Page 121 of Outlaw Ever After

She gripped his face, twisted his beard onto her finger as he rumbled his approval. How she loved toying with it, holding the lifeline.

It was Soul Mass. The night when the veil between worlds was thinnest. The night of their blessing and fate. The night that they could make this happen.

Hungrily she kissed him back as he relinquished her and fisted her tartan to keep her close. Felt his arousal, prime for joining as she wriggled with need against him—

“I canna hurt ye again,” he gruffed, ripping his lips from hers. His eyes closed. His guilt. “Will ye elope with me now? Curse the consequences and give yerself back to me? I nay want to cause ye pain or loss. I just-just want to give ye the world and live in it with ye.” He fought the words out on a snarl of guilt and desperation.

She nodded. This was all she’d ever wanted. “Aye .”

“Ye’re weakened, lass,” he reasoned, even as he untucked her tartan.

“I’m weel, man.”

“Ye collapsed,” he resisted, his forehead digging harder. “I have no right—”

“Nay treat me like a wounded butterfly,” she begged. Pulling back as her eyes watered. “Please, j-just, make me feel beautiful again.”

His knuckles traced down her skin as he chewed his cheek. Then he released her tartan, shucking it down her arms. His hands roved down her body, pulled loose her lacings, dragged up her bodice and peeled it off her breasts.

She fumbled open his belt, letting the thick leather laden with sheaths thud to the earth as his gray-blue kilt pooled at their feet and snaked off his shoulder. He lifted her into his arms to swipe the discarded garments away with his boot.

She tugged at his doublet, fighting it down his shoulders as he flicked his arms to free it. Fought her chemise up.

His manhood was warm and heavy with need, wedged against her. His thighs, skin to skin, caged her in. His boot came between her ankles, nudging her legs wider.

She gasped into his mouth but he swallowed it down on a primal growl of satisfaction.

So savage. He wasn’t the patient, gentle lover she’d first known.

He was desperate.

The months had been hard on them both. But together they could weather this storm. His palms gripped her rear.

“Up,” he commanded hoarsely as her heart raced, as her breath came out in whimpers and she offered her tongue and lips to him.

He hoisted her legs around him as he palmed her rear, splaying her apart, aligned himself, and plunged home.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Christ but he was so frustrated with need he couldn’t slow. Undulating into her as she cried her need and clung to him, heaven and torture churned together, begging to be bloody sated yet wishing he could slow down, savor.

When ye meet the right woman, whose soul is part of yers, she ruins ye…

Niall’s words of wisdom pulsed through his mind. Here, in this old cottage, he could put to rest the ghosts he’d been chasing his whole life. Here, in this cottage, she could seek refuge from a past that haunted her. She would belong to a man who cherished her instead of used her, as MacGregor intended.

She accepted him, even if he ended up with naught to his name on the morrow. He accepted her, whose music had won over his people, even if he could never regain his birthright. The mother of his bairns, God willing, but if not, he’d be here to hold her this time, to grieve with her.

Her sweet tongue was earnest. He hissed as she wriggled. Blessed torture. Seamus was going to be bloody furious.

He yanked lose the neck of her chemise to free her breasts when a chain tangled in his fingers… Her necklace. His ring.

He plunged in union as he dragged it over her head and slipped it off the chain and onto her finger.

She tore her swollen lips away from his. Looked to her hand to see his promise glinting in the streak of the moon’s harvest light.

“Never take it off again,” he commanded as he delved back in for another helping of her mouth.

Her eyes misted. “Yer promise,” she mashed between kisses, pulling up on a gasp. “I’m sorry I nay trusted, nay believed…”