The touch made their romance connection real. Tangible.
A swath of his dark hair fell across his forehead, partially obscuring his gaze, but she felt the intensity of his rich eyes on her face through the unruly locks. He jutted his chin upward to flick the loose locks off his face.
“Eat quickly. Because I’ve been away from ye too long,” he said in a low voice as he leaned toward her under the guise of placing a slice of pork on her plate.
“Ye saw me a few hours ago. A lot of me,” she whispered back, biting back a giggle.
“A single minute without ye is too long.” He nudged her with his bare knee. “Eat your meal, smile at your parents, nod to acknowledge mine, then meet me in the garden. Dinna make me wait. Please.”
They would not tup in the garden – it was far too public for such a thing. But more than once he had skittered her off to a private alcove or the side of the barn to steal kisses and soft touches.
And how could she deny him? This was likely one of the last times she would see him before she met him at the front of the church to marry. Their fathers were both embroiled by this infamous, elusive letter that had the Highlands up in arms and it had kept Sawny and her brothers busy in the search for it.
A letter Adaira seriously doubted existed. Something so risky and significant that could topple a king? It would never be written down. Only a fool would write something like that down on a parchment that could be read by the wrong person. She saw the quest for this letter as a sure way to find one’s body at the wrong end of a sword. And Adaira would do anything and everything to guarantee such a fate did not befall Sawny. She had lost one cousin to an English sympathizing clan – she would not lose Sawny as well.
She clenched Sawny’s hand hard at the thought, and he gave her a sultry, curling smile, not knowing the fierce grip was more a result of her dire thoughts than agreement to his offer to sneak away to the gardens.
Well, that too. She would meet him there as soon as enough people were entertained with food and drink, and she wouldn’t be missed.
Or at least, missed too much.
The festive air was a fair change from the frantic search for the Mungo Gordon letter that could potentially challenge the king. For the MacDonalds of Glen Coe, Glenachulish, and Keppoch, a feast was a rare celebration in these times. They were using Adaira and Sawny’s upcoming wedding as an opportunity to celebrate as much as possible.
For which Adaira was grateful. It allowed her the chance to spend as much time with Sawny as possible.
Her pork and jellied bannock were gone, devoured as she was deep in thought and staring at the dark visage of the man who captured her every waking thought. She had memorized each line of Sawny’s face, the sharp angle of his jaw under a black scruff of day’s beard growth – she shivered as she recalled its rough texture against her tender breasts. His eyes were hooded, shadowed by his thick black brows. He was everything hard and sharp, except for his full lips. Those were soft.
The reminder of how soft prompted her to move. Taking a quick drink of mead, she glanced around the hall to make sure the crowd seemed otherwise occupied. Her parents were in deep conversation with the Keppoch MacDonalds, while Reade and Maddock only had eyes for their wives. Her younger brother Conall was nowhere to be found.
There was no time like the present.
Cutting a sly gaze to Sawny, she slipped her hand from his grasp and excused herself. Taking a roundabout way toward the kitchens to make it appear she was socializing, she crept into the darkened recesses of the hall and marched directly to the rear door off the kitchens that opened to the gardens.
The corner where the main tower extended in a wing to the east was shrouded in darkness, away from the flicking torches that alighted the yard. Lifting her skirts out of the dewy grass, she stepped lightly to that corner.
She did not worry about Sawny not seeing her or immediately following. They had escaped to this shadowy, private corner many times.
Adaira had made it past the circle of light when the kitchen door creaked behind her, and her heart leapt to her throat.
Would the excitement she felt when Sawny was near ever diminish?
God,she hoped not.
She lived for that feeling. It was her reason for waking every morning.
With a quick scan of the yard, Sawny rushed to the shadows and in that same movement, shoved her against the stone wall, wrapped her in his arms, and kissed her. Hard, crushing her lips, as though he had not seen her in months, rather than hours.
“We canna stay long, my love,” she whispered into his mouth.
He lifted his face, and she watched the subtle shift of his jaw as his gaze trailed down her cheek to her neck and paused to appreciate the buxom round globes of her breasts that surged against her bodice.
“As ye wish, my Highland beauty.”
Returning his consuming gaze to her eyes, his eyes remained fixed and burning down into her fluttering chest as his lips moved to her neck, nuzzling her skin, chasing away the chill in the air with the heat that radiated off him. He was like a continually burning fire, savoring the taste of her body as if he had never tasted anything so perfectly heavenly before.
She shuddered at his touch, at his gaze, at the sheer everything that was Sawny.
Her mind, her body, her heart, all of her, was his. And he knew it. And he returned all that was himself and more.
