There was a tight fist around her heart thatsqueezedmercilessly at the thought of never seeing him again. It would have brought her to her knees, if not for the fact that she didn’thave time to collapse, not when she needed to fix this before he mounted his horse and rode out of her life.
“But what do yewant, Ciaran?” she asked, letting her fingers curl covetously around his arm. “What do yedesire?”
His eyes squeezed closed.
“Dinnae ask me that, Eilidh,” he commanded in a harsh whisper.
But she couldn’t relent, her voice firmer than it’d ever been.
“Tell me, Ciaran Gunn—do ye want me?”
There were shadows in his gaze as he lifted his eyes to hers, and for a terrible moment, Eilidh worried that it hadn’t been enough—thatshehadn’t been enough—and that he was still going to leave.
And then something shattered inside him. She saw it in the fraction of a second before he hauled her against him, his mouth crashing to hers.
The taste of him was becoming familiar now, and that was as thrilling as the novelty of kissing him had been the first time. There was a new fever to their embrace as Ciaran pressed her back against the rough-hewn wall of the stable, his knee coming between her legs to pin her in place as his hands and mouth explored.
On instinct, Eilidh moved against that knee, and felt sparks light up behind her eyelids at the sensation it provoked.
She moaned into his mouth.
His fingers came up to card through her curls, cradling the side of her head as he pulled back just enough to look at her.
“I shouldnae be doing this,” he said. “But I cannae resist ye.”
Eilidh reached up and grabbed his hair in turn, then used her grip to pull his lips back down on her.
She kissed every part of him that she could reach, her body thrumming with eagerness to feel every part of him. He, in turn, kissed his way across her cheek, down to her throat, leaving atrail of fire behind as he went. When he sucked a hard mark against the place where her pulse throbbed, she moaned, her hips jolting on instinct. The friction against his leg—and the place where she thrilled to realize she could feel him growing hard—tore another moan from her lips.
“Ciaran,” she said again, as if to remind herself that this was not merely one of her fancies—this wasrealand they werehere.
And maybe her words reminded him, too, that this was happening, ill-advised or not, because he put one arm beneath her behind, guiding her legs around his waist, and the other went around her back.
And then, as if she weighed no more than a feather, he carried her across the stable to where a large pile of hay lay waiting to feed the horses.
Eilidh might have been caught up in the romance of the moment, but even so, she didn’t relish the idea of making love with a piece of straw poking her in the arse. She was pleased with Ciaran’s foresight when he grabbed a saddle blanket and laid it out over the pile before depositing her gently atop it.
The blanket smelled faintly of horse, but not unpleasantly so, and it was soft from years of being used, washed, and used some more.
Besides, she’d only been lying there a moment before Ciaran knelt down at her side, bending over to kiss her some more—and then she wasn’t thinking about the blanket any longer.
“I can scarcely believe I’m truly here with ye,” he murmured as he looked down at where she was laid out for him. “It’s as though I am dreaming, except no dream could ever be this good.”
And Eilidh, a lifelong dreamer, couldn’t help but agree.
“We can make it better,” she whispered, even though there was nobody around but the horses to overhear them. “Please, Ciaran, give me more of ye.”
He let out a helpless sound that was half groan, half laugh, then tugged at the pin that held his plaid together. The fabric came off him in waves of Gunn brown and gold, and though Eilidh knew there was no man without the clan, she relished the thought that, just for tonight, he cast aside duty in favor of desire.
She let her curious fingers wander up the strong pillars of his thighs, enjoying the rasp of the coarse hair of his legs against her fingers. As she rose up to where his hip was still obscured by his shirt, where the hair grew sparser and the skin softer, however, he stayed her explorations.
“Lass,” he said, his voice guttural. “If ye carry on like that, ye’ll unman me before I’m ready. It has been a long time… and I’ve spent so much of that time aching for ye.”
Maybe it made her vain, but Eilidh melted a little bit more at hearing how ardently he desired her. Or maybe it wasn’t vanity. Perhaps this was just what people felt,when they cared for one another. When they knew that the strings of Fate had tied them together, no matter how much they may have resisted.
Well, Eilidh wasn’t going to resist now, though she did relent, dropping her hand back down the corded muscles of his leg.
“Then show me what ye need,” she told him, feeling both bold and tremulous. “Please, Ciaran.”
