The rest of the day passed comfortably enough, though her legs began to ache in the middle of the afternoon in a persistent kind of way that didn’t seem like it was interested in going away any time soon. They stopped to make camp, and this time, they sorted the horses together before Eamon sat down to teach her how to start a fire. It was easy enough, once you knew the trick – building a little tent of kindling, allowing plenty of air for the fire to blossom.
“The wee things need to breathe,” he murmured.
Marianne felt a quiet glow of pleasure suffuse her at the way his huge, rough hands gently guided hers in coaxing the fire to life. Maybe it was her personal interaction with the fire, or maybe it was the complacency that a couple of nightmare-free nights in a row had afforded her, but that night, asleep curled in her cloak, Marianne had the worst dream yet.
She stood, still blazing and burning, but this time there was a sword in her hand, its handle red-hot. Teodoro was there, standing with a blade in his hand, laughing wildly as he pointed it at her throat – and every time she lunged at him, another shadow swung through between them to dash the sword out of her hand and strike a new wound into her burning body. She would bend to scoop the sword up, burning her fingertips again, and swipe vainly at Teodoro, but his body would evaporate into smoke, his sword gouging at her again and again, his legion of shadows slicing her open and still he laughed, and laughed, and laughed…
“Marianne! Marianne, it’s a dream, wake up, wake up, come back to me—”
There was a horrible shrieking echoing across the moors, Marianne thought muzzily as she awoke – could it be some kind of wild animal, coming to devour them? If so, it was close – so close – Gods, it was her, and she clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle the sound, collapsing into a hysterical moaning that sounded worse than the screaming, but at least wouldn’t alert everyone a hundred miles in each direction to their presence.
Eamon’s arms were around her, a comforting warmth in the freezing air, and she let him cradle her to his chest, not quite trusting herself to speak, or to function. The adrenaline of the dream was ebbing away, but slowly, and her heart was pounding harder than she ever remembered it. Eamon was singing to her, a tune she almost recognized, the sound of his voice suddenly strange and unintelligible – and for a moment she thought she was losing her mind before she realized it was Gaelic. She hung onto that – something comforting in hearing something she couldn’t understand – and after a while, her breath stopped coming in gasps, and her heartbeat began to settle.
“S’a nice song,” she managed.
He kept hold of her. There was something very intimate about it, half-prone as she still was – he’d pulled her up from the ground and not gone much further than that. At least she was warm.
“Sorry. Bad – bad dream.”
“Sounded worse than bad,” he said softly, his voice low and rumbling as he pulled her up into a sitting position, still cradled against his chest. “Ye were screaming Teodoro’s name and thrashing about like ye meant to kill him here and now. Then ye were just screaming.”
“It’s been happening since I got here,” she admitted. “I’m okay. Nothing to worry about. Hey – hey, are you —”
She realized suddenly that he’d been controlling his breathing – that his breath was coming in great shuddering gasps, now, and even in the dim light of the half-extinguished fire she could see that his face was twisted with the effort to suppress something. Tears? Had he really been that worried about her? Wonderingly, she reached out to touch the side of his face, a more intimate gesture than she’d intended as her fingertips curled around his jaw and her thumb rested by his lips—
“You sounded like her,” he forced out, still working hard to control himself.
She felt a little part of her crumple. Elena, again. Have to hand it to you, great-great-great-whatever-grandmother, you definitely had a way with men.
“You sounded like her when she—”
“You watched,” she breathed, overcome with pity despite herself, “You were there when—”
“What could I do, walk away?” he snapped. “Walk away as that evil bastard burned the woman I – no. I bore witness, Marianne. And I can’t – no matter what I do, no matter how much I drink, I can’t shake that memory. Nor do I want to. And then—” He took a deep breath. “And then there ye were, walkin’ down the road like nothing had happened. I thought ye were a ghost, that day.”
She remembered the wild look in his eyes when she’d discovered him watching her. “You said.”
