by Eliza Knight
“She’s got a strong snout.”
Sir Alistair grunted, his eyes perusing her in a way that made her shiver. His gaze lingered on her mouth, before flicking away toward the castle in the distance.
“Is that nae your home?”
“Aye.”
“Then why are ye here?” Assessing eyes glided back toward her.
Julia crossed her arms, tapped her foot and jutted out her chin. Whatever it was he hoped to find out, she was not going to divulge anything to him. “I am not traveling for pleasure, in case ye’ve forgotten.”
“But ye could get reinforcements.”
“Why are ye alone?” she retorted. “Ye, too, could have traveled with reinforcements.”
He grinned and took a step closer to her. “Ye’re hiding something.”
“I barely know ye, I’m certain there are a lot of things I’m hiding.”
Another step, and he was crowding her space. She assumed that might be a tactic he often used, taking advantage of his size and hoping to intimidate others. But he didn’t realize she’d a horde of cousins and uncles who equaled him in height and breadth, along with a brother, and not one of them ever succeeded in intimidating her with such measures.
Julia laughed then, having figured him out, and finding it to be quite funny. She leaned casually against a tree and shook her head.
“Do ye think I jest?” he asked, pressing his hand to a branch above her head and bending closer.
She could smell him then, and found it odd that in all the days he’d been riding after her, he still managed to maintain a scent that was alluring, and perhaps even a bit intoxicating. Woodsy and masculine, leather and just a hint of spice. She resisted the urge to close her eyes as she breathed him in deep. Och, but his scent alone was a distraction. How unfair. She was certain that she herself was not in the finest of odors. Maybe that would be enough to push him away.
“I think ye dinna realize I am not like every other woman.” She sniffed and looked away, pretending indifference.
No luck, he leaned closer still, enough that she could feel his breath on her cheek. “What do ye mean by that?”
“Your tactics.” She waved her hands toward his arm planted on the branch, his stance towering above hers. “They will not work. I will not be intimidated by your size and closeness.”
“Nay?”
“Nay.” She regarded him full on then with her fiercest expression, the one she used on the children at the castle when they ran amuck. The one she used on any Sutherland or Mackenzie warrior who got a little too close.
“Hmmm.” His gaze went toward her mouth. “What does intimidate ye?”
“Nothing.” Zounds, but the way he was looking at her did intimidate her, because right now, if he tried to kiss her, she was certain she’d surrender—and show just how weak she truly was.
“I actually believe that.”
“Good.” Thank heavens…
“So perhaps I need to find a way to distract ye.”
Julia’s mouth fell open in shock. What the bloody hell was he up to? “From what? Why would ye want to distract me from my mission? Do ye not want the king back? Is that it? Ye’re working with the enemy?”
All humor left his face when she said that.
“Now why would ye go and say that?” he growled.
“Because ye’re acting suspicious. Because ye’re alone. Why is there not an army with ye?”
“Perhaps for the same reason there is not an army with ye, when ye and I both know very well ye’ve one at your disposal a couple of miles away.” He nodded toward the tower of the keep jutting from above the tree line.
“All right, so it would appear we both seem suspicious. I can respect that.”
“Then ye will tell me what ye’re hiding?”
“I hide nothing that ye need be aware of.”
He frowned again, and she had the sudden urge to smooth out those lines and press her lips against his just to feel what that was like. Nay, nay, nay!
“Then we’ll travel together.” The tone of his voice left no room for argument.
But Julia was not one to let others tell her what to do. Yet another of her flaws, she supposed.
“That will not be necessary. I work better alone.”
“I’m not asking.”
“And I’m not agreeing.”
“If ye insist on being stubborn about it, I’ll just continue to follow ye.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to suggest he might not be able to, but threatening the earl’s guard was not part of her plan. Besides that, even if she did fight him with everything she had, he was strong, and there was too much risk he might overpower her. Or tie her up, leave her to rot and take Merida to continue the journey.
Before she’d met Sir Alistair, she would not have said it was possible for her beloved hound to betray her, but it would appear this rogue was the exception.
“I am not agreeing, but I will not fight ye on it,” she finally said.
A teasing grin covered his lips. “Och, lass, ’tis a good thing ye agreed.”
She resisted asking why, but her curiosity got the better of her. “Why is that?”
He tapped her nose and said, “I suppose ye’ll never know.”
Without thinking, Julia jerked forward and bit the tip of Sir Alistair’s finger. Not too hard, but firm enough to sting, at least she hoped.
“If I want ye to touch me, ye’ll know it,” she hissed.
Alistair’s grin widened. “Ye’re a feisty one, are nae ye?”
“I’ve been called worse.” She shoved him away from her, and he relented, backing up a few paces.
“No doubt, my lady.”
“Go and fetch your horse, else leave me to my rest.”
Julia sat down, leaned against a tree and closed her eyes. The moment she heard him move, she peered at him through slitted lids to see that he was doing as she demanded, or at the very least, it seemed that way.
As she drifted in and out of sleep, she heard him return, but still he did not bother her. When she woke, perhaps an hour or so later, he leaned against a tree opposite her, and appeared to be asleep.
