Eilidh smiled. “She’s your family. Which means that she’s my family, too. So I shall love her for all that she is.”
His arms tightened around her in love and thanks.
They waited a little while after that before they slipped away. Eilidh needed a moment to take it all in, this scene of her family’s happiness in spite of the wretchedness they had suffered this past year.
But she was impatient for her husband, too, and it didn’t take long for her to tug him gently out the rear door and along a passageway that would take them up to her bedchamber.
“Ye cannae know how pleased I am to have a room that isnae a sickroom,” Ciaran commented as they closed the door behind them. He put his hands to her waist and turned her until she was pressed against the hard wood of the door.
“Och, aye?” Eilidh teased as he kissed down her throat. “Is that why ye married me, then? For the accommodations?”
He nipped lightly at her. “I married ye because ye are perfect,” he corrected. “Because ye make me feel hopeful for the first time in a verra long time. Because there isnae a world in which I could live without ye and not spend every day lamenting that most of my heart was missing.”
Eilidh was nearly overcome by emotion at this, and then he pulled back and grinned at her.
“But the accommodations dinnae hurt,” he teased.
She kissed his grin away.
They didn’t stop kissing one another after that, not for any longer than it took to remove this item of clothing or that one. Eilidh decided that she needed to kiss every inch of him, every fading bruise and scar, just to remind herself that he was still there. Just to remind him that there was more to life than pain.
He let her explore for a while, let her trail her fingers over the bulging muscles of his arms, over the ridges of his abdomen and down the slope of his back.
“I have plans for ye,” he told her, grasping her around the middle and pulling her bodily to him—bare skin against bare skin, all the way down to their feet—before toppling her back against the soft bedding.
She let herself be toppled then preened under his adoring gaze as he looked her over.
When Ciaran took his turn to kiss every inch of her, she found that it was not merely a simple pleasure. Rather, there was an element of torture to it, to the way he slowly moved across her ribcage before peppering little sucking kisses across the sensitive undersides of her breasts; the way he caressed up and down her legs in long strokes but notquitetouching where she needed him most.
“My sweet, perfect wife,” he praised as he moved to kneel between her spread legs. He looked down at her, a disbelieving smile on his face as though he could hardly trust what he was seeing—as if he could hardly trust that she was truly his.
Eilidh could easily recognize that look, because it was the same one that she knew shone in her eyes.
“My strong, glorious husband,” she returned. She wanted to sound steady, as he had, but her voice was trembling with need. “Please. I cannae wait any longer.”
He was determined, though, because he made her wait just a little longer, just enough for him to lower himself slowly atop her, kiss her mouth so long and hard that it left her breathless and her lips throbbing.
Then, and only then, did he guide himself inside her.
Eilidh gasped at the sensation, no longer entirely novel but not yet familiar, of being filled in the most glorious fashion. Her body had been wanting him all day—and indeed, for weeks before that—and it made the glide smooth. She canted her hips up to meet his, seeking more of the feeling, more ofhim.
“Eilidh,” he groaned when he was fully seated within her. “How I adore ye.”
“Show me,” she begged, wrapping her arms around his neck.
He began to move, each slow thrust leaving them panting each other’s air. Eilidh clung tight around his neck, letting his hands on her hips guide her to finding her own rhythm of movement until they were together in every way, united in theirpursuit of pleasure. The heat that had been banked low inside her burned brighter and brighter, and she met each of his forward motions more and more fervently until their movement became frantic and irregular.
“Ciaran. I love ye. I love ye.”
Her breathless words ignited something even further in him, and his movements became so powerful that they pressed Eilidh into the soft mattress beneath again and again. It was so much feeling, so much—and yet she needed more.
With a gasp and an oath, Ciaran shifted his weight so that he could bring a hand between them. He pressed strong fingers against that sensitive spot, rubbing harshly in such a way that Eilidh was launched off a cliff and into ecstasy. She heard Ciaran groan his own pleasure through the roaring in her ears as her crisis seized her, as she held on even tighter to this man—her husband, her destiny—as she sought to squeeze every last ounce of pleasure through their joining.
When their blood cooled and their breaths slowed, Eilidh burrowed under Ciaran’s arm as though there was any greater way to join them together than what they had already shared. She did not think she would be finished touching him, caressing him,lovinghim for a very, very long time.
“Us, together,” she murmured as the day caught up with her and sleep edged in.
“Aye,” he agreed, a hand coming up to smooth her hair back from her face. “For as long as we both shall live.”
