She dropped her head, closed her eyes, and covered her face with her hands. How could she tell him the thought of marrying a thirteenth-century Scot scared the living daylights out of her? An inner voice nagged at her conscience.Really? Is that the real reason you keep making excuses to avoid his marriage proposal?It wasn’t a proposal. It was an edict, an order so he wouldn’t be embarrassed in front of his clan.You know better,the voice shot back.
She had lost her mind. Now she was arguing with herself. Trulie lifted her head. He hadn’t moved a muscle, just stood in a stiff, wide stance with his arms crossed, looking like a prisoner awaiting his sentence.
“I need time,” she whispered.
“Time for what?” Other than frowning, he still didn’t move.
She sidled along the tapestry-covered wall of the room toward the small cushioned bench in front of the hearth. She really needed to sit.
“I need time to adjust to this place. I need time to adjust to this time.” She dropped onto the roughly woven cushions with a huff. “The past fifteen years of my life have been very different from what you know here. Things were...” She searched for the words. They were what? The flimsy excuse sounded lame even to her.
“Ye came from here. Ye had to have some idea of what ye would return to.” He eased a step forward, like a great cat stalking its prey. “Why did ye come here?” He edged closer until he stood right in front of her. “Or mayhap the real question should be why did ye ever leave the time ye now seem so reluctant to set aside?”
And there it was. The ugly truth of it stripped bare between them. Trulie turned away from his unwavering stare. Maybe it wasn’t the thirteenth century that scared her so. Maybe the immediate connection to Gray was what really frightened her.
“I need time,” she whispered. The feeble excuse was all she could say. How could she explain something to Gray she didn’t fully understand herself?
He jerked away with a tensed growl and stormed to the far side of the room. “I canna—” He bared his teeth against the words he couldn’t seem to find. “Why can ye not—” He cut himself off again, cursed under his breath, and slammed a fist against the wall beside the room’s only window. Yanking the bit of tapestry covering the window aside, he wrapped it over the black iron bar bolted above the opening. Leaning out across the wide stone sill, he lifted his face to the rising moon. “I must know the truth. Why the hell do ye refuse to wed me?”
Before she could answer, Gray whirled around and pointed a shaking finger at her. “And dinna say ye need more time. Ye are a time runner, for God’s sake. Ye explained yer gifts to me. The wheel of time is at yer command.”
“I can’t explain it,” she said. “I just know I don’t want a wedding feast planned as a knee-jerk reaction to some bitch and her son stirring up a bunch of gossip.” At least that was her pride’s part of the confusion. The rest of her hesitancy was just a muddled-up mess of emotions she couldn’t quite explain. She would know when the time was right to get married. Wouldn’t she?
“Knee-jerk reaction,” he repeated quietly. He moved forward, scrubbing his fingers in the dark stubble shadowing his jaw. After a long moment, he finally lifted his gaze and focused on her. A determined expression narrowed his eyes as he studied her.
This couldn’t be good. Trulie braced herself.
He strode across the room, knelt at her feet, and cupped both her hands between his. He searched her face for what seemed like forever before he spoke. “I care about ye. Surely, ye ken what lies in my heart.”
She remained silent. The ability to speak had left her.
Gray’s head jerked down. He stared at their hands, lightly stroking his fingers across hers before he spoke again. “As a lad, I witnessed my mother’s pain.” He lifted his face and held her captive with the emotions in his eyes. “Her life with my father came with great sacrifice.” He rubbed a calloused thumb across the top of her hands and drew in a sharp breath. “I would rather die than have ye know such sorrow and loneliness. It would be my honor to share my name with ye—to call ye my wife.” He slowly rose, braced his hands on either side of her, and leaned in until his mouth was a hair’s breadth from hers. “Surely, ye ken ye own my heart and soul,mo luaidh.Whether ye agree to wed me or not.”
His words made time stand still. Quite a feat for a man to accomplish with a time runner. She touched the roughness of his cheek and drew in a shaking breath. Heaven above,how could she resist such a man who made her feel so...
He edged closer. With the barest of touches, his warm lips brushed hers. “Say it,mo chridhe,” he breathed across her mouth. “Say it will be so.”
“It will be so,” she finally whispered, fully surrendering her heart and succumbing to Gray’s spell.
He brushed her lips with a chaste kiss, then scooped her up from the settee, crossed the room in three broad strides, and lowered her to the bed. Then he stretched out beside her, fully clothed, candlelight and so much more reflected in his eyes. With his head propped in his hand, he stared down at her while lightly tracing a fingertip across the curve of her lower lip. “What have ye done to me?” he finally whispered.
Before she could say a word, he cupped her cheek in his hand and kissed her. The kiss became a hungry claiming as his emotions flooded into her. She laced her fingers in his hair and pulled him down, opening up and welcoming him in, relishing the faint taste of whisky in his kisses.
Without breaking the connection, he pushed her skirts aside. The heat of his touch trailing up her leg and tickling her inner thigh made her ache for more. She arched into him and curled a leg around his hip as he brushed teasing fingers across her wetness.
Maneuvering through the folds of his plaid, she found his impressive length and wrapped her fingers around it. She pressed closer, guiding and teasing his hardness where she needed it most
“Nay, my love.” Gray gently rolled her to her back and rose above her. “Tis going to be a long night. Ye best lie back and relax.”
“Relax?” A gasp escaped her as he crouched between her legs and shoved her skirts up around her waist.
“Aye, dear one,” he whispered, then blew across the curls at the vee of her thighs.
“You’re not fighting fair.” She clutched the bedsheets, trying not to writhe in anticipation of what was coming next.
“I will never fight fair when it comes to claiming ye, my own.”
She held her breath as he slowly teased the tip of his tongue across her aching nub. A moan escaped her as he rumbled an appreciative groan against her mound and sucked her in with deliciously slow pulls.
