Chapter Six
Grace clamped a hand over her smile as Keir wiped his snow-covered cheek. “I didn’t mean to hit your face,” she said and squeaked as he rose. She grabbed up her skirts and leaped forward through the snow.
“Revenge is cold.” His deep voice didn’t sound amused. “Icy cold.”
Was he running after her? “You’ll pull your stitches,” she yelled and gasped as a ball of snow hit her in the back. She bent down to make another ball and turned.
Keir stood in the snow-draped woods, looking like some Norse god from one of the ancient manuscripts she’d seen in her father’s library as a child. Powerful and lethal, he was fodder for nightmares, except he held a snowball instead of a bloody axe. Ducking back down, she gathered another ball and volleyed it at him. But with the extended distance and lack of surprise, he easily dodged, hurling one back at her.
“No fair,” she said laughing, brushing her cape, which was crusted now with a circular ice patch.
“More fair than hitting a man with no warning.” He stalked toward her, a snowball in hand.
“I meant to hit your shoulder,” she said and dodged the icy ball by a mere inch. Turning, she ran, arms pumping. Surely she could move faster than a man with tooth marks boring into his thigh. Leaping to cut through the snow toward the cabin, Grace took three strides before Keir’s arms stretched around her.
“Bloody hell,” she yelled, laughing as his momentum felled them both, their bodies breaking through the crisp surface of an unblemished drift. He turned them so that they landed on his unhurt leg, plowing half of Grace’s face into the snow.
She spit the ice from her mouth. “Horrible wretch,” she said, attempting to roll away from him, but the height of the drift didn’t allow her to gain distance. She flopped onto her back, where Keir’s face loomed above her, framed by the blue, sun-filled sky.
His smile matched her own, making him all the more handsome. Longish hair hung about his ruggedly chiseled features, and his eyes sparked with unguarded merriment. “Never attack without a planned retreat.”
“I had a plan.” She laughed, her eyes wide.
“One that has half a chance to work.”
She watched his lips move over white teeth. Her heart beat faster as she realized he pinned her to the ground. A giddy feeling thrummed through Grace. Was this what Ava felt every time Tor touched her?
Inhaling smoothly to cover her reaction, she poked his shoulder. “It had a good chance of working, since you are supposed to be injured, but I suppose I am such a skilled healer that you are able to run faster than I thought.”
“And my aim is true,” he replied, smiling down at her.
She rolled her eyes. “You’ve had much more training than me. It was hardly a contest.”
“And yet ye started it.” He shifted slightly so that both his arms framed her head, but he kept his body off to the side. “What in bloody hell were ye thinking, lass?”
She opened her eyes wide, imitating his look at the streamside. Pursing her lips, she imitated his Scot’s accent. “Maybe ye are an angel if ye can work such miracles,” she said.
His smile broadened. “Ye took that poorly.”
Her face pinched into a frown, and she reached out to grab another gloveful of snow. He dodged to the side as she tried to smear it in his face, catching her wrists easily in his hands. She laughed at his grin, both of them breathing with their stomachs rising against each other. They were hidden down in the snow, the powerful sun slaking across them to warm Grace’s cheeks. Grace grew silent as she stared into Keir’s dark brown eyes. The world around them faded away.
Without a word, she slid one hand from his grasp to touch the side of his face. Even through her glove, she could feel the strength in his jaw as she stroked down his neck to his shoulder. He leaned closer, casting her face in shadow, and she closed her eyes. She knew his kiss was coming, but when his lips touched hers, her heart leaped high within her. She grasped his shoulders to draw him in, slanting her face to meet him fully.
Keir’s fingers curled in the edge of the shawl covering her head, raking into her hair. His mouth moved over hers, meeting her, yet seeming to hold back, too. Did he think she was fragile, a coy virgin afraid to experience passion? She was a virgin, but passion was not something that frightened her. Quite the contrary, Grace yearned for it.