“I told myself, then, I told myself this was it, clear as day, a sign. A sign I could redeem myself, make right what I’d done wrong that day. That I’d help ye, protect ye, do whatever it took. If ye were her second coming, I’d – I’d keep ye safe.”
For once in her life, Marianne didn’t know what to say.
Chapter 22
She put her arms around his huge neck, and pulled him gently into an embrace that he didn’t resist. They sat like that for a long time, and ever so slowly, so subtly that she hardly noticed him doing it, he gathered her closer to him, drew her in until he was hugging her back with more force than he needed, but far less than was available for him to draw upon. It was breathlessly silent, nothing but the distant wind on the moors and the glow of the carpet of stars above them, and it felt like time had stopped entirely as Eamon held her, tightly, and his breathing steadied. And eventually, with due care, she pulled back from the hug, and she kept her head lowered because she knew what would happen if their eyes met in this strange, silent, breathless space between moments, between days, between worlds.
And yet again, she brought up Elena, because it was the only thing that could hold them apart.
“You loved her.” She didn’t phrase it as a question, but it came out as one regardless.
“In a way, I suppose.” His voice didn’t sound as guarded as it usually did. His arms still around her body, keeping her close – keeping them both warm against the cold night. “Everyone loved her, she was just like that. I didnae – we weren’t anything.” He seemed to be wanting to reassure her of something, and she stamped hard on the hope that that sent flickering to life in her chest. “But lord, I haven’t stopped thinking about her since the day she died. It’s taken me over. I cannae – we talked about Ian’s lover, aye? She as much as offered to marry me, if I’d have asked, but I couldnae. Not with Elena on my mind. It’s not having done anything that was destroyin’ me. Of having stood by, powerless. Who was I, if not the kind of man who stopped things like that from happening? I tried, in the weeks following, to figure it out. Chased rumors, bothered all the townsfolk. All I could get was a rumor that Elena’d been killed by her own father. But that was ridiculous. The girl didn’t have a father, he’d died back in Italy. I’m rambling,” he said apologetically.
Marianne took a deep breath. “You’re right.”
“What?”
“He was her father.” The minute she spoke, she knew it was the right thing – to let Eamon in on the full story, this strange, sad man who’d been so destroyed by her ancestor’s death. “Father Teodoro fathered her, against Dolores’ will. He’s why she left, why she came to this village – and he came back, years later, to tidy up his loose ends. That’s why she was killed. Not witchcraft, not any crime but the crime of being created. His crime.”
She felt Eamon’s whole body tense, and he gritted out one word: “Bastard.”
“That’s why I want revenge,” she said flatly, and she could feel too much of the damage done by her own father bubbling under the surface, could hear her therapist’s warning voice in her ear about dredging up old wrongs. “He belongs dead.” She was shaking and Eamon squeezed her tightly – whether he’d mistaken the shuddering for cold, she couldn’t tell, but the gesture helped her steady herself regardless.
“We’ll get him. We’ll get the fucker and we’ll make him pay.”
She shivered a little at the gravelly tone of his voice,
but not for the same reason. They were extremely close, after all, and she was only human. Silence fell, again, but this one felt different. The air was clear where it came to Elena. Not so much when it came to Marianne.
“You and Elena weren’t...”
“Nae,” he said, a little too quickly, and pressed against his chest as she was she could hear his heartbeat pick up. She felt it peak as he cleared his throat to speak again. “But ye’re not Elena.”
“No. No, I’m not.” And finally, with every scrap of courage she had, she raised her head to meet his eyes.
For a frozen moment, they looked at each other, and though the light of the fire was dim his eyes glowed gold and flickered with a series of emotions she could hardly keep up with. Easier entirely to just close the distance between them, almost all the way, to let his breath rasp gently against her lips, to wait, on tenterhooks, here on the edge of either triumph or humiliation, no middle ground left for either of them to flee to—
He kissed her so hard it felt like being knocked flat on her ass in the fight earlier that day, what felt a few thousand years ago. Just like then, the air rushed out of her lungs – just like then, she found herself flat on her back, but this time he was there with her, one arm under her back stopping her from being flattened into the grass, the other rough hand buried in her hair, his fingers cradling the side of her face as he kissed her like he meant to devour her, like a starving man, like a drowning man’s first gasp of air after a long and brutal swim to the surface — and just as quickly he broke away, his breathing rapid and hoarse, as he pressed their foreheads together.
