by Lynsay Sands
“Seeing ye safely to Sinclair does no’ explain the tent he makes with his plaid every morning after they lift ye away from him,” Donnghail said dryly.
Elysande was blinking in confusion at that when Rory returned with the cloth-wrapped container of liniment. She let him help her up, grimacing at the pain it sent shooting through the muscles of her back, and then walked with him into the woods, but her mind was distracted with what Donnghail had said. She had no idea what he meant. She was usually too embarrassed at waking in his arms to look at anyone when the men lifted her up, especially Rory, so had never noticed him making anything with his plaid.
A soft curse from Rory made her glance around in question, only to blink as she realized she couldn’t see him in the dark. She could hear him muttering under his breath right beside her though.
“What is it?” she asked with concern.
“The ground is too wet here fer ye to lie on,” he said with exasperation, his voice starting down by her knees and then moving upward until it sounded like it was coming from a little above and beside her again. She realized then that he’d knelt to check the ground, and she’d been vaguely aware of his drawing her to a stop and releasing her elbow briefly a couple of times before this. From that and his words, she guessed that he’d been stopping every once in a while to check the ground while she had apparently stood lost in thought.
“We’ll have to keep going,” he said on a sigh, and caught her arm again to urge her forward, but Elysande resisted the tug.
“Nay. We can do it here,” she said, suspecting they would not find dry ground anywhere. Even the patch of ground where they’d laid the fur had been more than a little damp.
“’Tis far too wet to—”
“Then I will not lie down,” Elysande said simply.
“What? How— What are ye doing?” Rory asked, a frown in his voice as she began to swing her free arm around.
“Trying to find a tree,” she explained, moving to her right and dragging him with her since he was holding her arm.
“What for?” he asked with bewilderment.
“To lay my clothes over,” Elysande explained. “’Tis dark as sin here, my lord. So, I shall just strip off my clothes, hang them over a branch to keep them dry and then redon them after you apply the liniment.”
“Oh,” Rory said with a touch of surprise. “Aye, that should work.”
“Aye,” she agreed, and then gave a grunt of victory when her hand smacked what she was sure was a tree trunk.
“Find one?” he asked with what sounded suspiciously like amusement.
Elysande moved her hand over what she’d hit, smiling once she was sure it was the nice thick trunk of a tree with several sturdy branches low enough for her to lay her clothes over. “Aye.”
“Verra well.” Rory released her elbow. “Tell me when ye’re ready.”
Elysande nodded, quite forgetting he couldn’t see it, and started undressing. She removed her cloak and laid it over a branch she thought might be high enough to keep it off the ground. The plaid quickly followed, but her gown was more of a struggle to get out of. Her back and muscles complained bitterly of the movement as well as the cloth shifting against her skin, and despite the chill in the air she was sweating when she finally accomplished it. But she did. Though apparently not without some telltale sounds that told Rory she’d run into difficulty.
“Are ye all right, lass?” he asked with concern.
“Aye.” Elysande sighed the word and paused to lean against the tree trunk briefly. “’Twas a struggle getting out of my gown. I just have to remove my tunic and breeches now and I will be ready.”
His responding, “Oh,” sounded odd, but Elysande had straightened away from the tree and paid him little attention as she started the battle to remove her tunic.
“How are ye doing?” Rory asked several moments later, his voice almost raspy.
“Just the breeches to go,” she said as she hung the tunic over the branch with the rest of her clothes.
“Just the breeches.” Rory barely breathed the words beside her, but Elysande caught them just the same. She was cautiously bending to push the breeches down by then, however, stretching her back muscles as slowly as possible to minimize her pain, and didn’t speak again until she had them off over her slippers.
“There,” Elysande breathed with relief as she laid the breeches over the rest of her clothes, and then she peered around at the darkness surrounding her. “Where are you?”
“Here.”
Elysande felt a slight breeze as if something was moving past her face and reached up quickly to grab at it. She missed at first but then he must have been moving his hand back and forth because she caught it a moment later.
“There ye are,” Rory said with relief as she clasped his wrist. “Dear God, I canno’ see a thing in these woods.”
Elysande thought that was a good thing. She’d hardly be standing there naked if he could see her.
“This is my left shoulder,” she announced, raising his hand and placing it against her skin. “I am just going to face the tree and brace myself against it so I do not lose it and lose my clothes,” Elysande explained as she did just that, leaning forward slightly to brace her hands against the tree trunk with her back out toward him.
“Right,” Rory breathed by her ear, and then hesitated. “I have to let ye go to scoop up some liniment. Do no’ move or I might lose ye in this dark.”
Elysande chuckled softly at the words, though they weren’t really funny. They could easily lose each other in this black ink night. She heard movement a little behind and to the side and then he said, “I’m going to give ye the cloth that was around the pot.”
She felt his hand and the cloth brush her shoulder and then he followed her arm up to where her hand was braced against the tree and waited for her to take the cloth from him. Elysande couldn’t help thinking it was a similar operation to how he’d felt his way along his horse to mount it when he’d been blindfolded.
