Chapter Three #2
Dorian followed her lead as they wended their way past boulders and over streams, down hills and through valleys until they finally reached an ancient monolith rising from the earth like a jagged tooth in an old crone’s maw.
Faye was panting happily, her lean sides expanding wide with the effort; even Amelia’s chest was heaving from the exertion.
The sun chose that moment to slice through a cloud, and she tilted her face to absorb what little warmth could reach her chilled cheeks before the light was swallowed once more.
Dorian had to force his eyes away from her and take in their surroundings.
They’d stopped in some old religious or burial site.
Time and weather had toppled most of the stones, but a few still stood proud, looming far above his head, even at his height atop Maximus.
Fleetingly, he thought how it was impossible the stones had been placed there by human hands; surely, giants had once roamed here, and these were the remnants of their time.
Nearby, a forest rose darkly from the earth.
It looked and felt like a place where fairytales just might be real.
Seeing what he was looking at, Amelia said, “The locals believe this to be an enchanted place.” Dorian turned Maximus in a circle as she continued. “There are stories of ancient kings and unicorns, lairds who made bargains with sprites. Kelpies are said to inhabit the loch.”
“Kelpies?” Dorian’s head reared back. “What the hell is a kelpie?”
“An equine water-dwelling creature that can also take the form of a human. They lure men to watery graves.”
“I’m half certain you are making that up.”
She laughed, and the sound sent a pleasant shiver down his spine. “I assure you, I am not. On the coast, there are also selkies; they are incredibly beautiful and change form between seals and humans by removing or wearing their seal skin.”
“Have you ever seen one of these creatures?”
“I have not been drowned, nor have I been lured into a romance with a water spirit, so it is safe to say I have yet to meet one.”
“No unicorns either?”
“Alas, no.”
“A tragedy, that.” Dorian paused to watch a small smile curl the edges of her lips as she patted her horse’s neck. He cleared his throat and wrenched his gaze away. “Should we turn back to the castle?”
“Not yet. Let us give Faye a bit more time to catch her breath. She’s not as young as she once was.”
“Are any of us?” he asked with a wistful smile before dismounting and moving to help her descend as well. She allowed him to assist her without protest, but he hadn’t anticipated the jolt of awareness as her body slid down the length of his until he set her on her feet.
Dorian stared down into the green pools of her eyes, his hands encircling her slim waist, able to feel the heat radiating from her body even through the layers of her clothing and his leather riding gloves.
He did not feel the stiffness of stays beneath the fabric of her bodice, and the newfound knowledge caused his blood to heat several degrees.
Barely anything separated him from her naked breasts, the soft skin of her womanly curves.
What was she wearing beneath her skirts?
He had to tear his mind away from picturing her underthings, and settled for tucking a stray curl back behind her ear, trailing his fingertips over the pale shell of her ear, down the angle of her jaw.
His thumb came to rest on the plumpness of the lower lip he ached to taste.
Amelia’s eyes moved to his mouth, and he very nearly gave in to the temptation to see whether or not his memory of her sweetness was accurate.
He was supposed to be the one in control…so why was his heart suddenly racing faster than they just had on horseback?
He needed to remind himself of the reason he’d traveled to Scotland—to tease and tempt Amelia until she could take it no more, to make her ache with a fraction of the desire he’d held onto.
But any thoughts of revenge aside, he still longed to make her yearn for him.
It was painful, but Dorian forced himself to step back.
Amelia tried to hide her flushed cheeks while she looked over her horse, carefully tilting her head in just such a way.
She’d felt Rory stumble slightly shortly before stopping, and she wanted to be sure there wasn’t a stone lodged in his hoof.
When she lifted his foot and rested it on her thigh, however, what she saw made her curse aloud.
“My, my, but that is an unladylike word,” Kempton said, amused, as he looked over her shoulder. One of the horse’s shoes had been thrown.
“I cannot ride him back, and this monument marks the boundary three miles from the castle.” Amelia groaned. She took a bracing breath and released a sigh of resignation. “We’d best begin walking.”
As if to underscore her misery, a rumble of thunder rolled across the sky.
