Page 62 of Hold Fast

Mo cridhe.His love. Her heart threaded to burst forth from her chest. He didn’t mean it. He couldn’t. But she relished the feel of his kiss on her forehead anyway.

“Can I ask you another question?” he whispered, the words formed against her skin.

She nodded.

“Do you feel safe with me?”

She nodded again, reaching up with a shaky hand and caressing his cheek. She touched his lips with her fingertips, smiling when he sucked in a breath.

“So stay. Stay in the keep. Stay with me. Let me keep you safe.”

CHAPTER24

Let me keep you safe.

Una tipped her chin up, their lips so close that she could feel Ewan’s breath fanning against her face. She brushed a stray lock of hair off his forehead, trailing her fingertips down his cheek.

The calluses of his thumbs scraped at her temples, catching the fine hairs there as his strong fingertips pressed into the back of her neck, but he didn’t come closer. Through the tumult of her thoughts and feelings, she realized that he was waiting for her to choose.

Una closed the distance and kissed him, her tongue licking hesitantly at the seam of his lips. A shudder wracked his body, and a low sound reverberated in his chest. She felt the echo of that sound in her own chest as his tongue rushed to meet hers.

She pressed her palms against the hard plane of his chest before gripping his shirt in her fists. His mouth broke from hers, and he kissed along her jaw to the sensitive place just below her ear. He nipped her earlobe before kissing down the column of her neck to the hollow at the base of her throat.

His unruly hair brushed against her chin, and Una sucked in a breath, inhaling the smell of him that she’d come to know so well. He kissed up the other side of her neck, pressing his lips to the corner of her jaw. Una sifted through his hair, and he moaned softly. With a strength that never failed to surprise her, he pulled her into his arms so that her knees straddled his broad thighs. She felt his erection beneath his plaid pressing hard against her center.

He kissed her languidly, a tangle of lips and teeth and tongues, as if he had all the time in the world. Perhaps they did. Or, perhaps, he simply kissed her as if it was the last thing he would do on this earth and, therefore, the only thing that truly mattered. Una felt like she was flying.

Ewan’s hands glided up and down her back beneath the plaid wrapped around her shoulders. One hand traveled lower and gripped her bottom, waiting. She shifted closer, grinding her center against his groin in a rhythm. His other hand roamed up from her hip to cup her breast. He rubbed her nipple with his callused thumb, and it tightened to an almost painful peak. He pinched it, and she groaned loudly into his mouth.

He kissed down her neck, his mouth leaving a scorching trail to the exposed expanse of her chest, stopping at the edge of her shift, which rested just barely above her nipples. Ewan pressed a hand against the middle of her back and drew her up and close, taking one of the straining buds into his mouth, sucking hard. The fabric of her shift between his mouth and her nipple increased the sensation tenfold as he flicked his tongue back and forth across the stiffened peak.

When Ewan drew back, the cool air of the chamber met the wet circle of her shift. She shivered and gasped. But then he closed his mouth over her other nipple, sucking even harder before taking the stiff point between gentle teeth. She found herself pulling on his hair, anchoring him to her. She rocked her hips, rubbing her core against his length, her body desperate for more.

“We can stop, Una,” he said, bringing his mouth back to hers and speaking the words against her lips. “I can take you back to your room.”

“Now?” she whined. “You want to stop now?”

“Ineverwant to stop, Una,” he said and kissed her hard. “Never. But I dinnae want to overwhelm you. I want you to want this. For yourself. Nae for me.”

He was rubbing his hands up and down her arms. His body was like a furnace beneath her. Like the bedrock of the keep. Hard and strong andsafe.

Una gripped fistfuls of his shirt in her hands, yanking on it until it came free from his belt. He grabbed the shirt behind his neck and, in one baffling movement, swept it over his head before stopping it on the floor.

She had undressed men before. Laird Cameron had enjoyed the subservience of her undressing him before he had his way with her. Just another means of showing her her place. Before that, in her work, she’d undressed dozens of men before treating wounds or assessing conditions. There had been a similar clinical capacity to both. When undressing Cameron, she had tried to touch his body as little as possible. She’d tried not to look. She’d tried to be quick and perfunctory because the sooner he was disrobed, the sooner he would be done and she could be away from him.

But there was nothing familiar about undressing Ewan. She wanted to touch him. She wanted to look her fill, to watch the firelight dance across his skin, the hair on his chest that tapered and blazed a trail that disappeared in the fabric of his plaid, still belted around his hips. She traced the hard muscles of his chest and stomach, smiling as they tensed under her touch.

“I willnae push you, Una,” he whispered, kissing her forehead.

She believed him, which made her feel wild. She knew that she could take this as far as she wanted and that, no matter what, if she told him to stop, he would stop. What would it be like? To be cared for like that? To be given pleasure instead of having it stolen from her? She couldn’t fathom, but if being with Ewan felt even half as good as being kissed by Ewan, she wanted to try.

With sure fingers, she fed the leather of his belt through the buckle until the belt fell away. She tossed it behind her, smiling at the satisfying thud it made as it hit the floor.

“Ewan?” she said, kissing the corner of his mouth and circling her hips slowly.

“Aye?” he croaked.

“I trust you.”