She felt as if she’d glimpsed heaven.Floated above the clouds.Sung among the angels.Never had she felt so loved, so cherished.And she didn’t want that feeling to end.
But it had to.
“Ye’re right, o’ course,” she said softly after her leine was set to rights.
As much as she liked to defy the constraints of nobility behind her father’s back, she knew this was something quite different.Stealing coos and taming crows was not the same as dallying with a man.
Still, the idea of not kissing him again was too awful to contemplate.It was with sadness, shame, and regret that she pinned on her arisaid once more.
Hew slipped into his leine, concealing his magnificent chest and the formidable rutting beast beneath it.
It occurred to her that he must be suffering as well.She’d heard a man’s ballocks could wither away from unrequited lust.She didn’t know if that was true.But it seemed possible.
She straightened to her full height and clasped humble hands before her.
“I’m sorry if I enticed ye into somethin’ ye didn’t want,” she murmured.
“Something I didn’t want?”He let out a low rumble of a laugh.“Och, lass, you have no idea how much I wanted it.How much I still want it.How much I wantyou.”
Her heart flipped over.“Ye do?”
“I’ve ne’er wanted a woman more.”
She didn’t know how that could be true.Surely a warrior of Rivenloch could have any woman he desired.But he seemed sincere.
Then he stepped near and framed her face with his hands.
“’Tis more than wanting you, my lady,” he said, gazing at her with eyes of liquid steel.“I’ve ne’erloveda woman more.”
Her heart melted.
“And I’ve ne’er loved amanmore.”Even as the words left her lips, it seemed a silly thing to say.“Actually,” she admitted, “I’ve ne’er loved a man at all.”
He smiled.“Not even one of the Boyle brothers?”
She shuddered.
He hugged her then.A sweet, chaste, fond hug.A hug that may not have ignited her like the flint of his kiss.But a reassuring, protective, and loving embrace that she could definitely get used to.
“Will we marry, do ye think?”she murmured against his chest.
“Are you proposing?”
She wished it were so simple.It seemed to be so with most clanfolk.They were free to court and kiss and wed who they wished.They were even allowed to have a trial marriage for a year and a day.But she was the only daughter of a laird.And Hew was a border warrior from an illustrious clan.Their destinies would be determined by the king.
“I wish we could run away and be handfasted like the clanfolk,” she said.
“I don’t think the king would approve, ne’er mind your father.”
“My father likes ye.He wants ye for a son.”
“He won’t like me if I run off with his daughter.”
She shrugged.That was probably true.
She sighed against him.“What are we to do?”
“Bide our time,” he said, lifting his hand to caress her hair.“First I have to complete my duty to the monastery and uncover the outlaw.Then we can ask my laird and yours to petition the king for permission to wed.”
