Page 41 of The Highland Ghost’s Virgin

"I find it convenient enough."

"Ye've kent me a matter of weeks. Ask me again in a year."

"I intend to." She said it lightly, though something in it landed with more weight than the tone suggested, and neither of them addressed it further, the track leveling out now as the castle gate came into view ahead, dark stone against a sky gone the deep blue-grey of full dusk.

They walked the last stretch in a silence that didn't feel like the absence of conversation so much as the natural end of it, the kind of quiet two people fall into once they've said enough for one afternoon and don't feel the need to fill the rest of it with more.

At the gate, Grisselle stopped to hand her horse's reins to the boy who came out to take them, and a loose strand of her hair, worked free by the wind on the climb up, fell across her cheek.

Alpin reached out and tucked it back behind her ear before he could stop himself, his knuckles grazing the curve of her jaw on the way.

She went still under his hand.

Neither of them moved to go in.

His hand stayed where it was, at her jaw, and she didn't pull away from it, though she didn't lean into it either, the two of them caught in some unspoken argument about who would move first and lose.

"You should let go of my face," Grisselle said, not moving.

"Aye. I should."

He didn't. His thumb traced once along her cheekbone, slow, testing, and her breath caught loud enough that he heard it over the wind working at the gate torches.

"Alpin."

"Aye."

"If you're not going to kiss me, you should stop looking at me like that."

"And if I am?"

"Then you're taking a remarkably long time about it."

His mouth twitched, and he stepped in closer, close enough now that she had to tip her head back to hold his eyes, close enough that she could feel the heat coming off him in the cold. Her hand came up and closed around the front of his shirt, not pulling him in, not yet, just holding on, an anchor against whatever she was about to do.

"Last chance to change yer mind," he said, low.

"I rarely change my mind once it is set," she murmured, her fingers tightening softly around the heavy wool of his shirt, tugging him an inch closer until the heat between them was unmistakable. "Though you seem intent on taking your time."

Alpin didn't step back. His hand moved slowly up her side, his heavy palm resting firm against the curve of her waist, locking her in place. He leaned down until his mouth hovered just beside her ear, his low, gravelly voice sending a sudden shiver down her spine.

"Careful, lass," Alpin growled softly, his thumb tracing a slow, deliberate circle against her hip through her tartan. "Daenae poke the beast unless ye intend to deal with what comes out of the cage."

Grisselle’s breath hitched in her throat, her dark eyes flashing up to meet his as the banter melted instantly into thick, heavy heat.

The last of the light was failing fast behind them, the gate torches not yet lit, the stable boy already gone back inside with the horses, leaving the two of them alone in the deepening dark of the courtyard.

Grisselle turned her face toward him, slow, deliberate, nothing accidental in the movement at all, and Alpin closed the last of the distance between them and kissed her.

It wasn't like the East Tower, all urgency and retreat before either of them had decided anything. It wasn't like the beach, either, all crashing tide and desperation neither of them had meant to reach for.

This was slower. Chosen.

His hand stayed where it had settled at her jaw, his heavy, calloused, roughened thumb tracing once along her cheekbone before brushing over the warm curve of her bottom lip.

Alpin cupped the nape of her neck, his broad fingers tangling into the soft dark curls at her hairline, tilting her face up to his. He kissed her.

His mouth pressed deep and firm over hers, coaxing her lips apart with a low, gravelly hum in his chest. Grisselle’s breath caught, a soft gasp slipping into his mouth as his free arm slid around her waist, pulling her flush against the hard wall of his chest. Through the heavy layers of wool, she could feel the steady, thumping beat of his heart against her ribs, the broad width of his back beneath her hands, and the sudden, fierce heat radiating from his skin into the cold mountain air.