by Blair, Willa
Kenneth took her free hand and stroked his thumb over the back. “If we are still here.”
What should she do? As much as she needed Kenneth, these men needed her more. “How can I leave…?”
“Ye ken ye must. This man would no’ want ye to come to harm caring for him.”
“He speaks the truth,” a man with a broken leg interjected. “We all are grateful for yer care, but ye must go. What happened to those camp followers should never be spoken of. Ye have been kind to us. We dinna wish to see ye meet the same fate. Go, lass.”
She lifted her gaze to Kenneth’s. He met and held hers, concern written in the crease between his dark brows. Since the moment she’d first seen him in St. Andrews, though his words painted a different picture, he’d done his best to protect her. To care for her. Surely his actions meant he still loved her, even if he had not said those precise words. They were still meant to be together. The nod she gave him barely dipped her chin. But he saw it. And saw in it her capitulation. Aye, she would go with him. What he didn’t see—couldn’t see—was the determination behind her reluctant agreement. The next few days—and nights—would make all the difference.
As soon as darkness fell, she, Kenneth and Cam bid Iain farewell and rode north, cutting away from the main body—and the path—of Domnhall’s army. By the time they left the hills behind and the scent of saltwater freshened the air, Catherine was nodding over her horse’s mane. Even in the darkness, Kenneth must have seen.
He called a halt.
“We should keep going,” Cam argued.
“Cat needs sleep. We’ve come far enough to let her rest,” Kenneth responded.
“We’ve come far enough, Cam,” Catherine interjected, “for ye to make the coast by sunup and find a ship across the firth.” She yawned, then continued. “Kenneth and I can turn west and be on familiar ground soon enough.”
“I dinna like to leave ye…”
“Ye must.” Catherine shrugged. “Earl Sutherland needs to ken what happened at Harlaw and what Domnhall is likely to do.”
“A day or two will hardly matter.” Cam pulled his mount’s reins through a loose fist. “But having two of us to protect ye until ye are safe behind Rose’s walls may make all the difference.”
Catherine knew Kenneth, as much as he would like to see the last of Cameron Sutherland, would agree with his point, but he was keeping silent to avoid irritating Cam into staying. Cam would accept comments from her that would start an argument with Kenneth. “Chances are we’ll soon run into a Brodie patrol from the keep,” she offered. We canna be far from the border of yer lands,” she added after a glance at Kenneth. “Another day will see me home. Really, Cam, ye can tend to yer own concerns. I’ll be safe with Kenneth.” As I always have been, damn it.
Cam shook his head. “Brodie can ride onward to his clan, and I’ll see ye to Rose. From there, I’ve nay doubt I’ll find transport.”
Nay. Letting Kenneth leave her was not at all what Cat had in mind. Alone with Cam? Ach, and would her father think the worst and force her into marriage with Cam? He would tempt her father—Sutherland was a powerful clan. Nay. Not only would Kenneth never agree to it, nor could she.
Indeed, Cam’s offer finally swayed Kenneth to speak. “Go on, Sutherland. I can see Cat home from here.”
Catherine found she wanted to kiss Cameron Sutherland after all.
He looked from Kenneth to her. Catherine held her breath until he finally nodded.
“Very well. I’ll be on my way.”
Catherine nodded. “Thank ye, Cam, for yer care. I wish ye safe to yer home.”
“And ye to yers.” He glanced at Kenneth and spared him a, “Brodie.”
Kenneth nodded. “Sutherland. Safe travels.”
In another moment, Cam disappeared into the darkness, the only evidence of his passing the soft and fading rumble of his horse’s hoof beats.
“Let’s make camp,” she suggested after a moment. Kenneth’s gaze was still on the forest where Cam had disappeared. He nodded and dismounted.
“Should we build a fire?” Knowing Kenneth’s contrarian mood, whatever she suggested, he’d do the opposite.
“’Twill be too dangerous,” he told her.
Just as she’d hoped. To stay warm, they’d have to put their blankets together.
He looped his mount’s reins around a convenient branch, then helped her from hers.