“I donnae – I donnae want to take advantage, I donnae want – donnae want ye to feel – fuck, Marianne, do ye – do ye want me? This? Say the word and I’ll fuck back off over there and we’ll never speak of this again.”
She would have laughed if she could have spared the breath. Instead she said, “I’ve wanted this since you crawled out from behind that rock, Eamon MacClaran.”
He laughed, and there was something unfamiliar about that sound – it was pure, bright somehow, unfettered by bitterness or irony – a laugh of relief, of joy, and when he kissed her again she could feel that he was grinning into her. It was contagious, that feeling, and she felt laughter bubbling up inside her own chest, not quite hysterical, but something like it, something so palpable in the relief of it, that he wanted her too, that the way she’d been watching him had been reciprocated. And maybe it was silly, maybe it was ill-advised and reckless and downright ridiculous of her, to feel this, now, in the midst of the horrible things that were happening and the dire quest they were on, but gods, she’d resisted as hard as she could. Sometimes the universe just made things happen whether you thought they were a good idea or not.
They broke apart again after what could have been hours or seconds and Marianne laughed, feeling dizzy and exultant and about nineteen years old again. Eamon’s arms were still around her and with a frightening lurch he hauled her off the ground entirely – she squealed in surprise as much as anything, clung to his neck as he spread his huge cloak across the ground and laid her back down on it, surprisingly gentle. Gods, he was strong – and feeling how effortlessly he’d lifted her gave her some decidedly inappropriate ideas. Not helped, of course, by the way he was kissing her throat, his hands running across her body, and she realized with a start that her own hands, completely of their own accord, had strayed much further down his body than modesty would allow. For the first time since they’d kissed she felt a real pang of concern.
“Hey,” she breathed into his ear, and he kissed the hollow of her throat one last time before moving back to meet her eyes. How to broach the subject of sexual etiquette in medieval Scotland? “Will you – will you think less of me, if—”
Eamon’s eyes were blank. “Think less of ye?”
“If. You know.” How ridiculous! She’d always been so frank about sex in her own time. “If we – keep going! Will you think—”
He stared down at her, and the confusion on his face was genuine. “Marianne, why on earth would I think less of ye?”
“Aren’t people meant to – you know, wait until marriage, or whatever?”
A burst of laughter shook his body, his eyes crinkling with mirth. “Lassie, ye’ve gone all Catholic on me.”
“How dare you,” she growled, eyes flashing, and he grinned back, deliberately goading her.
She grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him back into her with renewed enthusiasm, almost biting at his lips. He responded in kind, pressing her down onto the cloak – but she shifted, using the leverage of her position to wrangle them until they were lying side by side, keeping him thoroughly distracted with her roaming and decidedly un-Catholic hands. At some point their clothing had become unfastened – she honestly had no memory of when – and when she finally slipped a hand inside his underclothes and brushed the length of his manhood he choked back a groan that said a lot about how long it had been since that particular area had been disturbed by another hand.
Well, she wasn’t exactly coming off a red-hot dating streak herself. Taking advantage of his distraction, Marianne shifted her weight to accidentally press against his side – he hardly seemed to notice that he’d rolled onto his back, so immersed was he in the skilled work of her hand. And in one swift motion, she slid one leg over his body, straddled his waist and flattened both palms against his chest.
He opened his eyes, startled to see her perched triumphantly astride him, and a rueful grin spread across his face. “Got me,” he murmured, propping himself up on his elbows.
