Page 83 of Wedded to the Devilish Highlander
The two guards were somewhere in the darkness, unseen.
“Well, ye’re here now, so let’s get down to business. Here.” Archer handed her the dirk.
She took it but held it limply, pointing it at the ground.
He sighed. “We have a lot of work to do.”
“Och, ye dinnae even ken what I can do,” Eileen complained. “I havenae started yet.”
She began swinging the dirk around wildly.
Archer ducked as she whirled around. As far as fighting styles went, it might surprise her opponent enough to buy her a few seconds, but it didn’t come close to what he needed from her.
“All right, all right,” he said, holding his hands up. “Let’s just start with the basics.”
He approached her, wary in case she started swinging her dirk again. He stopped before her as he worked out the best way to approach the situation. Then, he swept behind her and stepped closer, pressing his chest to her back.
“Dinnae get the wrong idea,” he murmured. “I have to get close to ye to do this properly.”
“Aye, I bet ye say that to all the women.”
Archer snickered. “When I want to take ye, ye’ll ken about it.”
“I hope I do,” Eileen quipped.
The constant back and forth had been annoying when they had first met, but he was growing to enjoy it. She was very different from the women he usually had in his bed. She spoke back to him, met him head-on, while the others were submissive. She was submissive when tamed, but he had to work at it.
He ran a hand down her arm, curling it over hers on the handle of the dirk. “Like this. Ye need to hold it tight while keeping yer wrist flexible.”
“Aye, and I bet ye say that to all yer women, too,” Eileen joked.
Archer let go of her hand as he laughed heartily, the sound echoing between the castle walls.
“Well, if ye cannae stop an attacker with a dirk, ye’ll be able to disarm them with yer filthy jests,” he teased. “Come on, let’s try this again.”
He pressed his body against hers and covered the hand holding the dirk with his own.
“That’s it, nice and tight. Now, when ye use the dirk, ye’re usually usin’ it as a last resort. In yer case, it’ll be yer first resort. If ye find yerself facin’ a bandit, ye need to stick them before they can do anythin’ to ye. Like this.”
Archer guided her hand gently and slowly to her waist, then lifted it in an arc toward her chest.
“Ye’re aimin’ for anywhere on the torso,” he explained. “That’s a large target, and if ye drive yer knife somewhere in their chest or stomach, then ye’ll manage to slow them down at least.”
He moved her arm back and forth a few times to show her how to swing the dirk.
She smelled of wildflowers. There was a cleanness to her, a freshness, something she normally wore, but it felt different this time. It was as if she’d bathed and applied perfume for him. She was there to learn fighting, but she’d presented herself as well as she could.
The previous evening came rushing back to him, and with that came the anger. He’d embraced her for a while in his study, and she’d smelled good, but not as good as she did now. He held onto her wrist as he continued to move her hand back and forth, eager to drink in her sweet scent.
The anger bubbled up in his chest, but he pushed it down.
When he was with her, he could hold back his anger and not let it ruin him. He still didn’t understand what had come over him the previous night in the study, but she had a way of reaching inside him and stirring his emotions.
He’d never wanted to relive the day his father died, even after what he’d heard from Mack, but he found it spilling out of him, teased from his heart and mind by a few words from Eileen.
And now, her proximity was teasing something else from him. The castle and clan were under threat, but for a moment in time, encapsulated by the walls around the courtyard, he could pretend that everything was right in the world. In that small square, he was free from his duties.
“Aye, ye have it,” he said.
