Chapter 16
As soon as Eleanor entered Brice’s bedchamber with the pot of honey and the clean linens in her hand, she knew something had changed.
Her lips still tingled from his kiss, and her body was still heated and yearning, but his cool look gave her a warning.
She didn’t know how to feel about that. Certainly she couldn’t have a relationship with him.
It was far too dangerous to both of them—not to mention to her heart.
And yet she wanted him to kiss her again.
She’d never been kissed like that by even her husband.
Her body had never responded in that way to a mere kiss.
She laid out the honey and linens. The silence between them was thick and awkward. She hated that they’d lost the intimacy of not only the kiss but the banter as well. She enjoyed talking to him, exchanging barbs and sarcastic comments.
“You can lay back,” she said, because he was sitting up straight and looking uncomfortable.
He lay back but kept his wary gaze on what she was doing. “How did ye come to know how to remove a ball from a person?” he asked.
She was glad he was talking, at least, but she had hoped to avoid this particular discussion. After smearing the honey on his wound, impressed that he didn’t utter a sound even though it must hurt, she sat back and looked at him.
His dark blond hair was combed straight back and fell to waves on his shoulders. There was a dusting of darker blond along his chest that arrowed down to disappear in the bedsheets. His light blue gaze was serious and determined. Just moments before, it had been filled with desire.
“I tended the wounded and ill soldiers when I first came to Scotland.”
“English soldiers?”
She winced at the coldness of his tone. If only she could turn back the clock and tell her husband that she wouldn’t accompany him to Scotland.
But at the time, it had been such an honor that he had been chosen to serve under Cumberland.
And it was common for the wives to join their husbands.
She’d planned to stay in Edinburgh while Charles went on to Aberdeen, but he had never made it that far, and instead Eleanor had gone to Fort Augustus, where Cumberland had set up his headquarters after Culloden and where she had become a prisoner.
“Yes. English soldiers,” she said. She grabbed the linens and folded them, then pressed them to the wound. Brice hissed in a breath. “It looks clean. There’s no sign of infection,” she said. “Here, hold them in place while I wrap this length of linen around you.”
He held the padding while Eleanor tried to wrap the long linen around him. Too late, she realized her error. She would have to lean over him and have him roll toward her to get it under him.
Quickly she drew back. His blue eyes followed her movements with interest. There was no way around it unless he called someone in to help her.
“Roll toward me,” she said, trying to be as professional as she could.
He obliged but with a twinkle in his eyes.
She ignored it and hurriedly leaned over him, very aware that her breasts were pressed against his arm and that the touch ignited her skin.
To her mortification, her nipples hardened.
The edge of the linen slipped from her fumbling fingers, and she had to lean farther over him to fish it out of the bedclothes, causing her engorged nipples to rub against his arm.
A tingling sensation began deep in her belly and washed over her, making her weak and wanting between her legs. She swallowed as she wrapped the linen around his back, taking care not to look at the hard muscles that rippled below his skin.
She sat back. “Roll the other way.”
He didn’t move, and finally Eleanor had no choice but to look at him. He was still holding the padding, but his eyes had deepened to a dark sapphire, filled with the unmistakable lust that no doubt was mirrored in her own gaze.
“Ach, Ella. What am I to do with ye?”
She licked her lips, but before she could even respond, he had grabbed her shoulders with both of his hands, lifted her up, and sat her on his hips.
She froze, because she was sitting directly on the most massive erection.
Brice leaned against the pillow, closed his eyes, and hissed in a breath.
Whether it was from the pain in his shoulder or the fact that she was sitting very intimately on top of his engorged penis, she didn’t know.
What she did know was that his erection was rubbing her in places that sparked small fires inside her belly. She tried very, very hard not to move.
Brice had other thoughts, for he lifted his hips, and they both groaned at the same time. Dear Lord, this was sinful—but so wonderful.
Brice grabbed her hips. Her skirts were rucked up and her knees poked out.
He lifted his hips again and gasped. There were at least two layers of bedclothes between them, and whatever Brice was wearing.
She tried not to think that he wasn’t wearing anything.
She felt the long, hard length of him pressed against her, rubbing her in a place that had never been touched by anyone but her.
Charles had never even ventured down there.
Brice began moving in a slow rhythm that had her throwing her head back and clutching his wrists at her waist. The bedclothes bunched up beneath her. That, coupled with his inflamed member, made her lose all reason. There was nothing but the incredible feeling between her legs.
She pressed down as he surged up. He moaned, his eyes clenched tight, and the tendons in his neck stood out. Her eyes drifted closed and she gave herself up to the exquisite sensation.
“Eleanor.” He groaned. “I can’t…stop.”
She tightened her hold on his wrists. “Don’t.” She would die if he stopped now. She was so close to something wonderful, something magnificent.
And then she was there. She threw her head back and arched her back as the wave she’d been riding broke all over her. The sensation coalesced into a ball of such magnificent splendor that she lost it and cried out, humping his fully enlarged cock.
His hold on her hips tightened, and he began bucking underneath her until he, too, cried out, lifting his hips high to grind into her.
In the ensuing silence she could hear nothing but their ragged breathing. She had collapsed on his chest, unable to move. The place between her legs was tender and inflamed.