Yanking at her gloves, to toss away in the snow, Grace plunged her fingers through Keir’s wavy hair, pulling his face closer until their kiss grew more urgent, more reckless. His free hand stroked down her neck and lower across her breasts. Even with the many layers separating her skin from his touch, his caress teased her senses, causing heat to ache down through her very center. Grace pushed upward against his hard body, instincts taking over her rational mind. She wanted more—more kissing, more touching, more of this large, powerful warrior pressing against her.
Keir leaned farther over her so he could hold her face in both of his hands. The hardness of his body thrilled Grace, and she molded herself upward against him, her knees parting at the feel of his erection. She was wanton, hot and achingly wanton. “Keir,” she whispered against him, the chill tingling her kiss-dampened lips.
“Aye?” He left her mouth to kiss the side of her jaw, his fingers licking a path of fire along her neck.
She hadn’t a clue what to say, and her rational, cautious self abandoned her completely. “More,” she said, feeling drunk on the word.
He paused for the slightest of seconds, a low growl issuing from the back of his throat as he met her gaze before lowering to kiss and tease her neck with nibbles. Good Lord, she’d just thrown all constraint to the winter wind, with a man called a devil. What was she thinking? Things like this didn’t happen to her. Her mother had warned her to refuse carnal desires. At the time, Grace had had no idea what those were, but now she felt them. They were desires so fierce that she was tempted to ruck up her skirts for a virtual stranger, in a snowdrift, no less.
Forcing her eyes open, Grace slapped her palm at one of Keir’s large shoulders as she stared at his bent head where he kissed the hollow of her exposed throat. He lifted, shifting his weight, and gazed down into her face. She stared up at his deep brown eyes, filled with desire, and rubbed her kiss-moistened lips together.
“We…” She breathed hard, trying to let the coolness of the air beat back the heat raging within her body. “We…we left the hare back at the stream. Some other animal might be dining on the meal I caught for us.”
He stared at her for a long moment, as if her words were nonsensical gibberish. “The rabbit by the stream. We should retrieve it,” she repeated. Her breath came rapidly, and she watched as his face relaxed, the haze of passion cooling back to sense.
Pushing up, he gave her a wry smile. “Of course. We wouldn’t want to lose your lucky catch.” As he stood, Grace could tell he favored the injured leg, but he still reached down to help pull her from the snowdrift. He brushed down her back, even over her backside. “Ye’re coated in snow.”
Face heated, Grace stepped away from the outline their bodies had made in the drift. “I will melt,” she said and chanced a look up at him despite her blush. “Shall I collect the hare?”
He studied her, curiosity in the narrowness of his eyes. Did he think her fickle? A frivolous girl who sought to push virile men to the edge of sanity and then joyfully refuse them? The flames in her cheeks flooded down her neck, and she opened her mouth to say something.
“Nay,” he answered before she could come up with a defense or apology or whatever was suitable. “If ye prepare the fire inside the cabin, I’ll skin and gut it. We’ll have roast rabbit for supper.” He turned to trudge back, following the path they’d blazed before.
…
Lasses were impossible to understand.
He worked his knife under the skin of the large hare, freeing it from the meat that would soon be spitted and roasting. His stomach growled even if his mind focused on the strange twist of events less than an hour ago. Grace had pulled him down to her, hadn’t she? She’d shut her eyes, her lips parting in anticipation of his kiss. And she’d pressed against him, and blast it, she’d said “more.” He cursed softly and slit the small animal to remove the entrails.
He exhaled long, watching his breath puff out in a quickly fading cloud. It was true that he’d never kissed a virgin before, and with her unguarded, innocent look, Keir was fairly certain Grace was a virgin. Inexperienced lasses stayed far away from him, their mothers collecting them like hens after chicks when a fox roams near. As if he’d eat them up and spit out their young bones. His only experience with females was confined to brazen, vastly experienced women who were drawn to his dangerous personage, his strength, and his reputation for loving a lass vigorously.
