Chapter 35
It must have taken the better part of an hour to drag Kaden’s large frame into the cabin. It was far from ideal, but at least he wouldn’t be sunburnt on top of everything else.
Emily was thankful that Maggie refused to leave his side. Seeing how much blood he had lost, he needed all the warmth he could get.
Making a poultice like her mother had taught her was even more difficult due to the lack of supplies. She was certain that there was a decent amount of herbs in the surrounding woods, but she wasn’t willing to drift far enough from Kaden to find them. So, she made do with what she had.
If Kaden hadn’t shown up when he had, she didn’t know what she would have done.
The priest was being as much help as he knew how to be. At least he was, before she sent him to bring help. Healing and herbs weren’t exactly the sort of thing he was talented in, nor did she expect him to be.
As for Graham? Well, she had left him right where he lay. He didn’t deserve honor in life, and he certainly didn’t deserve any now that he was dead.
When she had finished gathering enough kindling, she headed back inside to build a fire.
At least this part of the training that she had received when she was a child came in handy.
Perhaps if she were lucky, she would have a big enough fire to boil some water, and she could make flower tea if nothing else to keep them warm. It had to be late afternoon now.
“It’s a good thing that ye came for me,” she said to Kaden, but she wasn’t even certain that he could hear her.
None of his wounds looked overly severe, but he had bled far more than she was comfortable with. There was a strange pallor to his otherwise tan skin that made her nervous.
She couldn’t lose her husband when they had just gotten married. She just couldn’t. It wasn’t an option that she would accept. The priest would be back with help any minute now.
She reached down to check how dry the poultices had gotten and to pet Maggie’s soft head. The wee beastie had drunk her body weight in water when Emily had offered it to her. She couldn’t imagine a better dog, no matter how small she might be.
“I daenae ken what I would have done without both of ye.” She smiled softly to herself. “Ye both saved me life.” Maggie lifted her little head and licked her palm as if she could somehow understand what Emily was saying. “I daenae want to go home without both of ye.”
Maggie barked, and walked to the door.
“Ye want to wait for help outside?”
She barked again. Emily sighed and let her out. “Ye just wait for that priest here. He’ll probably run into Peter soon. Daenae go far.”
Maggie settled just outside the door and Emily gave her one last pat before heading back inside.
She settled on the dirty floor beside where Kaden was resting, half propped up against the wall.
She was glad that he was breathing steadily.
No doubt, the punches to the head didn’t help.
She was certain that he was going to wake up soon, and she would get to look into those warm eyes and tell him how grateful she was.
“I just want to go home,” she breathed, and leaned down to rest her head on his chest.
Perhaps it was more touch than he would have allowed, but she wanted to think that if he was awake, he would have made this moment an exception, for they had both almost fallen prey to Graham again.
She had so many questions that she wanted to ask him, things that she wanted to know about his history with Graham, and if it was anything like her own history with him. Judging by how feral he had acted, likely his was far worse.
She trailed her finger over his chest and flattened her palm over his heart just to reassure herself.
She lay like that until her heart didn’t feel like it was going to burst out of her chest anymore.
“Ye have to wake up so that I can thank ye, though it goes against me nature to do so,” she teased. Perhaps she was crazy, but she could have sworn she felt his arm shift. “Ye didnae have to put yerself in danger for me.”
No, she wasn’t imagining it. Kaden’s arm did shift to wrap around her and pull her closer to his chest.
“We’re me wife, of course I’d protect ye,” he sighed.
She tried to shush him so that he wouldn’t use too much of his energy while they waited for help. “Once we’re back in the castle, I daenae want to wake up alone again, ye hear me?”
She could feel him smirking against the crown of her head. But she continued speaking before he could interrupt her.
“Ye have left me with too much time to think while ye rested. I ken I said that I didnae want a bairn until a year had passed, but ye… ye went to that maid at the first chance ye got and laughed with her.”
Kaden only held her tighter, and it almost felt like he was afraid she was going to evaporate. “Is me wee wife jealous?”
“Nay! I’m nae jealous!” she protested. “I think that I’m just seeing things more clearly, having gotten a bit of perspective.”