Julia stood, stretched and prepared to find a private spot when his voice caught her.
“Ye snore.”
“Liar.”
He chuckled. “All right, well then, ye talk in your sleep.”
“Have I told ye yet to bugger off?”
Alistair opened his eyes and grinned. Why did he have to be so handsome? Have such a teasing manner? Och, but it was both charming and irritating at the same time.
“Stop jesting with me, warrior. We’re on a mission, and there is a wee lad scared for his life. Now is not the time for making fun.”
At that, the smile fell from his face, and Julia walked straight into the woods with her spine rigid, feeling slightly guilty for having rebuked him. But they had a duty to return the king. They needed to remain on task, and the distractions had to stop.
If Alistair had wondered what the offspring of a goddess and vinegar might be, Lady Julia was the perfect specimen with which to compare.
And what the bloody hell was wrong with him? His eyes lingered on her retreating rear-end, round and lush. The woman was built for pleasure, and yet, she’d obviously been trained as a force to be reckoned with. The way she’d bit his finger…
Hell, he’d been lucky not to spend in his breeches at the touch of her tongue on his skin. He’d also been lucky to still have a finger when she was done. Her reflexes were quick, swifter than he would have guessed.
She was right, he did need to be more serious, and yet all he could do was tease and flirt, like some drunken adolescent ready to bend her over the nearest downed tree and take her for the ride of her life. Then of course, that thought led to her shoving him to the ground and riding him—which was probably much more her style.
Alistair groaned, shifting his sporran to cover the evidence of his desire that now pushed up against his plaid.
> Guilt flooded him. The earl had tasked him with finding the king. Alistair had alluded to Lady Julia being a part of the abduction, but after following her for days and discovering that she didn’t have the lad, and that she appeared to be tracking them, he’d realized his error.
Along the journey, he’d stopped at a remote inn and paid one of the stable lads to deliver a message to the earl, that read simply and cryptically: It was nae her—AC, so that she wouldn’t be blamed or hunted down for his mistake.
He was still certain it was Hugh and the nursemaid who had left with the king, but who was the third?
The questions and possibilities were still mulling through his head when Julia returned to camp. Her creamy skin was flushed red, and she avoided meeting his gaze. She shifted with what he could only discern was embarrassment.
“Well, I would leave now,” she said abruptly. “Perhaps ye’d like to relieve yourself afore we go?”
At her words, she blushed all the redder, and Alistair could only guess at her train of thought at having mentioned him relieving himself. He knew she’d meant to take a piss, but well, it was almost like she could read his mind… and knew he would have much rather slaked his lust with her writhing beneath him.
5
They traveled in silence the remainder of the day until they came to the coast looking toward the Isle of Skye—far enough away from Eilean Donan to not be noticed.
“They went across,” Julia said.
Alistair guessed as much, with the way the hound was looking out toward the sea.
“They had a birlinn waiting for them.” She glanced down the coast.
“How do ye know?” Alistair bent and touched the deep grooves in the ground where the base of a birlinn had been pulled out to the water.
She shrugged, but it didn’t matter. He guessed she’d seen exactly what he did, the evidence was there before him. Still, she was holding back.
What was the lass hiding from him? He wished he could crack her open to figure it out, but she was holding steady and not giving anything away.
“We’ll have to leave our horses. Steal a birlinn.” She stroked her mount’s mane.
“Or we could swim.” Alistair swatted the chilly water.
“Swim?” She gave him a skeptical look.
“Aye. Our horses and your hound can do it. Can ye swim?”
“Of course.”
“Let’s do it.” He shrugged out of his scabbard, slipping it beneath his horse’s saddle.
She narrowed her eyes at him but then nodded. “All right.” Then she bent to untie her boots, placing them in her satchel, her bare toes curling into the earth. “I dinna want to ruin my boots.”
Alistair grinned. “And what about your gown? Ye dinna want to ruin that either.”
He expected her to whip out her sword and threaten to cut his ballocks, but she surprised him by nodding. “Aye, ye’re right, and it will weigh me down.”
Alistair blinked, disbelieving, as she began to take off her weapons and attached them to her saddle so they wouldn’t get lost, and then she was undoing the ties of her gown down the side of her ribs. Mo chreach…
“Well, sir, are ye nae going to undress?”
“I’ll leave my shirt on.”
She shrugged, tugging off her gown, loosened something beneath her chemise and tugged out a leather armored bodice. Next came bracers from her arms and thighs. Holy hell… He’d never seen a woman with armor, let alone that much. He found it… incredibly… stimulating.
Armor removed, she stood before him in only a thin chemise, the breeze causing the fabric to cling to the outline of her ravishing figure.
All the blood drained from his body to center in his middle. Bloody hell… It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman. Too afraid of the fairer sex’s desire to simply get in his bed to get closer to the earl. For that had happened to him a few times. He didn’t want to be at their mercy. So perhaps his desire for this wench was just that he’d been living like a monk for too long.
Or maybe it was that she was everything he could have wanted in a woman, and everything he’d never found.
The more he stared, the narrower her eyes went.
“Avert your eyes, else I think ye didna mean to swim at all, and only convinced me it was so in order to see me undress.”
