Chapter 9
A soft mouth skimmed across her skin, tasting, nibbling, lingering until her body ached with need. “Patrik,” she breathed, her eyes fluttering open.
“Mornin’, lass.”
His deep burr curled around her in a sultry cloak. Emma sank into the warmth, then froze. Morning? It couldn’t be! She tried to sit, impossible with Patrik’s muscled body atop her.
“Do nae move,” he murmured as his mouth skimmed along the column of her throat, lower, along the sensitive swells of her breasts. “You are interrupting a warrior laying siege.”
“Patrik—”
He covered her nipple with his mouth.
Sensations exploded within, her words lost in a soft moan. He used his hands and tongue, stroking her, sliding wave after wave of delicious heat over her already sensitized skin. She gasped, arched against his erotic play, fighting for coherent thought.
He didn’t understand. She’d planned on taking the writ and leaving last night. Except, with the darkness blanketing them, he’d touched her, tasted her, had savored her more than she would have ever believed possible. Sated, exhausted, and content within the safety of his arms, she’d fallen asleep.
Even now, her body hummed with the heated memories. “After last night,” Emma said half in a moan as he angled himself more intimately against her, “you should be dead.”
“A warrior I am.”
Soft laughter tumbled from her mouth. The hard press of him assured her he was more than prepared for his erotic intent. “I am not a battle.”
“Aye, but you are. As worthy to claim as any stronghold to be seized.”
“You are comparing me to a castle? I am not sure if I should be honored or insulted.”
“’Tis my belief that you are thinking over much, an error I will be fixing.” He covered her mouth a split second before he sank deep within her, again sweeping her into heady bliss.
A long while later, Patrik rolled to his side, drew her against him, her body still trembling from her release. The gentleness of his embrace, as if he held a precious gift, tore through her soul. Never had anyone treated her as something cherished.
Unbidden, tears came to her eyes. A traitorous drop slipped and fell upon his chest.
In the flicker of dawn, worry roughened Patrik’s brow. “I have hurt you?”
“ No.”
He shifted back, took a full look at her, lifted the salty drop with the pad of his thumb. “What is wrong?” At her silence, he gave a soft scowl. “Tell me.”
“’Tis embarrassing.”
“After we made love most of the night, with me touching, tasting your body everywhere, you are embarrassed ?”
Heat stroked Emma’s cheeks. “You make me sound foolish.”
“Nae.” He tilted her chin with his thumb. “I am but trying to understand what has upset you.”
Her heart ached. “What we shared was so beautiful. Never had I imagined being with a man could be like this.”
Male satisfaction etched his face, but tenderness as well. “The joining is not always so intense, or steeped with so much emotion or satisfaction.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“When making love, if you care for the other, the act is more than bodies joining.”
It’s a joining of the soul, she silently finished. Emma remained quiet, thankful when he didn’t say more. Tears threatened. Through sheer will, she pushed them back.
Patrik glanced at the heavens where hints of gold crept through the sky, then sighed. “We have lingered too long.” He shot her a playful wink. “Something we seem to be making a habit of.”
“I—”
He silenced her with a hard kiss, and then he pulled away. He frowned; his body had hardened with desire.
“You will be the death of me.”
She laughed despite herself.
He scowled, except naught but wicked delight lingered on his face. “Come, lass, we must make haste.”
Emma quickly dressed, took one last look at his muscled body before he shielded it with trews and a tunic. Another day. One more they would share together. A day she’d not planned. Somehow, before the next dawn, she must take the writ, then leave.
Throughout the morning Patrik avoided any sign of a trail or clearing regardless of the extra travel it caused. Leaves whispered overhead as he glanced at Cristina. A pace away she pushed on in silence.
The lass was a mystery. Four days with her had but whetted his appetite to learn more, her each action but reshaping the woman he believed her to be.
After her near rape, when she’d first climbed from the bush and stood before him wearing her tattered dress, she had seemed emotionally strong, though scared. But at times since, within her confident eyes, he’d caught shadows.
Her recounting of her past explained a portion of what had put the darkness there, but questions as to what else she hid lingered.
He still could not understand how Cristina had never heard of the fey or the Otherworld, the fairy’s magical homeland.
Her explanation that no one had cared enough to take time to explain such whimsy rang true.
Still, after she’d struck out on her own, how could she never have heard talk of the fey?
