Chapter 8
Eight
“Ewan, please tell me that you dinna get hurt.” Frantically, Nora searched his body, looking for injuries.
Ewan couldn’t draw his breath for a full minute. The fall hadn’t hurt anything much more than his dignity and knocked the wind from him.
But he had to admit he liked feeling her hands on his body. Liked seeing the concern on her face.
“I got your brat,” he said around his aching ribs and back, handing it to her.
“Oh, forget the silly brat. You’ve been hurt.”
Silly brat?
Now the brat was silly?
Ewan frowned at her. He wasn’t really hurt, but he didn’t want her to know that. She was running her hands up and down his body as if searching for injuries and even though he should be sated after their tryst, he wasn’t.
He could take her again, right now.
And that surprised him most of all.
“Should I go get Lysander?” she asked.
“Nay,” he quickly assured her. Lysander would laugh and know in an instant he wasn’t hurt. “I think I can manage with your help.”
“What should I do?”
Ewan stifled a wolfish grin. He should feel guilty for taking advantage of her this way, but he didn’t. He enjoyed her concern and care.
“Ow!” he said as she touched his thigh.
“Are you hurt there?”
“Aye.”
She ran her hand around his leg to his inner thigh. Ewan clenched his teeth as a fiery need stabbed his groin while she rubbed his leg in an effort to alleviate his ache.
Little did she know, she was only adding to it.
“What about your back?” she asked. “Are you hurt there?”
“Perhaps. It throbs so that I can’t tell.”
She helped him to sit up.
Ewan closed his eyes as she explored his back with her hands.
When she started to move away, he groaned as if in pain. “My right shoulder.”
Nora massaged the joint. “Here?
“Aye.”
Her hands dipped lower, and lower. Och but the lass felt good.
Too good. Her hands were the most blessed pain reliever he’d ever known. For this amount of her undivided attention, he’d gladly fall out of another tree.
She helped him to his feet.
Ewan made sure he didn’t put too much weight on her as he limped along beside her.
He’d never had anyone care for him like this. His brothers would have laughed, then kicked him up and told him not to cry like a lass. His mother had at times tried to pamper him, but with three other sons, she’d been ever occupied by their needs.
He had to admit he liked the way Nora cared for him.
Most of all, he liked where his hand rested.
“Ewan? Could you please lower your hand a bit?”
He moved it from her breast, but did as she said and placed it just below her bosom so that he could still feel the curve of her.
Aye, a man could get used to this.
They approached the others.
“What has happened?” Catarina asked as soon as she saw them.
“Ewan fell from a tree while retrieving my brat,” Nora explained. “I think he’s injured his leg and his back.”
Ewan saw the suspicious looks from the men. Och, but they were just jealous they didn’t have a beautiful lass to dote on them.
“Did he now?” Viktor asked. “And just how far did he fall?”
“Quite a ways,” Nora hastened to assure him.
Lysander snorted. “Too bad he didn’t land on his head.”
Bavel shoved at him.
Nora helped Ewan into the back of the wagon. “You rest here and I’ll be right back with something for you to drink.”
As Nora left him, Catarina approached her and whispered so that Ewan wouldn’t overhear her.
“I don’t think he’s as injured as he appears, my lady. I think he’s playing upon your sympathies so that he can stay close to you.”
Nora flashed an evil smile. “And well I know it. ‘Twould take much more than such a slight fall to hurt him, but I rather like having him close.”
She winked at Catarina who laughed.
She didn’t think Ewan would have allowed her such freedom with his body if he wasn’t “injured.” And he seemed to enjoy her caresses too much for her to stop them.
If he wanted to be babied a bit, then she would certainly oblige him.
As she returned to the wagon, she caught sight of him with her brat. He had it pressed to his lower face as if inhaling it.
Seeing her, he quickly put it aside and straightened up.
Nora stared at him there. His long legs were stretched out in front of him and he looked a bit guilty. Those piercingly blue eyes of his made her tremble.
He was so fierce and powerful and at the same time there was something playful about him. But what warmed her most was the knowledge that he wasn’t playful with others.
Only she was allowed to glimpse the more tender side of him.
She liked that a great deal.
Nora climbed in to sit down beside him and handed him the wineskin.
He took a drink, then glanced at her in surprise. “You brought me ale?”
“I thought it would help with the pain.”
Viktor looked in on them. “How you doing, lad?”
Ewan looked at her uncomfortably.
“He’ll be fine,” Nora answered. “He just needs a bit of a rest. Would it be all right if we rode back here for awhile?”
Viktor nodded. “We’ll be on our way then.”
