"Soft." Ciaran groaned, exploring her, teasing her, learning her secrets by touch. And she was shaken to the core by the wonder of his discovery. His first time. Hers.
"I never knew a woman was so soft and damp. I want to bury myself in that heat. In you."
"I'm your wife, Ciaran. I..." Love you, her heart confessed, but she dared not give voice to the words, words that might well wound this honorable man, make him desert her for fear he'd leave her heart bleeding when he walked away. "I... feel so empty, deep inside. I need you."
"You need to be ready—ready to take me inside you. There'll be pain the first time you lie with a man."
"I don't care. I need you too much."
"I wish I could take that pain for you."
They weren't idle words, Fallon knew, her heart full. This was a man who would suffer any anguish for those he loved, bear any burden, sacrifice with joy. It humbled her, made her love him all the more. She rose up, kissing the pale shadow of bruise just visible beneath the silky fringe of his hair.
A sheen of sweat glistened on his brow. His mouth contorted in pleasure as his fingers followed that satiny path down to where the wet wanting was centered. Gently, so gently, hand trembling, he eased his finger into her tight passage to open her, ready her for what was to come.
The joining. His body buried in the softness of her own, reaching deep, to the mouth of her womb.
"Hot," he breathed. "You're so hot and tight and damp with wanting."
"You. Only you."
"Passion. I saw it in your eyes from the first... craved it. I'm so damned lost now, Fallon." His eyes blazed with desire, glittered with a vulnerability that wrung her heart. "Find me."
She did. Her fingers curled delicately around the white-hot length of his shaft, guiding him to the portal of her woman's body. He hesitated, the blunt tip nudging the burning center of her. "Fallon, are you certain? I don't even know who I am. What I am."
"I know. You're my husband. My first lover. My only." She rolled her hips upward toward him, a silent plea, a reaching out of years of heartbreak, years of hope.
Then, with a low growl of surrender, Ciaran drove his shaft deep. She clenched her jaw against a cry of pain, but his mouth closed on hers, his kiss drowning it in thick, hot pleasure.
He was a warrior—from whatever time, whatever place, whatever magic had brought him here. A man fierce in his honor, his passions, his needs. She could feel the urgency to take, to conquer, the raw, physical power his instinct demanded that he unleash. But he held it in check, clinging to some fragment of gentleness for her.
"Fallon," he rasped, his arms trembling, holding most of his weight off her body. "Are you all right?"
Tears stung her eyes. How could she ever tell him how she felt? He filled her completely—her body, her heart, the aching places in her soul.
Not trusting herself to speak, she closed her eyes, and glided her legs about his hips, moving against him, drawing him deeper.
"Please, Ciaran," she begged. "Please..."
With a growl of eagerness, hunger, he thrust, setting a powerful rhythm that stirred her blood. It was the wild, sweet throbbing of Celtic dreams, of the bodhran, the battle drum from ancient days that now pounded out the beat of the dances where feet flew and spirits soared. It was the throbbing of the hearts of lovers whose passion was so great it spilled through the centuries. And she couldn't get enough of it, enough of his loving as it spun her deeper and deeper into a whirlwind of magic.
"Everything, Ciaran," she pleaded. "I want everything. All of you." She strained against him, her own hips meeting his in a desperate quest for fulfillment, her mouth nipping gently at his shoulders, his chest. By sheer accident, her tongue skimmed the hardened point of his flat male nipple, and she was stunned at the shudder of exquisite pleasure that racked him.
Remembering the pure heaven of his mouth suckling her breast, she fastened her lips about that small nub, nibbling at it, soothing it with her tongue.
A fierce cry tore from Ciaran's lips as he drove himself into her body harder, faster, as if he could split the hard shell she'd built around her heart, send it crumbling down like the battered walls of the castle he'd built beside the sea.
Something cinched tight, low in her belly, squeezing her in a vise of pleasure, of need, a questing for something that shimmered within the mist. Something she'd always sensed was there, if she had the courage to reach out, to take it. A searing ball of flame that might consume her.
But she didn't care as the wild creature within her rose up, eager to embrace it, no matter what the cost. She could feel her passion enveloping Ciaran as well, the elemental part of him rising to match all that was untamed in her.
"No," he ground out. "I don't want this to end. Don't want it ever to end." But they could no more slow the force between them than they could catch the mist in its flight across the hills.
Her fingers dug into the flexing muscles of his buttocks, urging, taking, giving. And then she shattered. She was drowning, rivers of molten silver rushing through her, carrying her to a place where heroes never died, where love burned eternal, where no one was ever lost or alone.
He thrust once more, as if he would embed himself in her soul. He flung back his head, the tangle of midnight hair glistening around features harsh with agony sweeter than any pleasure could ever be. Waves of fulfillment racked him, again and again, a guttural cry of ecstasy breaching his lips as he spilled his seed deep inside her.
Ciaran buried his face against her hair, fine tremors still echoing through his powerful body, his arms shaking as he clutched her tight.