Rory didn’t give her warning before starting; she just suddenly felt what she thought must be the back of his hand brush her shoulder and then it moved down, skimming lightly over the skin on the uninjured side of her back before it moved to the side and then shifted slightly and he was smoothing cool liniment over the injured side.
Elysande released a little sigh of relief as the numbness began to set in, taking away her aches and pains, and then he began to knead her back as he had the last time. She moaned with the pleasure of it as his hand moved up and down her back, her upper body sagging toward the tree as her muscles loosened. Elysande didn’t realize she was moving her back away from him until he stepped forward to follow and she felt his plaid and something hard beneath it rub against her bottom.
“Nay, do not stop,” she begged when Rory froze. “The kneading feels so good.”
Much to her relief, his hand started to move again, working her muscles, but he also eased his feet back, so that she could no longer feel his plaid.
Elysande felt like a lump of dough when he finally paused to collect more liniment and moved on to spread it along her side. His fingers glided up from her waist, drifting over the edge of her breast again as it had the last time. The same excited tingle slid through her at the touch, but then his hand was gone, dropping back down to knead the muscles below her ribs. The next time he stopped to collect more liniment, Rory must have knelt as well because his hand didn’t return to her back, but to the backs of her legs, skipping her bottom altogether. His oily fingers glided from the backs of her knees, slowly upward, and Elysande’s eyes blinked open, as did her mouth a bit, and her breathing became a little shallow and erratic as he skimmed his way up toward her bottom.
She was fighting the urge to close her legs, or to shift them at least. They definitely wanted to move, but she forced herself to remain still as he slathered the oil on first one leg, and then the other, before he started to knead them just as he had her back.
Elysande could
feel his warm breath on her lower bottom as he worked one leg, followed by the other, his breath moving from one side to the other, brushing across the apex in the center with each pass. Every one of those times that his breath hit her there, it sent a bevy of tingles through Elysande that drew a soft moan from her and had her shifting slightly despite her best efforts. With one movement she squeezed her legs together, with another she widened her stance and eased them apart. Her body didn’t seem to know what it wanted to do, and then his hands dropped away again. A moment later she felt his plaid brush against the backs of her legs and bottom and guessed he had stood up again. Then his hands were sliding over the curves of her bottom, running circles around them briefly before squeezing gently once the liniment had begun to numb her.
“Straighten for me, love.” His voice sounded gruff and raspy, and he squeezed her bottom a little more firmly as he made the request.
Elysande didn’t even consider disobeying; she simply pushed her upper body away from the tree to stand upright. The moment she did he rewarded her with a kiss on the side of the neck that made her swallow and still.
“Lean back a little,” Rory murmured, one hand leaving her bottom to travel up her injured side and glide across the side of her breast.
Elysande leaned back and he kissed her neck again and then nipped lightly and she moaned and tilted her head to the side to give him better access as he began to nibble and suckle the length of her throat. When he reached her jaw and began to follow it toward her chin, she instinctively turned her head to make it easier and then sighed when his mouth found hers with first just a brush of lips, and then his tongue skimmed across them before urging them open.
Elysande was more than a little startled when she let her lips open a bit and his tongue slid in to fill her. For one moment she froze, and then she tasted him, and his tongue moved, rasping against her own, and she liked it and opened wider for him. Rory immediately deepened the kiss and his hand left her side to cup the back of her head, twisting it toward him until she released the tree and rotated in his arms.
Rory let go of her bottom for her to do that, but immediately clasped the soft cheeks again once she’d finished the move. He then used his hold to press her lower body firmly against his as his tongue thrust in her mouth.
Elysande gasped and moaned, her hands clutching at his shoulders, trying to get as close to him as she could. Her nipples tingled where they pressed into his plaid, and liquid heat was pooling between her legs as if his squeezing her bottom was milking her, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted more, and then he broke their kiss to blaze a trail of them down her throat, across her collarbone and down the slope of one breast until he found one of her aching nipples and drew it into his mouth. The lash of his tongue over the hard tip had her almost thrashing in his arms with need until she gasped, “Rory, please. I need . . .”
The feverish words merely made him suckle harder, and drove her wild so that she began to moan, “Please, please, please,” over and over until he finally let her nipple slip from his mouth and lifted his head to nip her ear and growl, “Please what, love? What do ye need?”
“I—I do not know,” she admitted plaintively, and then turned her head to catch his mouth with her own. This time she kissed him. Elysande had no idea what she was doing, or if she was doing it right, and didn’t care. But it got a wondrous response. Rory kissed her back just as violently, tilting his head to find a better angle, and then let his hands drop to the back of her thighs and urged her legs apart as one of his legs slid between hers.
Elysande cried out into his mouth as the top of his thigh rubbed over the center of her, her entire body quaking with the excitement it caused, and then he did it again. She clawed at his shoulders, feeling like cloth wound too tight and about to unravel, and then a branch snapped somewhere behind her and they both froze.
Chapter 11
The sound of the branch snapping was like a bucket of icy water splashed over Rory, recalling him to where he was and with whom. Elysande was a complete innocent. Her utter lack of skill at kissing at first had told him that. She was also a treasure he was supposed to be seeing safely to Sinclair. He suspected her mother wouldn’t consider what he was presently doing as seeing her safely anywhere.
