Chapter 8
Lachlan awoke groggily. He was tired. And sore. And as randy as . . .
But in that instant, memories stormed into his mind and he jerked to his elbow to stare across the bed.
Startled from sleep, Hunter awoke immediately, snatched her knife from beneath the blanket and sat bolt upright.
From their respective positions, they stared at each other for several hard heartbeats.
“Oh.” Her voice was breathy, her eyes wide. She cleared her throat and lowered her voice an octave. “’Tis you.”
He said nothing, but stared at her, hoping he looked casual, or maybe even bored. As if he awoke every morning to a wide-eyed warrior woman. As if his heart wasn’t threatening to leap out of his chest.
“I—” she began and lowered the dirk, but all words were now lost to him for when she moved her hand, he saw that her tunic had slipped, revealing one creamy shoulder.
His gaze snagged on that ivory hillock, but beneath that, where the garment slanted sideways, much more was revealed, for one nipple was just visible in the tunic’s opening.
Desire crashed through him like high tide, leaving him shaky.
He tightened his grip on his plaid and remained very still.
“MacGowan!” she said, but in that instant she realized his lack of attention and lowered her own gaze. “Oh.” Her hand moved with poetic slowness, covering herself, but against the pale fabric he could now see that a flush of color brushed her throat and cheeks. “Me apologies,” she said.
“Apologies?” He hadn’t meant to say the ridiculous word aloud, but he was caught off guard and floundering rather hopelessly in the wild sea of desire.
“Aye.” She tightened her fist in the shirt’s front, pulling the fabric tight across her bosom.
God help him.
“I didn’t mean to . . .” She paused. The color had faded from her cheeks a bit, but her eyes still looked large enough to drown in.
Her hair framed her face in bright disarray and her lips seemed extraordinarily bright.
She looked like nothing more than a startled archangel. Ethereal, but dangerous.
The dual image was disarming, but hardly unmanning. He shifted uncomfortably as he searched for something to say to fill the silence. Still, try as he might, he could think about nothing but that nipple.
She licked her lips. He watched her tongue dart out and in and wished he could swallow. “I did not mean to offend you. But . . .” She smiled a little sheepishly. “Highland warriors oft shed their garments before going into battle, do they not? Surely you are accustomed to it.”
“Accustomed.”
“Aye.” She nodded curtly and cleared her throat. “’Twas wise of you to share the bed.”
He didn’t respond. She would have to survive for a few moments without his clever repartee, for he felt entirely uncertain of his ability to talk. His body felt as tight as a crossbow, arched and ready for action.
“You must ache.”
He stared at her.
“You fought bravely,” she explained.
“Oh.” It was difficult to breathe, but he managed it with a Herculean effort. “You speak of the battle.”
“Aye.” She scowled a little as if he were daft, and it was entirely possible that he was, for he felt as dizzy as a dervish and as dense as a rock. “I am not sure I thanked you properly.”
He could feel his heart beating in his chest and wondered if she could see it pounding there, for now and then she glanced down from his face.
“Warriors are not always adept at . . .” She paused again. Her gaze darted lower, then she licked her bright lips and breathed through them for just a second. His erection thrummed to the rhythm. “I am not always good at expressing me gratitude.”
She held her dirk against the mattress now, and her borrowed tunic drooped in that direction, covering her hand to the fingertips.
It seemed a strangely erotic image. He stared, first at her fingers, then at her face, trying his damnedest to avoid everything in between, for if the truth be told, he could barely trust himself with those two innocuous body parts.
She cleared her throat. “And what of you, MacGowan?”
It took him a moment to realize she’d asked a question. “What’s that?” Perhaps quick-wittedness was not his forte, but he liked to think he was somewhat brighter than he sounded at that very moment.
“We are much alike, you and I. I but wondered if you have trouble . . .” She shrugged. Her shoulder nudged into view another half an inch. “Expressing your emotions. After all, I think we do not, either one of us, fit into the usual mold.”
“And what mold is that?”
She shrugged again. The strain was beginning to tell on him as he waited with bated breath for the tunic to fall like the damned walls of Jericho.
“You were raised as a laird’s son, used to fine trappings and willing maids, and yet you have turned them aside. Instead, you have chosen a warrior’s path so that none will suspect . . .” She paused. A glimmer of worry troubled her brow.
He pulled his attention from her shoulder with an effort and concentrated on her expression. “Suspect what?”
She stared at him. “I do not mean to offend you, MacGowan.”
“And I am not offended,” he said, though the first glimmer of foreboding was souring his stomach. “What will none suspect?”
“I know the truth,” she said, holding his gaze. Her expression was resolute, her delectable lips slightly pursed.
He waited for her to continue. She remained silent for some time and when she finally spoke her words were measured.
“Some think it a great advantage in a warrior,” she said. “Indeed, in days of yore, your kind were much revered.”
He canted his head at her, confused and still aching.
“The Roman army encouraged it in fact. I have done some study of history. I know it to be true. They considered their soldiers to be more content, indeed, more self-sufficient if they were . . . like you.”
Something twisted in his stomach. He narrowed his eyes. “Like me?”
“You needn’t worry,” she said. “I’ll tell no one.”
“And what is it you’ll not tell?”
She scowled at him, but delayed not a moment longer. “That you’ve a fondness for other men.”
“Fond . . . !” He bounded from the bed in one leap and grabbed his plaid as he did so, but in his wild dismay, his fingers barely worked. The woolen slipped. He caught it before it hit the floor and dragged it back in front of his body. “You think I favor men?”
Her eyes had gone suddenly wide. She watched him unblinking, sitting rigid upon the bed. “As I said it matters not to me, MacGowan. I—”
“Holy mother!” he gritted and bunching the fabric sloppily about his waist, stormed from the room.
