She tipped her head up to smile at him. “Small but mighty.”
“I can’t argue.”
It would be easy, he realized, to just stay as they were, to just drift off into sleep awhile. Then take each other again. And what did it mean that he was thinking about it again when he’d barely gotten his breath back?
It meant, perhaps, easy was a mistake.
“I should take you home.”
She didn’t speak for a moment, and the hand lazily stroking his chest stilled.
“Branna’d be waiting, I’d think.”
“Oh.” He felt her breath go in, go out. “You’re right. She’ll want to know exactly what happened before. I forgot about all that for a minute. It seems like something outside all this. It’s a good thing one of us is practical.”
Turning her head, she brushed her lips over his skin, then sat up.
When he looked at her in that shadowed light, a glow against the coming dark, he wanted to draw her close again, close, and just hold on.
“We’d better get dressed,” she said.
* * *
BRANNA WAS WAITING, AND TRYING NOT TO PACE AND FRET. She hated only having bits and pieces. Though Boyle had assured her no one was hurt, and he’d look after Iona until she was well settled again, it had been two hours now.
More, she realized.
Worse, Connor had told her not to be such a mother hen, and had taken himself off to the pub rather than—in his words—have his brain assaulted with all her fussing.
Fine for him, she thought with some bitterness. Off he goes to flirt with available women, have a pint or two, and she was left to brood alone.
If Iona didn’t walk in the door within another ten minutes, she’d—
“At last,” she muttered when she heard the front door open. Striding out, half a lecture already in mind, she stopped both her forward progress and her nagging words the minute she saw both of them.
A woman didn’t have to be a witch to realize how the pair of them had spent a portion of the last two hours.
“So.” She laid her hands on her hips as Kathel padded over to greet them both. “We’ll have some tea, and you’ll tell me what happened. You as well,” she said to Boyle, anticipating him. “I want to hear it all, so don’t think about scooting out the door again.”
“Is Connor about?”
“He’s not, no. Took himself off to the pub to flirt with whoever’s about, so you’ve no cover there. Have you had anything to eat?” she asked as she walked into the kitchen.
“Boyle fixed dinner,” Iona told her.
“Did he now?” Brow lifted, Branna sent him a sidelong look as she put the kettle on.
“I was starving after. I was hungry after the spell with the rats, but this was like eat or pass out.”
“It won’t always be so keen. You’re new at it. And you’re looking fit and fine and more than well tended to now. Oh, stop shuffling about, Boyle. A blind monkey could see the two of you have been at each other. I’ve no problem with that except instead of a good shag, I’ve been twiddling about waiting for you to come talk to me.”
“I should’ve come home sooner, instead of worrying you.”
Branna shrugged, then softened. “If I’d had a man willing to make me dinner and give me a good roll after a fright like that, I’d have taken it as well. I trust he did a good job with both.”
Iona grinned. “Exceptional.”
Heat rose up Boyle’s back like a fever. “Would you mind not batting around my sex life, at least while I’m sitting here?”