Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
PORTIA
The rabbit was cooked to perfection.
Golden-brown on the outside and tender on the inside, the meat melted in my mouth. Tavish had even managed to season it. He sat across the fire from me, while Albie had settled to my right.
“This is so good,” I said around a mouthful. The fire popped, sending a few embers into the air.
Tavish didn’t look the least bit modest. “‘Course it is. I made it.”
He looked so pleased with himself, sitting cross-legged with his kilt stretched over his knees.
He’d tied his hair back with a strip of leather, and his rolled-up sleeves showed the thick blue symbols and swirls inked on his arms. The muck and dampness of the gray, desolate time period hadn’t diminished his looks in the slightest. If anything, he looked more rugged and masculine than before.
And dangerous, a little voice in my head whispered. My dragon didn’t care.
Time travel had been just as good to Albie. The firelight gilded his blond hair, which was even wavier than usual in the damp. He’d removed his cravat, exposing the hollow of his throat and the top of his muscular chest.
I’d dressed again after he carried me inside, but the jacket had been too damp to put back on. Tavish had spread it over the rocks while Albie laced my corset.
My lips still tingled from his kiss.
And my body hummed with desire. The hard, insistent throb between my legs hadn’t faded since he’d carried me back to the cave.
No, it was stronger, and now I didn’t even have a bedchamber to escape to. I squeezed my thighs together, desperation making me rack my brain for a distraction.
“Where did you even find herbs?” I asked Tavish.
He dragged a hand across the back of his mouth, and it should have been gross but was sexy instead.
Damn him.
“Herbs grow in English forests the same as Scottish ones, lass.” He tossed a bone in the fire. “Scottish herbs taste better, though.”
I smiled despite myself.
Albie wiped his fingers on a handful of moss, then pushed his spectacles higher. Tavish had a pile of it beside him, and he’d used it to clean his hands after he pulled the rabbits from the spit.
“I think we should try the chronomancer’s spell again in the morning,” Albie announced.
My smile fled.
“We can’t stay in this time,” he said, “and a night’s rest will prepare us for another jump.
We were unprepared last time. We won’t be tomorrow.
” He drew a knee up and rested his elbow on it, his glasses winking in the firelight.
“I’ve been thinking. Maybe we need to be more deliberate about where we want to go.
We need to have Portia’s time in mind. Maybe that’s how we actually get there. ”
I thought of my parents. My brother. An image of Castle Beithir appeared in my head, its hundreds of windows blazing with light. Dad had built a home theater for Mum last year, and they giggled like a pair of teenagers over popcorn and action movies.
What if I never saw them again?
The last time I’d seen my father, I’d insulted him. Worse, I’d hurt him. What if I had to carry that memory around forever? And wherever he was, it was the same for him. He thought I looked down on him for being Consort to the king.
The food in my stomach formed a hard lump.
“Lass?”
Tavish’s deep voice brought my head up.
His blue eyes were steady across the fire. “Something ails you?”
I opened my mouth with a lie at the ready. Instead, the truth spilled out. “I’m worried I’ll never see my parents or brother again.”
Albie put a hand on my thigh. “You will. I promise.” He hesitated, then spoke slowly as if he was unsure of his next words. “O…K…?”
My throat tightened. Tears burned my eyes, but I blinked them away. “Okay,” I whispered.
The fire snapped. Rain beat a steady rhythm on the rocks outside the cave.
A new worry struck without warning. The three of us had to sleep sometime. In the cave. Together.
Tavish misinterpreted my sudden panic. “Don’t fash yourself about comfort, lass.” He gestured to a spot where he’d covered evergreen boughs with moss. “We’ll bed down there. The fire should keep you warm enough, but if it doesn’t, you can share my plaid.”
He’d have to remove it for that.
Which meant he’d be naked right next to me. It couldn’t happen. Under no circumstances could I make it through the night sleeping between him and Albie. My dragon had already proven she was wholeheartedly in favor of accepting the mate bond. She’d be useless when it came to resisting them.
Even as my thoughts spun out of control, the heat between my legs intensified.
The ache became a throb. My heart sped up, my breasts lifting above my corset.
Why in the name of the gods had I foregone my jacket?
What was a little dampness compared to my tits mashed together and served up like the main course at a dinner party?
Across the fire, Tavish watched me like some pagan god of old, his elbows resting on his knees and a few escaped strands of hair dangling around his face. Firelight played over his knuckles, which bore the small, waxy scars of a swordsman. My fathers had similar marks.
