Rueful now, he told her, “It has been done before.”
“Aye. But no’ wi’out a heavy load o’ sorrow.”
“I will tak’ the sorrow,” he vowed to her. “I will tak’ whatever may come if it means I might ha’ ye also.”
“Whatever comes,” she returned, “I am yours, both body and spirit.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
They slept inone another’s arms, and when Rhian awoke, she felt changed. So a woman would expect to feel, she reasoned, lying there with her cheek on Leith’s warm chest. Being plucked for the first time was, by anyone’s accounting, a transformative occurrence. No longer a maiden, and she’d waited long enough for it.
Still and all, she’d never imagined it would feel like this. Women who had confided in her in the past, both as friend and as healer, reported far different experiences. A measure of awkwardness sometimes. Pain, aye. Not this—this sea of desire that had carried her almost without thought. Not this powerful rightness.
When he had been inside her—well, it had felt so perfect that she’d been afraid to breathe. It felt as if, for the first time in her life, she was complete.
How could that be, when she never suspected she’d been wanting?
And what about the fact that she could sometimes hear the thoughts in Leith’s mind?
Right now, she heard no thoughts. He slept. The chamber had grown very dark, the embers of the fire dying to sparks of orange. She could barely see Leith.
She did not have to. The warmth of him enfolded her. His good arm wrapped around her and cupped one breast. The bad arm, on the side away from her, hung limp. She could feel…
She could feel all of him. Hints—like brief flickers—of pain from that arm. The movement of dreams in his mind.He dreamed of her.
And she, she wanted the man again. The desire—also unexpected—was ferocious. She, being anything but a ferocious woman, found that surprising. But the scent of him stoked that fire. The feel of the crisp hair on his chest. The memory of him filling her.
She had only to tip up her face in order to brush a kiss on a cheek rough with beard. His body was so different from hers, yet something in him was so much the same. They fit to perfection.
She wanted that perfection again.
Ah, but she should let the man rest, sleep, and heal. Only a few days ago he’d been near death. She was a healer and needed to let him gather his strength.
Knowing that, she put out her tongue nevertheless and tasted him. The skin of his cheek and the seam between his lips. She felt it, delightfully, when he came awake. Felt his desire spike like the hearth fire when she tossed on a handful of dry kindling.
“Rhian.”
Did he say her name aloud, or only in his mind?
“My love.” She said that because she wanted to, needed to. These words she’d never addressed to any other man felt so good on her tongue. Just like him.
His hand stirred on her breast, the rough palm sliding over her skin till he found her nipple. She wanted his mouth there, though his fingers felt almost as good.
“How d’ye feel?” she asked him because, as a healer, she should.
“Grand.” He smiled, and she felt as much as saw it in the dark. “And braw.”
“Aye, so.” The braw part of him grew against her thigh.
“In fact, I do no’ ken when I felt better. ’Tis ye, Rhian MacBeith.” He dropped a kiss on her lips. “Ye mak’ me—But I have no words.”
She had none either, so she pressed her open mouth to his, and he dove into her. Time passed, unmeasured. She sensed it when their hearts began to beat in time.
Make love to me. She thought it so she would not have to stop kissing him in order to speak.
As ye wish, merciful angel.
His name for her, that was, though she was definitely no angel here with him. In the moments that followed, she knew not the meaning of resistance. She embraced abandon instead. Nothing was too much for her to give to him, or take.