His hair was wildly askew, his eyes glowing gold in the dull but helpful light of the stars above them, and he looked so absolutely perfect that she forgot all the witty comments she was going to make about swordplay and just kissed him, hard and hungry and desperate. He rocked his hips up to meet her and she felt him graze against her and groaned, fiercely turned on, reached down between them with the hand not buried in his dark hair to line him up and in one smooth motion that made her gasp and forced something like a whimper out of his throat, slid him to the hilt inside her.
They stayed there, frozen for a moment, his eyes on her face and tension in every line of his body. She waited, trying not to grin, as the tension in him built, and built – and finally he groaned, grabbed her hips, rocked himself up to meet her and she laughed, moved with him.
“Teasin’ me,” he breathed into her ear.
She could feel the still restrained power of him in every thrust, and there was an entirely different kind of fire dancing across her skin now – something more akin to electricity, like sparks gathering and sinking into her body, rushing inward and downward to where their rhythm was getting faster, and her breathing picked up as she realized, felt how perfectly shaped he was to strike just the right part of her with each thrust – and with rising alarm, she realized she was far closer than she’d thought. Embarrassingly close. She pressed her palms into the hard, unyielding muscle of his chest, forced their rhythm slower until he groaned and pressed his head back into the ground, frustrated, and she couldn’t suppress the grin that slid slyly across her face.
“Too easy,” she murmured into his ear.
He growled in mock-anger, took the lobe of her ear into his mouth and nibbled on it, sending a shudder of pleasure arcing down her whole body – and in the half second she was distracted by that, he pounced. With a single, decisive movement she would’ve thought impossible had it not been happening to her. Was any of this really happening? Or was it a distinctly new kind of dream? He surged upright, spun them somehow – and for the third time that day, Marianne found herself flat on her back.
“What were you saying?” he asked now, eyebrow raised.
She squirmed beneath him a little, enjoying how absolutely he’d flattened her, but noting too the way he readied himself to move back – if she gave the word, he’d release her in a heartbeat, she could tell. Not that she’d give that word for all the gold in Scotland.
He thrust into her again, deeper at this angle, and she dropped her head against the cloak and moaned, felt the electricity gathering in the pit of her stomach, powerless against the rising tide. He wasn’t far behind her, she could tell – his breathing was ragged and there was something erratic about the pulsing of his hips inside her – but this wasn’t a race he was going to win, no way, and she clutched at his back and bit down on a scream that would have told everyone in Scotland where they were and what they were doing as she crashed over the edge. He was with her, more or less – she felt the tension in his body release and he sagged over her, his lips pressing soft kisses to her throat and the side of her face as she coasted on the aftershocks of her orgasm.
“Gods,” she murmured, after what could have been hours or seconds. “Sex is better in Scotland.”
“Depends what part,” he responded muzzily, not moving from where he’d collapsed – managing, she noted with appreciation, to avoid crushing her in the process.
“This part. Let’s stay in this part.”
He hummed his approval, pushing himself onto his elbows and gently disentangling their bodies before pulling the cloak around them both – she’d only just remembered the cold air around them and smiled in sleepy appreciation. For just a moment, the reality of their mission – the witch hunter, the dreams, and the knowledge of the evil that was waiting for them – was the furthest thing from her mind. And when she fell asleep, curled in Eamon’s huge arms, the nightmares didn’t dare to touch her.
Chapter 23
Marianne woke up well before she opened her eyes, for once. Eamon was still asleep, or at least pretending – she could feel his arms around her and the steady rise and fall of his enormous barrel of a chest. There were the gentle sounds of birdsong, just starting up, by which she estimated it to be around dawn, if not a little before. Time to do a bit of high-speed thinking and planning before she faced the day – and her comrade in arms Eamon, who was now a fair bit closer than he had been. Whatever she did, she couldn’t find it in herself to be self-recriminating. She’d fought so hard against her feelings for the man, it was basically inevitable that something like this was going to happen.
Highlander Protected: A Scottish Time Travel Romance (Highlander In Time Book 3) Page 14
