“I do,” she whispered, laughter trembling through the words.
Her amusement and her utter lack of fear lit him up from the inside. He kissed her again, quick and rough, just long enough to make her cling tighter, then straightened.
Before she could catch her breath, he gripped her waist and lifted.
Her squeal turned into a breathless laugh as he settled her briefly on the banister, his hands firm at her hips to keep her steady.
“Ye’re mad,” she whispered, but the way she looked at him only drove him crazier.
“Only about ye,” he said.
The truth of that lodged somewhere in his chest.
He dropped a kiss just below her ear, resisting the urge to linger, then slid her carefully back to her feet on the step above him.
In the same motion, he bent, scooped her into his arms, and straightened.
She gasped, arms flying instinctively around his neck and a laugh spilled out of her. “Maxwell!”
“What?” he asked, smirking as he started up the stairs with her cradled easily against him.
He pretended to consider. “We are wed.”
She buried her face briefly against his neck. “Aye, but still.”
Her breath there, warm against his skin, nearly undid him again.
He carried her the rest of the way, boots thudding solidly against stone, the sound grounding him just enough that he didn’t devour her before he reached the door to his chambers.
He kicked it shut behind them.
The room was dim, lit only by the embers left in the hearth and the faint glow of a single candle on the table. The familiar felt suddenly different with her in his arms.
Alive.
He set her gently on her feet, but before she could step back, he’d caged her between his body and the door, his mouth finding hers again.
This kiss was nothing like the controlled, cautious one he’d once given her in shadowed corridors. This was fire. Weeks of restraint snapping, all his wanting poured into the press and slide of lips and tongue and breath.
She answered with equal ferocity, fingers tugging at his shirt, finding bare skin, pulling him down, closer, closer.
They tumbled together toward the bed, laughing once when his boot caught the edge of a rug, then gasping as they fell onto the mattress in a tangle of limbs and cloth.
He lost track of what came off first. Her gown, his shirt, her shifts, his plaid. It blurred into heat and hands and the soft littlesounds she made when his mouth found a place that drew a gasp from her.
He was hungry for her.
Hungry in a way that had nothing to do with physical need and everything to do with the way she looked at him when she whispered his name.
He entered her slowly, watching her face for every flicker of discomfort, ready to stop at the smallest sign.
She took a sharp breath, fingers clenching around his biceps. Then she relaxed, eyes softening, lips parting on a low sound that went straight through him.
“Are ye?”
“I am fine,” she breathed. “Daenae ye dare stop.”
So he did not.
