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She had the clearest idea what his question was about. The reason he never happened upon them during these years. “The nearest one in the McDougal.” This reply extracted a scowl of outrage from his manly features.
“McDougal?” Fierce fists lifted to his tapered hips. “When you had a much closer one in the McKendrick?”
If he only knew how many times she had fantasised going to the closer village, and risk stumbling on him. Better, risk at least having a glimpse of him. From behind a column, from inside a shop, from a busy stall. How many times had she awoken in a market day morning contemplating going to this village and not that? How many times had she wished to sneak to the McKendrick lands unseen on Beltane, or Samhain, or Christmas, or Easter—whichever—just to stand in the distance and drink in the sight of him? See him smiling, celebrating, cheering. Even if it was with someone else, a woman-someone else. This thought alone shattered her heart in millions of tiny unfixable pieces. If she could catch a two-second view of him, she would mind nothing else.
How many times had she resisted the temptation with so much effort it ripped out tears and her heart in the process?
“His playmates were there.” What a feeble excuse to give to her own husband.
“You were hiding him from me!” He accused, old-whisky eyes spewing anger at her.
He could not be more wrong if he tried. Everything she ever wished was for her son to grow with his father. But she had no chance of saying this to him. “I was not!” She countered as though this made enough of a sensible reason.
“Of course not.” Sarcasm being the last she wanted from him. “You even came to tell me I had a son!”
Poignant pain lanced her at this. The same pain she had to tamp down every single day she denied her son his father. His father their son. “You have full access to him here. I am not preventing you from it.”
“Four years too late!” He spat derisively. “And only because you had no choice.”
Choice was a word lacking in her life. It had been lacking for much more than four years. That he found her by chance did not mean she had one now. She did not, and what she would do about it nagged at her. “Make up for lost time.” She suggested, her cynicism a farce.
“Make up for the lost cry at his birth?” He questioned implacable. “Make up for his teething? For his first steps?” His whole body washed in condemnation. “His first words then? Not ‘papa’ for sure.”
Her throat clogged at this, making an answer impossible. These same thoughts had whirled in her mind a thousand times on sleepless nights. Hazel eyes widened on him when his stance morphed from derision to pure disgust.
“Or did he call someone papa?” Strong legs prowled closer. “You left because you had another man!” His fury a palpable element between them as a large hand closed around her upper arm and pulled her to him.
Her lungs burned for air, with her heart pounding when her gaze lifted to his and both engaged in a tacit battle. A wavy chestnut strand fell on his forehead with the movement which highlighted his out-of-control temper. “Answer me!”
It took long seconds for her to find her voice. Breathy voice. “You asked no question.” She rebutted.
Those magnificent old-whisky eyes darkened as his breathing competed with hers, meshed with hers, caressed yearning lips. “Did you leave me for another?” He deigned to ask in a tone that conveyed this was no concession.
Such an idea sounded so hideous that she managed to scoff. “As though I would have time for it with a child to bring up and a living to make.”
The mere hint that another man might touch her caused a nauseating wave to surge from the deepest of her being. He had transformed her in a glutton for him—solely him—since the first time their skins came an inch from each other. Before that even. The slight view of him vanished any other man from the face of Earth. From the time she turned sixteen, teen-ish as it may seem.
Drostan’s ogle bore into her until she feared she would explode with the heat of it. Abruptly, he let go of her arm and gave her his back, his fingers raking his smooth hair.
His large frame swivelled to her anew. “Which brings us to the question of why you forsook our marriage.” A question he had asked her as soon as he came to the derelict cottage; whose answer he gave the impression of not believing if the repeating of it was any indication.
Tension burst in the depths of her like a mushroom. This lying and deceiving consumed too much energy. Guilty energy. And it gave off.
She mustered every drop of frustration of the last years. Every drop of rage against those who would not relent in keeping her from her husband. Every drop of resentment for the dist
ance she must keep from him. And threw it at him. Threw it at him knowing it was wrong, knowing she should turn to him for support. Knowing the truth would always be the best solution. Even so, she threw it at him. To shove him away from her and her son. To keep the both people she loved most in this world from harm.
“Did I not tell you I became bored?” Her voice at a pitch that could only be described as desperate. “Can you not accept this once and for all?” Her torso tilted forward while her eyes darted what she hoped was determination.
The payback came swift enough. Muscled arms crossed over wide chest. His gaze perused her from frowned eyebrow to her hard-planted boots dripping in so much contempt they might spread draught in a lesser heart. “So you say, but your glare carries twenty times more hunger for me than before.”
At that, she turned from him. Hunger did not begin to describe her craving. A starvation bordering on the voracious. One that her body had to brave in the dead of the night. That her heart had to drag through slow passing days. That her memory of him had difficulty to eradicate. He had not the slimmest notion!
“As hungry as the kiss of yesterday.” His drawl delivered as a final blow. On her. On her lies. On her composure.
Colour scalded her cheeks when she faced him again. The reminder filled her with an ache so depthless she would need to kiss him like that for centuries to sate.
For what felt like the hundredth time this morning, their eyes locked in a duel of wills, of desire, of resistance. And stayed thus for so long, she lost track of time.
