"Missed you," he answered in a whisper, sucking on my bottom lip before licking back into my mouth, the kiss taking on the steady, thorough, deep pace of his lovemaking. "Is this… Fuck, Brigid, you feel so good."
I echoed his words, kissing across his cheeks, whining as his knot grew too thick to pull out of me. Torion stepped back, pulling my hips from the wall, and we gasped together as our bodies found a new rhythm, rolling and grinding, his knot throbbing in time with my whimpers.
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, covered his mouth with mine, and howled into the kiss as I came, quaking in my alpha's arms. Torion swallowed my cries with his own groans, my clenching core milking at his knot until he burst inside of me. My back slid against the rough wall, but I only kissed and clutched at Torion. He would see us safely to the floor. And then I would whisper into his ear little filthy words until he fucked me there too. I would keep him inside of me until we were both too tired to do anything else.
Until there was no chance of him getting back in the wagon and leaving me. Not today, at least.
Chapter Twenty-Two
TORION
Brigid's face was peeking over the edge of the loft as I carried in the last basket of food from the keep Maggie had sent with me. I'd been ashamed to realize that I'd been too bothered by Brigid's abandoning me to wonder how she would manage here at the cottage. And given the ecstatic expression on my omega's face when I'd mentioned there was a bag of tea in the cart, Maggie had been right to worry about her mistress.
I set the basket down and tried not to letallthe hope I was feeling rise up into my expression as I looked back at Brigid. I had expected a prickly, cautious, stubborn Brigid upon arrival, was perversely looking forward to teasing and poking at her until she relented and offered me another half smile or a roll of her eyes. The hunger my omega met me with—a rival to my own for her in the dark nights and dragging days that had passed—had shocked me nearly to my knees.
Anger had followed. Anger that she'd even thought to deny us one another, that she'd stayed away when I couldn't stand to, that I would forgive her the neglect if she would only kiss me again.
I missed you.
"Torion?"
I blinked and focused on the Brigid above me, not the aching memory from less than an hour ago.
"Will you stay here tonight?" she asked softly, shyly.
I swallowed hard and locked my knees to keep from crumbling to the floor in a pathetic display of gratitude.
"I know I shouldn't ask," Brigid continued, wincing slightly, interrupting me before I might blurt out the cry ofyesthat rested on the tip of my tongue.
"Why shouldn't you?" I asked instead, turning to the basket and pulling out the bag of tea. There was a kettle hanging near the fire, and with a nudge, I could hear the slosh of water inside.
"You're meant to be at the keep," Brigid murmured. Out of the corner of my eye, a lock of auburn hair slipped over the edge of the loft, and I busied myself making tea to keep from twining it around my fingers.
"I've kept busy this week" —distracting myself from your absence—"enough so that there's nothing that really requires me for the next day or so."
"Really?"
If she hadn't sounded so pleased, I might've had the sense to guard myself, to offer her the night but leave in the morning. With a single word and a hint of hope, my will crumbled.
No, that wasn't true. Mywillwanted to be wherever Brigid was. It was the voices of betas like Francis Keane and even Ned MacIntyre in my head, hissing that it shouldn't be the alpha chasing down his omega but the other way around. My father had deferred to my mother's whims at the expense of his reputation, if not also his duty.
Brigid doesn't have whims, she has worries, I reminded myself. Worries I wanted to erase.
"Really," I answered.
Her arms folded in front of her, and I suspected she hid a smile in them. "Are you making me tea? I can do that?—"
"No, stay up there and rest," I said, a weight lifting off my shoulders as the matter was settled. I would stay at the cottage "for a day or so," as I'd said. I would observe Brigid here in this place that she felt safest, and try and do my best to find ways to make the keep such a place for her as well.
"Very well. Catch me up on the keep," Brigid said, rolling back from the edge of the loft. I wanted to call her back just to savor little hints of her as I puttered around her cottage, but I bit my tongue and took the opportunity to study the space unobserved.
"For the most part, it's been uneventful, but Alpha Worthington and Francis Keane brought me a scheme," I said.
"A good scheme?"
I huffed. "For them, if I fell for it."
"Tell me," she bossed, sitting up slightly, her frown just visible.