“Aye, battle can do that to a person,” he agreed softly. “But ye did ask for distance. It wasnae something I wanted.”
She didn’t want to start a fight. She merely wanted to speak her mind.
“I didnae beg for distance. I didnae beg to wake up alone after… after…” she trailed off.
She didn’t really know what words to use or how best to describe what they had done.
“After what, wife? After I introduced ye to heaven? Ye can say it.”
Emily pressed down on one of the dried poulcies to make him stop sounding so arrogant. “I hate how smug ye are about it. Is that all ye want from me? Because… Because I want yer company as well.”
Kaden hissed in discomfort. “I want the same, damn it. I want to be with ye, though I should have ken better. I’m terrified that something will happen to me.
Or ye. And I cannae take it. It pierces through me.
And yet I cannae stay away. I feel that if I keep me distance, I might actually die. Ye did that.”
It was perhaps the most she had ever heard him say in one single breath. It took her a long moment to process it.
“I cannae say that I am sorry for getting under yer skin,” she admitted softly with a smile.
Kaden’s hand lifted to cup the back of her neck, pulling her up so that he could kiss her. It was soft at first, tentative, as if neither one of them wanted to push things too far.
It was different than before because now Emily knew what she meant to him. All of the emotions she had been holding back, prohibiting herself from feeling, rushed to the surface all at once.
She allowed herself to feel them all.
She was allowed to want her husband, to desire him in all the ways that she had been afraid to before.
Kaden pulled her over his lap, her thighs on either side of his, and she leaned down. Whatever pain he was feeling seemed to have been forgotten as she gently lowered herself onto his chest. She tried to be patient and not press so hard, but the amount of contact he was allowing was overwhelming.
His hands moved up her sides to her waist, his fingers pressing into her skin as he deepened the kiss. She wanted to feel his hands everywhere on her and had no idea how to express it. She didn’t have the words for what she wanted, but she knew that she wanted him.
She pressed herself against his chest, careful not to touch his wound, as her hands slid up into his hair, savoring the taste and feel of him. His tongue ran along the seam of her lips, asking for permission, which she readily gave.
It was the first time she could touch his chest so thoroughly. She could trace every one of his scars. She wanted to kiss each one and show him that the story behind them didn’t matter. She loved him, no matter what had happened in his past.
Kaden broke the kiss and pressed his forehead against hers. She felt the loss right away.
“We should stop now if ye daenae wish to test me patience,” he groaned.
“I daenae want to stop,” she insisted. “I want to experience this with ye.”
His eyes widened in surprise. “Here? Now?”
Emily swallowed thickly and nodded once. “Aye, or else I might lose me nerve.”
She let out a mirthless laugh. It wasn’t actually so much that she was jealous, but rather that she just didn’t want this moment to pass them by.
While he rested, she had been so afraid that she might lose him.
She had had plenty of hours to sit and think about what she might do if she had to return to Muir Castle without him. What that might look like.
She didn’t want to have to think about it ever again.
She had half a mind to tell him that he wasn’t allowed to die before her, no matter what. This was enough of a scare, and she certainly couldn’t take another.
Perhaps this was poorly timed on her part, but she needed to feel him. She wanted to feel alive and know that this was real—that their suffering was over and they were going to move on to the next chapter of their lives.
Kaden’s hands slid up the curve of her waist to settle around her ribs. “And ye are sure?”
Emily bit her bottom lip softly and nodded.
She reached down to her skirt on one side, hiking it up slowly to expose her thigh so that he would be tempted to rest his hand there.
And Kaden was only too happy to oblige.
His callused, scarred hand against her soft skin was a sensation she didn’t know how to describe. All she knew was that if she could have his hands on her from this moment on for the rest of her life, it wouldn’t be enough.
His hands roamed over the exposed skin beneath her skirt, and she let her head fall back as she sat astride him, a soft smile playing on her lips as she relished the contact. It widened when she felt him stiffen between her thighs.
She had wanted to feel his member against her core, and even through his kilt, she knew that the sensation was going to be delicious.