His hands slid from her hips to her waist and back down, caressing her languidly.
After a while she slowly pushed away from him and swiped the hair out of her eyes. “Oh, my.”
He looked up at her with half-closed lids, a smile playing around his lips. “I do no’ believe I’ve ever done it that way before.”
“No. I can safely say the same. Oh no!” His wound was bleeding. They’d ripped some of the stitches out with their…activities.
She reached toward the wound, but Brice captured her hand and brought it to his lips for a soft kiss. “Never mind that. It’s the best wound I’ve ever earned.”
She looked at him in astonishment, then laughed while he continued to kiss her knuckles. They fell silent as they looked at each other. What had they just done? Made a complicated situation more complicated, that was what.
“Brice—”
He surged forward and kissed her on the mouth, his lips hot and demanding as his hands roamed her body.
Beneath her, she felt him stir again, and her own body responded in kind.
She took his face between her hands and lifted off him to deepen their kiss.
She was breathless with wanting, shocked that she could feel this way so soon after.
She knew what the problem was. He’d never entered her, and she was desperate to be filled with him, to feel him move inside of her. She wanted it so badly that she could barely see straight.
His hands cupped her breasts through the linen of her gown. He thumbed her swollen nipples, causing her to gasp into his lips.
“I want to be inside ye,” he whispered. “God almighty, Ella, but you undo me.”
She grabbed at the bedclothes, as eager as he. She was right: He wore nothing beneath the bedsheets but the skin he was born in. His erection lay heavy and swollen on his stomach. Eleanor hiked up her skirts while Brice took his penis in his hand and raised it for her to slide onto.
She closed her eyes and sighed as he filled her with his long, hard length.
For a long moment she remained still, reveling in the sensation of him inside of her.
Absently she wondered where this woman had come from; Eleanor had never, ever acted like this.
Charles had always come to her at night, once a week, and they had made love in the dark, never fully removing their clothes.
When the deed was done, he would leave her to clean up and go to sleep, and she would always wonder if there wasn’t more to it.
There had to be. Charles seemed to get pleasure out of it, but she never received the same pleasure.
Now she knew there was definitely something more to it.
Brice reached between her legs and rubbed that hardened nub between her folds. She about came off the bed. The sensation was astonishing, a bit embarrassing, and altogether glorious. She cried out. He began moving inside her, groaning with each thrust as he continued to rub her.
The climax came swiftly and unexpectedly. Her eyes flew open and collided with the deep blue of his.
“Look at me,” he whispered.
She pressed her lips together, knowing if she didn’t, she would scream his name over and over, and she certainly didn’t want the entire castle knowing what they were doing.
Small whimpers escaped as his fingers moved more swiftly and expertly against her and his hips pumped harder, slamming into her.
“Let it go, Ella.”
The wave crashed into her, making everything go numb except the feeling between her legs. She slid up and down his member, riding it and holding on for dear life.
Brice cried out and quickly plucked her off him so he could shoot his seed outside of her.
Eleanor rolled off him to land in a heap at his side. She gulped for air, her entire body tingling, her insides clenching down in the aftershock. Brice was just as boneless beside her, his chest heaving in an effort to draw in breath.
“What was that?” she asked between breaths.
“The best damn coupling I’ve ever experienced.”
She buried her face in the bed and smiled, inordinately pleased that she’d given him the best coupling of his life.
He stroked her back and sighed.
“I have to take care of your shoulder,” she said, her words muffled by the mattress.
“Ye could do what ye want with me and there’d nothing I could do about it. I dare say I won’t be able to move for a sennight.”
“I should probably stitch it up again.”
“Nay. Just wrap it up. It will heal on its own.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “And you’ve been shot enough times to know this?”
“Nay. No’ shot, but a few dagger wounds. One broadsword.”
Eleanor shook her head and pushed up off the bed, wondering if she would be able to move for a sennight herself. She rounded the bed and once again had Brice press the pad of linen to the wound. Once again she leaned over him to wrap it around him, but this time she shot him a look before she did.
“No’ to worry. I’ll no’ grab ye this time.” He grinned and waggled his eyebrows, but he didn’t move, and she managed to finally the get the bandage around him.
“I have to leave now.”
Alarm flashed in his eyes. “Leave where?”
“To the great hall. It’s time for the evening meal.”
He looked toward the window. “No’ for a while yet.”
She hadn’t told him that she served in the hall; frankly she had no interest in telling him. It was her business, and she was going to be late if she didn’t leave now. “Nevertheless, I’m going. I’ll have someone bring a tray up in a bit.”
He grasped her hand. “Ye bring the tray up.”
She shook her head. “I have things to do. Someone will bring it up.”
His brows came together in a thunderous expression. “What things?”
She extricated her hand from his. “Things. Get some sleep.”
“I’m no’ tired. What are ye no’ telling me, Ella?”
She liked that he called her Ella. It lent an intimacy to them.
“I’m not telling you anything. You’re too untrusting.”
He laid his head against the pillow and eyed her, but she wouldn’t say any more, and she walked out and headed for the kitchen so she could serve his men their evening meal.