by Alisa Adams
As soon as she stepped out from the tent that morning, her head on the swivel in search of Lachlan, Dennis was by her side. His smile was large and his eyes larger as they absorbed her appearance. He nodded in approval.
"Much better," he encouraged her.
Still unsure of how to behave around his friendliness and the way it was at odds with the quiet hostility the rest of the men displayed towards her, Aoide hurried quickly to find Lachlan. Her feet slipped and slid in a pair of sandals that Dennis had given her, but she managed to dart here and there searching for the tallest shadow amongst the militia—not that it did any good. Apparently, Lachlan had fallen permanently into his habit of pretending that she was little more than mist on the dune: present in the mornings but lost and forgotten by midday.
The only grace in his acceptance of her company was Lachlan's refusal to let her walk. Taking her by the hips with a touch that was studiously detached and efficient, Lachlan lifted her onto his horse with all the ceremony of a set of saddlebags and refused to see her trail behind it. She had scooted forward so that he might ride behind her, but Lachlan had only handed the reins to Harris and moved to place himself at the head of his men, ready to march on his own two legs.
By midafternoon, Aoide had spoken with no one save Dennis, who had taken up a position as a formal escort at her side. He had encouraged Harris to allow him to take Merlin's reins and had kept up an easy chatter through most of the morning. By the time evening drew around, however, even he had sensed Aoide's reticence to talk and had drifted into his own thoughts, occasionally looking at Aoide or at the back of Lachlan's shoulders up ahead. He seemed to be puzzling over something, but Aoide was struggling too much with her own predicament to be able to reach out and help Dennis with his.
To her horror, however, Aoide would soon discover that she was very much the only individual that could aid Dennis in the troubles that plagued his mind.
The militia rode hard all day. They marched at a speed they had not when headed south. Clearly invigorated by the idea of returning home, they were determined to make the journey back to the north in less time than they had the other direction and, despite her lack of a geographical home, Aoide could understand why. If she could march back to her mother—if there was a place on Earth that she still existed and Aoide could physically go there—she wouldn't march double time. She would run. She knew what it was like to be separated from loved ones, and couldn't blame the men.
But it made her wonder what Lachlan was marching towards.
He had said that he possessed no wife back home, but that didn't mean he didn't have a lover. A family. People that he cared for. She had heard him once mention a brother in general conversation with his men but he never answered any questions that were pertaining to his personal life. He had flat-out ignored the ones she asked when he was cleaning her injuries the night before.
Now, he marched just as fast as the others, and she had no means of understanding why.
The ignorance bothered her more than she cared to admit.
By the time the soldiers made camp, she was ready to start probing soldiers for information on their captain, ready to use the friendly banter she had managed to start when she had been their prisoner. Frustratingly, it did her little good. But the tiniest crumbs of detail that yielded to her efforts—like how he enjoyed his meat rare or how he always mounted his horse from the right side—were morsels that kept her trying.
After a week of travel, however, she was ready to crack.
In all her questioning of the men, the only revelation she had found was one of her own.
The fact that she was in love with Lachlan.
For, while there were gratitude and lust and respect and pride and fear, none of those emotions would lead her to behave as she was. Why did she wish to know more about him when he clearly wanted nothing from her? Why would she spend such time attempting to understand the man if he had yet to touch, look, or speak with her? They went to bed every night in the same tent, and yet he never permitted her any closer to his bed, nor did he make comments on the arrangement.
What made a woman make such efforts for a feeling that was so clearly unrequited?
There was only one that she knew of that was so resilient against all odds.
Love.
That was what this hunger was. That was what she craved. She needed Lachlan in the way she needed air. She wanted him in the way she wanted food. Her entire being craved to be near him, if only so that she might learn how he liked his meat cooked!
It was all so pathetic and hopeless but irrevocable nonetheless.
So, when Dennis asked for a private word with her, Aoide thought little of it. Too lost in her own revelations of feeling and how she had thrown away an opportunity in Scone under a feeling that was both valid and unfulfilling, she hadn't noticed the way that Dennis looked at her in the same way that she looked at Lachlan.
As the unit of men, all of whom she now knew the names of, moved to set up camp, Dennis had captured Aoide's fingertips and was gently beckoning her to one side. With little to do—as Lachlan never permitted her to touch his things or set up his tent—Aoide nodded and followed him to a copse of trees away from the main group. When the fire at its center was lit and grew into a bright and warm light, it illuminated half of Dennis's face and his hands. His dark livery saw the firelight absorbed into the darkness around him.
His hands were twisted in a manner that suggested agitation, and the half of his face that she could see appeared nervous. He watched her with a look that made her uneasy and suggested that she had been foolish not to recognize the purpose for so private a conversation.
"Mistress Aoide..." he began, using a title that he had given her without encouragement or permission. He seemed determined to herald her as more than she was. "I think you to be a very pretty and smart young lady. But I fear that despite this cleverness, you should not see my thoughts unless they are spoken..."
Aoide felt a sense of foreboding curling in her belly.
"Dennis..."
