Page 130 of The Laird’s Sinful Obsession

For a long moment, neither of them moved. The fire still crackled, the golden light painting their tangled limbs in warm hues.

Lachlann finally lifted his head, his gaze soft as he brushed a damp strand of hair from her forehead. “Me wife,” he murmured, his voice thick with satisfaction.

Alba smiled, her fingers tracing the strong line of his jaw. “Me husband,” she replied, her voice just as warm.

Lachlann rolled them onto their sides, keeping her tucked against him, his manhood still half-hard inside her. The fur beneath them was damp with sweat and other fluids, the scent of sex heavy in the air. But neither of them cared.

Alba pressed a soft kiss to his chest, right over his heart, and Lachlann tightened his arms around her, his lips finding her temple.

"We have tae show we consummated," he said. "Fer the record. So there's nay question later."

"I ken," she said.

"There should be blood. On the sheet. If anyone questions." He stopped, recalibrated. "I can make a small cut. On me arm. Enough to mark the linen so there's no ambiguity."

She looked at him.

Of course he had thought of that. Of course he had already moved three steps ahead to the moment when someone would question the validity of it and would demand proof.

"Aye," she said. "That makes sense."

His jaw tightened slightly. "This isnae how I would have wanted tae dae this. Any of this."

"I ken," she said. "But it's what we have."

He rose from the bed and crossed to his desk, retrieving the small knife he kept there for trimming quills. He made a shallow cut on the inside of his upper arm without ceremony, let it bleed for a moment onto the sheet beneath them, and then pressed the wound closed with a strip of linen.

Alba watched him from the bed, her heart still settling, and thought about the practicality of him. The way he moved through even that with the same unhurried competence, attending to the details that would matter later when the emotion of it had faded.

"Daes it hurt?" she asked.

"Nay." He glanced at her. "It's shallow. It'll close by mornin'."

She watched him tie off the bandage with the efficiency of someone who'd done it many times before. "Come here," she said.

He looked at her, surprised.

She patted the bed beside her, and after a moment he went, settling beside her with his back against the headboard. She leaned into him, and his arm came around her. Carefully at first, because of the cut, and then more firmly when he'd positioned it correctly.

They sat like that while the fire crackled and the castle around them slept and somewhere beyond the headland Torquil's ships waited.

Eventually, Alba felt her eyes growing heavy, felt sleep starting to pull at her. Lachlann's breathing had slowed and deepened beside her, and she thought he might have already drifted off.

She smiled against his shoulder and closed her eyes, and the last thing she was aware of before sleep took her was the warmth of the fire and the steady beat of his heart beneath her cheek.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

“Something is wrong.”

The bells woke him.

Lachlann awakened with the particular alertness of a man who had been half-expecting something and was not surprised to find it was happening.

The bells were not the slow measured toll of the morning call. They were faster, urgent, the rhythm reserved for emergencies.

He was out of the bed before he'd fully registered the decision.

Alba stirred beside him. "Lachlann?"