Cherishing?
Aye, mayhap even cherishing.
Loving?
Fen swallowed.
St. Jennifer help me, am I falling in love with the man?
Och, nay. She was able now to see the truth. She wasn’t falling in love with Brodie McClure; she was in love with him.
Oh dear.
Oh dear. He was leaving soon, was he not? And if he didn’t leave, what would that mean for her and her kitchens?
Da says ye have to marry. And Brodie wouldnae take ye away from yer place at Oliphant Castle. He kens where ye belong.
Aye, but where would he belong? Would he take command of the kitchens, because he was a man? Wait, was she actually considering marriage to Brodie McClure.
Oh, fook.
“Lass? Remember to breathe,” he murmured, just as he squeezed her thumb.
Her breath whooshed out of her, then she sucked in a new lungful so quickly she went lightheaded.
He glanced up at her. “Is the pain so bad?”
Pain? Pain? The uncertainty, the anxiety, was eating at her insides, worrying her beyond—
Och, he meant her thumb.
She swallowed. “Nay,” she managed. “’Tis but a scratch, truly. A cook is used to such things.”
He hummed and began wrapping the thumb in a small white bandage. “I can see. A wee warrior, ye are.”
She thought he was mocking her, until he tied off the dressing and lifted her hand to his lips. When he placed a kiss to the tip of the bandage, she shivered.
Then his lips moved to a small white scar at the base of her thumb, and he kissed her there too. Then he found a red mark—a more recent slip—along her second finger, and his lips lingered atop it.
“So many injuries,” he murmured, holding her gaze. “In a good cause?”
“Aye,” she croaked, her eyes roaming over his own scars.
“A testament to bravery.”
Her eyes fluttered closed as his lips caressed the sensitive webbing between her fingers. “Aye,” she sighed.
“Each mark the sign of valor.”
His tongue slid between her fingers, tugging briefly at the skin. The act was so reminiscent of The Invasion of Brussels, the sensation of a man’s tongue sliding between her nether folds, that Fen shuddered.
No’ any man’s. Just Brodie’s. Always Brodie.
He pressed her palm against his lips so her fingertips caressed the stubble of his jaw.
“Do kisses help?” he murmured.
Her eyes flashed open, and she met his gaze.