“I do know.” He cut in.
He saw the uncertainty in her expression. She wasn’t sure of what he spoke.
She considered him, then her mouth slackened into a wry smile.
“You’ve always made me believe in impossible things like knights, chivalry, heroes, and love. Even now, after all this time. After all the bleakness,” she whispered, her head tilted down towatch their hands connecting as she interlaced her fingers with his.
“You inspire those things in me, my love” he said.
She blinked up at his use of the endearment, her cheeks turning pink. He couldn’t recall when he had started using it. But it was the most natural thing to have ever slipped from his lips.
A gentle radiance came through in her softened expression. She loosened, then rethreaded her fingers with his again. The feel of her warm skin against his was sublimely tortuous. Her gaze locked on to their connecting hands again, as if fascinated by how they fit together.
The feel of her touching him was like sparks to a tinderbox.Keeping the increasing sparks from exploding to a full-blown blazewas tenuous.
The fervor in her voice when next she spoke, made him go still.
“Fifteen years ago, when I saw you riding tall and dark through the portcullis at Eileanach with Egan, it was the first time I ever thought a boy was beautiful. And when you were seventeen and you told me you were about to be betrothed was the first time I’d ever been jealous of another girl. I’ve never wanted to get married. My greatest fear was a husband wanting to control me, my household, what I wore, where I went, who my friends were and how many children I would have. But you are the least controlling person I know,” Fifi said.
Something in him took flight at her words as she paused, her throat muscles working before she continued. “You told me on our wedding night that in the ancient Orient, they believed if you save a life, you are responsible for that life for the rest of yours. You said it meaning you were responsible for me. In truth, you’ve had my heart since I first saw you riding through our portcullis. My love for you has changed since I was nine, but you’ve had it all along, in all its different facets.”
Slade’s heart raced, while his mind and soul melted. “Oh, my darling love,” he rasped.
He took her in an ardent hug, crushing her body to his, squeezing her with the rapid fire of blood strumming through his veins. Slade planted a kiss on the top of her head, inhaling the familiar warmth of her. Even though his body burned for hers, he found peace in her arms, and bliss in her scent of orange blossom and bergamot. She sighed contentedly, slackening completely in his embrace.
“My greatest fear is that I will fail you. Failing to protect you, even from myself would break me,” he said, his voice sounding raw, as if his throat was abraded.
“You won’t, you can’t, you are too good, I see your halo,” she said, burrowing further into his embrace.
If she only knew, he’d killed Sylvia. And the thought that he could unintentionally hurt her was choking the life from his heart and soul.
The fire crackled in the cave while the rain thumped the ground outside and the wind’s howls echoed through the air surrounding the cave.
“Have you warmed up?” he asked, still holding her tightly to him.
“Deliciously so,” she uttered.
Fifi released him and sent him a sly mischievous smile, one infinitely more potent and devastating than when she was a wee lass. A smile that was carnal, in a way it had never been before. His heart slammed so hard he feared it would break free of his chest.
She took his left hand, turning it palm down and raised it to her lips, planting a kiss. Her moist lips pillowy soft against the hardness of his first knuckle. His body stilled but his eyes locked onto her mouth, starved.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice gruff.
“I should think that’s quite evident. I’m kissing you,” she whispered. She kissed the second knuckle.
“Phoebeee …” he growled, drawing out her name.
The use of her proper given name was a warning which she ignored.
CHAPTER 57
Phoebe kissed Slade’s third knuckle, her mouth lingering much longer than was necessary. She liked the taste of him. The dark feral gaze he threw her was intoxicating, and a little frightening at the same time. He looked like he wanted to devour her.
Was it a betrayal of sorts to compare Faye Ross and Slade MacLean? It happened, regardless. One humiliated, hurt and violently took her free will. Killed her innocence and had nearly killed her spirit. In fact, it had been dead, until the Movement. The other, whose body was a lethally trained weapon, had the strength to do all those things but never had. And deep in her frantically beating heart, the knowledge solidified, that he never would.
One gave her terrors and made her unclean. The other made her ache with carnal desire and sacrificed his own pleasure for hers. Slade forever altered her perception of what men were capable of.
Slade’s body was granite hard, yet his touch was petal soft. His scent, which she now inhaled in great big lungfuls, was tantalizing and seductive. A mixture of spice and rugged male. So, unlike her attacker’s repugnant stench of sweat and apple-scented pomade from seven years ago, forever seared into her nightmares.