Hunter stole a glance sideways. He was still there and, truth to tell, she was surprised, for she’d thought he would leave her in Jedburgh after she’d discovered his secret.
But she’d been wrong. Minutes later, she’d found him in the stable, silently throwing a saddle onto his stallion.
In fact, he’d been silent most of the time since.
And it had been many hours. But this was the end of their travels together. She would see to that.
“Well, MacGowan . . .” She halted Knight and faced him as the sun sank into the west. “This is where you turn back.”
He glowered at her. There had been a lot of that recently, mostly in lieu of conversation. “I say when I turn back, laddie.”
He said the word with some scorn, and she regretted again having spilled his secret. After all, it was obviously a sore spot, and he was trying harder than ever to prove his onerous masculinity.
“Nay,” she said, and straightened slightly. Her back ached from hours in the saddle. She could only assume that his did too. “’Tis me own decision, MacGowan, and I say you leave off here.”
“Do you?” Perhaps he’d been difficult before, but now challenge seemed to flow from his every pore. “And why is that . . . laddie?”
“It matters not why . . . champion.” Her own ire was rising steadily.
After all, it wasn’t her fault that he was attracted to men.
In fact, if she could change that fact .
. . Well, the point was . . . she didn’t care who he was attracted to.
She raised her chin and stared at him from beneath her helmet’s visor.
“’Tis simply that I’ll not have you trailing along any farther. ”
“Trailing along.” He leaned toward her aggressively. His neck, she realized, was the approximate size of her waist. A vein throbbed in it just now. “So that’s what I’ve been doing, is it?” he asked and pressed his steed toward her.
“Aye,” she said, and stiffened her spine. Beneath her, Knight Star arched his neck and rumbled a warning as the other stallion sidled closer. “’Tis. For I’ve not asked you to follow me.”
“It’s a nuisance I’ve been then, is it?”
“’Tis not what I’ve said,” she gritted and placed a hand on the hilt of her sword.
“But ’tis what you’ve been thinking.”
“As I’ve said I did not ask for your company, Mac—”
“And as I’ve said, if I hadn’t come along, chasing me horse the whole distance, like a bloody hound on your trail, you would be worse off than dead, laddie.”
“Worse than dead! To a warrior there is no such thing.”
“But to a woman there is,” he gritted. “What do you imagine might have happened had I not shown up?”
She said nothing. He crowded his steed closer still.
“Might you think they would have wished you well and sent you merrily on your way?”
“I’ve seen trouble afore, Mac—”
“Nay!” he growled, and leaned from his stallion so that he all but rode hers. “They would have killed you. But not before they discovered the truth!”
Fury awoke in her like a sleeping lion. “And what truth is that, champion?” she snarled.
“What truth?” He looked as if she’d suddenly gone daft. “The truth that you are a maid and not a man atall. The truth that your skin is as soft as satin and your—” He curled one hand dramatically before him, but found no more words. “Sweet Mother Mary! What the devil were you thinking?”
She watched him from close proximity, her mind roiling, her body taut.
“Perhaps I was thinking ’tis a man’s world,” she said.
“Perhaps I was thinking that women have few options in that world, and perhaps . . .” She paused, feeling anger boil quietly inside.
“Perhaps I thought it best to survive as best I could rather than perishing quietly like other well-born maids would have done.”
He leaned back a mite. “What the devil are you blathering about?”
She stared at him. A thousand memories thundered like wild steeds through her head, trampling all in sight, but she’d tamed the beasties before and she did so again, easing them to a safe haven in her mind.
“It matters not,” she said and drew a deep, even breath. “It only matters that you leave now.”
“Leave? Now?” He laughed. The sound was deep, incredulous, and entirely without mirth.
“Aye.”
“Here? In the borderlands where the bloody reivers be more numerous than lambkins?” He laughed again. “I tell you what, laddie. How about if I just kill you meself and see the task done.”
She drew out her sword in a flash and motioned toward him. “If you think yourself man enough, MacGowan, have at it.”
His own weapon stayed at his side. He swore quietly and with deep feeling. “You are the most stubborn maid that has ever walked the Lord’s green earth.”
“Perhaps that is because I—”
He laughed, interrupting her words. “Because you are not a maid? Huh!” He leaned toward her again, nearly pressing his mammoth chest against the tip of her sword. “You are deluded is what you are. Aye, you are a warrior, you are brave, and you are competent, but you are also a woman.”
“Shut your mouth, MacGowan,” she said, and shifted her gaze side to side. Now was not the place to have her secrets aired.
“Or what? You’ll shut it for me? You’ll kill me? You’ll cut me tongue from me head?”
“Aye,” she said, and pressed her sword against his chest, but in an instant he had knocked the blade aside and snatched her from her horse. As quick as death he dragged her atop his pommel and crushed her against his chest.
For one fleeting moment his gaze seared hers and then he was kissing her.
His lips slanted across hers, burning on contact.
She tried to push away, but there was no hope of that.
In fact there was nothing she could do except kiss him back, but as suddenly as he began, he quit and swung her like a sack of meal onto her waiting mount.
She found herself in her saddle, slightly askew and feeling as stupid as a hop toad with her sword drooping from a limp wrist.
They stared at each other, though his expression was more of a glare. There was no telling what her face showed. For all she knew, her eyeballs may well have popped clean out of her head.
“I’ll be coming with you,” he growled.
She continued to stare.
“Unless you kill me here and now.”
She blinked once.
“And I’ll not be apologizing,” he warned, and turned his mount toward the south. “So don’t be holding your breath.”