by Eliza Knight
Och, but she didn’t know. Nor did she care about being saintly. What she did care about was how much he made her want to kiss him. To crawl all over him. And how that was not a possibility in the slightest. They were not wed, and she hadn’t gotten this far in life unsullied only to do it now. Even if she wanted to.
She took a small sip of whisky. Feeling semi-warm—though mostly on the front of her, the back was still quite chilly with no flames at it—she curled herself deeper into the extra layer of plaid around her shoulders.
Sorley yawned and stretched. “I need to sleep,” he said. “Come on.”
She stood, unsure why she listened so readily but also feeling sleepy herself.
“Take any tent ye want,” the woman who’d served them their meal said.
They walked away from the campfire, with Kenna assuming she’d get a tent of her own.
“How’s this one?” Sorley asked.
She nodded. It was semiprivate from the rest of the group, and the trees it sat between seemed to be blocking a majority of the wind.
“That’ll work. Thank ye. Where will ye be?” She turned to see which other tent was closest and unoccupied.
“Inside with ye.”
“With me?” Her eyes widened. It was one thing to lay beside him on a cot in a croft with no one about and heat their only goal—well, the main goal. But a single tent with so many about?
“Aye. For warmth. And for protection.” He nodded back to the campfire, where a couple of the men eyed them with a curiosity that bordered on intrusion.
A shiver passed through her, and not the kind that made her tremble when Sorley kissed her.
“All right, then.” She stared him dead in the eyes. “But no kissing.”
“No kissing.” Sorley gave a curt nod.
Och, why did he have to agree?
Inside was a pile of blankets. Kenna sorted them out until she felt comfortable, then sighed with pleasure as Sorley sank beside her and pulled her into his embrace. She stared into his eyes, fathomless and intoxicating.
“Dinna sigh like that, nor look at me so,” he said.
“How did I sigh? How am I looking?”
“The way ye sighed...’twas the same when I kissed ye. And the way ye’re looking at me is much the same.”
“Oh, sorry.” She rolled over, so her back was to him and then snuggled closer, the heat of his chest warming her back and his thighs thawing hers. She couldn’t help sighing again.
Sorley groaned. “This might be worse.”
“How so?” she asked.
“If ye must know, your arse is...verra...enticing.”
“My arse is enticing?” She wiggled it, trying to see if she could find the allure in it, but it felt normal to her.
“Good God, ye must stop that.” Sorley’s voice sounded strangled.
“Why?”
Sorley gripped his hand to her hip and tugged her back a fraction of an inch. Something hard pressed to her bottom then, and it sent a thrill rushing through her.
“That’s why,” he groaned.
“What is that?” She tilted her head, intrigued.
“’Tis my cock, lass,” he whispered against her ear.
Kenna surged away with a gasp and rolled over to stare at him. “Your what?”
“Ye heard me.”
“I was hoping I didna...I…” She didn’t know what to say. Her whole body heated all over again because she’d liked the way it had felt against her and enjoyed even more hearing him say something so naughty against her ear.
Kenna did the first thing that came to her mind. She moved against him, slid her fingers over the muscles of his chest and touched her mouth on his. “I’m sorry,” she murmured against his lips. “But I canna help myself.”
“Och, lass, but neither can I.”
His hand came around the back of her, gripping her arse and hauling her close, so that the rigid part of him was now pushed to the very heat of her. She sighed with tantalizing pleasure, as he possessed her lips with his searing kiss, more demanding this time. He rotated them until the heat of his body was fully on top of hers. His hand was on her breast, the other on her thigh, caressing down to the back of her knee and lifting it around his hip.
“I want ye, and I canna have ye,” he groaned, burying his face against her neck.
Shivers of desire made her tremble all over, her nipples throbbed, and the place between her thighs where his rigid cock delved pulsed with wanting.
“Then marry me, Sorley. We’ll go mad with wanting together.”
“Marry…” His lips skimmed along her collarbone. “Ye dinna know what ye’re saying.”
“I do.”
“Lassies want more than rutting from their husband.”
“Aye, they want intrigue and protection.”
“And what about feelings?” His gaze locked on hers, and emotion welling in their depths that she couldn’t fathom but which tugged at her someplace deep inside.
“I am feeling plenty.” She lifted her chin and licked his lower lip. “And I know ye are, too.”
Sorley groaned and kissed her with passion, declaring in the joining of their mouths, the rocking of his body, that he was indeed experiencing feelings, though neither of them could quite say what they were.
He rolled to the side, tucking her against him, both of them panting. “Sleep,” he said. “Before we do something that we regret. And we’ll discuss it again when we are awake.”
7
They were awoken before the sunset by one of the men in camp. “Psst. Wake. Wake, quick.”
Sorley burst through the opening of the tent, sword drawn, ready to join the fray, only to find the people milling about as they had been before. “Why did ye wake me?” he said with a frown.
“Ye’re headed to Kyle of Lochalsh?”
“Aye.” Sorley narrowed his eyes, wishing the man would get to the point.
“There’s a dragoon raid planned in the next day or two of the small ferry village. No’ sure when but thought to warn ye. If ye leave now, ye might arrive in time to avoid it.”