The pounding between my legs became a hard, relentless beat. For one wild moment, I could have sworn drums pounded with it.
“We can ease you,” Tavish said quietly. Flames flickered in his eyes, and they weren’t reflections from the fire. They were inside him. He burned.
So did I.
The throbbing grew…and grew painful, everything between my legs hot, wet, and hurting. I dared to look at Albie.
He waited for me, the expression in his eyes anything but scholarly. His eyes had darkened until they were almost black. His lips were parted, his breathing shallow. Aside from the slight rise and fall of his chest, he was completely still, as if he didn’t trust himself to move.
“I can’t accept a claim,” I said weakly. “I have to get home.”
The fire popped, making me jump. Tavish gave me a wicked look across the flames.
“We don’t have to claim you to ease you, Princess.”
Desire ratcheted higher. I shifted, my thighs slick. My dragon stretched under my skin, pressing for release. But she didn’t want out. No, she wanted to let the men in.
“We won’t touch you unless you ask,” Albie said quietly.
I looked between them. Tavish’s blue eyes blazed with heat. Albie’s expression was steady and hungry. The contrast between them was something that could occupy my mind endlessly if I let it. They both wanted me. Tavish demanded while Albie asked, but the want was the same.
And I couldn’t allow myself to want them in return.
“I’m not having cave sex,” I said.
The wickedness in Tavish’s eyes gleamed brighter. “We don’t have to do everything. Just enough.”
My inner muscles clenched. Sweat dampened my hairline. “You haven’t even washed your hands.”
Silence. Then Albie’s shoulders shook. He was laughing.
“What?” Heat flooded my face.
“The moss, Princess,” Albie said, gesturing to the small mound next to Tavish. “It draws out corruption. Physicians in the East have used it for centuries to treat wounds and prevent infection.”
Tavish’s lips curved into a wicked smile. “My Albie is smart. He reads a lot of books.”
“I know,” I said, that smile doing odd, fluttery things to my stomach. He looked like sin.
Never breaking eye contact with me, he reached down and very deliberately dragged both hands through the moss, rubbing the green fibers over his palms, between his fingers, across his knuckles. Then he patted the moss back into place and resumed his pagan god pose.
“Better?” he asked, his voice a dark rumble.
My mouth went dry. “I... Yes.”
“Any other objections, Princess?”
I shook my head. I was out of excuses.
“Then say it,” he ordered softly. “Ask us very nicely to make you come. No claims or bonds. Just that sopping pussy of yours getting the relief you’re seconds from begging for.
But you can’t have it until you ask, Princess.
I’m sorry, but that’s the rule.” He shrugged, not an ounce of apology in the gesture.
“Whose rule?”
“Mine.”
The scent of my arousal thickened the air. Denying my attraction was impossible. They knew how badly I wanted them. How badly I ached.
And they were offering to help me with no strings attached.
I couldn’t let them. It was a stupid idea.
“Please,” I heard myself say. “Make me come.”
They rose at the same time. Albie reached down, and I let him pull me to my feet and guide me to the bed of moss.
Tavish walked a slow circle around the fire as Albie drew me down and sat with me facing out between his legs.
His chest was solid against my back. His lips brushed the side of my neck, and I moaned as he planted a soft kiss where the curve met my shoulder.
Tavish stood over us, the firelight emphasizing the sharp angles of his jaw and the impossible width of his shoulders. The ink on his arms seemed to writhe in the shadows cast by the flames. More shadows danced on the walls.
Albie tugged the neckline of my chemise off my shoulder and pressed his lips to my bare skin. I curled my fingers into the soft, cool moss.
Tavish knelt in front of me. Eyes locked with mine, he smoothed his hands up my legs, pushing my skirts and chemise above my knees.
Higher.
And higher. His calluses caught on my stockings. He kept going, and they scraped my skin. My skirts bunched at my waist.
Albie’s hair brushed my jaw as he trailed featherlight kisses down my neck.
Palms on my knees, Tavish urged my thighs wide. Cool air kissed my hot, swollen center. Firelight put a sheen on the thick ribbons that held up my stockings.
Tavish found the slit in my bloomers and stroked straight down my bare pussy.
I gasped, my hips jerking. Albie kissed the sensitive spot under my ear. His erection prodded the cleft of my ass through my skirts. They were both clearly turned on. And yet I was the only one getting relief.
“What about you?” I asked breathlessly.