Page 76 of Taken By the Savage Highlander

“I already trust ye enough for all of them,” he said fiercely, the words vibrating into her very bones. “But they already trust ye. They have already accepted ye as their Lady. There is nothin’ ye have to do to win them over. They have already been won.”

“Then I want to serve them,” Margo said, her conviction unwavering. “I am proud to be a MacLeod, and I know that my mother would be pleased to see her family’s lands in your hands.”

Cameron pulled back, his eyes scanning her face as though he were memorizing her face in this moment. When he finally broke the silence, his voice was low and warm. “Ye are the light in me gray life, Margo. I love ye, and I have never been more certain of anythin’ before. I would want ye even if it werenae for the inheritance. There is nae one else I would wish to be me partner in rebuildin’ the clan. Me life is better with ye in it.”

She laughed, feeling every bit of tension leave her limbs. She did not find what he said funny in the slightest, but there was something freeing about her hearing those words. The giggles, a gentle sound against the crackle of the fire beside them, were her way of releasing the energy.

“I feel the exact same way about you,” Margo said, grinning like a fool. “You saved me, Cameron. I love you, too. With every bone in my body.”

He huffed, a tiny smile gracing his lips before he shoved it down immediately. Placing his hands on his knee, he pushed himself back to full height. His eyes swept over the room, setting on the bed. Crossing the room in a few quick strides, he pulled off the comforter and shook it out. She watched the way his muscles shifted with rapt attention, her mouth going a little dry for reasons she did not fully comprehend right there and then.

“I amnae sure how long it will take for us to get everythin’ sorted,” he said, turning back to her, his gaze protective, possessive. “Ye should rest while we do. I will wake ye when we are ready to leave.”

Margo understood the deflection. He was needed elsewhere, she was sure of it. But the conversation they were dancing around was much too big to be had when they were in a foreign place and there was work to be done. The bed too was, she had to admit, enticing.

If she ignored the layer of dust over the pillows.

“Thank you, Cameron,” she said, approaching the bed. Her gratitude was for more than this gesture, and she could tell he understood it.

“I will do me best to take care of things quickly,” he promised, waiting for Margo to perch herself on the edge of the bed before he turned and left the room.

When he reached the threshold, he paused. His eyes met Margo’s, and she heard his unspoken promise. As he left, her heartbeat settled, falling into a rhythm of safety.

I will never be able to thank you enough.

“Ye’re comfortable, aye?” Cameron asked, looking into the carriage where Margo was settled, a fur already over her lap. “If ye need anythin’, I’m sure that we can find it inside.”

“I am quite comfortable,” she confirmed, blinking away the last bits of sleep from her eyes. “And this was not even the roomiest carriage in the fleet.”

“Aye, I’m impressed,” Cameron said, climbing in with her and pulling the door closed behind him. He had ensured there would be no stalling their departure before awakening Margo. “We will have to make a trip to all the lands. Now that we have proper maps of the territory, I am quite certain there will be more to discover.”

She hummed, sitting up straighter, seeming to stretch the stiffness from her spine. When she relaxed once more, she leaned against him, her thigh a solid line of warmth against his. The dying moonlight caught her long lashes, making them fan against her cheeks in a way so enticing he nearly kissed her again. The only thing stopping him was the way the carriage jerked when they began the relatively short journey back to the MacLeod lands.

“I never got the chance to thank you for dancing with me,” she said, her voice velvety in the soft silence. “I was not expecting you to do so.”

“Of course I did,” he muttered, his words quiet and almost awkward. He was building up to telling her the last pieces of his seeming indecisiveness. “Ye are me wife, and ye were the most bonnie lass in the entire Hall. Only a fool would have left ye to stand along the wall the whole night. One of me regrets is that I dinnae come to dance with ye sooner.”

“One of them?” she whispered, glancing up at him through her eyelashes.

Her curiosity was clear, but it was tempered by something else. There was a sort of trepidation there. She understood there were memories in his past he had not yet shared, but she was ready to listen to them all. Margo was not afraid of him. It seemed that she welcomed the dark parts of him, that she wanted to shine a light on the bits that lived in the shadows.

“I have never feared me desire for ye,” he said, starting with the easiest truth. He cleared his throat, his hands tightening into fists on his thighs as he forced himself to hold her gaze. “I think that somewhere deep inside, I kent that wantin’ ye made me stronger. What frightened me was becomin’ the kind of man that would hurt the woman I loved. I saw me father drive women to the end of their lives. I vowed to meself I wouldnae turn out like him.”

His hand found Margo’s, threading their fingers together over her knee. It felt as though their bodies were made for one another. She leaned in closer, their sides flushing against each other.

“Me desire for ye is so… vast that I felt meself tryin’ to control ye to keep ye safe,” he admitted. Each syllable took a considerable amount of strength to deliver, coming out strained and stilted. Still, the way her entire body seemed to glow with the spark of his truth made him continue. “So, I stayed away and tried to admire ye from afar. But it seems I just cannae stay away from ye.”

She hummed, the sound accepting, contemplative. As he began rubbing the length of her thumb with his own, she said, “I think that you have failed to see that you are unlike any other man alive. Or, at least, you are unlike any other that I have met.”

A fond scoff left his lips before he could stop it. It did not seem to disturb Margo, though. She tilted her head just so, unabashedly studying him.

“Under your brutishness and your cold armor, you are the most caring man I have ever met,” she said, barreling right through the image of himself that he had always seen in his mind. “Your touch is the most gentle and kind that I have ever felt.”

The picture of him that she painted was so vivid that Cameron felt he did not have a choice but to believe it. For the first time since his mother’s death and his sister’s tragedy, he felt he did not have to restrain himself. He could have Margo, all of her, and she would not break. In fact, she thought she was better because of his affections, not worse.

She seemed to draw him in again, her body inviting him closer without words. Unbidden, his eyes dropped down to her lips for a fraction of a second. Meeting her eyes again, he saw nothing but fondness and amusement and, now that he knew what he was looking for, love.

“Me touch is only gentle and kind because it is ye that I am touchin’,” he said, his voice low and raspy, weaving through the creak of the carriage as it ambled steadily down the rocky path. He swayed closer to her, their lips brushing together for the briefest of moments.