A long while later, Patrik rolled to his side, drew her against him, her body still trembling from her release. The gentleness of his embrace, as if he held a precious gift, tore through her soul. Never had anyone treated her as something cherished.
Unbidden, tears came to her eyes. A traitorous drop slipped and fell upon his chest.
In the flicker of dawn, worry roughened Patrik’s brow. “I have hurt you?”
“ No.”
He shifted back, took a full look at her, lifted the salty drop with the pad of his thumb. “What is wrong?” At her silence, he gave a soft scowl. “Tell me.”
“’Tis embarrassing.”
“After we made love most of the night, with me touching, tasting your body everywhere, you are embarrassed ?”
Heat stroked Emma’s cheeks. “You make me sound foolish.”
“Nae.” He tilted her chin with his thumb. “I am but trying to understand what has upset you.”
Her heart ached. “What we shared was so beautiful. Never had I imagined being with a man could be like this.”
Male satisfaction etched his face, but tenderness as well. “The joining is not always so intense, or steeped with so much emotion or satisfaction.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“When making love, if you care for the other, the act is more than bodies joining.”
It’s a joining of the soul, she silently finished. Emma remained quiet, thankful when he didn’t say more. Tears threatened. Through sheer will, she pushed them back.
Patrik glanced at the heavens where hints of gold crept through the sky, then sighed. “We have lingered too long.” He shot her a playful wink. “Something we seem to be making a habit of.”
“I—”
He silenced her with a hard kiss, and then he pulled away. He frowned; his body had hardened with desire.
“You will be the death of me.”
She laughed despite herself.
He scowled, except naught but wicked delight lingered on his face. “Come, lass, we must make haste.”
Emma quickly dressed, took one last look at his muscled body before he shielded it with trews and a tunic. Another day. One more they would share together. A day she’d not planned. Somehow, before the next dawn, she must take the writ, then leave.
Throughout the morning Patrik avoided any sign of a trail or clearing regardless of the extra travel it caused. Leaves whispered overhead as he glanced at Cristina. A pace away she pushed on in silence.
The lass was a mystery. Four days with her had but whetted his appetite to learn more, her each action but reshaping the woman he believed her to be.
After her near rape, when she’d first climbed from the bush and stood before him wearing her tattered dress, she had seemed emotionally strong, though scared. But at times since, within her confident eyes, he’d caught shadows.
Her recounting of her past explained a portion of what had put the darkness there, but questions as to what else she hid lingered. He still could not understand how Cristina had never heard of the fey or the Otherworld, the fairy’s magical homeland. Her explanation that no one had cared enough to take time to explain such whimsy rang true. Still, after she’d struck out on her own, how could she never have heard talk of the fey?
And though the priest may have instructed her on how to wield a knife, instinct assured him another had taught her the skills he’d witnessed during the fight.
More unsettling, where had she gained such in-depth military knowledge of both the English and the Scots?
Patrik thought of Bishop Wishart, his immense influence as well as his knowledge of the military struggles throughout the world. Aye, her priest could have held extensive military insight, but by her account, he had died years ago. The information Cristina shared of Lord Carrick’s floundering loyalty was recent. Doubts she had indeed overheard guards discussing Robert Bruce crept through Patrik.
Saint’s breath, with the important writ he carried, the lives it affected, he could allow no doubts of anyone around him. So what was it about her that lured him, made him step past boundaries he had no right to break?
Heat pulsed against his chest.
