“Tasks men are also perfectly capable of!” She shot him a hot glower. “First of all, it makes zero sense that fans even need to be cleaned. No’ philosophically but physically, aye? I mean a propeller can generate enough air movement to lift a helicopter and these things cannae spin fast enough to shed a few specs of dust? By rights, they should be self-cleaning.”
She warned him that her words would make no sense and indeed, they did not. Part of him wanted to interrupt and ask for an explanation. Another part insisted he not ruin this moment of openness and let her talk. He’d weed through her words later to better understand them. For now, he was curious what more he’d learn about this enigmatic lass.
“At any rate, we had a rather drawn out argument about the bloody thing. And then it hit me.”
Her voice went from thin to thread before it trailed off, leaving Finn hanging. “What hit ye?”
“His fist.”
Her flat response sent fury pounding in his veins.
“Who was he?”
* * *
Merciless vengeance hardened his handsome features, more fierce than when he spoke of killing that earl, something she still had to convince him not to do. Despite the trepidation that suffused Aila with everything she had yet to reveal, Finn’s protective response triggered a jolt of amusement. Oh, but he was a man true to his name.
“A white knight.”My white knight. And she’d told Brontë they didn’t exist. “Come down from yer high horse, Finn. Ye cannae kill him. Good thing for him, ye’d never be able to find him.” Her fingers swept along his clenched jaw. “Dinnae fash, I hit him back so hard I sprained my wrist. More importantly, his fist wisnae the only thing that hit me in that moment. I realized I had become the exact thing I’d feared. As awful as it was, it was the best thing that could’ve happened. I woke up and left him. And I came here.”
“To me.” He caught her fingers.
“Aye.” How could she deny it? More and more it seemed all roads led to him. “There’s so much more I need to tell ye, Finn.”
He leaned forward and caught her bare foot. “I will let nae one hurt ye again, lass. I swear it.”
The only one who possessed the power to hurt her right now was running his rough palm up her calf. The light caress sent a quiver straight to the juncture between her thighs. For him, it had been but a day since they were last together. For her it had been twelve. Twelve long days without him had been much harder to bear than the mere five days they’d been stuck in the nursery.
Rising to his knees, he knelt before her. He pulled her other leg down and spread them wide enough to accommodate him. With a single finger, he lifted her chin until she stared into his fierce hazel eyes. “Ye are mine, lass. Nae man will ever touch ye again.”
The stamp of ownership should have chafed. Lord, it did not. Aila wanted nothing more than to be his. To never be touched by another, because she’d never want another man. No touch would ever match his. No arms could ever hold her like his. And no one could ever touch her heart as he had.
Because she loved him.
Auld Donell had sent her to find a treasure. Beyond gold and silver, had she found the richest treasure of all? The admission both warmed and chilled. They were both stubborn people. On paper it might appear impossible. They clashed. They fought. Aye, but the anger never lingered. Resentment did not reign. Outside moments ago, he’d even found humor amid his confusion. He’d conceded her point and asked for rather than demanded her confession. He wasn’t inflexible.
Neither was she.
She could bend for him without breaking. Love wasn’t blind no matter what people said. How could she have expected Finn to completely accept every aspect of her character without question? Blind adoration would be boring. It was their differences that lit the spark between them. Differences of opinion. Differences in ideology. What was important was that he love her completely, faults and all. Love was compromise. Give and take.
For the first time, she understood that. Because for the first time, she truly loved.
Now her heart was in the hands of a man she wasn’t confident harbored affection of the same depth. Aye, she knew she was more than the bedmate she’d so rudely referenced in the hall earlier. His protectiveness toward her, his claim that she was his and even twice professing to adore her, indicated he cared. The question was, would those feelings persist once he knew the truth about her and how she’d come to be here? The revulsion in his eyes when he saw her tattoos would be nothing compared to how he might look upon her then. A true anomaly.
A witch. A liar. Or worse.
She couldn’t lie to him. Nor could she withhold the revelation and pretend it didn’t exist. That would be just as bad. The truth needed to be exposed before this could go any further.
When his lips touched hers, hard and possessive with a hint of Scotch, the struggle to keep her resolution in mind was nearly insurmountable. One didn’t need alcohol when he was around. He was far more delicious. More intoxicating. Finn was his own particular brand of whisky, one she wanted to savor.
Forever.
Chapter 29
Forever?
Was that what she wanted? When Brontë had asked if Aila would consider staying in the past with Finn, she’d reacted as if her friend had invited her to jump into the mouth of an active volcano. Moreover, she’d reacted the same way when Brontë suggested that Aila loved Finn. Adamant denial. A proper defense mechanism as a result of the multitude of issues they’d hashed out that night. For the past two weeks she’d refused to pin a definition to what she felt or what she wanted.
Look how quickly that had been cast to the wayside the moment she saw Finn again. She did love the caring, complicated man. And aye, she wanted desperately to make a go of it assuming he felt the same. She’d survived the shark-infested waters of the twenty-first century dating pool for some time now. Surely she could navigate those of the eighteenth century for a while.
