Page 33 of Highlander's Runaway Seductress
The dour thoughts carried with her until they got to another small village with five houses and one stone chapel. They managed to get some food and milk enough to stay with them through the day and while they found rest in an old, abandoned farm hut, Amelie could not brush off the strange insult from that morning.
“I can hear ye thinkin’, lass,” Damien said while brushing down the horse. “What happened this morn is strange but t’willnae do ye good to fret about it.”
A frustrated huff left Amelie’s lips. “I wish I could stop, but I cannae. On what grounds would the woman—a woman I have never seen before—call me that name?”
Damien glanced over his shoulder. “She must have mistaken ye for another.”
His reasoning made sense, but Amelie was still displeasured, and ate enough of her food to stop her hunger but wrapped up the rest.
“He’s right, Amelie, the woman took ye for someone else. Try yer best to forget about it,” Ben added.
Yet it still bothered her, and it kept bothering her through the day and into the night, causing her to toss and turn over her thin makeshift bedding. She stared at the gibbous moon through the thin boughs of the trees with deep unrest inside her heart.
“Ye need to sleep,” Damien urged as his body came to lay behind hers. “Ye cannae keep obsessin’ about that woman. Ye have greater things to focus on.”
“I ken,” Amelie replied, tiredly, “but it is still so troublin’.”
His hand cupped her face. “Ye’ll never see her again. Daenae worry about her and why she said it.”
“I ken, I just wish I could take me mind off it,” Amelie whispered, fluttering her eyes closed.
“Let me help ye,” Damien replied. “Ben is asleep, way over under the trees, so we have our privacy.”
Turning her head just so, he closed the inch of space between them to claim her mouth. Damien groaned deeply in his throat with pleasure and ran his tongue along the seam of her lips, begging for entrance.
The contact seared her lips and her soul with the heat created by his kiss spreading through her mind first then the sensation soaring through her body.
His kiss soothed her rigid muscles until they went lax beneath him, becoming pliant while the chilly evening air on her skin caused gooseflesh to blossom everywhere. The cold and Damien’s touch caused her nipples to constrict into tight nubs.
With her chest pressed against his, Amelie knew he had to feel the evidence of her arousal, but he did not stop kissing her and little by little, her worry about the woman’s cryptic phrase vanished. His fervor lessened until his kisses were only soft suckles on her lips.
Pulling away, Damien, eyes glimmering, and face flushed with pleasure, whispered against her swollen lips. “God, I want ye.”
“We cannae,” her soul pulled tight as she whispered.
“I ken,” Damien groaned. “Ye have a future that demands you be untouched.”
“W-What if I daenae need to be,” Amelie replied, while searching his eyes. “I’ve been away for years—what was to stop me from bein’ intimate before?”
His hand slipped over her hip to rest on the small of her back, rubbing small circles though her dress. “But ye are and I willnae be changin’ that. I’m sorry.”
Damien shifted so she could rest her head on his chest and closed her eyes.
“I ken…Damien, do ye nae want anyone to ken about our relationship, if that is what we have?”
His hand was around the back of her neck and massaging the soft hairs there. “I’m fairly sure Ben kens, but it wouldnae be good to make it evident.”
Tiredly, Amelie could only nod and soon, with the soothing rubbing on the back of her neck, drifted away to sleep. There probably would not be a way for her to be with Damien, so she decided to accept their situation as it was.
* * *
When Amelie woke, Damien was still there, greeting her with a slow kiss.
“Mornin’,” he whispered.
“Mornin’,” Amelie replied tenderly.
After feathering his fingers over her face, Damien pulled away and went to stoke the fire higher. She felt groggy but managed to shake herself awake. Soon, Damien broke the ice of the river and she was able to wash her mouth out of remains of last night’s dinner.
