She stood and grabbed the edge of her smock. Ailsa pulled it up and over her head before she had any time to think about it. Her mother’s words rose from her memory with instructions for her behavior on this one special night.
Ailsa rejoined Diarmuid in the bed, pressing herself against him from chin to toes. A ripple of pleasure went through her when their skin met. Ailsa smiled, surprised to discover she liked being bare against a man.
Diarmuid muttered. He shifted, appearing to respond to her.
“We are married, Diarmuid,” Ailsa whispered. “And I am alive.”
She slid her hands up his chest beneath his shirt. His chest was hard, and firm and it delighted her. His heart thumped hard, giving her hope that she might prevail against Brigitta.
“I left home to marry a man I had never met.” Ailsa stroked him again. “Now that we have met, you must return and be my husband.”
She realized she wanted it to be so. It didn’t make any sense to have such yearning for a man she knew so little about and yet, it was so.
You know he is a good man…
She did.
“Kiss me, Diarmuid…” Ailsa framed his head with her hands and sealed his lips beneath hers.
*
“Kiss me, Diarmuid…”
Diarmuid heard the sweet plea. What was the lass’s name? He’d been a fool to growl at her and never ask her name.
“My lord?” Brigitta’s voice interrupted. “Please stay with me.”
The fog keeping him from thinking thinned. He looked at Brigitta and somehow knew she wasn’t living. He felt the chill, felt the way his heart was suspended between beats.
“Diarmuid…”
He heard his name from across the boundary between where he was and Brigitta’s pleading face.
“You could stay with me,” Brigitta implored him. “We can be husband and wife.”
“I am sorry, lass,” Diarmuid muttered sincerely. “There are responsibilities I must shoulder.”
Brigitta’s eyes glittered with tears. “I will show you that I am a good choice.”
She reached toward him. With every inch her hand covered, Diarmuid felt himself growing colder. His heart stilled inside his chest as he straddled the boundary between life and death.
“Please stay, my lord,” Brigitta beseeched him.
But there was a warm kiss from the other side of the boundary. A kiss Diarmuid hungered for. He closed his eyes, falling back through the boundary between the past and the present.
He caught the scent of the lass. She was sweet and warm. Diarmuid turned her over, settling on top of her before he took his time kissing her back.
*
Ailsa gasped whenDiarmuid rolled her onto her back.
She hadn’t expected to like it so very much. Pleasure shot through her, fanning the flames of that yearning. She shifted, needing an outlet for all of the new sensations.
Diarmuid kissed her long and slowly. He teased her lips until she opened her mouth for a teasing thrust of his tongue. A joltof awareness hit her. It was hot and needy, leaving her eager for more.
Diarmuid didn’t disappoint her. He pushed his hands into her unbound hair and she reached for his shoulders.
Perhaps she had heard the word entangle before but now it had meaning. Now she was eager to open her thighs so their legs might entwine. She didn’t want there to be a place where they didn’t touch.
