by Lily Maxton
His words cut, more deeply than she wanted them to.
“That’s not for you to decide,” she reminded him.
Lachlan’s lip curled. “You haven’t won yet.”
Andrew shot the ball past them and they both took off after it. They were side by side until Lachlan hooked the back of her legs and she went down hard.
For a second, she lay there, stunned, winded. A searing pain radiated from a point between her shoulder blades, and she wondered if she’d landed on a rock.
But she pushed herself up. If Lachlan wanted to play dirty, oh, she could play dirty. She gritted her teeth against the pain and ran to catch up with him. Whatever he saw in her face gave him pause. In his haste to make the goal, he shot too forcefully and the ball ricocheted off a tree trunk.
The ball was rolling toward them. She was a step behind Lachlan, then in line with him, then she was past him—she’d given his leg a good thwack and he hobbled off balance. She took a swing, striking the ball, watching with wide eyes as it went airborne…and soared straight through the goalposts.
She heard Andrew whoop. And when she turned around, triumph surging through her veins like wildfire, the first thing she saw was Mal’s brilliant smile.
Chapter Five
“I told you that you could do it,” Mal said. In truth, it had been closer than he would have liked. Andrew and Catriona’s team had only won by a goal.
But they’d won.
Mal was relieved. And proud. Which was stupid, considering he didn’t really know a thing about this woman.
Though he did know one thing—he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Right now, her hair in disarray, her face splotchy, forehead gleaming from sweat, she looked fierce, and wild, and Mal wanted to stand in her presence like he would stand in the sun, just to soak in its light.
He handed over a flask of water, and she took it, drinking greedily. He watched as she poured water into her cupped palm, then splashed some onto her face. It dripped in rivulets down her jaw, her throat, seeping into the bodice of her blue dress and darkening it to black.
He swallowed.
Catriona spoke, unaware that she’d just made him question everything he’d thought he’d known about desire. “That was…”
He had to clear his throat. “Invigorating?”
“I was looking for something closer to painful, but more than painful…excruciating?” She nodded, answering herself. “Excruciating. And exhausting.”
“But it was fun, aye?”
She smiled—a lopsided half smile—too reticent to encompass her face fully. He found it at odds with what he’d seen of her, and oddly charming. “Aye, it was fun,” she agreed. And then she added, “Especially the part where I nearly knocked you off your feet.”
“You mean the part where you tricked me? It was underhanded.”
She looked up at him, innocently. “You mean that’s not how the game is played?”
He barked out a laugh at hearing his own words echoed back to him. “You only knocked me back a step, lass. You didn’t nearly knock me down.”
“It didna look quite that way to me,” she said, lips curving.
Damn, but he wanted to kiss that smirk right off her mouth.
Instead, he decided to focus on the matter at hand. He held out the rest of the bundle in his arms—a linen towel, ball of soap, and tin of salve. “The men will stay away from the stream if you’d like to wash.”
Their hands brushed as she reached out. The pads of her fingers, hardened from playing the cittern, rasped over the tops of his knuckles. Another thing he’d never thought he’d find erotic—the rough heat of a musician’s hands.
“Thank you.” She opened the top of the lid curiously and sniffed. “What is this?”
“Salve, for bruises. I expect you might have a few, after the way you played.”
Her eyebrow arched. “The way I played? I was only trying to keep up with you all so I could earn my place. By hitting a ball with a stick.”
He paused. “Is that sarcasm, Miss MacPherson?”
“It might have been fun, but you have to admit, it’s a wee bit silly.”
“Silly? Camanachd?”
“Silly. Camanachd.” Her expression never faltered.
“Hush, woman, you speak blasphemy.”
She lifted her eyes heavenward, and laughter bubbled up inside him.
“It served a purpose, though,” he said. “You got a nod from Lachlan.”
“The greatest of rewards,” she said, in a tone that was dry as desert air.
“Coming from Lachlan, that is the greatest of rewards. And you earned a nickname from Andrew and Ewan.”
“Do I look like a Cat to you?”
No, Mal mused, she truly didn’t. Cat was a fine name for a bandit—he stood by that—but, somehow, it didn’t really suit her. If he was the one to choose, he would give her a bold name. Boudicca. Godiva. Something deeper and darker and more mysterious.
She turned to set the bundle down on the rock next to her and winced.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She sighed. “Though maybe I was a little too enthusiastic toward the end.”
“No such thing when it comes to shinty.”
“Perhaps, but I’m sure I’ll pay for it.” She yawned, stifling the sound with the back of her hand.
“Do you need help with the salve?” he asked. A thick silence settled between them. All he could hear was the twitter of distant birds and the trickle of the stream behind them. He suddenly felt conspicuous, like his skin was too tight for his body. “I mean…if your back is bruised it’ll be hard to reach.”
Her eyes widened.
“That is…you might be able to reach it, but it will cause you pain.” He was about to say that he didn’t like the thought of her in pain, but he stopped before he could make himself look any more like an idiot.
Somewhere, a bird chirped, laughing at him.
Mal had never lacked confidence. And he couldn’t recall ever being this awkward around other women before he’d left for the army. But he’d been younger then, in both body and spirit, and maybe these things—emotion and want and the expression of them—were easier when one was young.
