Highland Wolf (Highland Brides, #10)(19)

Fortunately, she didn’t have to say anything in the end since the Wolf suddenly started to move much more swiftly, leaving the other man behind. She could have sworn she heard him growl as he did it too. But perhaps she’d imagined that, Claray decided as they reached his mount and he set her down while he climbed into the saddle and then pulled her up before him again. He was urging the mount to move before the other men had even caught up or mounted.

Much to Claray’s relief, Roderick had been right and they reached a clearing on the edge of a river some thirty minutes later. She did not think she could have withstood their combined stench much longer. Truly, they both smelled so rank her stomach had heaved a time or two as they rode.

Claray expected the Wolf would dismount in the clearing and escort her to a private spot along the river and then leave her to bathe. He didn’t. He reined in briefly in the clearing to bark orders, asked her to retrieve Squeak from her gown and then took him from her and passed the small stoat to Hamish along with the skin of milk and the linen-wrapped meat Squeak ate. The man, already burdened down with the bunny sling and the swaddled fox, accepted everything with a resigned expression, and then the Wolf urged his horse to move and steered him down to the river’s edge before following it away from camp.

Claray remained silent and peered around with interest as they rode for another couple of minutes, and then the Wolf brought his mount to a halt again, dropped the reins, scooped up Claray and slid off of his horse with her in his arms. She expected him to set her down then, but instead he carried her to the river’s edge and beyond. He was knee-deep in the water before she realized his intentions and began to protest.

“Nay, m’laird. Ye can no’—Ahhh!” she cried out, her arms tightening around his neck as she pulled herself up, curling around his head in an effort to escape the cold water when he dropped to sit down in it.

Laughing, he unlocked her arms from around his neck, and forced her to sit in his lap as the water rushed around them.

“Why?” she gasped with amazement, huddling close to the heat emanating from his chest as she shivered in his arms.

“Our clothes need a good cleaning too,” he pointed out. “We may as well get the worst o’ the mud off ere we bathe.”

Claray merely shook her head at his reasoning, thinking it was madness. He obviously had no idea how heavy and hampering a gown was when wet. She’d be lucky if she did not drown in it. Although ’twas just as likely she would freeze to death first the water was so cold, she thought grimly.

“Whist! ’Twill warm quickly,” he assured her, wrapping his arms around her and holding her close as her teeth began to chatter.

Claray just buried her face in his neck and waited for what he promised to happen. She was so distracted with the cold that it took her several minutes to notice that he was running his hands down her back, scraping away the worst of the muck into the water and letting the river carry it away. Unfortunately, while the mud had dried and flaked away from both their faces as they’d traveled here, that was all that had happened. Riding as they had with her muddy back to his muddy chest, it hadn’t dried there on either of them, at least not where their bodies had met, and there was a good deal of it still coating her gown.

His chest too, she realized, glancing down between them. The mud was a good inch thick on his shirt and plaid and Claray grimaced as she realized she was getting it all over the front of her gown, pressing against him as she was.

Leaning back a little, she started to do for him what he was doing for her and began sweeping her hands over his shirt and plaid, scraping away great hunks of the smelly mud. They worked silently for several minutes until Claray became aware that the Wolf had gone still, his hands resting at her waist unmoving.

She glanced up with curiosity, and her eyes widened as she took in his expression. Confused by the heat and intensity in his eyes, Claray lowered her gaze to her hands and realized she had worked her way down his chest to his lower abdomen, shifting back in his lap as she went. Her fingers were now brushing perilously close to parts she had no business brushing.

Claray stilled, but then didn’t know what to do and simply sat there staring at her immobile fingers. She stayed like that until one of his hands left her back and rose to her neck. When his fingers then glided into her hair to cup her head, Claray had the oddest urge to close her eyes and lean into the caress. Instead she met his gaze and watched as his face lowered toward hers.

Despite seeing it coming, the first brush of his lips across hers was startling. Claray closed her eyes as a frisson of awareness ran through her, and instinctively tipped her head up to make it easier for him as his lips moved over hers again. But she gasped with surprise when he nipped at her lower lip and then sucked it into his mouth briefly. It seemed the oddest thing to do, and yet it felt so nice, she thought faintly just before he let it slip from his mouth and ran his tongue along the seam of her lips.

Unsure what he was doing and if that was part of kissing, she started to pull back and opened her mouth to ask if it was, only to gasp as he followed and took advantage of her attempt to speak by slipping his tongue inside. Claray stilled again in shock as his tongue explored her in a way she’d never anticipated, and then a whole host of feelings she’d never before experienced rose up in her and she melted against him.

Heat and excitement were suddenly coursing through her, setting off little explosions everywhere their bodies met. Feeling off-kilter, Claray slid her hands up his chest to wrap them around his neck, needing something to hold on to. She felt the hand at her back urging her forward in his lap, and went willingly until she was plastered against his chest, but that just seemed to increase what she was experiencing. Her breasts suddenly felt heavy and tender where their chests pressed together, and heat was shivering through her body making her arch against him as his hand tilted her head to the angle he wanted and his mouth devoured hers.