“Finley!” She heard his footsteps behind her, running down the path.
“Go away, Lachlan!”
He grabbed her arm and turned her on the path, and Finley lashed out with her other hand, striking his bare skin with a loud smack. But it didn’t deter him. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. She struggled, but it was as if her tears had made her weak, and when he did not relent, she surrendered to the feel of him, the smell of him. Oh, how she had missed his face, his voice, the touch of his hands.
But the way he was touching her now, it wasn’t like before he’d left. This was insistent, urgent. His hand went to her breast; he lifted her against him.
“I love you,” he said against her mouth. “I loved you the day after we were married, only I was too stubborn and prideful to admit it.”
“Did they throw you out again?” she asked, her voice cool even as she clung to the warmth of him.
“What?” he asked, and then laughed. But then he framed her face in his palms, leaned his head near hers, and looked into her eyes. “I left on my own. Because I’d rather live a hundred lifetimes in the old house alone, as Geordie did, if I canna spend the rest of my life with you. You are the very beating of the heart inside my chest, and I have longed for you as the restless sea longs to retire upon the shore.”
She pulled away and glared at him with all the distrust she felt, even though his romantic speech had caused her chin to flinch, her throat to constrict. “You’re so sure I’ll have you, is that it? After you humiliated me?”
“I’m not sure at all you’ll have me,” he said. “And I didn’t humiliate you. I humiliated myself. I have done nothing but show everyone who’s ever known me what an idiot I am. You—Finley, you’re everyone’s darling; their hero. Surely you know that.”
“They want to send me to Edinburgh,” she admitted. “To make a match.”
He shook his head, pulling her to him once more with a frown. “Nay. Doona go. You canna go. Not if you love me.” He kissed her again. “Say it.”
“We’re friends,” she said, turning her head.
He stooped and scooped her into his arms and walked toward the house.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, although she hooked her arm around his neck. Just so she wouldn’t fall, she told herself.
“Taking you inside to bed you, so you have to marry me again,” he said. “Door.”
Finley reached down and disengaged the latch.
He stepped inside and kicked the door closed, and the room was dark. He walked toward the back of the house, stubbed his toe on a chair that had been moved since last he was in the house, and cursed. Turned her sideways to enter the bedchamber and then laid her on the single bed that now occupied the room. She put up no resistance when Lachlan loosened her shawl and the ties of her apron and slid them from her. Finley watched him in the gloom as he bent to address his boots, stepped from them, and then knelt on the bed.
He pushed her gown up to her hips, then up to her ribs, over her small breasts. He paused there, kissing each one in a leisurely fashion. Finley pulled her arms from the sleeves, and Lachlan lifted the gown from her head. She gave up all pretense, then, opening her legs to him as he reached down to his breeches. She wasn’t afraid of his body. In fact, the greatest fear she’d had these past weeks was that she would spend the rest of her life without feeling his body again.
He took her slowly at first stroke, and it was just right for her. He was careful, gentle, until she had become ready for him, and then Lachlan worked his body atop hers, timed his strokes, his rocking, until Finley was panting beneath him.
“That’s it,” he encouraged. He drove into her in a steady, increasing rhythm, and leaned his face close to hers to whisper in her ear. “I’m going to put a baby in you. My baby.”
Her peak took her by surprise, expanding her body and then collapsing the entire world to one pulsating point, and Lachlan stilled, his hips pushing his promised seed deep inside her.
After a moment, he rolled away from her, flopping onto his back. Finley curled into his side.
“I almost forgive you.”
“Good.” He pulled her close to him and rested his cheek on her head. “I love you. Do you love me?”
“I suppose.”
He gave her a squeeze. “Will you make me a bannock, then? I’ve nae had a proper meal in days.”
Finley shrieked in outrage and swiped the pillow from beneath his head to press it over his face. He tossed her off easily and pinned her to the mattress.
“Fine, fine!” he consented. “You win. I’ll bed you once more. But then I really must have something to eat.”
This went on for quite a happy while.
* * * *
