She nodded, clearly having trouble finding her voice.
“What did ye think of it, lass?” He recalled how deeply he had sunk into that single kiss. “Did ye enjoy the kiss as much as I?”
“I think you know I did,” she whispered. Her gaze fell to his lips. “I’ve never been kissed like that before.” Her curious eyes returned to his. “Is that a wizard thing?”
He couldn’t help but chuckle. “Nay, ‘tis a Hamilton thing.”
Her mouth curled up ever-so-slightly, and she began to say something, but he took the words out of her mouth with a soft kiss. Then another. Then, because he had to sample just a bit more, another. She tasted of wild berries and places he had never been before. Worlds he had never seen. She drove the shadows away and brought peace, where he had felt nothing but strife for so long.
Then he felt even more.
Not just a rush of desire but a level of excitement and arousal he wasn’t accustomed to. As if she felt it too, she pressed close and twisted her hands in his tunic, clutching him as though she feared them being separated. He understood because he felt it too.
“Chloe,” he murmured against her lips, needing to say her name. He cupped her cheeks and deepened the kiss. Lost himself. Their connection became a cord of sunlight in his mind's eye, wrapping around them, drawing their souls closer than their physical bodies could ever get.
Yet he wanted their bodies closer still.
He wanted to see if the rest of her was as soft as her cheeks. If she made the same little breathy moans when he kissed her elsewhere. When he tasted all she had to offer. He trailed his fingers down the curve of her back and cupped her backside, pressing her against his arousal with a need that was almost too much.
Where did she stand on intimacy before love? Even mayhap, without love?
Regrettably, she caught those thoughts and dragged her lips away. Winded, her heart beating nearly as hard as his, she rested her forehead against his chest and murmured, “I’m from the twenty-first century, Aidan, so I’m pretty open minded about sex before love.”
She sighed and met his eyes. “I am, however, opposed to it with no hope of love...especially when it comes to you.” Having found her footing, she stepped away, leaving him with the same awful emptiness he’d felt in the tent that morning. “More specifically, I’m opposed to it without hope of love for me and me alone.”
“Aye then, lass,” he murmured because he didn’t know what else to say. She was right. “As you said, you deserve such.”
He could tell by the flash of disappointment in her eyes that she thought he might say more. That he would give her hope. Yet it was not that simple. While he had begun entertaining the possibility of loving another, it would take more than a kiss and raging arousal to get there.
“We should get back,” she said softly. Her eyes lingered on him for a moment before she started walking again.
He wanted to say he was sorry, but it wasn’t precisely how he felt. Rather he felt hopeful in a way he never had before. As if a curtain was being drawn back, and it was only a matter of time before he saw what he was meant to see. As if, deep down, there was no reason to be sorry. Not when it came to her.
Not when it came to what he ultimately wanted from her but wasn’t quite ready to admit.
“Not yet,” he whispered. “But soon.”
She stopped and turned back slowly as if she had caught that.
As if she understood how far he had really come.
“And you have, love,” she said, her voice different, like a song on the wind. Her eyes sparkled, and for a moment, he swore her features morphed, but it must have been a trick of the light. “For, I made sure of it.” The woodland around them seemed to pulse. “I made sure she loved you too.”
Then, just like that, Chloe vanished into thin air.