And though the priest may have instructed her on how to wield a knife, instinct assured him another had taught her the skills he’d witnessed during the fight.
More unsettling, where had she gained such in-depth military knowledge of both the English and the Scots?
Patrik thought of Bishop Wishart, his immense influence as well as his knowledge of the military struggles throughout the world.
Aye, her priest could have held extensive military insight, but by her account, he had died years ago.
The information Cristina shared of Lord Carrick’s floundering loyalty was recent.
Doubts she had indeed overheard guards discussing Robert Bruce crept through Patrik.
Saint’s breath, with the important writ he carried, the lives it affected, he could allow no doubts of anyone around him. So what was it about her that lured him, made him step past boundaries he had no right to break?
Heat pulsed against his chest.
He glanced at the halved gemstone and frowned.
It had warmed, as it had within the cave when he’d struggled with his feelings toward Cristina.
An image of the MacGruder brothers’ grandmother gifting him the halved malachite upon his being knighted wavered in his mind as did the whispers of her having the second sight.
Unease trickled through him. Nae those were but whispers. Regardless, she was dead, her abilities long since passed.
A stick snapped in the distance.
Patrik withdrew his dagger as he glanced toward the sound.
A wash of brownish red flickered through the brush. A fox.
His body eased, and he secured his blade.
At the next rise, Patrik took in the sun sliding from its zenith. He paused within the shadows, scanned the roll of woods ahead.
Cristina halted at his side. “There is smoke to the north.”
He scanned the tree-lined sky. Cursed.
“An English encampment?”
“I doubt they would halt this early in the day.”
“Do you think the English have torched another Scot’s home?”
“Aye. Likely so.” Anger welled inside him at the image of a scene he’d too often beheld. He drew a calming breath. “If ’tis the English knights’ doings, I must see if anyone still lives.”
She cast a somber glance. “And if no one survived?”
“Bury the dead.” He started forward; she fell into step at his side. “Once we are near, you will hide until my return.”
“I am going with you.”
He cast her a cool glance. “You will not. If I know you are safe, I will not worry.”
She angled her head. “But you will not always be here to protect me.”
“Nae, but I am here now.”
Emerald eyes darkened, but she said no more.
He damned the image in his mind of her killing the knight. Did the confidence in her voice hint that yesterday’s act was but an example of her skill? If so, exactly how well trained was she? Or were his doubts feeding complications that didn’t exist?
Still, she’d had a weapon, one she’d kept hidden until yesterday. “Where is your dagger?”
Her stride never faltered. “Secured at my thigh.”
“You hid it from me.”
“I will not apologize for having learned to protect myself nor for concealing a weapon.”
“When I first saw you encircled by the English, I saw no sign of a strap.”
“Before you arrived, the men had found and relieved me of my weapon. When you attacked, I used the distraction to grab the dagger before I fled.”
That she could think so clearly despite her panic impressed him, but also deepened his suspicion. “Where was your weapon when we made love? I stripped you and should have found it.”
“Behind a nearby rock. And just barely.” A smile edged her mouth. “You, Sir Patrik Cleary, are a man who moves very fast.”
Though she teased him, he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something about the lass he was missing.
A man’s voice echoed ahead.
Patrik hauled Cristina behind a clump of brush. Blood pounding, he scanned the dense forest. “Stay here.”
“Let me go with you.”
“Nae. I will be back in a trice. Once I see who is ahead, I will return.”
Worry shadowed her face, and she nodded.
He slipped from the thicket.
At the next knoll, he glanced back. The dense wash of green hid Cristina. Keeping to the shadows, using the thick bushes as a shield, he made his way forward.
Ahead, a break in the trees exposed an open field. Amidst the sea of green, interspersed with patches of heather and broken by wildflowers, stood a crofter’s hut. The smoke they’d seen came not from charred remains, but swirled out of the chimney.
Still, he would take no chances. Though normally a home to Scots, he knew neither to whom they swore their fealty, nor whether English knights lay within.
A solid thunk had him glancing east.
Another had him slipping along the edge of the forest toward the sound. A short distance away, a burly man wielded an ax upon a felled tree. By the man’s garb, he was a Scot. Still, he’d assume nothing.
Patrik remained hidden a while longer to ensure the man was alone. Then, with his hand on the hilt of his sword, he emerged from the woods.