From the very beginning she’d felt he was far too dangerous for peace of mind. Far too dangerous to her heart. Oh, Lord, who did she fool?
She’d surrendered to Alec McBride from the very first time she’d laid eyes on him at the masquerade, garbed as a pirate.
He’d stolen her heart.
Captured her, body and soul.
She couldn’t love him. She didn’t dare. He’d scoffed at the existence of the Circle. Aye, he had helped her search, but it wasn’t because he believed…Yet if she didn’t find it, he would die.
He woulddie.
She couldn’t bear to lose him. She couldn’t bear to think he might suffer a long, painful death as his father had.
And he would, if she didn’t find the Circle of Light.
It was but one more curse—her own curse to bear.
Thus were her thoughts when Alec found her.
He stretched out beside her. “Spinning daydreams?” he murmured.
Maura gazed up into the sky. Gazed up at him.
He traced the crease between her brows.
“What troubles you, Irish?”
Her eyes filled with tears. She shook her head, her throat clogged with emotion.
“I think you need a sprinkling of fairy dust.” He clapped his hands and waggled his fingers.
The sound Maura made was half laugh, half sob. His eyes were so pure and blue, filled with tiny silver lights, his expression so tender everything inside her knotted. Her fingers came up, grazing the hollow of his cheek, a wordless caress.
He gave a mock sigh. “I lack your finesse, don’t I?”
With a cry, Maura clutched at him, burying her face against the column of his neck. “Alec,” she choked out. “Oh, Alec.”
All Alec could do was hold her. Her expression cut him to the quick. It was as if she was bruised inside. And in the sound of his name, he heard the anguish in her soul.
His arms tightened. He gathered her against him. She clung to him, as if her heart were breaking.
While his was cleaved in two. He couldn’t keep her here. But her course was already set. How, he wondered, could he ever let her go?
Chapter Twenty
They lay there for a long time, Alec watching the sun spill through the treetops, while Maura snuggled against his side, reluctant to release the shelter of his arms.
But it was impossible for either of them to ignore the way they lay together for long. Indeed, it seemed they both became aware of it at the same moment.
Maura’s head was tucked beneath his chin. Her fist rested on his shirt, just above the buttons of his trousers. Holding her breath, she wondered what would happen if she extended her fingertips down just a wee bit—
She jumped as his rod leapt beneath her hand.
Alec’s laugh was low and full. “What can I say, Irish? You stir me”—his smile was decidedly wicked—“to great length.”
“Oh! You needn’t boast, Scotsman.”
He noticed that her hand had returned, however, stirring him to even greater length.