Or maybe it was simply Catriona who made him feel like this. She was watching him, a little puzzled, a little wary, but she held his gaze, undaunted.
No, she didn’t look like a Cat at all.
“I can do it myself.”
“Aye.” Then he nodded, which made him look not only awkward but redundant. He turned, swallowing his disappointment, and left to the sound of birds mocking him.
…
Georgina flinched awake from a restless sleep. The sky above was thick and dark and smelled like rain. And at that moment, she would have welcomed a downpour, because her body was on fire. She reached out her hand, searching, and sighed with relief when her fingers touched cool, cool metal.
But when she tried to reach behind her, to loosen her bodice so she could apply the salve, the muscles in her back and arms screamed.
Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes.
She gritted her teeth and tried it again but broke off with a sob when the pain became too much.
She hated this. She hated feeling helpless. She hated asking for help.
But the only time her body didn’t feel like it might spontaneously combust was when she didn’t move an inch, and that wasn’t exactly a sustainable state.
With her heart beating too hard in her chest and her muscles throbbing, she pushed herself up. She walked stiffly to where the men slept, careful not to trip over any rocks or stumps in the dark. The sound of snoring led her to them like a beacon.
She peered through the dark, trying to figure out which lump was Mal, and eventually, she found him by the silhouette of his aquiline nose. He slept on the outside of his men, a little apart—on one side of them was Mal, on the other, the stream—as if to protect them.
The knowledge caused a funny twinge in
her chest.
“Mr. Stewart?” she whispered, nudging him with her foot. It felt ridiculous at this point, but she still wasn’t comfortable calling him Mal.
He came awake almost instantly. She heard his breathing change rhythm. “Catriona?” His voice was raspy and deep from sleep, but he pushed himself to a sitting position with an alacrity that surprised her. “What is it? Are ye hurt?”
“Could you…” She stopped, breathed deeply, then held out the tin. “Could you help?” Her voice cracked on the word help, and she wanted to kick herself.
But then he was standing. They moved away from the other men, past Laddie, neither the humans nor the dog noticing them. “Will you turn around for me?”
She didn’t want to. She wasn’t used to this. Wasn’t used to making herself vulnerable. But she turned.
She sucked in a sharp breath when she felt his knuckles ghost across the base of her throat. With nimble fingers, he unlaced the top of her bodice and the material sagged away from her body. Cool night air touched her shoulder, made her shiver. Underneath, she wore only a chemise. Georgina wordlessly loosened the drawstring, and Mal pushed the garment down gently.
For a moment, nothing. For a moment, silence.
In the darkness and the quiet, she stood, more or less topless, holding the bunched fabric to her chest in some latent display of modesty.
Then Mal’s warm breath touched the base of her neck in soft gusts as he spoke. “It works best if it’s kneaded into the muscle. It might be easier if you lie down.”
His voice, she noted, was very low and very carefully level. She wondered if he felt like she did at this moment—tenuous, fragile, as if a loud noise would jolt her back to reality with a force strong enough to shatter.
She awkwardly knelt and then spread out on the grass on her stomach, muscles groaning in protest. From somewhere above and a little behind her, she heard the tin cap removed. The faint smell of mint greeted her senses.
“Where are ye sore?”
She huffed. “Everywhere.”
His touch was light, soft as goose down, but she flinched anyway. Some reckless part of her had wanted this—had wanted Mal to touch her—and now she had an excuse.
“Does that hurt?” he asked.
“No, it doesna hurt.”
The silence between them was so tangible it was almost a living, breathing thing. She closed her eyes. He rested his salve-coated fingertips on her back. Pressed gently, drew deep circles into her flesh. Pulled the pain out as if by magic.
She had to stifle a groan at how good it felt.
And then his thumbs dug into a particularly sore spot, finding that coil of tension and unwinding it, and she gasped, against her will.
His ministrations faltered, only for a second, before picking up again.
He pressed his hands into her lower back. “Do you have someone waiting for you?”
She opened her eyes, though it was too dark to see much of anything except shadows. “What?”
“A husband,” he said softly. “Someone who’s missing you.”
“If I did have someone waiting, how do ye know they’re missing me?”
“They’d be a fool not to.”
Georgina’s heart lurched. She had to swallow past a dry throat before she could speak. “I don’t have a husband.”
She should have lied. It probably would have been for the best. But in that moment, hushed and alone, she found that she couldn’t. Of course, she wasn’t exactly telling the truth either. She did have people waiting for her.
And she would go back to them. As soon as she could.
Mal’s palm ran down the length of her spine, and she bit her lower lip, bracing herself.
“Ewan told me you don’t lie. Is it true?” Maybe if she listened to his voice, she could distract herself from his touch.
He laughed, low and husky. “You sound skeptical.”
“Everyone lies.”
“Aye. I’ve told small lies, but I try not to lie about anything that matters. Was there something you wanted to ask me?”
So many questions flooded her mind—Do you have a family? Why did you leave the army? Why did you become a thief? Do you like this tenuous life? Is this what you wanted? Are you happy?
