My heart ached, too. Since the moment he saw my birthmark, Bors had treated me as if I were a completely different woman. Even now, even when he couldn’t see my face, with my chest pressed against his back and my legs open around his body as we rode, I could feel his coolness and formality.
Everything he did was matter of fact and distant now. The way he lashed my father to the stallion, he could’ve been lashing down potatoes or a sack of wheat. The way he refilled our canteens of water, he might as well have been a stranger helping a fellow traveler on the road. At first light, we came to a village, and he dismounted, leaving me on top of the mare. He wouldn’t even look at me, as if even his gaze might cause some insult to my family name.
“Look at me. Please.” I felt the tears stinging my eyes.
For one instant, he did. And in his eyes I still saw the light and heat he’d had the first time we met. I felt my stomach summersault with hope and desire. He loves me… And yet, just as quickly as his look had warmed, it cooled again, and he looked at me with removed politeness… He loves me not.
The village where we had stopped was quiet in the morning light. Bors halted the horses outside a traveler’s inn, where the groom emerged rubbing the sleep from his eyes, tucking in his shirt and trying to comb his messy hair with his fingers.
Bors extended a hand to greet him. “Morning, Finan.”
The young man lit up. “Morning, sir.”
“Get these two watered, will you? And once you’ve done that, I’ve got a favor to ask.”
Like a stupid, naïve girl, my mind went to all sorts of possibilities about the favor—a rented room, a featherbed. But I was being foolish and selfish. Bors remained focused on the problems at hand, and he paid the groom a small sum to be a runner and take word to the neighboring village, to an old friend of his from the clan. “There’s a woman named Angelica, being held by the sheriff. Tell them I vouch for her character. They’ll know what to do from there.”
The boy, Finan, nodded dutifully and pocketed the coin that Bors had paid him.
In order to remount the mare, Bors had to help me down first. He tried hard not to make eye contact, but I was in his arms and it was impossible for him to do otherwise.
“Thank you for doing that for her,” I said, once I was behind him again.
“She is my friend. A loyal and devoted one. I’d never let anything happen to her,” he said. And then he turned away.
While I was on the ground, I checked on my father. He had been in and out of consciousness as we rode. Now, he was sobering up and clearly suffering the consequences—not only of being badly beaten by the men who aimed to take me, but also paying the price for a terrible hangover. I unfastened the gag from his mouth and helped him to drink some water. And then rejoined Bors on the mare.
Back on the road, we had to slow our pace to wind our way through a narrow forest path. I tucked my chin against Bors’ shoulder, and felt a desperation to get him to talk to me the way he had before—dreaming together, envisioning a future. I ached to get things to go back to the way they had been. “Tell me more. Tell me anything. Tell me about the livery.”
His body stiffened and he shook his head, drawing air through his full lips into a deep sigh so that his massive shoulders lifted my chin up slightly and then lowered it again. “Sara. Don’t.”
I gripped him more tightly from behind, caressing his chest and abdominal muscles. Once again, he tried to move my hand, but this time, I held firm. His hard body relaxed ever-so-slightly against my soft tummy and breasts, and I embraced him with all my might. Though it hadn’t been my intention, my forearm pressed against his loins. His cock responded to me, becoming hard and firm in his pants.
His low, brief growl rumbled through him and into me. On the outside, he was preserving appearances by being polite and cool. But under the surface, my beast was still stirring for me. He still wanted me, and I still yearned for him. And I took much comfort from that.
Late in the day, as the shadows lengthened with the setting sun, I asked Bors to stop because I was so tired that I could barely keep my eyes open. I was exhausted and I knew he must be, too; I, at least, had slept a little during the night, but he had not. He agreed at once to stop, though it frustrated me that he seemed to take it as an order to be obeyed, and he set to work readying a campsite for us. I did my part as well, helping to get the horses fed and making sure we had enough dry kindling to last us through until morning.