"I know that your heart is spoken for elsewhere at this time," Dennis rushed on, ignoring her entreaty to stop and seeming desperate to at least finish his proposition. She was forced to stifle her tongue or else be rude to his feelings. "But...I also know that such...that it may not be...may not be returned in the way that I can offer."
Aoide felt her chest tighten. So, her sentiments for Lachlan had been as clear as his rejection of them. But, of course, Dennis had walked into the tent just as she had been attempting to kiss his captain. He would have seen evidence of it all before his very eyes.
Closing her own eyes in humiliation, Aoide leaned her head forward. The ends of her hair were wispy and clean now. Only yesterday, they had passed a full lake, and she had been able to bathe properly—even given soap for the occasion!
Perhaps that was why she was feeling so sensitive now, so awkward. Her skin was exposed, even beneath her clothes, no longer coated in a protective layer of dirt and dust. Her hair had fallen into glossy curls about her face, so she had those, at least, as a barrier for her blushes, but it did not slow their appearance in the first place, especially as Dennis continued.
"I... I wish to tell you, Mistress Aoide..." In the dark, he reached out and snatched her hands. She was unprepared and so couldn't take them back. She was left to hover, her expression of awkward fear lost in the darkness. Her back was to the fire; Dennis had no hope of reading her expression. "I wish to tell you how I feel and that I could care for you as no other. I am sorry, I am not good with words. I don't know what I'm saying, I just..."
Giving up on verbalizing his feelings, Dennis charged forward in the hopes of showing her how he felt.
Still half blind in the dark, Aoide was unable to avoid the kiss before it was already upon her. Dennis's mouth yielded under hers, his touch gentle and soft. He offered her his heart in his kiss, and she felt her own break in return.
He was a nice boy—a nice man. And yet, she co
uld not give what had already been taken.
Before she could break away, before her world could realign and she could adjust to this sudden development without hurting Dennis’s feelings, Aoide felt a hard hand on her shoulder and the rush of air at her ears as she was pulled back. The shape of Dennis was thrown in the other direction, his back hitting a tree with an audible crash.
"No!"
The cry was instinctive. Aoide didn't like to see people hurt. But it was the wrong thing to say at that moment and only spurred the strong arms that claimed her into picking her up faster. She felt her world tilt, her hair fly about her face, and then a pressure on her belly as she was held upside down and over the shoulder of the tallest man she had ever met.
14
In less than two weeks, Lachlan’s commander tent had become more a of home to Aoide than she had known in years. Relegated so often to the hard ground by Garrett and his family, Aoide had almost forgotten what it felt like to enter a familiar room and feel a sense of haven.
Whether she stepped through the doorway on her own two legs or was carted there over a shoulder like a piece of cargo, it didn’t seem to matter. That nostalgic mist of security, like a pleasant sigh, fell about her. A tenuous warmth lilted her skin, and the firelight stained the space in tones of creamy yellow.
Lachlan had said nothing as he had carried her with primordial possession. She had struggled at first, wriggling to loosen his hold. It had become a habit to fight for her freedom, regardless of her jailer. But, when her resistance had awarded her nothing, and Lachlan had refused to put her down, Aoide had admitted to her physical inferiority.
Tiny compared to his hulking shape and at the mercy of his whim, Aoide knew better than to risk little more than a dangerous fall from his shoulder.
With the clarity of her limits came new manners of distraction. Like the way Lachlan’s shoulder bore her weight, shifting beneath her belly. Or how his broad, solid hands had taken claim over the backs of her thighs. His breath, warm and real, rushed down the side of her hip with every step, and she could feel his heartbeat beating between them. It passed from him to her, throbbing like a cord of life between them. Her pulse sped up to rush alongside it.
Reaching for his shirt, desperate to hold on, Aoide revealed a wedge of healthy skin above the waist of his kilt. Two lines of muscle, sharp as blades, had cut down towards his rear.
The man possessed a body as powerful as his will. Aoide felt her mouth go dry. She breathed in the scent of him. It was a testament to the peace she found in that tent that Aoide had noticed their arrival at all.
Having been taken onto his shoulder in a whirl of angry emotion, Aoide had feared the fall to his bed. In the walk across the camp, she had concluded that she would once more be thrown across the cot and the captain’s claims made clear.
The thinness of the mattress notwithstanding, Aoide couldn’t claim that she would have minded.
With the revelation that she loved him still fresh in her mind, Aoide was struggling with the potency of Lachlan’s touch. Every brush of his skin on hers was sending shivers to her heart and brought a tightening to her belly. Her toes curled in her sandals. There was an ache in her thighs that had nothing to do with the injury that was nearly healed in her skin.
It was almost a disappointment when Lachlan lowered her to her feet instead of repeating his violence upon the bed.
Almost.
Instead of throwing her down, the captain lifted her from his shoulder and allowed her to find her feet. But only after sliding the length of his body all the way to the ground.
Unable to find the right words for the quiet, intimate space they had found for themselves, Aoide looked up to find an almost frightening intensity in Lachlan’s eyes. Anger. Lust. Affection. Rejection. Confusion. Determination. His face never changed, and yet she felt it all. Each shift of passion, each conflict of conscience.