Working the thick iron spit through the rabbit, he thought back over the snow fight and subsequent kiss. She was innocent, but what he’d felt in her response was enticing beyond anything he’d ever known. He rubbed his chin where his beard was growing in during the journey.
“Bloody hell,” he said low. She had no idea who he really was, no idea the jeopardy she was in, no idea what he planned to do with her. He should stay far away from Grace Ellington. Grabbing up the heavily weighted spit, he walked around the cabin, opening the door.
Grace pivoted toward him from near the hearth, her hand across her breast like he’d startled her.
“My apologies.” He held up the rabbit. “Ready to roast.”
“No,” Grace said, her hands clasping together.
“No?” he asked. “’Tis better to cook it. Raw rabbit will likely give ye worms, lass.”
Her face scrunched in beautiful confusion, and her eyes dipped to the spit in his hand. “Not the rabbit. I mean, no, you don’t need to apologize. I’m the one who must apologize.” She stepped back, motioning him to place the spit in the iron holders over the low fire that she’d banked.
“And what are ye apologizing for?”
She exhaled long, walking over to sit on the edge of the bed that she’d straightened. “I didn’t mean to attack you out there.” She waved an arm toward the wall.
Keir leaned back against the hearth and crossed his arms. He barely noticed the ache in his thigh, not with the most fascinating words coming out of the bonniest mouth he’d ever kissed. He’d never been apologized to before, either. “Attack me?”
“Yes. It was… I didn’t mean to…” She was having a hard time speaking a full sentence. “I am not usually wanton, Keir, especially with someone I’ve helped heal. I don’t usually make men kiss me.”
He tipped his head to the side. “So ye made me kiss ye.” He uncrossed his arms.
“Yes, and I apologize.”
He took a step closer. To hell with his decision to stay away from her. “Ye did, lass.”
“I know,” she said, folding her slender fingers in her lap, fingers that he’d felt claw through his hair.
He shook his head, for she had no bloody idea what she was doing to him. “Your damnably soft lips and your smooth skin and silky hair. It was a trap, along with that sweet laughter of yours and cleverness. All of it in your arsenal of weapons to use against an innocent man.”
She stared at him, eyes growing wide. Her lips parted. “I…I meant when I pulled you down to kiss me,” she said.
If she was experienced, he’d swear her declaration was merely an act to entice him to ravish her. Because her wide-eyed innocence was shattering any remnants of resolve to stay away from her.
Keir rubbed the back of his neck and walked over to stand before her where she sat on the bed. “I accept your apology.” He gazed down at her, taking in the soft beauty. “And seeing that ye are an angel, without much experience dealing with devils, I want to let ye know…” He lowered his voice to an intimate level. “All ye need to do is say ‘more’ again, and I will love ye so fiercely that your angel wings will melt off like Icarus flying too close to the sun.”
For the space of several heartbeats she stared, chin dropped open, as if she were frozen.
Keir inhaled fully and turned to walk toward the door. “I’ll be back when I smell cooked rabbit.” He stepped out of the cabin. Damnation. He’d need to take another snow bath to cool his blood. The woman didn’t know her allure nor her jeopardy at being trapped with him. If she continued to stare at him with those wide blue eyes, devoid of fear, he’d kiss the very breath from her. And heaven help her if she uttered that one syllable: more.
Ignoring the ache in his leg, he threw off his clothes near the barn and washed with icy white until his body numbed enough for comfort. “Bloody hell. Icarus?” he murmured as he scrubbed the melting snow over his skin. If Brodie had heard his poetry he’d laugh for hours, or until Keir punched him in the mouth. Keir grunted and washed around the binding on his leg. He fingered the bit of lace attached to it. Once, the bandage had been Grace’s smock, brushed her legs as she walked. What would those legs feel like, bare and wrapped around his arse?
Was he enough of a devil to find out?