“I am.” He slid his finger along her jaw, his gaze on her mouth. “Ever since I met ye, my ideas of what I wanted out of life, who I wanted to be…have been questioned.”
“Not by me.”
“Nay, by myself.” He curled a tendril of her hair around his finger. “Change is no’ always easy for me.”
“For anyone.”
“And yet, I find myself desiring change.”
“Like what?” She stepped a little closer, her knees brushing his.
“Like maybe I dinna need to be wandering around Scotland searching, when what I want, what I have, is right in front of me, and right across the sea.”
Rhiannon swallowed. She was right in front of him. His holding was across the sea. Did that mean he wanted her too? That he would take her back to his holding and…they would… Or was it simply that he had what he wanted in his holding, and that was what was right before him? Perhaps his words had nothing to do with her. And she hated that her mind was starting to question whether or not she’d made a mistake in broaching the topic.
“I canna claim ye, lass. No’ until we’ve reached the castle and ye’ve had a chance to see your cousin.”
He stopped abruptly, and she wondered if what he might have said was not until she came to her senses.
But all she heard over and over again in her mind was: claim her, claim her, claim her.
“You can kiss me without claiming me.”
“I dinna know that I can.” His gaze settled on her mouth, and she wondered if he was thinking about kissing her right then and there. She hoped he was. “And yet, I feel as if I already did. That by kissing ye, touching ye, I have already taken something that wasn’t meant for me.”
“You did not take anything, it was freely given.” Rhiannon wanted to lean up on her tiptoes, to kiss him again and show him that it was her choice, that he wasn’t some marauder of maidens or whatever such nonsense might be going through his head. “And I assure you, I am asking and willing to give.”
Ian groaned, his forehead resting on hers, their breaths mingling, and still he held back. Rhiannon wanted to rush forward, to make this kiss happen, but the internal struggle he was wrestling with wasn’t one she wanted to push him through. He was resisting her for his moral reasons, and if she were to shove those aside, to force him to do something he wasn’t sure he should, then it would be her disrespecting his wishes.
And so, she stood there, holding him as he held her, his hand laid over hers at his chest where she could feel the erratic beat of his heart, and waited.
Gooseflesh prickled her skin. She bit the inside of her cheek. She tried to quell the pounding of her heart, but it seemed the more they stood there, the more they didn’t move, the anticipation of what might or might not happen next grew tenfold, a thousandfold until she couldn’t breathe properly.
When enough heartbeats had passed that she was certain he’d changed his mind and would step away and tell her they had to wait, Ian pressed his warm mouth desperately to hers. Claiming her in the press of his lips on hers.
The battle inside him must have been lost. But somehow, for her, it felt very much like winning.
13
This was a losing battle from the start.
A battle he was doomed to lose, and yet when he pressed his mouth to hers, he didn’t feel as if he’d lost, but instead as if he’d been able to claim a victory. Ian felt he’d been fighting uphill from the moment he’d seen Rhiannon.
Rhiannon wrapped her arms around his shoulders, kissing him hard, and with equal fervor he paid her. Her body molded to his, and he held her close, stroking her back, her ribs, and then he risked cupping her breast. Waited for her to swat him away.
But she didn’t. Instead, Rhiannon arched her back and moaned as if that were the one thing she’d been waiting for.
Ian was torn between what he thought was right and what he wanted. He desperately wanted her; he had never felt this way about a woman. It might be love, but his brother would never forgive him if he finished what his body desired, what Rhiannon had asked for.
More than that, what if he offered for her hand, and after a time in Orkney, the urge to disappear again reared its head? A life with him was not guaranteed. How could he do that to her?
Ian stilled his kissing, his chest heaving with his breaths and his nostrils flared as he met her gaze.
“What is holding you back?” she asked, the words whispered against his mouth. “You can tell me. I’ll offer no judgment.”
Her words, the moment, disarmed him enough that he felt he could say exactly what he was feeling. “I want ye, lass, but more than just to slake my need.”
She nodded, encouraging him to go on.
