“I’ve never heard such a sad story, Robbie. Does it have a happy ending?”
She lifted her hand and laid it on his chest, and he felt his heartbeat speed up under her touch.
“For some it does. Every once in a great while, two struggling souls will find one another, repairing a tiny piece of the damage that was done, returning a sliver of harmony to both worlds.”
“That’s a lovely tale,” she breathed, turning her face toward his. “What was it about this night that brought that story to yer memory?”
He’d swear the moonlight pooled in her eyes, flowing out to set her entire body aglow—she was that beautiful to him.
“You,” he whispered. “Standing there with yer hair wisping about in the breeze. And now, with you in my arms, it’s as though the story is fact. You feel that right to me when I hold you.”
She lifted her hand again, this time to trace her fingers down his cheek, and he felt his body tremble under her touch.
He lowered his lips to hers, swearing to himself he would kiss her once and nothing more. Knowing, even as he thought it, the oath was a falsehood he had no intention of keeping.
Her hand glided to the back of his neck, her fingers tangling in his hair as she leaned into him, deepening the kiss as if she were as desperate for his touch as he was for hers.
When she pulled away from him, her rapid panting echoing his own as her fingers flew to the ties on her shift, clumsy in their haste.
The ties were of no importance to Robert.
He grasped her shoulders, guiding her to her back, shoving her skirts up as he covered her with his body. His plaid slid up as he pushed himself in between her legs and she moaned, threading her arms around his neck as she drew his head down for another kiss.
Skin to skin, her body called to him in a primal way. In the space of a heartbeat, the need he’d felt building turned to frenzy, and he drove into her heat, not stopping until he’d buried himself deep inside her welcoming folds.
He had to get hold of himself or this would be over before it had even begun.
“Sorry. Trying to... slow down.” He forced the words through gritted teeth, dropping his head to her shoulder.
Another of her sexy little moans and he felt his tenuous grasp on control slipping.
“Again,” she panted, tilting her pelvis and pushing against him.
The thread of reason snapped.
Grasping her hips within his hands, he withdrew and drove back into her, reveling in his power as she demanded more. Again and again, he plunged into her, until her hips bucked up and the contractions of her orgasm drew him into his own mind-numbing release.
He pushed his weight off to one side, unwilling to separate their bodies for several minutes.
When at last his breathing had returned to normal, he looked down at her smiling face, her eyes closed, and he brushed a tangled curl from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear.
“That was even better than the last time,” she murmured.
The laughter he felt building in his chest would not be denied.
With one arm under Isa’s shoulders and another under her knees, he rose to his feet and carried her back to the cottage and through the open door.
Inside, he set her on her feet, tugging his shirt off over his head as she scrambled out of her overdress and shift. His hand froze on his plaid, forgetting what his brain had ordered it to do as he took in the sight of her standing there, her curves bared for his pleasure.
“Yer the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
The words were pulled from deep inside as Isa stepped forward, pushing his hand from the waist of his plaid and unwrapping it for him.
Once again, he lifted her into his arms, ignoring the tearing burn in his side. Stopping at the bed, he stared down into her radiant face.
Her hand covered the Mark of the Guardian on his arm, and his skin felt sensitized to her touch as if all the energy in his body gathered in that one spot.
“The story you told out there, Robbie, the Faerie story? When I’m with you, I can almost believe it. And if it were to be truth? I’d wish to have you as the missing piece of myself. You and normal life to complete my soul.”