As soon as his hands went around her waist, Cat leaned into him, bracing her hands on his shoulders as he lifted her down, then slid her arms around his neck and let her body slip down the length of his. The catch in his breathing told her the sensation of her body against his had the desired effect.
“Cat…” he warned, his voice a low rumble against her chest.
“Aye?” she replied lightly, running the fingers of one hand through his hair.
“Did ye and Sutherland…Did ye get him to agree to leave us alone?”
“What? Never!” She leaned away from him, but kept her lower body pressed firmly against his.
“Nay? Ye are making me think that’s exactly what ye had in mind.”
“What are ye accusing me of, Kenneth Brodie?” She leaned into him and wrapped her hands around the back of his neck, then brushed them up into his thick hair. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, making her hips rock against his thighs. The growing evidence of his desire against her belly made her bold. “Of wanting to be alone with ye?”
“Aye. Ye dinna ken where that might lead.”
“Then show me.” She pulled his head down and traced her tongue along his neck and jaw.
“Cat, nay.”
Then she brushed her lips across his mouth.
Kenneth stood still for a moment.
Cat held her breath. He could still push her away, but then he groaned and answered her kiss with a deeper one.
Exultation sent hot shivers through her core. They spread and heated as Kenneth’s kiss became more demanding, more urgent. He pulled her tightly against him, and she instinctively wrapped one leg around his hip, opening her center. If only all the layers of clothing between them would magically disappear, if she still wore a skirt instead of these breeks, she could make him hers, and she his, in moments.
Instead, Kenneth pulled away, then set her away from him and went to the horses. When he pulled blanket rolls from behind the saddles, her heart leapt. Would he…?
Aye! He unrolled one and spread it on the ground, then the other, next to it. “My lady…” he murmured, waving a hand at their impromptu bed.
“My laird,” she responded, grabbed his hand and pulled him along with her, down onto the wool. At first, they sat facing each other, their gazes locked, studying every nuance of expression made visible by shafts of moonlight penetrating the tree canopy. Catherine was afraid to move, even to breathe, for fear, like a startled deer, Kenneth would back off and flee. He’d kept her safe, even from himself, for weeks. She’d had enough of his reserve. But then his hand cupped her cheek, and his finger traced her temple, her cheekbone, her jaw, then brushed across her lower lip. She opened her mouth and sucked it in, swirling her tongue around it and using her teeth only when Kenneth threatened to pull it from the warm, moist confines of her mouth. She didn’t release his finger until he groaned and lifted his other hand to pull her onto his lap and into his embrace.
This must be heaven, a place where Kenneth’s heated kisses trailed fire over her lips, her face, her neck. She could hardly credit the sensations rushing through her body. They got even more intense when he pulled the neckline of her borrowed shirt aside and trailed fire down her chest. He bared one breast and licked her nipple to a hard bud. She cried out his name and he laid her back on the blanket. Pulling the shirt from the waist of her borrowed breeks and over her head, he left her bare from the waist up. Her first instinct was to cross her arms over her breasts, but when she saw the hunger in Kenneth’s gaze, she dropped her hands and let him look his fill.
He bowe
d over her and took one nipple in his mouth, sucking and tonguing it until she arched off the blanket, unable to contain the fierce longing his mouth drew from her. Then he kissed his way across to the other breast and did the same. Catherine moaned and reached for him, needing… Something to fill the sudden emptiness between her legs. Her core clenched painfully, aching for something only Kenneth could give her.
Her heart pounded as if she’d run all the way from the Brodie camp to this secluded spot. Her body melted and liquefied so completely she feared sinking into the forest floor, never to be found again.
His hand traced down her belly and inside the breeks.
She should have protested, but the magic he worked with his touch kept her mute and panting. She arched up to meet him as his fingers tangled between her legs, slippery with her own moisture, and delved between her folds into her hidden places. He groaned in answer to her little cries of pleasure, but she wanted more. More of his voice vibrating in his chest and against her ribs, more of his touch, deep inside her body, more of his mouth claiming hers. She clutched his shoulders, then reached down to untie her breeks and give him better access.
