His arms guided her as they tumbled back down to earth onto her parents’ sleeping bench. She lay there, her body still singing, striving to think. There were no words for trust such as this. For bonding such as this.
Without words, she lay quiet. He touched her face, her neck, her collarbone.
“I am sorry.”
“Sorry?” she echoed, barely comprehending the word. “Why?”
“I spilled myself. On your belly.”
Had he? Indeed, she felt wet there, and warm.
He whispered, “I did no’ want to give ye my babe.”
Oh. Aye.The result of such an act, such joining. She experienced a rush of tenderness at the thought and touched his face in turn. “Did ye think I would no’ want your bairn?” She wanted every part of him.
“I thought, given our situation, ’twould not be wise.”
Their situation. She crashed down to earth far harder than before.
“I do no’ care.”
“Ye should, Liadan. Ye must. This is not meant to be.”
“There could be naught more meant to be than ye and me together, Ardahl. There could be naught more right than this.” Did he not feel that? She’d just given herself to him. Her life and her being. All that she was.
Should she tell him she loved him? Nay, love did not even touch what she felt.
“Bonny lass, beautiful girl,” he crooned, “ye must see ’tis impossible.”
“It canna be impossible. For I am here and so are ye. ’Tis the gods have sent us this, Ardahl. Amid all the loss and the pain and the ugliness.”
He buried his face in her neck and held on tight.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Rain pounded onthe roof of the hut, no harder than Ardahl’s own heartbeat. He should arise from the sleeping bench and leave. Some madness had come into his head, and it lingered there yet, though a few strands of sense still threaded their way through.
Enough to assure he’d withdrawn from the warm haven of Liadan’s body before he gave her what he should not. Enough to know he could not hurt or harm her in any way.
He should remove his weight from her now. Young and tender, bearing the wounds got during the attack, she was not accustomed to accommodating him.
She might well want him gone.
Yet he remained where he was with his face buried in her neck, breathing her scent, groping for those strands of good sense. He felt changed by what had just happened.
Everything had changed.
Who would have thought it? Conall’s wee sister. But out of a terrible darkness had come a precious flame.
Surely he might warm himself at it for a few blessed moments before tearing himself away.
“Ardahl.” He liked the way she spoke his name. It echoed through him like a song, an ancient and beautiful one. He liked the scent of her and even more the way she tasted. He liked the feel of her when he was inside, the way she gripped him with her whole being.
She had begged for him inside.
Nay, he could not move away from her just yet.
Did her arms not clutch at him? Hold him tight? Her palms ran over his back as if she would memorize the feel of him. She did not seem to mind that he had spilled himself on her skin.
