"No wonder you are now allies."
Niall snorted. It was not words but an expression of disbelief that Abigail had seen far too many times not to recognize. Talorc gave his soldier a quelling glare—with little appreciable effect.
"Your sister and my own would have it no other way," Talorc said.
There was definitely more to it than he was saying, but Abigail was caught by one truth above all others. "And you listened to them?" she asked in true shock.
Her stepfather never admitted to taking the advice of a woman, even Sybil's.
"It was a good alliance to make."
"Aye, it was." Niall inclined his head toward Abigail. "Your bride is so tired, she can barely stand."
"She needs to eat."
"Let her eat in the tent, where she can sleep after."
"You think to advise me how to treat my bride?" Talorc asked, looking dangerous.
"Why not?" Abigail asked. "He is your second-in-command, isn't he? Surely he is allowed to have an opinion." She wasn't trying to be rude but realized after speaking that her questions could be taken that way. She simply wanted to understand the Highlander's way of things.
Niall's smile might be considered frightening by some, but Abigail saw the honest amusement lurking in his gray eyes. "Your wife is feistier than I thought."
"She is."
"She does not flinch from me." He appeared both pleased and astounded by that fact.
"I noticed you held her arm."
"She would have fallen otherwise." Niall's head bowed in apology.
"She is right here." Abigail frowned at both big men.
Really. She was accustomed to being ignored by her family, but this was getting out of hand.
For good or ill, Talorc gave her his full regard. "Niall is not my second-in-command. His brother holds that place."
"But . . ." She did not understand. "Which one is his brother?" She looked at the other warriors, not seeing any that looked like they could get away with ordering Niall about.
"Barr has command of the clan while I am away," Talorc replied.
"I see. So, Niall
is
your second-in-command at present." She nodded, satisfied by her ability to reason that out in her current state of exhaustion.
Talorc did not reply. No doubt because he did not wish to admit she was right.
"I will look forward to meeting him, then."
"Why?"
"Because he is your second, and I like his brother. I am bound to like him."
"You like Niall?" Talorc asked.
"You needn't be so incredulous. I do not hate the Scottish as you do the English."
"Most in our clan find Niall intimidating."
"Then they must find you positively terrifying."
That had Talorc looking pleased and Niall laughing, which from the shocked expressions of the other soldiers, must not happen often.
Abigail decided she had had enough of the discussion and attempting to be awake when all she wanted was to sleep. So, she curtsied and excused herself before ducking into the tent. Bright moonlight filtered between the edges of the plaids draped to make the walls of the tent and soon her eyes adjusted.
She had barely removed her shoes so she could settle on the furs when Talorc joined her, making the already small quarters feel overwhelmingly crowded. She scooted to the very edge of the tent to make room for him.
He handed her an apple. "Eat."
She thought of arguing, saying she just wanted to sleep. Only it would probably take more effort to convince the big warrior than to eat.
She accepted the apple and took a bite. Crisp and juicy, the fruit's flavor exploded over her taste buds, reminding her body how long it had been since she'd last fed her stomach. When she finished with the apple, he handed her a skin of water to drink from.
She drank and then found herself presented with a hunk of yellow cheese and a hard roll.
She ate the cheese.
However, after one bite of the hard roll and chewing it for what seemed forever, she placed it aside. "I'll just save this for the morning."
"I will provide you with food to break your morning fast." He looked downright growly.
"I'm full."
He narrowed his eyes. "Are you sure?"
"I'm not a warrior. I don't need that much."
"I'll not have you wasting away, wife."
She felt a blush climb her cheeks at his verbal claim to her. "I won't."
"You are small."
"Are Highlander women so much larger, then?" Emily hadn't mentioned such a thing in her letters.
"Nay, but you are fragile." He said the last word with a twist of his mouth.
Ah, the weakness thing again. "Emily is no bigger than me, and she's doing just fine among your brethren."
"She lives among the Balmoral."
"Same thing."
"No, it is not." He frowned fiercely. "We are the Sinclair, they are Balmoral."
"Are there no Chrechte among them?" she asked, trying to understand her new husband's point.
Perhaps he thought the fiercer warriors a danger to her. Though that didn't make much sense to her either, but then much of the way men thought didn't.
"The Balmoral is Chrechte."
"Emily's husband?"
"Aye."
"There, you see? I will do fine." She might be afflicted, but that had only made her stronger, not encouraged weakness.
Though only Emily had ever acknowledged such.
"You think to compare me to the Balmoral?"
She decided she would be best served with one of the shrugs so popular with the Highland warriors.
He shook his head as if unable to believe her. "You are a Sinclair now, you will not forget that."
"Trust me, I'm not likely to." She was deaf, not daft.
"It is time to sleep."
"Finally," she muttered as she turned and attempted to find a spot to lie on that would not put her body into contact with his.
He had no such compunction. As he stripped his plaid and shirt from his body, he made no effort to avoid brushing her side with first an arm and then his leg.
"Are we on Sinclair land then?" she asked with a squeak she could not be sure had enough volume to be heard.
He turned to stare at her. "Nay."
"But . . ."
"Undress. You'll not sleep all twisted up in your plaid."
"I . . ."
He blew out an impatient breath. "You may remove your plaid under the furs to protect your modesty."
He should have thought of that before hopelessly compromising it by getting wholly naked in front of her. She'd never seen a man's body before, and she found it both frighteningly repelling and inexplicably fascinating.
He made no move to cover himself as she stared at him in helpless curiosity. In fact, the part he should have covered and that she should definitely not have been looking at began to grow. She remembered he'd mentioned such a phenomenon that morning, when explaining the marriage bed. But she had not understood what he meant. Now, she did.
Oh dear,
did she understand
. It was quite amazing and entirely mortifying.