She stilled when his mouth left hers, but instead of withdrawing from her completely, he began slowly trace a trail of hot, wet kisses down her belly. He pulled her breeks down her legs and pushed her knees apart, then kissed the inside of each knee and trailed his tongue up the inside of one thigh. At first the path heated, then cooled as the night air chilled the moisture he left behind.
Cat didn’t think she could take any more of the pleasure until his tongue found her center. He stroked her there, hot and wet, moaning her name between licks and gentle sucking, until she came apart, gasping out his name and writhing beneath his mouth until she was utterly spent. Only when she stilled in exhaustion did he lift his head.
She wanted more. She wanted him. The deep aching emptiness inside her was back, clenching, more demanding than before Kenneth had taken her to the heights. So she reached for him, running her hands down his chest, but instead of stopping at his waist, she kept going, covering and exploring the hard length she found beneath his breeks. Hungry for him, she untied them before he could stop her and pulled his length free of the cloth, stroking and squeezing him until he groaned her name and rose to arch over her.
“Are ye sure, Cat?”
“Ye ken I am. I want only ye, Kenneth. I always have.”
“But the others I..”
“They dinna matter. Ye are mine, and I am yers. I always have been. Make me yers, Kenneth. Take me here. Now. I canna wait any longer.”
“Nor can I, Cat.”
His body pressed into hers, hot and strange, slowly stretching a part of her she never knew capable of such a thing.
“Ye will stop me if it hurts,” he murmured as he pushed forward.
Cat wrapped her legs around his back, despite the tightness wanting more, wanting all of him. She gasped when he breached her barrier. “That hurt.”
“It will be better soon,” he soothed.
“I ken it.” And it was. The pain subsided almost as quickly as it came. She tightened the hold her legs had on his hips and nodded. “’Tis time”
“Ach, my darling Cat, ’tis past time. Once I took yer maidenhead, ye were mine. The pain was the old Cat dying away. Ye are a new Catherine now. My woman, forever.”
Tears filled her eyes. “Truly?”
“Aye. And now, my love, I have to move.”
“Nay! Dinna leave me.” He filled a void in her she’d only guessed existed.
“No’ yet, Cat,” he said as he withdrew a bit, then pushed into her again.
He didn’t leave her body completely before he filled her yet again, building a rhythm she quickly learned and rose to meet his thrusts. “I canna wait any longer, Cat. I’ve wanted ye for too long…”
“Then take me,” she cried as he thrust into her, hard, and stilled there, shuddering as his hot seed spilled and filled her. He withdrew a little, then thrust into her again, moaning her name. “Catherine, my love, my life.”
Catherine’s tears fell freely. His words touched her soul. “My love,” she answered. “Forever.”
Chapter 12
They stayed locked together for minutes longer, then Kenneth withdrew and rolled to his side, pulling Catherine against him and pulling the second blanket over them. “Sleep, my love. I will keep ye safe,” he promised as she drowsed and fell into slumber.
Kenneth kept watch, dozing with one eye open as he’d learned to do in the army in France, resting but aware of his surroundings, the quality of the light, the constancy of predawn birdsong above them.
While Cat slept, he marveled at their joining. All these years, all those mademoiselles, and he’d never known what it could truly be. What it could truly mean. Cat was his, had fought to be his, risked her life and her virtue to be his. He was unsure how to accept such a gift. He only knew he must, because he swore to himself, he would not hurt her ever again.
Deep in his memories, it took a moment for him to realize the birds had gone silent. He opened his eyes a slit and studied what he could see. Cat’s shoulder and hair just in front of him, his arm over her side and his hand cupping her breasts under the blanket, her backside pressed gloriously against his erection. Trees and undergrowth, moving slightly in the wind off the nearby coastline. Nothing else. Yet something had silenced the birds.
“I see her ploy worked.”
Sutherland! Kenneth started to rise, then recalled he was naked—and so was Cat. “What the hell are ye doing back here?” Hoping not to wake Cat, he kept his voice low as he sat up and reached for his breeks, but let his irritation show in his tone. Ploy? What ploy? What had Cat confided to the northerner?
