Page 50 of Beyond Dreams

His fingers loosened but he did not release her completely. “I heard the door but could nae dare a look to see who came so stealthily, which usually indicates malice.”

Holly grinned, even as her heart still pounded for being startled so. “Just me. I wanted to make sure you had no fever.”

“All is well,” he said, finally releasing her hand.

“So it seems.” Indeed, his forehead had been dry and cool. “Did the healer come? Graeme said they’d sent for her.”

Duncan nodded. “She did. Sewed my arm and the back of my leg.”

Realizing his room was several degrees cooler than own, or that she was too long gone from the warmth of her own bed, Holly folded her arms against her chest. “Very good,” she whispered, as they had been. “Sorry to wake you. I was just...worried about you. Go back to sleep.”

Before she might have retreated from his bedside and his bedroom, he asked, “Why areyounae sleeping?”

A small laugh escaped her. She rubbed her hands up and down her bare arms. “I have no idea. I’ll try again now. Good night. Or, good morning.”

Duncan surprised her by using his good arm to flip back the covers in the empty space next to him. “Come. You can keep me company, since neither of us seems able to sleep now.”

She was pretty certain that her initial hesitation was simply the result of her surprise.

In any case, Duncan further cajoled, “You will have free rein over my forehead, can place your hand there every few seconds if it pleases you.”

Holly smiled broadly at this, pleased with his invitation, which cleaved away any intimacy that immediately sprang to mind at the idea of sharing a bed with him, reducing its purpose to more of a practical matter. Additionally, he’d proven last night—two nights ago?—that he wasn’t some brutal barbarian who would take something she wasn’t willing to give. “Well then, don’t mind if I do,” she said, happily climbing into bed with him, greedily looking forward to his warmth.

The first thing she noticed, just by lifting the blankets higher to allow her to get under them, was that he was naked. She had only a glimpse of the bare flesh of his hip and the top of his thigh as she crawled onto the mattress, just enough to advise that the bandages might be the only thing he wore.

Holly kept her distance, allowing at least a foot between her and Duncan. Her heart started to pump in an unsettling fashion. Being this close to him while he was so obviously and fantastically naked was either going to prove a delicious torture or a really bad idea. Maybe both.

Her cheeks flamed red, her mind filled with as many sensual possibilities as it was with all the ways putting herself in this position, here and now, could cause her so much trouble, heartache, could come back to bite her in the ass.

She settled herself with the facts as she knew them: yes, she knew exactly what she was doing, climbing into bed with him. But maybe, just maybe, this was safe now. Possibly his wounds would not allow him to do anything else but kiss her. Surely, he wasn’t well enough to do anything more than that. Kisses by themselves were basically harmless, she told herself.

Duncan lifted his arm, as he had at the tree yesterday, inviting her to nestle in the crook of his shoulder.

On her side, with the blankets already snug around her chin and her knees drawn up a bit, Holly showed him a little wince of indecisiveness. “You’re naked,” she blurted, “so I think I’m good here.”

“Did you expect that I would nae be? Did you nae only garb yourself in the shift to steal about in the night?”

Her eyes widened. “Um, no. I slept in this. I was actually looking for something else to cover up with. I don’t sleep naked. Do you? All the time?”

“I do. Unless I’m afield, ready to fight, I do.” He lowered his arm, but only to bend it under his head, and then asked, “Why does my being nude bother you?”

“It doesn’t—” she began and caught herself. The tone she’d just used suggested pretty clearly that he was silly to even ask. As in,Duh, why would I be bothered by being in bed with a naked god who happened to be my husband?Clearing her throat, beginning to believe her face might be in shadows as was his, his expression hard to see, Holly went a different route. “Remember that kiss yesterday? Yeah, me, too. And now you’re naked and...I don’t know, it seems like a bad combination. That kiss in the back of my mind, you naked, us in bed...."

“We’ll have to consummate eventually.”

“See? When you sayhave to, it sounds so much less appealing.”

He hadn’t been looking at her, but now turned his head on the pillow.

“You ken we’ve only just met. I’ll nae woo you with pretty words—lies they would be—speaking of things I dinna ken yet.” He inhaled and exhaled and while Holly thought of a response to that, he added, “You wanted to ken me better and what have you learned?”

He turned on his side, not without a grimace for what that must have cost him in pain. She was faced with his naked chest, was less than a foot from the square jawline and his languidly probing gaze. She watched the play of muscles in his bicep, flexing and relaxing as he lifted his arm to adjust the bed sheet. It was such a simple thing—injuries notwithstanding—to turn onto his side, to set himself up like that, the elbow of his good arm dug into the mattress holding up his head as he gave her all his attention, but somehow it made her feel young—younger, anyway—and particularly light of heart, as if the whole world, but more importantly this moment, here and now, were filled with endless possibilities. For one wild moment, she knew a giddiness inside her, sensing they’d now entered the flirty, getting-to-know-you stage of their short relationship.

Still, in the back of her mind was the glaring and ugly truth, that she had deceived him, because she wasn’t actually real. He wasn’t married to Ceri MacHeth, there would be no peace for the MacQuillans as he’d hoped.

When he focused his gaze on her and lifted one thick slash of a brow, she recalled that he’d asked her a question.

“Oh, well, I’ve learned not to challenge you to a sword fight—or a fight with an axe or spear. I’ve learned you are fairly even keeled. I was relatively unscathed and yet was not half as calm as you.”I know that your kiss is divine. And if you were to kiss me now, which is where I think this is headed, I don’t think I have either the will or desire to stop you. “I now know that you aren’t one of those people who will chirpI told you so, even though you could have several times yesterday. Thank you for that.”

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