Alistair’s throat was too tight to respond, so instead, he turned around and undid the pin of plaid and his belt, tucking them both in his leather satchel, then rolling up his plaid and tying it to the back of his saddle.
By the time he turned around, she’d already waded into the water, and was making sighing noises as she paddled forward.
“What are ye waiting for?” she taunted and started to swim, her hound and horse following. “’Tis not too cold.”
Alistair grunted as he stepped into the chilly water. “Quite refreshing,” he remarked. As a youth, he’d done a lot more swimming than time allowed for now. Despite their circumstances, he was looking forward to the swim for the exercise, the ability to wash away the grime from his skin, and to hopefully cool his overly heated blood.
They swam across Loch Alsh at a swift pace, and he found himself to be quite impressed with Julia’s stamina. But he supposed as a lass growing up at Eilean Donan, surrounded by water on all sides, she might have even made this trek before. Her hound and horse did not seem in the least bit disturbed by the notion of swimming, and even seemed to know their own way, while his horse had at first resisted.
They made it to the other side in just over a half hour, and while he told himself he should avoid looking at her as she exited the water, Alistair could not pull his gaze away. Rivulets of water dripped down her arms and legs, clung to her lashes and made her fiery golden hair darker.
But it was the fabric of her chemise clinging to her curves, the water making the garment nearly transparent, that had him stunned. She could have been standing there naked before him. Her breasts were full, and tipped with tiny, hard pink nipples. Her waist was trim, and her hips rounded into long, firm legs. Alistair swallowed at the sight of flaming red curls nestled between those long legs.
“Have ye had enough?” she asked with a raised brow. “I could continue to stand here for your perusal, turn maybe so ye might paint my buttocks into your brain, or ye could tuck that sword back into your plaid and we could be on our way.”
Alistair’s face heated. Ballocks, was he blushing? The hellion had just made a comment about his erection. Which could very well have been just as transparent to her as her parts were to him, given he was also wearing a soaked shirt.
Clearing his throat, he tugged his plaid from where he’d tied it to the saddle and laid it out on the ground, making the pleats. He rolled himself into the fabric, belted it in place and tossed the extra flap over his shoulder, pinning it at his shoulder. By the time he was finished, she’d already tied her boots and was plaiting her hair.
God, she was gorgeous. And not because he’d just basically seen her naked. She wasn’t the first woman he’d seen. But she was the most stunning. All of her. Body, mind, soul, spirit. Her fiery nature, her fearlessness, the way she sprang headlong into adventure, and dear God, those breasts…
“Oh, for the love of all things breathing, Campbell.” She sounded irritated, and he couldn’t be sure what exactly had her that way. The lass stomped around and shook her head, as though she had heard everything going through his mind. But that was impossible!
“Let us be on our way then, wench,” he grumbled.
She marched up to him then, grabbed the front of his wet shirt, and tugged him forward, her lips crushing his with bruising force.
At first, Alistair was too shocked to react, but as her tongue slid into his mouth, his senses came flooding back with a wildness he was going to have a hard time containing.
Lady Julia kissed him like he’d never been kissed before. With passion, with vehemence, yet somehow, it all seemed so innocent. Alistair stroked her back, tucking her closer to him an
d diving his tongue in deep, wanting to consume all of her. Her breasts crushed to his chest, and he could feel the tempting points of her turgid nipples pressed against him. God, he wanted to nibble them. Torment her as she did him.
Her back arched, and she moaned, as though she too wanted to get closer. If he wasn’t careful, they’d end up on the ground, making love right there in the open.
All too quickly, she was pulling away from him, the both of them panting.
“I was hoping that might get some of your lust out of your system, but it seems to only have made ye more… lusty.” She eyed him wearily—and with a hunger that simmered in her gaze.
“What?” Alistair said, bemused. “Do ye think that’s how it works, lass? Ye kiss a man and he doesna want ye anymore?”
“I had hoped.”
“Ye’ve not done much kissing then.”
Her eyelids shuttered down. “And clearly, neither have ye.” Her gaze traveled to his middle, where his arousal pressed steel-hard against his plaid.
Och, but that was a shot at his lack of bedding women, wasn’t it? Alistair grunted, refusing to let the hellion get to him—even if at that very moment, every part of him very much did not want to forget her.
“There’s one thing ye ought to learn about men, lass, and ’tis that ye canna just go around kissing them, thrusting your tongue into their mouths and rubbing your wee lush body all over them, and expect them to walk away. ’Tis not how it works. Ye’re liable to wake a sleeping bear, love.”
“I’ll have ye know, ye’re not the first man I’ve kissed. Nor the first I’ve bedded. I’m not as naïve about the world as ye might think.” Despite the last part of her sentence, the way she shuffled and the uncertainty in her tone had him wondering if she didn’t doubt herself.
Her face flamed red, and he had to try very hard not to grab her up and kiss her again. At the same time, he wanted to know just who she’d been bedding. Lassies of her station didn’t simply go around bedding men. Was that a boast without the evidence to support it?
Och, she might try to be a woman of the world, experienced in all things, but it was beyond evident that innocence was still a great part of her. Even if she was telling the truth.