Sutherland leaned against a tree and crossed his arms, his gaze on Cat’s sleeping form under the blanket.
Kenneth’s movement had exposed her back. He reached over and pulled the blanket over her shoulder, covering all of her but her hair.
Sutherland grinned, then answered softly. “I ran into a pair of gallowglass men a few miles up the coast. For the sake of the lass, I thought it best to warn ye. Yer way home is no’ as safe as ye’d hoped.”
“Only two?” Kenneth stood and pulled on his breeks. The hell with what Sutherland saw.
Sutherland lifted his gaze to the trees while Kenneth righted his clothing. “Only two. That doesna mean they dinna have friends. Likely they plan to steal a boat to sail home rather than walking to Dingle with the Lord of the Isles.”
“Speaking of walking, where’s yer horse?”
Sutherland gestured over his shoulder. “Tied up back there. Since I meant to bring ye news, I didna want to ride up and startle ye into hiding.”
Kenneth nodded. He would have sent Cat into cover at the first sound, naked and wrapped in a blanket, but safe. Instead, Sutherland had been canny enough to let the lack of sound—the forest’s sudden silence—announce his arrival to Kenneth’s discerning ear.
“Ye have told me. Now what do ye plan to do?”
“Ride with ye, of course. She’s safer with two of us than just one.” He glanced at Cat’s shapely form and twisted his lips. “Obviously.”
“What’s between Cat and me is none of yer business—or anyone else’s.”
“I dinna expect her father will agree with that sentiment.”
“My father will have naught to say about this.”
Kenneth whirled to face Cat as she sat up, pulling the blanket away from her face and securing it under her arms. “We gave him the chance to approve our marriage and he failed to do so. Instead, he tried to give me away to three other men. Three other clans. Now, my virgin’s blood will see the matter settled the way I’ve always wished it to be.”
She gave Kenneth a shy glance and he nodded. He’d known when he took her this would be the outcome. Somehow, the prospect pleased him, no matter how it had come about. They’d only to find a priest to make it official. Too bad they were no longer in St. Andrews.
“Unless we run afoul of those gallowglasses. Then Kenneth’s blood may put an end to yer plans.” Sutherland shrugged. “In that case, I’ll be pleased to step in to salvage yer virtue. The Sutherland despairs of ever seeing me wed, but Lady Catherine has made the idea seem somehow…attractive.” He shook his head. “Something I never expected to happen.”
“Yer sacrifice willna be necessary,” Kenneth growled, reaching down to help Cat to her feet and ensure she stayed covered.
“I’m pleased to be of service in awakening ye to the idea of wedded bliss,” Cat added with a haughty lift to her chin as she echoed Sutherland’s choice of term, “but as ye see, I’m no’ available to ye or any other man.” She glanced proudly at Kenneth. “Only this man.”
Kenneth squeezed her hand and was rewarded with her smile.
Sutherland bowed. “I wish ye happy, then, milady,” he intoned as he straightened. “Brodie,” he added with a nod to Kenneth. “Now, shall we carry on? The sooner ye see the coast and determine how far ye are from yer clan, the more pleased I’ll be.”
“Aye,” Kenneth answered. “Those two gallowglasses may no’ be the only ones who’ve tired of marching with Domnhall and prefer sailing home in a Highland birlinn. If we’re to run a gauntlet, let’s learn what sort of gauntlet it will be.”
* * *
Catherine dressed quickly after Cam left them to retrieve his horse. She didn’t think he’d be gone long. Kenneth watched her with a gaze so hungry, it pained her. She wanted to go to him, wanted to kiss him, to let him hold her and do what they’d done before she fell asleep, but suddenly, there was no time. The bond they’d established would have to stand without more time alone together—for now at least.
Dressed, she carefully folded the blanket stained with her virgin’s blood. If her father required proof, it would have to serve. The blood on her thighs would wash away too easily, as would any remaining on Kenneth’s body. Sudden shyness kept her from asking him if he bore the proof. He might show her, but show her da? Nay.
