One More Chance

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

One moment, Catherine was flying through the air in complete panic and bracing herself to hit the ground. The next moment a strong pair of hands latched onto her waist and pulled her. She fell with a thud on a rock solid piece of....human...a man's chest to be precise. She could feel the strong beats of the man under her. One of his hands was still tight upon his waist and the other was protectively covering the back of her head. Thanks to him, she had survived the fall. But the excitement was still too much and she was panting heavily. Catherine opened her eyes and stretched her neck upward to thank her rescuer and she found herself staring into mesmerizing blue eyes that seemed to drink her completely.

It was obviously Christian and he was staring back at her. The nearness undid her. She could feel his strong breathing and up and down movements of his chest. She could feel his strong heartbeats and the whole effect sent a tingle of shivers up her spine. That was when she realized that she was completely pressed onto him from chest to toe. Her breasts were flush against his chest and her tummy agains his rock hard abs. Her legs were trapped within his and his thighs were pressing on either side of her. Although the panic had subsided, something else seemed to take over. Excitement? Nervousness? Catherine couldn't name it but it made her feel warm all over and she breathed heavily.

Christian's eyes moved slowly down her eyes to her lips. The way he looked excited her. He seemed to move his head slightly closer to her. If she hadn't been completely aware of him, she would have missed that near imperceptible movement. Was he going to kiss her? She had never been kissed before, well except for the peck during the wedding. She wanted to know what a real kiss would feel like and she especially wanted to know how Christian's kiss would be. To encourage him, she moved her head down to his.

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Christian knew the exact moment that Catherine decided to let go of her mare. While he agreed that was probably the best thing to do, he wasn't sure she would survive the fall. In a desperate moment, he let go of his stallions reins and jumped towards her and just managed to grab her waist as she fell against him and both of them landed together on the ground, with his back to the floor. Thankfully, the ground was quite soft and it wasn't such a hard fall.

When he opened his eyes to inquire about Catherine, he found her studying him intensely and he replied back by observing her just as closely. Catherine was flushed from the exhaustion and her face had a red hue about it. She must have bitten her lips in fright as they were slightly swollen and begged for him to taste her. His body was slowly coming to complete awareness and recognized the female form on top of him. He was losing control and the need to kiss her was just overwhelming. He gave in and raised himself closer to her just as she came down to meet his lips. They were just a hair's breadth apart.

"Sir Ashford! Are you and Lady Catherine alright?" his knight, Dick's voice came through just as he reined his horse. It was like a splash of cold water on Christian. Within a second, he had pulled Catherine up and stood standing himself, brushing the grass and leaves from his breeches and shirt. "Yes, I am fine Dick," Christian replied and looked to Catherine, "Are you ok?"

Catherine was still in a shade of red. But she seems to recover quickly and nodded her head in response as another two of his soldiers brought up Dick's rear. He instructed one of his men to fetch the two horses and the other to ride double with Dick as he lifted Catherine into the second horse and joined her himself. Without a word, they both rid back to the others with Dick and the other knight in their wake.

What was he thinking? That had been such a close-call. He would have let himself kiss her if Dick hadn't said anything just at that moment. He wasn't quite sure about how he should be around her. It was a confusion that had to be dealt with later and till then he decided he shouldn't do anything stupid. For the time-being he had much more important things to focus on.

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Another millisecond more and Catherine would have had her first kiss from a man, Christian, her husband. She was extremely annoyed with Dick at the moment. Apart from the thrill of it being her first kiss, she somehow believed that the kiss would have made a huge difference in their relationship. She just felt it. Now it was all lost...or at least for the the moment. Catherine slowly smiled. Now she knew that Christian was not completely immune to her. He had wanted to kiss her moment ago. Catherine was sure she had not imagined that. Now, she would have to try and make sure another opportunity rose again and this time, they would have their first kiss.

"Cathy, Chris! Are you alright?" Fred asked in a worried voice. They had just reached the other men. "Yes, what happened to the guys you gave chase? How many of them?" Christian asked as he dismounted impatiently from the horse, helped her down and went to stand next to Fred. Catherine followed him. She wanted to know as well.

"Two, there were trails of only two horse hooves. They got away before we reached them. We tried to follow, but the trails got cut off shortly as they entered the grassland," Fred replied.

"Only two?" Christian asked in surprise.

"Yes, didn't look like they were out for killing. I think it is probably for scouting only. They might have tried to shoot the arrows when they realized how close to the target they were," Fred added nodding to Catherine.

Christian's burrow frowned and he took on an ominous look. "This is bad. If they can try to attack when there is just two of them, they would have been confident of their escape. That means their camp must be somewhere around. Considering the fact that they have taken much longer to show their faces, it means that they had enough time to have gathered a large number of people. We must be cautious. Things don't look too good a the moment." Christian explained gravely.

The gravity of what Christian said sunk into her for the first time. Despite his warnings at Newbridge, she hasn't been worrying about the dangerous situation they were in. Her thoughts had been completely consumed by Christian and nearly nothing else. It was then that it sank into her, in what a precarious situation they were in. A group of fifty men with a female traveling for a week across the open to reach a castle on the other side of Newbridge was such an easy target. The arrows that flew just now were not just random ones, but aimed specifically at killing her. Christian had been quick earlier to take out his shield to dodge the arrows from reaching her and then chasing after her spooked horse to prevent her from falling.

If this was just a trailer, she didn't want to think about the main picture at all. Fred and Christian were still talking with each other. She heard bits and pieces including her name and Adam, his horse. But her mind was still wandering. She had never been in the middle of warfare before. Her practice had all been just practice. However, she vowed to herself that if the situation called for it, she would rise up to the challenge and meet every man with a sword. She was going to do her part. Many often underestimated her talent because she was a girl and that gave her a chance to win. She was going to do it again, she promised herself. She had never really killed a man before and didn't like the idea of doing so. But that was hardly the main point when they threatened her life and Christian's. Catherine looked at Christian and found him watching her. She wanted to live and wanted this man to live. She wanted to know what a real life with him would be like. She wasn't going to allow anyone to snatch that away from her when it was so close at hand. Yes, she thought to herself. She was going to kill anyone who threatened her dream. She wanted Christian. She realized that she was falling for him.

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