She did not voice any of those questions. Voicing them would make this thing between them, this awareness, even stronger than it already was. It would be an acknowledgment that it was there at all. Instead, she was silent.
“And if I ask you something—will you tell the truth?”
“That, Mr. Stewart, is entirely dependent upon what you ask.”
He made a small, amused sound and set back to his task.
Now that the pain had begun to ease, she felt his touch in a different way. More potent. More…sensuous. She felt his fingers slipping up her sides, tickling her rib cage, spanning the width of her shoulder blades. Felt her own heartbeat, in her chest, between her legs. She’d never been touched like this before.
She hadn’t realized how disorienting it could be. How drugging.
She hadn’t realized how much she would like it.
The pressure of his hands lightened, only barely skimming her skin, and that pulse continued to beat between her thighs, a slow, steady, persistent ache. She pressed her legs together to stave it off, pressed her lips together to stifle a moan, hoping Mal wouldn’t notice the motion or the small, muffled sound.
But he was pulling back—his fingertips slid down her back one last time, almost regretfully, and then were gone. “I’m done, lass.”
She pushed herself up and back into her chemise and dress sleeves. Her skin was sticky from the salve and bereft from the lack of touch, and even though the pain had lessened, there was now something more restless deep within her.
He cleared his throat. “Anywhere else?”
Georgina hesitated, only for an instant, before she bent forward and removed her shoe. Then, knowing that all of Mal’s attention was focused on her, feeling a surge of power so potent it nearly took her breath away, she pulled her hem up to her knee, carefully unlaced her garter, and then peeled down her stocking, inch by stolen inch. The whisper of fabric against her leg made her shiver.
When she was done, she peeked at Mal through her lashes. Even in the dim light, she could see his silhouette, completely still.
They both knew she was quite capable of putting the salve on her own leg, but neither of them spoke that truth.
Georgina felt like she was on the edge of a high precipice. She felt wild. There were so many reasons why this was dangerous, but she couldn’t think of a single one.
You’re playing with fire.
But in that instant, flame licking her fingertips, want making her chest tight, she couldn’t bring herself to care.
She’d been accused of being too impulsive. She knew right now she was proving the description. And still, she continued, desire winning over caution.
She crooked her knee. “My ankle.”
Mal moved closer to her, kneeling at her feet, like she was a queen, and he a vassal, pledging loyalty, faith, undying love.
His fingers dipped into the tin and he leaned closer. The scent of the salve was stronger now. Sharp mint hit her nostrils, made her head swim. Or maybe that was his closeness. He angled her foot with one hand, featherlight, and smoothed in the salve with the other.
She leaned forward slightly, and his hair brushed her cheek.
“Just above the knee,” she ordered.
Instead of lifting his hand and then reapplying to the bruise on her lower thigh, he skimmed upward as though loath to lose one second of touch.
He forged a tingling trail along her calf and knee. She drew in a sharp breath, and he bent even closer, like he didn’t want to miss the sound.
Then his hand was on her lower thigh, and her lips parted, and her heart thundered. She was on the verge of whispering, “Higher,” but some small sense of self-preservation reemerged. She bit her lip to keep from speaking, to keep that one
word from spilling out in a rush.
When she didn’t command him again, he sat back, snapping the lid onto the salve. The noise was harsh to her sensitive ears, and she shoved down an acute feeling of disappointment.
He stood, stared down at her for too long a moment. She couldn’t read his expression because she could barely see it, but her face flamed, knowing that the wanton things she did at night would feel vastly different in the morning.
“Sleep well, Catriona,” he said.
He walked back toward the men. Without him close, her body instantly felt bereft.
It was for the best, of course. Now that his hands weren’t on her, she could think more rationally. And if she was rational, she would acknowledge that tangling herself even further into the life of Malcolm Stewart would be a grave mistake.
Chapter Six
Mal had been hard from the moment he’d pressed his palms to Catriona’s back—a fierce, acute throb. The wool of his kilt an exquisite torture against his cock. He’d still been hard when he’d walked away from her, which was a little embarrassing—one would hope that one could control one’s bodily reactions a little better than that.
But she’d been so soft beneath him, so pliant, and so warm. And then, when she’d lifted her dress, she hadn’t really been pliant at all, but commanding, while he was content to be commanded, to grovel at her feet. And he wasn’t sure which side of her he liked better.
He’d always preferred to be in charge. To be the leader.
It seemed that wasn’t the case with one particular person, and he didn’t like that the woman he might want to succumb to hadn’t really told him anything about herself. And even if she did, how would he know it was the truth?
She’d simply appeared in the night, like a ghost. Maybe she was a ghost. Maybe one day she would disappear with the sunset, never to be seen again. And he would be left with the memory of warm skin beneath his palms and steady gray-blue eyes, faint as a dream.
He spent a restless night, got up the next morning, and made the coffee even more bitter and disgusting than he usually did. He needed a good kick in the head.
Then he took himself to the stream, strung up a fishing pole with a gut line, and hooked a small grasshopper to the end. They needed food, and while the coffee was making him feel somewhat awake, it wasn’t making him feel alert. This was about all he was good for at the moment.