She nodded, understanding, but not being happy about it. “I will help you down the stairs when you are ready.” She sat on her bed and watched him pull his thin, woolen léine over his head and shoulders and then let it fall down his chest and his flat belly. His long, strong legs were already covered in thick, black hose he’d pulled on while she spoke with Charlie.
He sat beside her on the bed and turned to smile at her. But she noticed his breathing was a bit labored. He pulled on his boots and ran his fingers through his hair.
“Is there a shovel in the small shed?” he asked her, rising from the bed.
“Elias, you are not well enough for this,” she tried one last time.
He stepped close to her and kissed the concern from her lips.
“Come ootdoors and stay with me,” he offered, withdrawing and leaving her without breath, “and ye will see how much I do, aye? I willna have ye worry.”
She nodded and followed him to the stairs. He went down slowly, leaning on her when he had to.
“Ye are surprisingly strong fer one so slight,” he remarked when they reached the bottom. He was silent when they passed his friend’s body in the chair covered in his plaid.
They left the house together, slowly.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Four hours later, with the help of Lily, Father Benedict, Charlie, Norman, and Alan, Elias dug his best friend’s grave close to Lily’s garden. He didn’t want Brother Simon burned as everyone else had been. No one challenged him.
Father Benedict presided over the burial. Everyone who was left was there. The children stood by Elias and Lily. Charlie patted Annabelle’s shoulder when she cried.
When it was over, everyone returned to their homes for the afternoon. Since the brother’s body was gone from the house, the children didn’t need to be gone all night. Lily bid them to come home, but they asked to stay with Terrick for the afternoon. Elias and Lily agreed.
They returned to the house with Elias leaning on her with his right arm on her shoulders.
“How are you feeling?” she asked him. He’d kept his word and did not do much digging, but even a little was much for him.
“Just tired,” he admitted.
“Come,” she said as she took him by the hand. “Let me put you to bed and get you some tea.”
“I grow weary of tea,” he complained playfully. “I am hungry.”
“That does not matter to me,” she scolded. “You will drink what I give you. The salmon has spoiled. The villagers will bring food later and then you can eat.”
She led him to bed and sat him in it then helped him out of his clothes. She did her best to see him as a patient and nothing more right now. The man needed rest from burying his best friend and recovering from the plague a day ago! How could tugging off his boots arouse her? Was he breathing harder? Faster? “Elias, are you feeling worse?”
“Nae,” he promised softly and pulled his léine over his head. Her eyes drank in the glory of his sculpted shoulders and muscular arms as he undressed. She remembered the last time they were together. The pain, and the pleasure of his body…she thought she was a monster for having such intimate thoughts about him when they had just finished burying his best friend. But then he was a monster, too. Or just a soul in terrible need of comfort.
She leaned in and pressed her lips to his shoulder.
He groaned and her bones felt like dry tinder, her blood, pure flame.
Emboldened by his groan, she kissed his collarbone. If he wanted to stop, she would without question. But he pulled her wrists around his neck. She melted against his chest and tilted her face up to his when his hungry mouth sought her.
His lips burned hotter than her blood.
He dragged her over his lap to straddle him, she went with only a moan of her own. She landed atop a hard mound between his legs—a mound he adjusted with a sensual stroke of his hand under his hose.
It felt like a stroke to her when his knuckles touched herthere. She sucked in on her lower lip when he flipped his hand over beneath his hose and slid his palm over her heat. His touch sparked another flame between her thighs. When he pulled his hand free, she closed her eyes at the stiff erection pushing against his hose, as if to get to her.
She pulled up her skirts and rubbed herself over the length of it and then waited anxiously for him when he lifted up his hips and pulled at his hose, releasing himself, hot and hard enough to lift her.
She glided over it one more time, taking in its fullness, and then set herself down on the head. Pain shot through her like a lance, but it didn’t last. It couldn’t last against the pure pleasure of impaling herself on him to the hilt and watching the rapture of his release, just before her own.
It was quick and filled with passion. Elias wanted more but soon fell asleep.