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Merry peered around curiously as they rode. They followed the path for a short distance, and then Alex steered his mount to the side and the trees fell away around them, opening out into a clearing. She wondered if it was the one that he'd spoken of to Gerhard, but they were moving so swiftly now that she feared biting off her tongue did she try to ask the question, so held it back. The clearing was surrounded by a thin line of trees and foliage on all sides. Alex cut across it to a narrow path she didn't see until they were almost on it. Here the trees on their left were thin, allowing glimpses of the water beyond, but were a little thicker on the left side, almost a wall.
Alex turned his horse to the right and they traveled parallel to the river for several minutes until the narrow grass path ended at another clearing. This one, while smaller, also had a small, picturesque waterfall and a cliff that curved around the clearing, leaving only the path through which they'd entered between it and the river.
A small murmur of pleasure slipped from Merry as she peered around the area. It was quite lovely, a private little oasis, and appeared to her to be the perfect spot to tend their needs after a long day riding.
"I found this spot during my travels before going on crusade," Alex said as he slipped off the horse behind her. "I recalled it some distance back and thought you might like it."
"I do," she assured him with a smile as he lifted her down from the mount. The moment she was on her feet, Merry tried to move away to explore, but Alex held on to her. When she turned to glance at him in question, he smiled faintly and said, "Give your legs a minute to find themselves. You have been in the saddle all day."
"My legs are fine. I was not doing the riding, merely resting in your lap," she pointed out with a laugh and pulled free of his hold, only to land on her knees as her "fine" legs gave out under her. Grimacing, she glanced to Alex, fully expecting him to laugh at her as her brothers would have done. Surprisingly enough, however, his expression was solemn and even slightly concerned as he reached down to take her hand and help her back up.
"You need to learn to accept advice and aid from others, wife," Alex said quietly as he set her back on her feet. "Everyone needs assistance at one time or another."
The words were softly spoken and nothing like the sort of rebuke one would receive from a parent, but it had as much effect as a yell. Merry was suddenly hot with an emotion that felt part shame, part fear. It was the fear that bothered her most. She was suddenly afraid he thought less of her, and that bothered her more than she would expect. This was the man she'd thought was no better than her father and brothers. Why should she care what he thought of her? Merry didn't know, but she did care, and didn't like that caring.
Biting her tongue on the sharp words that rose up in her defense, Merry forced herself to suffer his hold until he felt she could stand alone and then quickly moved away once he released her.
"I shall tend the horses," Alex said as she moved toward the water. "You go ahead and bathe if you wish."
Any other time, Merry would have insisted that she could tend her own mount, but still stung by the mild rebuke and her own reactions to it, she didn't. Instead she continued to the water's edge and began to disrobe. Merry stripped off her gown and laid it across a boulder nearby, but then paused and cast a quick glance back to her husband. Finding he had his back to her and was busy with the horses, she then quickly stripped off her shift, too, and tossed it over her gown before rushing into the water.
Unfortunately, in her eagerness to be submerged before Alex turned around, Merry moved with more speed than care. She came to an abrupt halt, however, as she ran into a submerged boulder, banging her toes and shin under the water.
Merry hadn't realized she'd cried out until she heard Alex shout in response. She turned abruptly to see him rushing toward the water's edge. Realizing she was as naked as the day she'd been born, Merry immediately dropped to hide in the water.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," she gasped, the cold water taking her breath away.
"Did you hurt yourself?" Alex asked with concern, but came to a halt at the river's edge and didn't charge in as she suspected he'd been about to do.
"Nay," she lied. "'Twas just surprisingly cold."
Alex eyed her briefly, not looking as if her lie had convinced him, but then he nodded and turned back toward the horses. "I am nearly done and then I shall join you."
Merry made a face at his back, finding the words more a threat than a promise at that moment, and then turned away to move more cautiously out into deeper water. She was not used to feeling in the wrong. Merry had spent years being the only one in the right at Stewart, or at least usually in the right, and didn't like that her husband found fault with her, even if it was something as small as her being unwilling to accept aid and advice.
