No words were spoken. They needed none. She lifted him, caught his desire, and shared her own. Took him for flight. When he slipped inside her, set the rhythm and began to rock the two of them together, it was like the beating of wings. She could almost feel the blessed air flowing through her hair and catch the shadows of the clouds above. Sense the glen she loved so well beneath them.
“Do no’ stop,” she begged him in a whisper then. “Do no’ leave go of me.”
“Ne’er,” he whispered in return.
*
Never before hadRory experienced bliss. Och, he’d come close to it the last time he and Saerla had lain together, when he’d been inside her and found an inexpressible sense of completion. But even that had not been like this.
Perhaps he’d never before been completely satisfied. Wanting for naught. His mind lost in a haze and even his body no longer his own.
It belonged to her, to Saerla MacBeith. Whatever she wanted to do with it, he would respond. Whatever she asked of him, he would give.
Had done. Would do again.
At the moment he lay on his back in the bed—what had been his own bed—floating. They had not lit a fire, the night beingmild, and all but one candle had gutted out. His body, for the first time he could easily remember, had stopped hurting. Even that damned hole in his back.
He opened his eyes when a touch feathered across his skin and saw Saerla leaning over him, eyes soft and wide. It had been her hair—that glorious mane—he felt trailing across his chest. And he could feel her breath on his lips, so close was she.
He smiled at her because he could do nothing else. He’d been inside her repeatedly. She’d opened herself to him like a flower to the sun. She’d also wrapped herself around him; she’d given and demanded. He knew how she tasted everywhere, and she him. He had never in his life been so close to any person.
Now when he smiled at her, she smiled back at him. A smile in the eyes of Saerla MacBeith was a defense against the darkness. It shone with light.
“Beautiful lass,” he murmured.
“Ye mak’ me feel so.”
He became suddenly serious. “Ye be the most beautiful, the finest thing ever to set foot upon the face o’ the world.”
“Is it so?”
“It is.”
“Such a compliment deserves a kiss.” She gave it to him, and her lips molded to his in that way they had. Whenever and however she touched him, she became instantly a part of him.
He opened to her helplessly.Drink me dry, lass. Take all that I am. But she did not. Not his Saerla. She was too merciful. Instead, she ran her soft lips over his cheek, down his neck to his chest, and kissed him there. Just over his heart.
The heart that hammered with equal helplessness for her. Only for her, from now on.
“Lass, I am spent.”
“Are ye?”
“Aye. Come and lie in my arms. Sleep for a time.” He could think of very little better than waking tomorrow morning with her there.
She came down to lie against him without protest, cuddling tight. He fished for the counterpane, displaced during their lovemaking, and pulled it up over the both of them.
“Should I dream—” she began.
“Do ye, often?” Not ordinary dreams, he would wager she meant.
“Aye. My sisters used to hold me when we were small, and the dreams came.”
“I will hold ye now. I will hold ye. Do no’ fear.”
Be safe in me. He wanted to add that. He did not.
“I ha’ dreamed o’ ye, Rory MacLeod.”