Nora listened as the others returned to their horses and Viktor tied both of their mounts to the back of the wagon. After several minutes, they were on their way.
Again he had a guilty look about him that told her he wasn’t as injured as he would have her believe.
So be it. She was more than content to ride back here alone with him.
“Who do you think this man is who paid them to abduct you?” Nora asked after a short span of silence. “Have you many enemies?”
“Nay. My only enemy was Robby MacDouglas, but since the feud ended between our clans, he’s forgiven me and we’ve been friendly enough.”
“‘Tis peculiar, isn’t it? I wonder if it could be some woman who caught fancy to you and paid someone to bring you to her.”
Ewan scowled at her. “What a strange thing for you to think.”
“Nay, not really. You’re rather fetching when you’re not making that face.”
“I’m not making a face.”
She touched his forehead and smoothed his features. “You scowl overmuch.”
“And you talk overmuch.”
She smiled a smile that warmed him. “Aye, ‘tis what makes Ryan so angry at me. He says I am ever a whirlwind of nonsense.”
Ewan touched her cheek with his fingertips. Then he leaned forward and kissed her lightly. “I rather like your nonsense.”
Nora sighed as she cupped his head to hers. She could drink from his lips for eternity.
Ewan nibbled on her lips for quite some time. Stroking and teasing them.
It was the first time ever she had sat with a man like this and let him have free reign with her lips and body. She enjoyed it immensely.
Finally, he pulled back and Nora settled down by his side, safe in the shelter of his arms while the wagon rocked beneath them. Neither of them had slept much the night before.
So she let the soothing sound of his heart lull her to blissful slumber.
Ewan toyed with her hair as her gentle breath fell against his neck. How he loved the way this woman felt in his arms. She was so soft against his hardness.
He tried to remember Isobail. He couldn’t even recall her face, only the pain she had left in her wake.
It was Kieran he remembered. He had tried to tell him that Isobail didn’t love him.
Kieran had attacked him viciously, calling him a liar.
“Damn you, Ewan. You know nothing of what you speak. She was meant for me and no other. She has said it to me a thousand times.”
“Listen to me, damn you. She told me herself that she has no feelings for you.”
“Liar!” Kieran had backhanded him for those words.
Ewan had reached to attack, and Lochlan and Braden had come between them, forcing them apart.
“Why are you upsetting him, Ewan?” Lochlan had demanded.
“She loves me.” The words had leapt out of his mouth before he could stop them.
All three of his brothers had laughed.
“You?” Kieran had shaken his head. “Now I know you jest.”
His words and their laughter had torn through Ewan. “Why is that so hard for you to believe?”
It had been Kieran’s final words to him that had set everything into motion.
“Look at yourself, Ewan. You’re gangly and sullen. What few women you’ve had, I had to pay them to take you and all you did then was talk to them instead of make use of their charms. The day will never come when a woman would h ave you over me. What could you ever offer a woman?”
“I know the answer to this one,” Braden had chimed in. “A lifetime of brooding silence and evil glares.”
Then, Braden had clapped Kieran on the back and the two of them had left the hall, all the while laughing at him.
Ewan had stood frozen, unable to breathe from the cruelty of their words.
“I know not what to do with that boy, Aislin, he will never be what his brothers are...”
“They didn’t mean that as it sounded,” Lochlan had said after Kieran and Braden had left. “I’m sure Isobail is fond of you. In your own way, you are—”
“Shut-up, Lochlan,” he’d snarled. “I’m tired of all of you recounting my faults to me. I’m not as handsome as Braden, nor as charming as Kieran and I lack your intelligence. Believe me, I know well my shortcomings.”
Those comparisons had been branded into his heart from the hour of his birth.
Though he loved his brothers, he was well aware of where he fell in everyone’s esteem.
Even Sin had mocked him when he offered to help him and Braden rescue Lochlan from the clan.
There was nothing he could do that his brothers couldn’t do better.
Only Nora had never compared him to them.
Of course, she had yet to meet his brothers...
Would she care for him if they were around? Or would she be like Isobail and abandon him the first chance she got?
He didn’t know for sure. But in the back of his mind was the thought that if she did, it would be the blow that destroyed him. He could take anything other than her ridicule.
Viktor stopped the wagon on the outskirts of a small town. Catarina reined her horse to a stop as Lysander and Bavel dismounted.
Catarina joined Lysander as he pulled open the door to the wagon and they found Ewan and Nora sound asleep in the back.
Nora was lying against his chest and he had one brawny arm slung protectively over her.
“Ahhh,” Catarina said, happy to see them so entwined.