Another branch snapped, closer this time, and Rory pulled his mouth from Elysande’s and eased his leg from between hers. He then followed the tree trunk behind her until his hand brushed cloth. Grasping the material, he drew it off the branch and pulled it between them to press against Elysande’s chest. She didn’t need to be told what to do. The moment he eased back, she took the piece of clothing and began to turn it between them, no doubt trying to sort out what it was.
Breeches was his guess when she urged him farther back and he felt her head brush his arm, the soft strands of hair caressing his skin as she no doubt bent to pull them over one foot and then the other.
Rory gave her the space she needed, but no more. It was still pitch-black in the woods and he couldn’t see her or anything else. It would be too easy to lose her out here. Besides, he hadn’t brought his sword with him, and was very aware he would be a poor protector if whoever was moving through the woods attacked them. The best hope was that it was one of the men looking for someplace to relieve himself, he thought, and then moved closer to Elysande when he sensed her straightening.
Her arms brushed against him as she finished pulling up her pants, and then her hip bumped his as she retrieved more clothing. He left her to it, his ears straining to hear any more sounds, and his hand finding her body every once in a while to be sure she was still there and check her progress. With the liniment numbing her pain, she dressed much more quickly than she’d undressed, and soon she found his arm and squeezed.
Guessing that was the signal that she was finished, Rory turned in the direction he thought camp was and started to move cautiously that way. He hadn’t heard any more snapping branches or other sounds, and supposed what they’d heard could have been an animal. A stag, perhaps, or some other woodland creature. Still, he moved slowly, making as little sound as he could.
When several moments passed without any sign of the campfire ahead, Rory was beginning to think he had led them in the wrong direction. But just as he was about to try a different direction, he caught a glimmer of light ahead. He realized then that in his search for a dry spot to apply Elysande’s liniment, he’d led them much farther into the woods than he’d realized. Much farther than any of the men would have gone to relieve themselves too, he thought grimly as he began to move a little more quickly.
“Do you think the noise was one of the men, or just an animal?” Elysande asked as they neared the edge of the trees.
Her voice was anxious and he realized she was probably worried one of the men may have heard her moans of pleasure. It apparently also hadn’t occurred to her that it might be someone other than one of their men. But he didn’t want her worrying, so said, “Probably a rabbit,” to soothe her.
It seemed to work. At least, she didn’t say anything else.
Rory wasn’t at all surprised to note that every man was there and accounted for when he ushered Elysande out of the woods and over to the fur. Donnghail still sat on the log, watching, and the rest of the men were curled up on or around the fur. Catching Elysande by the arm, he whispered, “I’ll be right back,” and then kissed her gently on the forehead before lifting her over Inan’s body and onto the center spot where she slept.
He waited until she had lain down and curled inside her cloak before moving toward Donnghail. It wasn’t until he saw the man’s raised eyebrows that he realized what he’d just done. Rory turned back sharply then, but Elysande was already asleep, or at least her eyes were closed. He couldn’t tell how she’d reacted to the automatic show of affection. He couldn’t even tell how she was reacting to what had happened between them in the woods. Her face was expressionless, and other than a little extra color in her cheeks, and the fact that her hair was a little mussy, she didn’
t look any different. And her hair might have been mussy before they’d headed off into the woods since she’d just woken from sleep. He hadn’t really noted it at the time.
Sighing, he continued on to Donnghail, his expression grim.
“Ye two took a while,” Donnghail said mildly as Rory dropped onto the log next to him.
“It’s dark as pitch in the woods, but I swear I took her halfway to Glasgow before I gave up looking for a spot dry enough for her to lie down. I ended up having to apply the liniment with her leaning against a tree.” He shook his head. “And then it took so long before I saw the light of the fire, I thought I’d got us lost.”
“She looked startled when ye kissed her forehead,” Donnghail announced, and when Rory grimaced, he added, “But then she looked pleased.”
“Did she?” he asked, a smile tugging at his lips before he recalled why he’d come to talk to Donnghail. Waving away whatever the man was about to respond with, he said, “We heard snapping branches near us just before we came back.”
Donnghail’s eyes narrowed, then scanned the woods around them. “Ye’re thinking we have company?”
“I do no’ ken,” Rory admitted solemnly. “It could have been a stag or something, but . . .” He let the sentence hang, his lips compressed.
“But keep an eye out,” Donnghail finished for him.
“And yer sword close,” Rory suggested, and then stood and moved back to the fur. He stepped over Inan, and stretched out in front of Elysande, his back to her and his hand going automatically to the sword he’d left lying there when he’d gone into the woods. Grasping it in his hand, he closed his eyes, but knew he wasn’t likely to fall asleep.
“Ye heard snapping branches?” Inan’s soft voice brought his eyes open again. The man was awake.
“Aye,” Rory murmured. “It might have been an animal.”
“It might,” Alick murmured from directly above his head. He lay crosswise to them, his head just above Rory’s, his stomach above Elysande’s head and his feet above Tom.