She straightened up, reaching into his pocket to draw out the leaf.
“That he would be proud of ye,” she told him softly.
She pressed the leaf into his hand, and he closed his fingers around it, gripping it for a moment before he planted it on the rocks that made up his grave. He touched the earth briefly, as though ensuring that his brother could feel it. She let her hand rest gently on his shoulder; she knew she could not understand what it felt like to lose a sibling as he had done, but she could, at least, try to be there for him in the midst of it.
He straightened back up and drew her into his arms, kissing her hard. The kind of kiss that was born from the certainty of how much there was to lose in loving someone and yet, at the same time, how much there was to gain.
“Come, lass,” he murmured. “Back to the Keep. I’ve plans fer ye tonight.”
She grinned, pulling back from him playfully.
“Ye’ll have to catch me first,” she teased.
And, just as though they were children playing on the hills once more, she took off, lifting her skirts, joy twisting with grief inside her as he gave chase. When Callum had passed, she’d thought she had lost every hope of her future—but now, she could see, it was only just starting to unfold before her.
Ailsa heard Tavish before she saw him, his familiar footsteps on the floor behind her.
She smiled to herself, not turning, as she brought the candle to the torch on the wall, lighting it and planting it at the bedside.
She was already half-undressed, draped in a nightdress that lay half-undone around her shoulders, where she had just climbed out from the bath.
“Close the door,” she murmured, without looking back at him. And, as she shrugged the nightdress from her shoulders, she finally dared breathe the words that she had not had the nerve to all this time.
“And… and give me everything this time, Tavish. Dinnae be gentle with me. Not tonight.”
She felt him move behind her, his strong arms wrapping around her bare body, and her eyes fluttered shut as she drew in a sharp breath.
“Are ye sure you can manage that, lass?” he murmured, kneading against the soft puff of hair at her mound.
She swallowed hard, but then nodded.
“I’ve known I can since the moment ye followed me the night before our betrothal and told me that ye were the danger I should fear,” she confessed, finally turning to him, slipping her arms around him.
She felt utterly exposed, but instead of being a fearful thing, she found it oddly thrilling.
He kissed her, his tongue lancing into her mouth like the tip of a blade, and she could feel him stirring against her hip already, her words clearly thrilling him. He scooped her from the ground and strode towards the bed, pinning her against thebedpost as he drew her legs around him. Softly sinking his teeth into her bottom lip, a dark grin curled up his lips as he pulled hard on it, a drop of blood pooling at its edge.
“Tell me to stop, lass. If it’s too much for ye.”
“Don’t ye dare stop,” she breathed back.
And, at last, he seemed to believe her.
He kissed her again, harder this time, pressing his hips forward to her so she could feel the full weight of his want for her. She raked her arms along his back, down his body, pulling aside the leather belt that held his kilt and letting it pool on the ground below them. His hands grabbed for her hips, her thighs, her belly, hard enough that she was sure he would leave marks.
But, for once, it didn’t frighten her. She had seen his darkest parts, the parts he had tried to keep hidden from her—that he was willing to die or kill for her. And she knew that there was nowhere she was safer than in his arms, no matter what he wanted to do with her.
He parted his legs slightly, bracing himself against the floor so that he could drive up and into her, and brought his manhood to her entrance before thrusting deep inside of her.
She cried out, the sound echoing off the walls of stone around her, as hard as he felt within her in that instant. He growled and pressed his face into her neck, breathing her in as he bared his teeth against her.
“That’s it, lass,” he encouraged her, his voice throaty and low once more. “Show me. Show me how much ye want me.”
She moaned again, and he caught her face roughly in his hands, so roughly that the pain of her split lip rose for an instant and was salved when he kissed her once more. The fullness within her felt almost overwhelming, but with every touch, he convinced her that she could take him with ease.
She folded her legs around him, gazing down into his eyes, their foreheads pressed together as they watched each other in the throes of pleasure.
The muscles in his legs flexed with each motion, his hands keeping her pinned in place, his fingertips digging into her roughly.
