Slipping his arms around her waist, he pulled her flush to him, bending slightly so she would not have to keep standing on tiptoe. He buried his face in the curve of her neck, inhaling the sweet scent of her. No one would have suspected that she had been riding for four days, no matter what she said.
“Thank you,” she whispered into his shoulder: her lips pressing the daintiest kiss there, to punctuate her gratitude.
He held her tighter. “It’s me who should be thankin’ ye. I would be dead by now, if it wasnae for ye.”
“AndIwould be heartbroken twice over,” she confessed, “but it is over now. You are safe and I am safe here, with you. I willremedy the situation with my father and Brandon will discover the true culprit, and all will be well. Or, as well as it can be.”
In that moment, he was glad that she could not see his face. Her naivety charmed him, in many ways, but it was also her weakness. He could tell, in her voice, that she truly thought everything would be all right, simply because she wanted it to be.
Yer faither will come for ye, Lass. He will nae accept me, even if the culprit is found.He sighed against her skin, relishing the sensation of her in his arms again.Sooner or later, ye may find ye have a choice to make.
As for Brandon, Owen did not yet know if that man could be trusted. If he was truly an ally, it was not going to be easy for Brandon to find the real killer. If Brandon was working for the Earl, then Owen was going to have to keep a close eye on the fox in the henhouse.
13
As a fortnight passed by, it proved remarkably easy for Heather to distract herself from the woes she had left behind in England. She blamed the exquisite landscape and Owen’s welcome affections for the lust for life she had begun to feel again. Something she had not thought possible, back in the gloom of Gallagher Castle.
“There’s color in yer cheeks again,” Owen said, as they wandered the shore of the sparkling loch.
Heather paused to inhale a deep breath of the fresh mountain air. “I cannot tell if that has more to do with your hand in mine or the nip of the wind.”
Owen adjusted his grip, interlacing his fingers with hers. “I’ll bear the responsibility, as long as I can keep seein’ a smile on yer face.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Are ye content here, Lass?”
“More than I thought I could be,” she confessed, gazing up at him.
Every night when she went to bed, dreaming of Owen, she wrestled with an ingrained sense of betrayal. She should not be smiling and laughing when her brother could not. She should not be courting a man when her brother was not there to offer his approval, though she knew he would have liked Owen. Indeed, her brother would have shown his gratitude for all Owen had done to help save him.
“It troubles me, though,” she added. “I do not know if I am permitted to feel as… peaceful as I do here. Should I not be in black clothes, tearing out my hair, wailing from dusk until dawn over my brother’s passing?”
Owen lifted a hand to her face: his thumb brushing her cheek. “There are nae rules to grief, Lass. Aye, there’s merit in wallowin’ and weepin’, but ye have to act as yer heart instructs.” He sighed. “When me faither died, me maither wouldn’ae speak to a soul for a week, and I went ridin’ every day from dawn to dusk. Whenshedied, I tended to as many duties as I could, to keep meself from dwellin’ too much on me sadness. Everyone is different.”
“But I feel so guilty.” Heather held his gaze, willing him to give her all the answers.
Tension crackled between them as they gazed deeply into one another’s eyes, though she knew her fears were not reflected in his eyes. Something else stirred in his gaze. A gleam of desirethat prompted his attention to flit between her eyes and her mouth, as if he were thinking of doing something.
Oh, Owen—That passionate look stirred something in her, in return. A tightening of her stomach that constricted up into her chest, rendering her breathless with longing. Of course, she wished for him to steal away her pain, as he had done before when he had wrapped her in his embrace. Yet, she suspected he had more than an embrace upon his mind.
Do you crave me, Owen, as I crave you?Her dreams of him were sometimes beyond her comprehension, though they were not dissimilar to the sketches she had seen in the dungeons. The only difference was, her dreams were not as coarse or visceral. He took his time within her dreams, peeling away her clothes as if it were a form of art.
“Owen—” she gasped: her cheeks flushing with a warmth that percolated down her throat, stifling her breath and her voice. The heat sank further still, both loosening and intensifying the tension within her body. A paradox she could not understand, just as she could not understand why her body pulsed with want, whenever he was near. Parts of her that she had never explored before.
“Aye, Lass.” He bent to kiss her lips. Now aware of what a kiss entailed, Heather’s mouth responded without hesitation. Indeed, she welcomed his kisses, for she had discovered that there was nothing in the world so joyous as those moments.
Her mouth pressed to his, guided by the movement of his lips: the sensual undulation that reminded her of the ebb and flow of the loch against the pebbled shore.
Before she knew it, her guilt vanished in the warmth of his embrace, her body compelled to move closer to him. Her arms slid around his waist, pulling herself into him, while he cupped her face as though she were the most precious thing in his life. Flush to his muscular figure, she felt the now-familiar sensation of something hard and urgent, straining against the fastenings of his breeches.
Is it like those drawings I saw? Is that what that does?She had imagined, many a time, how such a thing might work. The drawings had elaborated, somewhat, and she had overheard snippets of lewd conversation, coming from the castle maids which had enlightened her a little more. Still, she could not fathom how a woman and a man might join together. All she knew for certain was that his hidden flesh swelled and hardened whenever they kissed.
“Am I tormenting you?” she whispered, breaking away for a moment.
Owen shook his head. “There’s a passion in me that burns for ye, aye, but I will nae rush ye. I’ve told ye so and I’m a man of me word.”
“What if I can never satisfy that passion?”
He smiled. “I’ll wait. I’ll wait until we’re husband and wife, if that’s what ye demand.”
“Pardon?” Her heart jolted.
