“Aye. And I’ve been fightin’ it ever since.” His thumb traced her cheekbone. “Fightin’ ye. Fightin’ meself. Fightin’ what I felt.”
“And now?” she asked again.
“Now I’m done fightin’.” He pressed his forehead to hers, breathing her in. “I love ye, Francesca. I love ye with everythin’ I am, everythin’ I have, and it terrifies me more than any blade ever could.”
Tears spilled down Francesca’s cheeks. “I love you. Not because you’re a laird, not for the protection you offer. I love you because you read bedtime stories with the right voices. Because you got kittens for a little girl who needed them. Because you’ve shown me that strength and tenderness can exist in the same heart.”
His mouth found hers, and the kiss was different from all that had come before. No desperation, no restraint, no walls between them. Just love, pure and fierce and all-consuming.
“I need—” He broke off, breathing hard. “I need to make ye mine properly. Completely. No more barriers between us.”
His eyes burned with need and love in equal measure. “Please, Francesca. Let me love ye the way I’ve been desperate to since the day ye arrived. I need ye,” he growled against her throat as he kissed her neck. “Need to feel ye beneath me, hear ye cry me name, ken ye’re mine.”
“I’m yours.” She pulled at his shirt, desperate to feel skin. “I’ve been yours since?—”
“Since when?” His hands found the laces of her nightgown, loosening them with practiced ease. “Tell me.”
“Since you defended Eloise at the ceilidh. And again, much more when you looked at her kidnapper like you’d burn the world down to bring her home.” The nightgown pooled at her feet, leaving her bare except for the bandage on her shoulder. “Since I realized you were capable of loving fiercely even when you swore you’d never love at all.”
He shed his own clothes with impatient movements, and then they were skin to skin, heat to heat. His body was all hard muscle and battle scars, beautiful in its strength and power.
“Ye’re so soft,” he murmured, his hands mapping her curves with reverent touches. “So perfect.”
“No. I’m not .”
“Aye, ye are lass.” His mouth found her breast, tongue circling until she gasped. “Brave and fierce and mine.”
He walked her backward until her knees hit the bed, then followed her down onto the mattress. His weight pressed her into the soft bedding, and she reveled in it—in being surrounded by him, claimed by him.
“I want to taste every inch of ye,” he said, his accent thickening with desire. “Want to learn what makes ye gasp, what makes ye scream, what makes ye fall apart.”
“Declan.”
“Tell me what ye want, lass. Tell me what ye need.”
“You.” She arched beneath him. “Just you. All of you.”
His hand slid between her thighs, finding her wet and ready. “Already so eager for me.”
“Always.” She gasped as his fingers found that perfect spot, circling with maddening pressure. “I’m always eager for you.”
“Good.” His mouth blazed a trail down her body—throat, collarbone, the valley between her breasts. “Because I plan to take me time with ye tonight. No rushin’.”
When his mouth replaced his fingers, she nearly came off the bed. His tongue did wicked things that made her writhe and moan, her hands fisting in his dark hair as pleasure built with devastating intensity.
“Declan, please.”
“Nae yet.” He gentled his touch, keeping her on the edge. “I want ye desperate for me. Want ye beggin’.”
“I am begging.” Her hips lifted, seeking more pressure.
“Tell me what ye need.”
“You inside me. Now. Please.”
He rose over her, positioning himself at her entrance. Their eyes met, held, and she saw everything in his gaze, love and need and promises of forever.
“I love ye,” he said as he pushed inside, filling her completely. “God help me, I love ye more than life.”