“Ride with me,” Kempton said. “Maximus can easily handle our combined weight. We can make better progress this way, instead of trying to outrun the storm.”
Amelia wasn’t keen on being so close to Kempton again—it made it too difficult to think clearly.
“A true gentleman would give me his horse and offer to walk mine back on his own.”
Kempton gave a loud bark of laughter. “And risk getting lost on my way back? I am not that chivalrous, my lady, nor am I that stupid. No doubt, you cannot wait to be rid of me, but I refuse to make it that easy for you.” As he lifted her into the saddle, Maximus shifted at her unfamiliar weight.
“What if I ride and you walk beside me?” she suggested hopefully, but Kempton knew her game. It seemed he was not going to allow her to flee that easily.
“Maximus isn’t that fond of riders he does not know,” he said as he lashed her gelding’s reins to his stallion’s saddle.
“And I’ll not be left to walk these three miles alone while you and your hound take off with both horses.
” Rather than mount before her, he lifted himself behind her, so his powerful thighs bracketed hers and her bottom nestled between his legs.
She tried to slide forward as much as possible, but the sheer stature and build of the man behind her meant there was no room to retreat, and she would have to ride the rest of the way home pressed against him intimately.
Right where it seemed he wanted her.
And right where her traitorous body longed to be.
They rocked in silence, both swaying gracefully to the stallion’s steady gate.
Faye trotted along beside them. Amelia sat in stony silence, seemingly focusing on anything and everything except the intimate cradle created by Dorian’s legs and the hard, solid wall of his chest behind her.
If she settled back just a little, then she could lean into him for support—in fact, he silently willed her to do just that.
However, she stubbornly kept her spine ramrod stiff and straight, jolting upright each time she rocked a little too closely to him. He couldn’t resist a short chuckle.
“I promise not to bite,” Dorian said, his breath warm and close to the dainty shell of her ear.
She held herself unnaturally still, as if barely resisting the urge to shiver.
He could not resist wrapping his arms around her, shifting the reins to one hand, handling Maximus with decades of skill and earned trust. She was so warm and soft in all the right places.
Delicate and strong at the same time. She fit against his front as if she’d been made for it—as if he’d been made to fit himself around her.
“It is not your bite I am trying to avoid,” she grumbled beneath her breath.
She shifted her seat, bumping the curves of her bottom against his groin again and again.
It was all he could do not to press her pelvis back against his, to grind against her and rock his burgeoning erection along her cleft.
She seemed unable to sit still in her agitation, and it was wreaking havoc on his senses.
Dorian inhaled deeply against the top of her head, filling his lungs with her essence.
It was a grave mistake. From somewhere deep in the recesses of his memory, all the emotions associated with Amelia’s intoxicating scent came flooding back to overrun his veins.
They flowed through him like the headiest of elixirs, invading his senses and causing his arousal to rage to nearly uncontrollable levels. His free hand stilled on her hip.
“You may want to stop your wriggling,” he growled against her hair. “It matters naught what my head feels; I’ve little control over certain reactions taking place in my body.”
He recognized the moment Amelia understood his meaning, because she froze as still as a marble statue—she was a widow, after all, and she surely must have understood the implications.
What followed was painfully stoic silence and a woman who seemed to take great pains to move as little as possible.
That, along with some very intentional breathing on Dorian’s part, went a long way toward gradually dampening his arousal; however, it made their progress back to the castle unbearably slow.
She returned his every attempt at small talk with either agonizing silence or monosyllabic responses.
“Is the weather always this fickle?” he’d asked when another, louder rumble of thunder rolled over their heads.
“Yes,” she’d replied flatly, effectively killing that avenue of conversation.
“Have you owned your gelding long? You seem quite the pair.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, you have had him for many years? What is quantified as a ‘long time’?”
Silence.
“How old is he?”
“Nine years.”
“Was he trained by your husband?”
A short pause. “Yes.”
There was a twinge in the vicinity of his heart. At one time, he’d fancied he would be the one to select and train her horses. He’d planned on filling the Kempton stables with beautiful horseflesh for her enjoyment—he’d have given her a new horse to ride every day of the week if it made her happy.