She tested the feeling, slowly rocking her hips, and he ground into her. She was sorely tempted to rush the thing. Lift her skirt to her waist so that she could enjoy everything a husband had to offer his wife.
“I love ye, ye ken?” Kaden whispered against the side of her face as she lowered herself again.
She pressed herself against his chest, and his hands cupped her buttocks, moving her against his length teasingly.
“I think I might ken that,” she gasped as his lips trailed down the column of her throat.
She wanted to warn him to go slow, to be mindful of his wounds. But selfishly, she couldn’t force the words out of her lips.
“Ah, perhaps I just need to show ye then, so ye ken that I speak the truth.”
Emily accommodated him, leaning forward so that he could kiss the swell of her breasts while unfastening the laces at the back of her gown with his free hand.
His hand splayed over the line of her back the moment he found bare skin, pulling her closer as the hand on her thigh moved her in place. The friction between her thighs made her heart rate quicken. She was going to make a mess of the front of his kilt at this rate.
She didn’t even realize that the movement of her hips was pushing up his kilt until her sex met hot bare skin. Her spine stiffened, but she couldn’t stop rocking her hips. It felt too good.
“Ye are going to be the death of me,” Kaden groaned, his grip on her tightening momentarily, before he pulled the top of her dress down her arms, exposing her breasts to the warm air and his waiting mouth.
She knew what climax felt like now, thanks to him. She knew the climb and how it tightened in her core, how it made heat pool between her legs, but it had never felt like this before.
“Please, Kaden,” she breathed, needing him to take control.
His hand moved from her buttocks to wrap around his member, and he guided it to her center. She gasped as he started to press inside her, and he let her set the pace.
She slowly lowered herself onto him, gasping at the impossible fullness, the stretch, and the momentary discomfort. She had never imagined it would feel like this.
If this was what it was like to be with her husband, how was she expected to ever get anything else done?
She moved slowly at first, delighting in the sounds that each movement of her hips coaxed from him. Her palms flattened on his chest as she found a rhythm that felt the best to her. She moved slowly as she leaned down to kiss him.
“Careful, lass,” Kaden groaned. “I might nae last if ye keep—”
Whatever else he was going to say was cut off by a groan as she started to move faster.
His hips bucked, the pressure and angle making her see stars. If her eyes hadn’t been closed, they might have well rolled to the back of her head.
Her fingers trailed slowly down his chest as she broke the sweet kiss she had started, her back arching as climax crashed through her.
Her legs spasmed on either side of his hips.
His hands flew to her waist, attempting to pull her off him, but she knew very well what that meant.
He was trying to respect her wishes and not spill inside her so that he wouldn’t give her a child.
In that moment, her heart ached to be one with him.
She grabbed his hands, her hips rolling against him as she shook her head. She threaded her fingers through his as he held her, and she felt him spill inside her. A soft smile spread across her lips, before she collapsed onto his chest.
“I love ye,” Kaden whispered against her forehead, so soft that she almost thought she had imagined the words.
“I kent that ye were going to be the one to say it first,” she teased. She couldn’t help herself. “Now, I can say that I believe ye.”
“Ah. So I’m alone in me affection, then?” Kaden pulled her back slightly.
Emily was almost tempted to let him stew in his confusion for a little while. She certainly was amused by his reaction. Instead, she shook her head slightly.
“Nay, ye arenae alone.”
She let him kiss her again, softly.
“Then say it.”
She took her time, her smile making her cheeks ache. “I love ye, too.”
“I ken I will always be a touch overprotective,” Kaden admitted, but it wasn’t anything that she didn’t already know.
“And ye ken that I’ll always find a way to cause mischief.”
“I would expect nothing less.” He chuckled, before kissing her again. “But next time, I’ll do better to respect yer wishes.”
“Nay! It was silly of me to think that ye or any bairn that we might have would hold me back. If anything, the bairn would make me life complete.”
“It’s a scary task to undertake. All change is scary,” Kaden agreed.
“I think we both have been stuck on the things that we daenae have, but everything will get better from now on. Everything about the future that we build together will be better.”
“Anything ye want, Emily.”
Emily grinned. “I like the sound of that.”