break your careful stitches, I will most certainly not create a bigger hole, as you so bluntly put it. This I vow.”
He was too close, too hot, too intense. Nicola could feel her face growing warm. “I… I believe you,” she stammered.
“Do you truly?”
“Aye.”
“Then no more temper tantrums. I interpret them as a lack of faith in my abilities, which contradicts what you were saying earlier. Are you always so fickle?”
“I am not fickle at all. But I do not want to see….”
She trailed off and he was seized with her potential train of thought. Kenton, sensing what she was about to say, encouraged her.
“What do you not want to see?” he asked softly.
She was having difficulty answering him, difficulty meeting his gaze. Everything about him was overwhelming her. “We have enough wounded without you going back to the battle and making yourself a target. The biggest target of all, I might add.”
“You did not answer my question. What do you not want to see?”
He wasn’t going to let her go peaceably. She scowled at his persistence. “I do not want to see you end up with another wound,” she snapped before she could stop herself. “Will you let me up, please?”
He couldn’t think of a good reason not to let go of her, so he did.
She stood up, dropping the needle on his leg and reaching down to pick it up.
Her fingers came into contact with his massive thigh and even though it was covered by armor and mail, she could still feel the heat.
It was terrifying in a giddy sort of way.
She was halfway across the floor when his voice stopped her.
“My thanks, Lady Thorne,” he said, his voice low. “I am in your debt.”
She turned around to see that he was standing up, gingerly trying to rotate the shoulder to see just how much movement he had out of it. He was determined to return to the battle and she stood there a moment, more worried than she cared to admit.
“Take care that you do not injure yourself further,” she said quietly.
She started to quit the room but he called after her. “Wait.”
She paused at the door. “Aye?”
He stood there a moment, staring at her.
Then, slowly, he walked over to her, all the time rotating his shoulder and testing his injury.
Nicola thought he might have concern with it somehow, that perhaps her stitches were too tight and he was concerned with them tearing.
But he didn’t say a word. Leaning over, he grasped her with his good arm and pulled her against him, slanting his mouth hungrily over hers.
It was a sweet kiss, one full of promise and passion, and Nicola immediately folded.
Not a flicker of resistance did she give as Kenton suckled her lips, his tongue licking at her, his teeth nibbling on the tender flesh of her lower lip.
It was a kiss among kisses, a taunt of the pleasures of the flesh that the man was capable of, and Nicola collapsed against him and let him do whatever he pleased.
But the kiss went no further even though she surely would have let him.
When he finally stopped kissing her, he didn’t release her.
He simply gazed into her flushed face, his eyes glimmering warmly at her.
A flicker of a knowing smile crossed his lips and he let her go, turning to head out of the chamber, still rotating the arm, walking away as if he hadn’t just sucked the breath right out of her.
But he had. Nicola stood, rooted to the spot, long after he was gone. Her heart was pounding and she couldn’t quite catch her breath. She realized she was quivering. Her hands were shaking so that she was about to lose the needle she was still holding.
Carefully, she sat down on the bed behind her simply to regain her wits.
Was it truly possible for a man’s kiss to overwhelm one so much that they could barely think?
Evidently, it was, but she had never experienced such a thing.
She had no idea that a man’s touch could be so thrilling.
In a sense, as much as Kenton le Bec’s presence was an unwelcome thing, it was also coming to be something that excited her.
The man was taking liberties and she was letting him.
Did she truly want to leave Babylon when the potential for something so thrilling was here? When Kenton was here?
… she wondered.