I place a hand along the side of his face, shushing him. His jaw is hard, as if clenched teeth might help bite back his desire.
“I’m not the sea,” I tell him. “This thing between us, that’s what’s huge. It’s stronger than any tide. It’s what brought me to you. It’s bigger even than time.”
Callum’s mouth quivers, like he wants to smile, laugh, thank me, and protest all at once. Has this man, this wondrous miracle of a man, ever been shown pure love and affection? I put a finger to his lips, wanting my words to sink in.
But he snatches my wrist and gives a light nip to my fingertip.
I laugh, but then I’m the one lost for words as I try to comprehend the emotions cascading across his features. “What?”
“I’m thinking…”
“Yes, Callum?”
He shrugs, looking abashed. “Perhaps you’ll let me kiss on you a while longer. If I vow to behave.”
My grin must light up the night. Has there ever been anyone sweeter? “There are other things we can do,” I assure him as I plunge my fingers into that thick, black hair.
And we do them.
I wakeup shivering in the middle of the night. I’m tangled with Callum, who of course is sleeping soundly, but the fire has sputtered low, and his body heat is no longer enough to warm me.
I’d swear the temperature’s dropped twenty degrees. Despite the blanket under us, the ground is a block of ice, leaching my heat, leaving my muscles rigid with cold. Though we’re pretty much as close as two people can get, I try to get even closer.
He wakes instantly, eyes clear and alert, like he’d only been pretending to sleep. Seeing my expression, his hand flies to my cheek. “Rosie-love, you’re cold as stone.” He untangles from me, hopping to his feet, and I gasp as paralyzing cold seizes me where his body had been pressed against mine.
He adds wood and stokes the fire,watching to make sure it catches. All the while, I’m watching him, mesmerized by his confident movements. With one flick of his buckle, he sends his kilt tumbling to the ground. Now only his thin linen tunic covers him, revealing the muscled length of his thighs and the broad span of his chest straining against the fabric.
At first, all I can do is gape in mute admiration. I’ve touched that body—eagerly and extensively—but staring up at it, at him, lit by the faint glow of the fire, it takes my breath away.
Then reality hits. “Wait, I’m notthatcold. Put your kilt back on.”
“I told you, it’s a plaid.”
I roll my eyes. “Fine, plaid, whatever. Just get back here before you freeze to death.”
He gives me a wry smile. “Doubt not, fair Rosie.”
Then he walks away.
I scramble to my feet, clutching my cloak around me as best I can, and scamper after him. “What are you doing? Is this one of those things where you’re so cold you think you’re hot?” I follow as he ducks through the trees, and as promised, Loch Long is there, smooth and black as obsidian in the night.
“Seriously, Callum.” I catch up to him at the water’s edge. My mind is warring between the desire to ogle the thick ropes of muscle along his bare legs and the sheer panic of what he might be doing. “Have you lost it? This isn’t funny.”
“There’s naught I’ve lost. I should’ve thought of this sooner,” he adds in a mutter to himself. “But I was waylaid by a most magnificent distraction.” He looks over his shoulder with awink.
Then he dunks his entire plaid in the loch.
I shriek, but he hushes me with a whispered laugh. “’Twill make the wool warmer,” he says as he hauls the long stretch of fabric back out of the water. “I swear it.”
I hurry after him back to our shelter. “The only thing freezing water will do is make something colder.Iswear it.”
He tosses the plaid, and it lands beside the fire with a splat.
“Now it’s all wet. Callum?—”
“Och, woman,” he interrupts with a chuckle, “give a lad a moment. You’ll see.”
Once he’s wrung the wool out and arranged it to his liking, he lays down and opens his arms to me.