“Where did ye hear of it?”
“We’ve eyes and ears all over, but the news came now from her.” The man pointed behind him to a fiery-haired woman who sat by the fire eating stew.
Sorley was fairly certain he recognized her. “Is that who I think it is?”
“Aye. Fiona. She’s the best damn messenger in this whole organization.”
“If she says it, then the word is good.”
“Indeed. Best be on your way then.”
Sorley nodded, then woke Kenna. “Time to go, sleeping beauty.”
She grinned. “Ye are one for flattery.”
Sorley chuckled and helped her up. She stretched her arms up to work the kinks from her body, but all he could do was stare at her breasts and the way they pushed against the front of her shirt.
“Eyes up here, ye rogue,” she teased.
They hurried through splashing water on their faces and other private matters before slurping down some stew and hopping on their horses. The temperature had improved some, though it remained frigid.
Late afternoon fell into night, and still they rode, only stopping when necessary until they finally reached the small fishing village and the ferry. Not just any ferry—this one was a well-kept secret. A rebel ferry that continued to thwart the dragoons’ attempts to capture them and control all rebels.
They rode their horses onto the deck, and Sorley passed the boatman the required coins. They did not speak, only communicating in a flash of rings, nods and coin. Within minutes, the ferry was moving, the wind on the loch picking up and blowing the hair on their heads.
Sorley tucked his arm around Kenna instinctively and without thinking. She leaned against him, a welcome reaction.
“Are ye cold?” he asked.
“No’ anymore.”
In the moonlight, he could see her smile up at him. “Are ye ready to marry me yet?” she asked.
He gave a slight
shake of his head, expecting to see her smile falter, but it did not. Instead, her lips took on a mirthful twist.
She laughed. “Your gesture says nay, but your eyes say aye. I was jesting anyway.”
“How is it possible ye know me better than people who’ve been acquainted with me my whole life?”
“I canna answer that, but ’tis the same for me.”
“All I know is that from the moment I met ye, every waking and dreaming moment, my thoughts are filled with ye. And I want to kiss ye and never stop.”
She bit her lip and wrapped her arms around his waist. Then she shook her head again, the wind whipping her hair from the confines of the pin. She let go of him, fixing her hair with the dagger in place.
“And that dagger...something about the way ye protect yourself makes me want to protect ye all the more.”
Kenna leaned into him again. “I confess when ye marched up the stairs in the face of danger, I was a bit taken.”
“I need to be honest with ye, lass. I’ve never felt this way before. My chest feels...tight, and yet fully swelled at the same time.”
She glanced up at him. Concern etched in the corners of her eyes. “Are ye unwell?”
“Lass, I confess, I think I’m in love with ye.” The words were out of his mouth before he could put them back in their walled-off dungeon. One didn’t simply utter words like that aloud.
Kenna gasped, and he loosened his hold around her shoulders, afraid she might want to run to the other side of the ferry, and he wasn’t going to stop her.
“If that feeling in your chest is love, then I confess I may be afflicted with the same malady.”
“Then, perhaps we should marry.”
“I think perhaps ye only wish to marry me now to bed me.”
“Och, but I want to do that too,” he chuckled, tipping her chin up, so she looked him in the eyes. “But the truth is that when I think about arriving at Dunvegan and the two of us walking in different directions, I get a sick feeling in my gut and a twisted rage that makes my whole body tremble, just as it does before I go into battle. I want ye, lass, for more than kisses and touching. I want ye to be mine, all of ye. Mind, body, soul.”
Kenna wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers tangling in his hair. “Your attempts to persuade me are working.”
“I dinna want to persuade ye. I want ye willing.”
Kenna lifted on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his chin, and then he dipped his head to kiss her.
“I’m more than willing, Sorley. But I’m also scared.”
“What are ye scared of?”
“Everything.”
“I will protect ye. We can get through whatever life throws at us, together.”
Kenna stared up into Sorley’s eyes, feeling as though she might not be alone for the first time since her parents had been murdered. Aye, she’d had her uncle, her cousin, the servants at the grand house who’d helped take care of her, but none of them truly saw her for who she was.
Or embraced it.
She’d always felt like an outsider. As if she walked on a thin stone wall that threatened to collapse if she put the wrong amount of pressure on one particular spot. She marched through life prepared to fall without the help of anyone else as she made herself stand up. Sometimes, it even felt as though there were feet on her spine, holding her down.
But not with Sorley. He’d been challenging her, tempting her, holding her hand, since the moment they’d met.
Though she felt a connection to him, and he made her melt under his kisses, that was not a reason to say “Aye,” and forever bind herself to him. True, she had been the one to propose to him in jest the night before. But after hours of thinking on it, she worried she’d been rash—except that her heart and her mind told her to leap with both feet toward him.
“Let’s speak with my uncle first,” she said. “I want to know what his plans were for me. What he’s thinking.”
A little flicker of disappointment kindled in Sorley’s gaze, but he was quick to snuff it out.
“I understand completely, and I’d no’ hold ye back from that.”
Even that acceptance made her heart warm toward him. He’d said he thought he was falling in love with her, and she thought she was, too. But she needed to speak with someone about it before she rushed in, even if her heart bid her do so. “Thank ye.”