There was a tension in the air that told Aoide she had a short period in which Lachlan's emotions were coming to the forefront and showing his true nature. Those flashes of frustration and negativity were his honor stepping up, attempting to push a blanket of cold morality on the heat that burned between them.
Flushed with the hunger that had ached in her core since that first night he had taken her under his protection, Aoide pushed aside her nervousness and doubts. She swayed towards him, her slender little body pressing into the hard lines of his. Her lashes dropped, her lips parted, and a soft sigh whispered over his chest.
It was all that was needed to break the fragile control that had kept Lachlan's muscles bound in iron.
A second later, he was no longer idle. He reached for her, one of his hands buried deep in her hair, searching for the back of her neck. The other curled possessively around her waist and kept her where she was, pressed against his towering frame.
Aoide gasped as his palms clutched at her curls. They entangled with his fingers, tugged at her scalp, gave her prickles of static across her head. Her eyes widened, her lips turned heavy. Lachlan was claiming them a moment later.
The last time he had taken possession of her mouth, Lachlan had been rough, angry. She still didn't know why he had taken her into his arms that time, what had spurred him to touch and delight only to then back away. Whatever it was, it had been designed to shock her, to demand a reaction.
This kiss was no different.
It just demanded another kind of response.
Before, he had kissed her with anger, with force. His mouth had crushed, nipped,, and been aggressive against the softness of hers. Never had he hurt her, but there had been no true affection—no kindness or compassion. Her lust had been driven wild by his touch but not her heart. Hearts had not been involved.
This time, it was different.
He was no gentler. His lips did not sip and brush and find gentility in the act. His lips were velvet soft but strong. They were unyielding beneath her own. They molded to her shape, and offered her a kiss that was as solid and dominating as his height.
The difference was in his encouragement.
Where he had demanded submission, shock, and fear from her before, he now demanded something else. Reaction, response, heat...
His lips formed around hers. They showed her how to kiss; they encouraged her to mimic. The kiss would break for a moment, his hand on the back of her head tilting her to a new angle before claiming her again. He moved against her like a powerful wave that never denied the strength of the shore. It only tempted, clung, and seduced the sands to follow it into the deep.
The nervousness that tingled through her heart, hovering at the edges of her mind, was easily overcome by the strength of that kiss and the temptation that promised only pleasure in his touch.
Kissing him back with none of the skill and all of the hopeful fervor she could summon, Aoide reached up to wrap her arms around Lachlan's neck. Her body pressed still closer to his, shocking the breath from her body and forcing her lips to part.
Lachlan claimed the advantage.
His tongue delved deep, and his hands grew tighter. She felt the five little imprints of his fingertips over the small of her back, the smallest of them pressing into the upper curve of her bottom. The skin of his neck was hot against her wrists.
At the first slick taste of his tongue, Aoide remembered how to react. Her own reached for his, and within seconds, they were entangled in a connection that was so intimate it was frightening.
From there, things only became more rushed.
Unable to breathe, unable to think, Aoide was flooded with the passion of a single purpose.
Everything within her sought Lachlan's skin.
She had seen pieces of his chest, had witnessed the power in his legs, the hair that dusted his arms. She had seen him in all but his complete nudity.
But she had not touched.
And the hunger within her demanded that such a loss be recompensed.
As her hands sought the skin beneath his shirt, pushing at its neckline to b
are his shoulders and collarbone, Lachlan's fingers left her hair. She mewed with the loss, loving how his touch was so possessive amongst her curls and bound her to him like a shackle of silk. But he had had to let her go. He required two hands to reach for the hem of her tunic and pull it up over her head.
Aoide could not recall how long it took for her tunic to accompany the rest of their clothes. Her virginal state and natural fears ensured that her eyes remained closed and her mind locked on the sensations Lachlan was storming through her with his kiss. She drowned in his touch, gasped at the nips he made to her mouth, the teases he coaxed from her lips.
She was surprised when her back gently found the sheets of his bed. Her eyes opened, the spell broke just a little, and she flushed from neck to hairline when she discovered herself to be entirely nude. Lachlan wore no more.
A soft squeak of uncertainty broke from her chest, her breathing streaking into a panicked rhythm and her hands suddenly unsure and still in Lachlan's hair.
"Aoide..."
That was all he had needed to say. Immediately, the tension in her muscles melted away. She became liquid in his arms, her instincts taking over where her logic might stumble. Her knees lifted, her hips widened, her body became a small but strong cradle for his. He lowered himself into it with an exhale that was practically a reverent worship.
Briefly, the sheer size of him had concern bubbling, for he was a man of great height and width and was formed in proportion. She was small, barely five feet tall, and built on slim lines. While they were mismatched in every way, Lachlan seemed to like the difference between them and quickly set her concerns at ease. His hands claimed the entirety of her bottom; his fingers could shackle both of her wrists within a single grip. His arms held her close in the much larger cage of his body.
