All at once, she was in his arms. She trembled. She pressed against him and stretched on her tiptoes so her lips could reach his. He drew her in tight, tighter. The yawning darkness inside him retreated a few steps so he could breathe.
“Och, lass. Darling.” He spoke between the small, fervent kisses she showered upon him.
He captured her face between his hands, his fingers in the wild tumble of her hair, and kissed her more deeply.
Naught could be deep enough. Not until he was inside this woman.Inside her.
“Och,” he babbled when the kiss ended. “Och, Christ.”
They needed to speak together, so he told himself again. Make those decisions. But she twined her arms around his neck and wrapped her legs around his hips. He carried her to the bed.
“I should no’ be here,” he told her as he unfastened his sark.
“Nay, ye should no’.” She watched him, quiet now as he shed the garment and the others he wore, her eyes filled with wonder. When he stood naked before her, he had nothing. No rank. No ambitions. No clan. He was a man breathing only for her.
“Since word has got out—” He stopped speaking because she held out her hand to him, one small hand, and then all words fled. He climbed onto the bed and gathered her, still clad in the gray gown, into his arms.
Nothing had ever felt so good. Nothing in his life. He’d feared he would not hold her again. Inhale her breath. Crush her mouth beneath his.
She wiggled away from him, freeing herself just enough to remove her clothing. Once she did, it got even better. Skin against skin. The heat and taste of her. The madness that took hold of his head when they began to move together, softly at first and then with an abandon that gripped both of them equally.
But this was no longer merely about a need of the flesh. The wanting went far deeper, and when she opened herself to him, when he slid into her and the light came out to embrace him, obscuring everything else, he wanted to sob. He, a grown man. A warrior.
She was filled with beautiful light, his lass, his darling, his love. When they lay entwined so, she beat back his darkness.
They flew together on the wings of the light, he inside her, she resting safe in his arms.
They flew high over the glen, brushed the tops of the braes and the sky, their hearts beating as one.
After, she lay quietly beneath him with tears on her cheeks. And he…he knew the truth.
It had come to him while he soared above Glen Bronach with her, the place they both loved. He felt what was inside her, this strong and fragile woman he held for the time. For a time only.
For one could not imprison the light.
Lying with his cheek against hers, he felt that full well. The light came where it chose, blessed as it chose. Saerla possessed a beautiful spirit. Her body might be his for a short while. To claim that spirit required far more arrogance than he possessed.
She had stripped all his arrogance from him. He came to this woman humbly, begging her presence, unsure even now why she let him in.
“Rory.” She turned her face on the bolster so her lips slid across his cheek. She kissed the corner of his mouth, and tenderness for her once more swamped him. “Ye left me your seed.”
Had he? When he was inside her, he could not think clearly. Only feel. He blinked. In the beginning he’d been careful about that, tried to be careful. Everything about her, though, seduced him.
“Aye, so,” he breathed raggedly.
“Rhian has reminded me I might well conceive your child.”
He propped himself on one elbow and looked down at her. With infinite care he ran a finger down her cheek. His child, conceived in such light?
But she said, “’Twould be a terrible, hard thing.”
“Would it?” Would it truly?
“Aye.”
“And, bonny lass, ha’ ye conceived my child?” He laid a broad hand on her belly.
She shook her head. “Nay. At least, I do no’ think—I ha’ no’ Seen so. Still”—she studied the expression in his eyes—“ye need an heir. One no’ of MacBeith blood.”
