“Promise you will finish talking to me, and I will lower my arm. I know I’m crowding you. I’m doing it to keep our voices from carrying, but I’m also doing it to keep you here. I loathe making you feel trapped. I just don’t trust you.”
“You are doing all the talking and assuming I wish to do all the listening. I don’t.”
Their fury as they glared at one another sparked another elemental emotion. Neither knew who moved first, but their mouths crashed together. Elene’s hands cupped Liam’s jaw as his right arm snaked around her waist, and his left hand grasped her bottom. She reached between them with an irritable grunt as she tried to push Liam’s sporran out of the way. He pressed his hips back until it shifted, then thrust them forward. Elene’s moan encouraged him to rock his rod against her mound. The hand that moved his sporran now grasped his buttocks. She marveled at the granite beneath her hand.
Their anger eased, but fear still thrummed through them both, pouring forth as lust. It was a need for Liam to know Elene was safe, and a need for her to know Liam could keep her safe. Their kiss stretched across minutes as their pelvises moved together, thrusting against one another. Liam gathered a handful of Elene’s skirts and lifted, but he paused, giving her a chance to reject him. Instead, she fumbled and covered his hand with hers, drawing it higher until his bare palm cupped her bottom. She reached around him, yanking his plaid until her hand met his muscular buttocks.
Their frustration lay not only in being unable to press themselves closer, but in knowing the situation remained unresolved. However, neither had the words, or even the thoughts, to offer a solution. Rather, their need for one another combusted. Neither wanted to argue. Neither wanted the other to walk away. With no other way to communicate their swirling emotions, obliging their physical desire felt like the only option.
Liam drew his mouth away first before he nuzzled his nose behind her ear, smelling her fresh lavender scent. “I want to be inside you. I want to make love to you.” Liam would sort out later why he’d said that, since he’d considered none of his previous interludes as lovemaking. “But I want to keep you safe. God, what if someone else found you?”
Liam returned his mouth to hers, their kiss once more exploding. Elene heard the desperation and fear in Liam’s voice. It shook with his last sentence. She sensed it through his anger, but the catch in his voice made her realize the depth of his worry. It softened her anger. The tone of their kiss shifted, no longer a duel to dominate. It eased, becoming tender, filled with longing.
Elene drew away, brushing her cheek against Liam’s bristly stubble. He hadn’t shaved that morning. She kept her voice low, her warm breath sending an erotic shiver down Liam’s spine. “I didn’t think anyone could keep me safe but me. You didn’t offer a solution. I didn’t even know if you’d be back in time to offer one if you thought of it. I can’t get on that dragon boat. If I do, I will never be free.”
Liam’s hand slid over Elene’s hip until the side of his index finger slipped along her folds. It was Elene’s turn to shiver. She widened her stance, inviting him to explore more. He dipped the tip of his finger between her petals, discovering her barrier. Part of him wanted to groan in disappointment that she was a maiden. He’d never considered she wouldn’t be a virgin, but it felt monumentally inconvenient at the moment. He couldn’t take what wasn’t his to have, but he wanted to join their bodies more than he wanted his next breath. His thumb sought the pearl within its shell. Aroused and plumb, he circled it, eliciting a moan, and Elene’s fingers bit into his backside.
“This solves naught. I know that,” Liam murmured. “Not now and not once we stop. But I don’t want to let go. I don’t know if I ever want to let go. I need this. I need to know I can keep you safe right now, and I can give you pleasure amid this uncertainty.”
“God, how I crave your touch. My body won’t turn you away, but neither will my mind. I feel safe right now. I only feel safe when I’m with you. And the pleasure.” Elene moaned as her core tightened, and she felt her release building. “It’s unlike aught I could ever bring myself, even when I imagine it’s you.”
“You picture me when you touch yourself?” It was the most erotic notion Liam had ever heard.
“Yes,” Elene moaned as her climax crested over her.
“I’ve thought of you every time I wrap my hand around my cock, every time I’ve wished it was your hand or your cunny.”
Elene dug her nails into Liam’s shoulders, which she now gripped to keep her steady. The thought that he desired her so strongly only increased the effects of his ongoing ministrations. A second release washed over her, making her knees shake. Liam’s powerful arm around her waist was all that kept her from sagging to the ground, her body spent. As her mind cleared, she felt Liam’s arousal still pressing against her. She moved to slide her hand beneath hisbreacan feile,but Liam grasped her hand. He shook his head.
