“I’m working on that,” she said, trying to discern exactly how he felt about that and failing. “Does that bother ye?”
“No.” The one word was quiet but intense. “I like it.”
She frowned. “Ye sound awfully miserable for someone who likes how another acts.” The minute the words left her mouth, realization flooded her. “Ye do nae want to like how I am,” she whispered, catching her breath in anticipation and dread of his answer.
“It would make it easier if I didn’t really like you,” he admitted.
“Easier to cling to yer guilt?” she blurted.
He frowned now. “I’m not clinging, Deirdre. I can’t let go. You need to understand that.”
She nodded, thinking. “If we are to wed, how will we go on together?”
“Good question,” he replied, his gaze moving down her body slowly, and returning full of desire. Love was absent, but desire was there. She should be shocked, but instead, all her senses leaped to life at the promise of what might be between them physically.
He stepped toward her, swallowing the distance. His nearness was overwhelming. Their gazes locked as their breathing came in unison. “I can promise you desire.” His voice was husky, his scent one of wood, flame, and grass all swirled together. She couldn’t have formed words even if she wanted to, but she didn’t want to. Not yet. She wanted to hear what other hidden secrets might fall from his beautiful lips, what other promises he might make that would fill her mind and make her gut clench in anticipation.
They were close, so close that when he exhaled, his breath wafted over her like the gentlest caress. “I can promise you protection and loyalty.” The look he gave her was so galvanizing that she shuddered. “I can promise you wealth, if we return to my time, and family in both times. And desire and passion. They’re linked—the one precedes the other. Though I don’t think you need me to tell you that.”
Her cheeks burned, but she shook her head.
“What I cannot promise you,” he continued, his gaze turning regretful, “is that I’ll ever be able to give you more. Can you live with that?” He stared at her, waiting, making no attempt to hide the fact that he was watching her. He held no secrets from her in this moment so she would try to do the same.
“I think so.” Her heart thudded so noisily she was sure he must have heard it. “But I’ll nae be controlled by ye or any other. ’Tis been that way all my life, and I do nae wish to submit willingly to that again. Will ye vow to allow me my opinions, my freedom?”
“Yes.”
“Ye are sure?” She thought of what he’d confessed about what had drawn him to Amanda. She was sure that he had not even realized it fully until Deirdre had pointed it out. “Yer need for control is gone?”
She did not miss the pained look her question caused him, and she hated to make him uncomfortable but it had to be asked. A woman who was allowed freedom, who was allowed her own opinions, was a rare thing in her world.
He inhaled a long breath, then reached out, cupped her face, and held it gently. Her cheek tingled from the contact. “Yes. As a matter of fact, your independent streak turns me on.”
“What does that mean? ‘Turns me on’?”
A wicked gleam came into his eyes, and he offered a slightly predatory smile. “Let me show you.”
His arm encircled her, his hand on the small of her back, and he pulled her against him. He was hard, unyielding, overwhelmingly male. She was conscious of every bit of his warm flesh pressed against hers. He slid his hand from her cheek to the back of her neck, and his strong fingers threaded into her hair and splayed over the lower part of her head to cradle her. He tilted her face back, and before she had time to think, he was tracing his tongue across the crease of her mouth, and all rational thought fled. The gentle glide of his caress set her entire body to flame, and she pushed closer, wanting more, needing more.
A deep chuckle came from him as his arm around her grew snugger, and he angled her head back just a bit farther. “Open for me,” he murmured, his warm breath fanning her cheek.
She didn’t hesitate to comply, and his tongue slid into her to explore the recesses of her mouth. It was sinful. It was heavenly. The kiss was slow at first, thoughtful, teasing, drugging, and each touch of their tongues made her pulse leap higher, the flame consuming her grow hotter, the need that had sprung deep within her becoming stronger. Soon, his lips became more demanding, nipping gently, massaging hers, stoking the hunger within her until she found her hands sliding up his muscled arms to cling to him as her blood rushed through her.
His mouth left hers and she moaned her frustration, but then his lips came to her neck to trail a delicious, body-shivering path down to the edge of her bodice. He slipped his fingers under the material and traced them across the swell of the top of her breast, making her ache and wiggle. Knocking commenced at the door, irritating her to no end, and him, too, she suspected, by the way he growled.
He pressed a quick chaste kiss on her lips and then broke contact there while still holding her firmly by the shoulders. She could do no more than grin up at him, and he smiled down. “That’s what we call being ‘turned on.’”
“I like it verra much,” she said breathlessly. “I never want to be turned off.”
His eyes widened for a moment, then he laughed and ran the pad of his thumb across her lower lip, leaving it tingling in the wake of his touch. “I’ve always loved a challenge.”
Not long later, after Deirdre had bathed and was getting dressed for her wedding, a knock came at her bedchamber door. “Enter,” she called.
The door opened, and Shona came in holding a headpiece of white flowers. She held it up. “Would you allow me to dress your hair? I was always jealous of the moms who had daughters to dress and do their hair, and it seems today is my chance.”
Deirdre nodded and sat in a chair, glad that Shona had warmed to her. Shona approached, picked up Deirdre’s brush, and stood behind her. “I think you should leave your hair down and uncovered,” she said, turning her head toward the veil Maggie had brought her.
“And eschew the tradition of women who are wedding covering their hair?” Deirdre asked, not totally surprised since Shona did not plait her own hair or cover it, though her sister did.