Especially since she could not seem to look away.
"That's . . ." She licked her lips and swallowed. "Does it get bigger?" She was unable to stop herself from asking.
"Keep looking at it like a kitten ready to lap up cream and it will."
She jolted at his words. "I . . . I wasn't. Not thinking of licking."
Licking?
Was he truly serious? He looked so, not a flicker of amusement anywhere in his expression. But
licking
?
He'd told her they might do that. Taste each other in such intimacy. She'd thought he must surely be exaggerating, playing on her ignorance. Clearly, he hadn't been. Oh, my.
Did he expect her to do
that
now?
He reached for her.
Surprisingly, she did not faint again. And showing a complete lack of self-preservation, she made no move to run screaming from the tent.
His face a mask over some emotion so fierce, the very blankness alluding to it, he untied her belt. She grabbed it and stared at him, unable to voice a question or complaint.
He said nothing. No words of comfort, no demand she not impede him.
Was the fire burning in his blue gaze lust? A man's desire for a woman was not something she had any experience with. Though Jolenta had told her stories, implying the whole time that Abigail would never have to worry about such a thing.
Isn't that what they'd
all
thought, Abigail herself included?
Sybil had not come right out and said she did not think Talorc would want Abigail, but she'd implied it well enough. And yet, isn't that what Abigail saw in his eyes right now?
"Do you want me?" she asked, once again showing her self-protection skills were at a very low ebb.
But she truly needed to know.
"Yes."
"But I'm English."
Shut up, Abigail
. She'd spoken more to her husband in the past day than she often did in a week. Surely she could stop talking. But words just kept popping out of her.
"I will not claim you now," he said, ignoring her last comment.
Then why did he wish to undress her? This question she managed to keep to herself. Barely.
He tugged at her belt and, of their own volition, her fingers released it. For surely she would not have done so on purpose. He pulled it away and began undoing the pleats of her plaid. Shock and a strange stirring in her belly held her immobile as he removed the blue, green and black fabric from her body.
When he finished, he knelt there, unmoving. Unsmiling. Silent, but his gaze spoke volumes could she interpret the messages there. Her blouse barely reached her thighs and her shift only a few inches beyond that, but at least she was not as naked as he. That was something. So, why did she feel as if he could see right through it?
Suddenly, she remembered that the furs they knelt on were for more than cushioning her body from the hard ground. They would afford protection from the incendiary heat of his gaze.
When she scooted to get under the furs, he stopped her with a hand on her naked calf. "Do the English sleep in their clothes, then?"
She shook her head mutely.
He began to tug at the hem of her blouse.
She grabbed it and held it in place. "You said I could undress under the furs."
He looked like he would argue, but after a few seconds he nodded. "Do it."
She clambered under the fur, forcefully keeping her eyes away from the stiff member between his legs. Flesh that had indeed grown to truly intimidating proportions.
Within seconds, he had joined her, showing her supposed reprieve to be a false hope.
She could even feel his naked leg touching her own under the soft furs.
She would have moved away, but he put that stone-hard arm that had kept her safely on his horse for so many hours around her waist and tugged her close to him. "Let's get rid of this now."
She was so lost in nerves she could barely read his lips as he spoke, much less make sense of the words.
His big hand grasping the hem of her blouse again explained to her senses what her brain refused to grasp. He didn't wait for her assent, just started tugging the blouse upward, and then it was gone, leaving her vulnerable in nothing but a too-thin shift.
Seconds later that was gone as well, leaving her completely naked outside the bath for the first time in her adult life.
Yet as much as she feared the unknown, she did not fear
him
. He had said he would not take her until they were on Sinclair land. She trusted him to keep his word.
Something deep inside her told her she could.
"You are mine," he said, a feral expression in his eyes.
She could do naught but nod.
He reached out and yanked the flap down on the tent, cutting off the light from the rapidly fading sky. There was barely enough light to see his form, much less read his lips.
She could tell he said something, but not what it was.
She reached out and placed her hand against his lips. "No talking."
She had no idea how he would receive the order, but nothing could have prepared her for the kiss that he gave her. His lips dominated hers, demanding entrance into her mouth, silently claiming his right to her.
She could do nothing but allow her lips to part. Inexplicably, she craved such intimacy. His tongue slipped between her parted lips, gliding past her teeth. He tasted like apples and the dry biscuit she had not eaten, but more than that. There was a wild, feral flavor to him that her woman's instincts told her was nothing but her husband.
And she who had been starved of any affection for the past two-plus years could not get enough. The truly intimate sensation of tasting him in a way no one else had a right to do was instantly addictive. She savored his tongue with her own. He allowed her untutored exploration for long patient moments. A jolt like lightning burned all the way to the most feminine part of her as his patience broke and he began to suck on her tongue.
She stopped caring that she was naked, stopped worrying that he was, too, and simply reveled in the amazing and blissful connection between them.
He rolled on top of her, his body hotter than the furs. Rather than feel frightened by being blanketed by the huge warrior, Abigail felt safety unlike anything she had ever known. His hard knee pressed her tender thighs apart and she did not resist.
That big, hard manhood rubbed against the apex of her thighs, and she thought she might expire from the pleasure of it. She knew they were not actually copulating; he was not inside her as he said he would be. But she could not imagine anything more personal. This was something she would never share with another.
Something he would give only to her. He'd told her that, too.
His mouth slid from her lips to move down her jaw and then onto her neck, where he stopped. She waited, her panting breaths sawing in and out of her. Finally, he broke the suspense of the moment.
He gently bit the join of her neck and shoulder, pressing down so she could feel his teeth in a circle of claiming. She did not think he would break her skin, but his teeth felt unusually sharp. Or perhaps her senses had simply been heightened.