Once they’d reached the shore, they mounted their horses and waved farewell to the boatmen. They’d not made it ten feet before at least a dozen MacLeod warriors greeted them. They were dressed in their Highland garb and armed to the teeth. Not something Kenna saw very often near Inverness where the redcoats swarmed on anyone wearing anything that remotely resembled a tartan.
“We’ve been waiting for ye,” one said. “Glad to see ye back on Skye. Your uncle has been expecting ye. ’Twill take us several days to reach him.”
Nerves prickled through her. They were getting closer. She barely remembered Skye from when she was a child, yet she could already breathe easier for some reason. “Thank ye. I verra much want to see him as well.”
“How was the journey?”
“No’ without complication, but we made it,” Sorley answered.
They rode in silence over the moors, stopping at a traveling inn where Kenna slept in the warmth of a small chamber. With the men doing most of the talking, she didn’t have a chance to converse with Sorley, which left her plenty of time to think.
She watched him on his horse, the way he maneuvered his mount with ease. When they dismounted to rest the animals and themselves, he always thought of her comfort first, fed her first, escorted her to privacy, barring the way from any enemy that might attack her when she was behind a bush with her skirt up.
On the last day of their journey, she dallied a little bit longer with him in the comfort of the woods.
“The men seem to like ye a great deal,” she said, untwisting her hair from its bond and working the knots with her fingers.
“They are a good lot. Have become my family.”
She smiled at him. “Ye’re lucky.”
“So too will ye be, lass.” He winked at her, and a thrill of excitement thrummed in her veins.
“We’ve no’ had a chance to talk much.” Kenna twisted her hair back up, securing it with her dagger.
“Aye.” He plucked a stray hair from the shoulder of her gown, and gooseflesh rose on every inch of her skin. “Have ye missed it?”
“Very much. I’m rather fond of ye, I fear.”
He grinned. “As am I, lass.”
“Ye’re fond of yourself?” she teased.
He wrapped his arm around her waist and inched her closer until her chest was flush with his. “I’m rather fond of ye. Riding near ye, dining near ye, sleeping near ye—it has been torture no’ to have ye closer.”
She looped her arms around his neck. “Kiss me once before we go.”
“I canna.”
“Why?” She cocked her head to the side in question.
“Because I promised ye that I’d let ye speak to your uncle first.”
“And? What has that to do with kissing?”
“I’ve told ye my feelings, sweet Kenna. I want ye for my wife. And if I canna have ye forever, then I canna be kissing ye whenever I want.”
She frowned, then nodded, understanding his feelings. “Fair enough.” Her arms fell back to her sides, and she stepped away from his embrace. “Then let’s hurry to Dunvegan so that I might make up my mind.” And though she said those words, she’d already decided she couldn’t let him go.
Barring her uncle having any major misgivings about the match, Kenna would be Sorley’s wife.
By nightfall, they’d arrived at Dunvegan. Laird MacLeod and his men greeted them in the bailey, and he rushed forward, tugging her against him in what must have been an unusual show of affection, for it seemed to startle nearly everyone in proximity.
“Lass, ye’re the spitting image of your mother.”
“
Thank ye,” she said. “I miss her, too.”
Uncle MacLeod stared down at her with a nostalgic smile on his lips and water in his eyes. “Come, let us feast.”
In the great hall, tables lined the room, and a place was set for all who’d gathered. Kenna was seated beside her uncle and Sorley on the other side of her. Her cousins, Joseph and Kyle, twins her age, sat across from her. She’d not seen them in so long that she barely recognized them.
As they feasted, her uncle asked her what it was like growing up with the Forbes side. She answered his questions easily enough, though what she wanted to do was ask him questions of her own. At last, there was a lull in the conversation, and she said, “Uncle, why now?”
The table quieted, and she realized she ought to have waited and asked him in private, but her tongue had already let slip the words.
Uncle MacLeod put down his fork and reached forward, taking her hand in his. “I’m verra sorry it’s taken me this long, Kenna, my dear lass. When I lost your mother and father, I was in agony and despair. I couldna bear the thought of losing ye too.”
“So ye sent me away?” Kenna wanted to pull away, to cross her arms over her chest for protection. But she stayed where she was, his older, rougher hand on hers. This was the connection and the truth she needed.
He shook his head. Regret etched in his features. “No’ like that. I thought ye’d be safer with your father’s brother. The man was in tight with the redcoats, friends with the lords who still have the ear of King George. I thought—wrongly—that if he raised ye, ye’d no’ have to worry about the redcoats.”
“What changed?”
“We heard rumors that the redcoats had been tasked with ferreting out any rebels and their descendants. If ye were to be found out, I didna know what would become of ye. Ye’re safer here behind my thick walls on the isle, where we’ve plenty of time to escape, should the drums of our enemies be heard.”
Kenna nodded slowly, squeezing her uncle’s hand. “Your retriever arrived just in time.” She glanced at Sorley. “He saved me moments before I was likely to be arrested or worse.”
“And for that, I will be ever in his debt.” Uncle MacLeod nodded at Sorley.
