“There, now,” he murmured into her hair. Meaningless words. The scent of her engulfed him, made him dizzy with a thousand emotions.
At last she spoke. “I canna do this, Adair. I canna.”
Hope stirred inside him, victorious hope. Would she refuse the union? Could she? Impossible.
“He is a hard man, a vicious man, I do fear, and I like naught about him. He wants to take me awa’ from all I know, and ’tis a life sentence. He says I may no’ bring Wen with me because his hounds will savage him and—and I love ye.”
The words came at the end of a rushing breath of others, but stood out stark and bold.
She repeated them as if she could not prevent herself. “I love ye, Adair.”
“I love ye also, full well,” he whispered into her hair. “I swear by all that is holy, I do.”
“Och, Adair! How am I to leave ye to go off wi’ him? How am I to leave ye at all?”
A hard question, and a hard fate. A fortnight ago, Adair had not known she existed, nor she he. So swiftly had she become someone without whom he could not live.
“Bradana, is there any way Kendrick will change his mind? Allow ye to beg off from the marriage?
“He cannot. ’Twill break the alliance. Mican is no’ a man he would want as an enemy.”
“What if…” He shifted her against his shoulder, “What if I were to go to Kendrick? Offer him something else of value? A better bargain?”
“Such as what?”
“I will tell him if he breaks off the marriage agreement, I will return to Erin and convince Father he has no further claim here in Alba.”
“Would your father agree to that? Surrender his claim to his holdings here?”
“I do not know.” Adair would worry about that when he reached it. “I would persuade him.” He tightened his arms around her. “Ye would come awa’ wi’ me, to Erin.”
“Leave Alba?” she asked even as she had once before.
“Aye so, will ye no’ be leaving the settlement here anyway, if ye go awa’ with Earrach?” Yet she would still be in Alba, this land she so loved. He tipped her face up to his and whispered to her, “I will speak wi’ Kendrick in the morning.”
In answer, she kissed him.
No ordinary kiss, this. No mere press of lips against lips. For days, despite longing on both sides, it had been withheld. Now she reached for him blindly and clung with her whole being as they fused mouth to mouth.
It altered Adair’s world. Foolish it might seem to say so, yet he felt it happen, some unsatisfied longing in him leaping to the same longing in her, so that every other consideration fell away. His priorities were altered in the wink of an eye.
Soft lips trembled violently beneath his own. She parted them immediately for him, the better to allow the need to come rushing. Once again he felt he had done this before, even though he had not. All this time he’d been afraid to kiss her, because instinctively he’d understood what it would bring. If touching her had moved him, what must this do?
For she gave herself to him in this kiss, willingly and gracefully, she did. She wrapped herself around him, threw open the door to everything she was.
He flung himself through that doorway.His, she was, as surely as he belonged to her. He could kiss her forever, and so satisfy the longing.
“Adair.”
Did she speak his name aloud? That must mean she’d ended the kiss, for he had not. He could not.
She pushed him over so he tumbled back onto his bed with her atop him. She raised her head and looked into his eyes, and they gazed so for many long moments, staring down eternity.
“Let me try that once again,” he said.
This kiss went on so long, Adair risked losing track of time. Of reality. He lost control of both body and mind and came up hard for her. Aye, he’d known it would be thus. Better not touched, and yet who could resist this rush of heat and pleasure?
“Och, Adair. Adair, Adair…” She babbled it into his neck when that second kiss ended, sounding like a madwoman. “Listen to me.”
