Page 3 of Enlightened

Before David could protest, Murdo was sliding one arm round David’s back and the other under his knees, sweeping his feet out from under him. David hissed a curse as Murdo lifted him, but Murdo just shifted David’s weight to balance himself and began to quickly mount the stairs.

“Christ, Murdo,” David said testily. “Let me down, will you?” It had been a few weeks since he’d had to submit to this particular indignity. He hated being carried like this—it unmanned him.

Murdo ignored him, and after the first few stairs, despite his mortification, David didn’t bother protesting any further. The truth was, he couldn’t get up these stairs without Murdo’s help.

By the time they reached the top, Murdo’s breath was coming hard, but he still didn’t let David down. He carried him another dozen steps to David’s bedchamber door before setting his feet back on the ground. Even then he wasn’t done. Steering David into his room, he guided him firmly to the featherbed David had been dreaming of for the last half hour, then went back to close the bedchamber door, turning the key in the lock. Returning to the bed, mouth set in a firm, determined line, he bent to remove David’s boots. This time David didn’t say anything. It would do no good, and anyway, he was bloody exhausted. So he let Murdo ease the tight leather from his calves, then slowly strip away the rest of his clothing, piece by piece.

“Do you want me to ring for a bath?” Murdo asked as he peeled away David’s trousers, easing the fabric carefully down his legs so as not to jar him.

“I doubt I could climb in right now,” David admitted.

“A rubdown with some liniment, then?”

David couldn’t suppress the groan that emerged from his chest at that suggestion. “Please.”

“Lie back, then. I’ll strip down too.”

David did as instructed, passively watching as Murdo removed his elegant clothing, then crossed the room, naked, to fetch the jar of liniment from the armoire, his tall, powerful body beautiful in the late afternoon light that seeped into the room round the edges of the drapes.

Murdo knelt beside David on the bed and regarded his leg. “Let’s see what you’ve done to yourself.”

Weary to the bone, David let his eyes close. Moments later, the drifting scents of rosemary and camphor heralded the opening of the liniment. It was a scent with which David was very familiar—his mother had been making the stuff for years, ever since his father had taken a tumble off the roof of the barn at home and injured his shoulder. The smell of it now brought with it the promise of imminent relief.

The brisk noise of Murdo rubbing the stuff between his palms brought the scent forth again, more intensely, as it warmed on Murdo’s skin. And when Murdo laid his hands on David, every remaining thought in David’s head vanished. Murdo’s hands were strong and warm, their firm course eased by waxy lanolin and camphor oil as they broke into the knotted agony in David’s leg and straightened him out again.

David could barely keep his eyes open by the time Murdo was finished. He felt languorous and done in, like he could sleep the rest of the day and night away. Somehow, though, he managed to crack open his eyelids and smile at Murdo, who was kneeling at his side, watching him.

“Thank you,” David said softly.

“Better?” Murdo’s smile was tender.

“Much.”

“You look tired.”

“Nottootired,” David replied.

Murdo grinned and crawled over to lie beside David. He bent his head, capturing David’s lips in a soft kiss that slowly deepened, while his hand drifted in light, teasing caresses, pausing for an instant to pinch at the tight bud of David’s left nipple, making him moan his pleasure into the kiss.

“Careful,” he murmured as David turned onto his side, worming his way closer

“I’ll be fine so long as I keep the weight off this leg,” David replied, swooping in for another kiss. He drove his tongue deep into Murdo’s mouth and let his own hands wander, loving the way Murdo’s body shuddered and rolled under his fingers, loving the hitches of breath and low moans that came from Murdo’s lips.

Much as he wanted this to last, his blood was up, and it seemed Murdo’s was too. They began the familiar drag and thrust, the grinding circle of hips and dizzying friction of skin on skin. After a minute, Murdo broke their kiss and dropped his mouth to David’s neck, sucking at the tender flesh there, grazing David with his sharp teeth. David’s head went back in surrender, and he groaned loudly.

“Yes. God, that’s good,” he hissed.

It could only have been seconds later when he felt the surge of his climax. It churned in his balls, then splattered in thick, hot pulses between them, coating their bellies, and an instant later, Murdo toppled too, his semen mingling with David’s own.

They lay there kissing for long minutes after, warm and contented, stickily soiled. Despite the pain of his hard-won recuperation, these last months had been the best of David’s life, and at times like these, lying in Murdo’s arms, he still felt a dizzying sort of disbelief, both at his own happiness and at Murdo’s.

After a while, Murdo slipped out of bed to clean himself up. He poured water into the ewer, yelping at the coldness of the washcloth on his warm belly, making David chuckle, then laugh harder when the other man advanced on him with the cold, damp cloth in his hand and a wicked grin on his face. David tried to squirm away, and they tussled briefly, laughing and kissing, till they were both clean and Murdo finally tossed the cloth aside and drew the blankets snugly around them.

“So,” he said. “Did McNally accept the offer?”

David chuckled; he couldn’t believe he’d forgotten to tell Murdo about his triumph.

“He made a show of reluctance, but I could tell from the moment I mentioned settling things that he wanted to see the back of the case.” David sent Murdo a challenging look. “I’m fairly sure he’d have come around without paying any costs to him.”