“It might kill me to turn you down, but this wasn’t about me or for me.”
“I want this to be about us. I want to give you what you just gave me. You’re always giving. Why can’t you just take for once?”
“Because I never want you to question whether I’m with you just to get what I want.”
Elene blinked several times, unsure how to respond at first. “I never thought that you were. That doubt never dawned on me. Why must you make me care for you even more when you said yourself that there’s no solution to this?”
Liam released Elene’s skirts and placed both hands on his waist, taking one step back. They needed to talk, not argue. And he wanted it to be a conversation between equals, not one where he imposed upon her.
“My anger—it was fear, and it was hurt. It shocked me to find you there, but you’d hidden. You hadn’t trusted me. You hadn’t sought my help. You put me in a position where I wouldn’t have been able to shield you if someone found you. I don’t know.” Liam shook his head. “It felt like you lied and betrayed me, used me. And it felt like I was a failure because you didn’t believe I could help.”
“I didn’t think anyone could help me. It wasn’t that I didn’t think you would try. I just didn’t think there was aught to do other than run away. You leaving Skaill, leaving the island, seemed like my only chance. I didn’t ask you because I didn’t want to face you turning me away. I didn’t ask because I didn’t want to put you in a situation where you would have to turn me down. I didn’t want to make you feel trapped into helping. But I also knew it was too dangerous to set off on my own and too dangerous to trust anyone else. I trust you completely. I knew if you found me—” Elene’s gaze flashed to the ceiling, “—when you found me, I would put you in a horrible position, but I wouldn’t be in peril.”
“But you are. You can’t go back. You can’t stay here. I’ve been in here with you for so long I’m shocked no one has come searching.”
“If you can get me to Mainland, then I can figure something out. I’ll say I’m a widow and couldn’t manage my farm. Or I’ll make my way to Scotland. I can speak Scots well enough, so I could go to the Lowlands.”
“Do you have money for all this?”
Elene nodded. She touched the side of her gown Liam hadn’t felt. He heard coins shift. “I’ve been saving every bit I can since shortly after I met Gunter.”
Liam didn’t care for either of those ideas, but he didn’t have a better long-term solution. He chided himself because he knew that wasn’t true. He knew what the solution was. He could marry Elene and bring her back to Castle Varrich with him. But he didn’t want a marriage borne of convenience. His parents were a love match, and they’d promised all their children they could have the same. He wasn’t prepared to call his feelings toward Elene love. He didn’t want to act in haste and repent at leisure. He didn’t want Elene to marry him out of desperation, either. He didn’t want to spend his life married to a woman who regretted an impetuous decision. And a small part of him niggled that duty to his clan required him to marry a woman who brought a powerful alliance to his people.
He sighed. “I won’t send you back alone. I can’t take you back because I must fulfill my duties to my family. But neither do I want you hiding or setting off alone.” He tilted his head back and sighed again. As he looked back at her, seeing her anxiousness, he thought of one possibility. One that didn’t seem so horrible after all. “If you travel with us, then you must be part of someone’s family. No one will believe you’re anyone’s sister, so you must be someone’s wife.” Liam watched Elene’s expression as he poured forth his suggestion. She didn’t reel back, but he wondered how she would react when he spoke aloud his conclusion. “The only person who would merit bringing his wife on a journey like this is the leader. Me.”
Elene’s cheeks heated. The idea of pretending to be Liam’s wife was wholly appealing, since she wasn’t averse to the idea of being his wife in truth. She wasn’t ready to commit to a lifetime with him, but she could admit she’d never met another man with whom she’d considered wanting a home. As her gaze swept over Liam, absorbing the commanding presence, his handsome visage, and his powerful body, she couldn’t think of a reason she wouldn’t want to be seen with him or have people believe they were married. In fact, the notion that the women he’d meet would envy her gave her a wicked sense of satisfaction. She knew that was shallow and hardly what should concern her, but she couldn’t help it.
“Lass,” Liam muttered in Gaelic before switching back to Norn. “If you keep looking at me like that, we shall end up kissing rather than talking.”
