“Take me to our room.”
God above, she hadn’t just asked for more, had she? He would make her come all night if they stayed in the room that had been prepared for them.
“Please Egan. Take me.” She lay limp on the table.
As he stared at her, he saw sweetness rolled up and packed into a cake with a snickerdoodle on top. And that was him filtering out the cheesy stuff.
He fixed her straps and picked her up in his arms. He was about to take a chance, and he didn’t care who saw.
As it was, most of the men would be too drunk to notice a giant Scot carrying the magenta-clad woman up to his room. He slipped into his room unnoticed. Thankfully. Although truth be told he really didn’t care if anyone saw. He already knew his future was in his hands.
Egan laid his treasure on the bed in the room they were about to share.
“How do you feel, mo chridhe?”
“Mo hee-ya?”
Egan laughed. “Nevermind that. Are you alright?”
“I’m the best I’ve ever been. Except…” she looked up at him with the deepest brown eyes, and he knew instinctively that he would do anything she asked.
“Would you come lay beside me?”
Especially that. And oh, so much more.
“I never knew such pleasure existed,” Sofie stated quietly, as she cozied up into his arms. “It’s like I had been always searching for a cottage, and then I stumbled upon a castle in the air instead.”
Egan chuckled again. “Funny you should mention that. The castle at Dunbarshire, my home, is said to rest upon the clouds.”
Sofie’s body quivered with laughter against him. “Of course it does.” Her hand trailed along his chest and weaved up into his long hair, grasping it and tugging gently.
“What is this about?”
And somehow he knew exactly what she meant. She wanted to know him. She was asking him to open up and tell her who he was. And for the first time in his life, he wanted to share. He started with the truth that had labeled his life for as long as he could remember.
“I’m the strong one.”
“So I’ve seen. But you do know that strength isn’t about being physically strong. And it’s certainly not about being strong all the time. It’s about hitting rough patches and continuing on. ”
Egan was not convinced. Strength meant that he could protect those that he loved. He should be able to do that, at the very least. “I’ve always been the responsible one. Done the right thing. Competed and won. That’s who I am. People notice me. People can depend on me.” Egan’s heart was still restlessly moving about when it finally made its most important decision and said, “Until they can’t.”
“When can’t they?”
“When I take all the attention, people notice only me, and my father dies.”
“Tell me the whole story.”
So he did. He told her everything, including George’s role and guilt, and his mother’s resentment.
“Egan, look at me.” She pulled his face to hers. “There is no way your mother doesn’t love you the same, if not more, than before the accident. She is your mother. And if she raised a man like you, she must be a rather good one.”
“I can see the resentment in her eyes.”
“I would bet that what you see is sadness.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“It’s not the same thing, Egan. She is miserable about losing a husband that she loved. But she does not want to add a son that she loves to that list. Trust me.”