Shaking her head at herself, Merry rubbed her arms under the water as her body began to adjust to the water. She took a moment simply to enjoy the cool feel of it caressing her skin, but then sucked in a breath of air and plunged forward in the water. While her body was now used to the cold liquid, her head was not, and Merry nearly opened her mouth on a gasp as it flowed over her. She managed to keep from doing so and swam down to scoop up some dirt from the river bottom. Once she had two hands full of the stuff, she continued forward in a somersault and then shot back to the surface, gasping with relief as her head broke through into the early evening air.
After a couple of breaths and a glance around to see that Alex was back at the horses, she raised her hands out of the water to peer at what she'd collected. Much to her relief it was gritty sand and not muddy dirt, which would have been useless to her. Merry quickly used the grit to wash herself, running it over her arms and chest so that the sand acted like an abrasive, washing away the day's dust from travel.
"I see you know about nature's soap." That approving comment from Alex made Merry whirl in the water to find him now naked, a bare few feet away in the water and moving closer.
"That is what my mother called it, too," she said, watching him warily. "She taught it to me on our first journey to visit Kade when I was young. She said it did the trick as well as the perfumed soap at home, but I think she preferred it."
Alex nodded, but continued forward until he could reach her. Catching her hand in his, he tugged her forward through the water toward him, murmuring, "Do not look at me with such bruised eyes. You make me feel an ogre for reprimanding you about accepting aid and advice."
Merry was slightly startled at his calling it a reprimand. It hadn't sounded like the sort of reprimand she was used to giving. But for all its soft couching, his words had certainly felt like one to her, she acknowledged, and wondered if perhaps she hadn't been approaching her father and brothers all wrong all these years. Perhaps a soft, firm voice and hard eyes would have been more effective on them as well.
Nay, Merry decided in the next moment. They would have listened to that no more than her snapping, barking, and yelling. Her father and brothers were simply incorrigible. She, however, was proving to be ridiculously sensitive. Something she would never have expected. Her father and brothers could call her a shrew without penetrating her hide, and yet this man showed his disappointment and disapproval with soft words and a look and she was hurt. It was all rather bewildering to her.
"Stop thinking so hard," Alex said, and Merry did at once, though not because he'd told her to. He had tugged her against his warm body in the water and she suddenly found it quite difficult to hold on to her poor thoughts.
Her ability to think was not improved when he began to kiss her. Alex was holding her up slightly in the water so that their heads were on a level. It meant he needn't bend to kiss her, but also that her feet were now groundless and floating free in the water. They immediately bumped against and tangled with his under water even as her breasts rubbed across his chest above, and Merry was actually startled by the sudden roar of desire that went thr
ough her.
"Should we no' go back and join the others?" she asked on a little breathless gasp when his mouth left hers and began to ease down her throat as he lifted her up farther out of the water. "They'll be preparin' the sup and makin' camp and may need help."
Alex's answer was to close his lips over her nipple and draw it into his mouth.
Merry shivered in the cool water and tilted her head back on a groan, giving up any further protest. If her husband wished to bed her again, it was her duty to submit, was it not? That thought had barely run through her mind when he was suddenly gathering her in his arms and carrying her toward shore.
"Are we going back?" she asked with surprise.
"Nay. I am hungry."
That answer merely confused Merry, but they had reached the shore, and her mind was taken up with further confusion when Alex moved to set her on a larger boulder next to the one she'd laid her gown on. While the water had felt cold on first entering, the evening air now felt chill on being out, and she shivered and quickly sat up to reach for her gown once he'd released her.
"I shall warm you," Alex said, taking the gown away. He tossed it back on the neighboring rock and then urged her to recline on the boulder as his warm body came down over her.
"Ye said ye were hungry," she reminded him in a whisper as he caught her hands and raised them over her head.
"Aye, and I am. For you," he explained in a low growl, and proceeded to try to devour her. At least that was how it felt to Merry. He started with a kiss, his mouth hard and demanding on hers as his hands released hers and slid to find her still wet breasts.
Merry gasped into his mouth and arched into his touch, and then moaned with disappointment as he broke the kiss to begin traveling down her body. That disappointment died a quick death when he paused to graze at her breasts again, drawing moans and mewls of need and pleasure from her that were quickly followed by renewed disappointment and then confusion as his lips continued farther downward. He trailed kisses down her stomach, making the muscles there jump and sing. Her eyes popped open, and she peered down at him with confusion, unsure why he would bother kissing her there, but that confusion was joined by something like alarm when his kisses continued farther and began to trail to her hip and then in toward her thigh.
