Page 41 of Highland Treasure (Highland Brides 9)

“Aye.” Elysande sighed the word and paused to lean against the tree trunk briefly. “’Twas a struggle getting out of my gown. I just have to remove my tunic and breeches now and I will be ready.”

His responding, “Oh,” sounded odd, but Elysande had straightened away from the tree and paid him little attention as she started the battle to remove her tunic.

“How are ye doing?” Rory asked several moments later, his voice almost raspy.

“Just the breeches to go,” she said as she hung the tunic over the branch with the rest of her clothes.

“Just the breeches.” Rory barely breathed the words beside her, but Elysande caught them just the same. She was cautiously bending to push the breeches down by then, however, stretching her back muscles as slowly as possible to minimize her pain, and didn’t speak again until she had them off over her slippers.

“There,” Elysande breathed with relief as she laid the breeches over the rest of her clothes, and then she peered around at the darkness surrounding her. “Where are you?”

“Here.”

Elysande felt a slight breeze as if something was moving past her face and reached up quickly to grab at it. She missed at first but then he must have been moving his hand back and forth because she caught it a moment later.

“There ye are,” Rory said with relief as she clasped his wrist. “Dear God, I canno’ see a thing in these woods.”

Elysande thought that was a good thing. She’d hardly be standing there naked if he could see her.

“This is my left shoulder,” she announced, raising his hand and placing it against her skin. “I am just going to face the tree and brace myself against it so I do not lose it and lose my clothes,” Elysande explained as she did just that, leaning forward slightly to brace her hands against the tree trunk with her back out toward him.

“Right,” Rory breathed by her ear, and then hesitated. “I have to let ye go to scoop up some liniment. Do no’ move or I might lose ye in this dark.”

Elysande chuckled softly at the words, though they weren’t really funny. They could easily lose each other in this black ink night. She heard movement a little behind and to the side and then he said, “I’m going to give ye the cloth that was around the pot.”

She felt his hand and the cloth brush her shoulder and then he followed her arm up to where her hand was braced against the tree and waited for her to take the cloth from him. Elysande couldn’t help thinking it was a similar operation to how he’d felt his way along his horse to mount it when he’d been blindfolded.

Rory didn’t give her warning before starting; she just suddenly felt what she thought must be the back of his hand brush her shoulder and then it moved down, skimming lightly over the skin on the uninjured side of her back before it moved to the side and then shifted slightly and he was smoothing cool liniment over the injured side.

Elysande released a little sigh of relief as the numbness began to set in, taking away her aches and pains, and then he began to knead her back as he had the last time. She moaned with the pleasure of it as his hand moved up and down her back, her upper body sagging toward the tree as her muscles loosened. Elysande didn’t realize she was moving her back away from him until he stepped forward to follow and she felt his plaid and something hard beneath it rub against her bottom.

“Nay, do not stop,” she begged when Rory froze. “The kneading feels so good.”

Much to her relief, his hand started to move again, working her muscles, but he also eased his feet back, so that she could no longer feel his plaid.

Elysande felt like a lump of dough when he finally paused to collect more liniment and moved on to spread it along her side. His fingers glided up from her waist, drifting over the edge of her breast again as it had the last time. The same excited tingle slid through her at the touch, but then his hand was gone, dropping back down to knead the muscles below her ribs. The next time he stopped to collect more liniment, Rory must have knelt as well because his hand didn’t return to her back, but to the backs of her legs, skipping her bottom altogether. His oily fingers glided from the backs of her knees, slowly upward, and Elysande’s eyes blinked open, as did her mouth a bit, and her breathing became a little shallow and erratic as he skimmed his way up toward her bottom.

She was fighting the urge to close her legs, or to shift them at least. They definitely wanted to move, but she forced herself to remain still as he slathered the oil on first one leg, and then the other, before he started to knead them just as he had her back.

Elysande could feel his warm breath on her lower bottom as he worked one leg, followed by the other, his breath moving from one side to the other, brushing across the apex in the center with each pass. Every one of those times that his breath hit her there, it sent a bevy of tingles through Elysande that drew a soft moan from her and had her shifting slightly despite her best efforts. With one movement she squeezed her legs together, with another she widened her stance and eased them apart. Her body didn’t seem to know what it wanted to do, and then his hands dropped away again. A moment later she felt his plaid brush against the backs of her legs and bottom and guessed he had stood up again. Then his hands were sliding over the curves of her bottom, running circles around them briefly before squeezing gently once the liniment had begun to numb her.

“Straighten for me, love.” His voice sounded gruff and raspy, and he squeezed her bottom a little more firmly as he made the request.

Elysande didn’t even consider disobeying; she simply pushed her upper body away from the tree to stand upright. The moment she did he rewarded her with a kiss on the side of the neck that made her swallow and still.

“Lean back a little,” Rory murmured, one hand leaving her bottom to travel up her injured side and glide across the side of her breast.

Elysande leaned back and he kissed her neck again and then nipped lightly and she moaned and tilted her head to the side to give him better access as he began to nibble and suckle the length of her throat. When he reached her jaw and began to follow it toward her chin, she instinctively turned her head to make it easier and then sighed when his mouth found hers with first just a brush of lips, and then his tongue skimmed across them before urging them open.

Elysande was more than a little startled when she let her lips open a bit and his tongue slid in to fill her. For one moment she froze, and then she tasted him, and his tongue moved, rasping against her own, and she liked it and opened wider for him. Rory immediately deepened the kiss and his hand left her side to cup the back of her head, twisting it toward him until she released the tree and rotated in his arms.

Rory let go of her bottom for her to do that, but immediately clasped the soft cheeks again once she’d finished the move. He then used his hold to press her lower body firmly against his as his tongue thrust in her mouth.

Elysande gasped and moaned, her hands clutching at his shoulders, trying to get as close to him as she could. Her nipples tingled where they pressed into his plaid, and liquid heat was pooling between her legs as if his squeezing her bottom was milking her, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted more, and then he broke their kiss to blaze a trail of them down her throat, across her collarbone and down the slope of one breast until he found one of her aching nipples and drew it into his mouth. The lash of his tongue over the hard tip had her almost thrashing in his arms with need until she gasped, “Rory, please. I need . . .”

The feverish words merely made him suckle harder, and drove her wild so that she began to moan, “Please, please, please,” over and over until he finally let her nipple slip from his mouth and lifted his head to nip her ear and growl, “Please what, love? What do ye need?”

“I—I do not know,” she admitted plaintively, and then turned her head to catch his mouth with her own. This time she kissed him. Elysande had no idea what she was doing, or if she was doing it right, and didn’t care. But it got a wondrous response. Rory kissed her back just as violently, tilting his head to find a better angle, and then let his hands drop to the back of her thighs and urged her legs apart as one of his legs slid between hers.

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