“‘Oh’ is good,” he said, voice strangled. “I’ll take ‘oh.’”
She swatted his shoulder weakly, then looped her arms around his neck and pulled him down, closing the last bit of emotional distance the same way she’d closed the physical. “More, Flynn.”
His answering laugh broke around the edges. “Aye, ma’am.”
He did.
This man loved her. She felt it in every touch, every word. And she wanted him to know she loved him too—but the words stayed stuck, locked behind her ribs.
She had to make himfeelit. Had to let him know that even though she couldn’t say the words out loud just yet, she wanted to show him what he meant to her.
Gazing into Flynn’s ocean blue eyes, she placed her hands on his bare chest, gently signaling for him to move off of her. With Flynn now standing beside the bed, she rose to her feet—then dropped to her knees before him.
Flynn’s eyes darkened as he watched her every move.
“Let me…“ she whispered never breaking eye contact as he stood bare before her. Slowly, she gathered her red curlsinto a loose ponytail, the movement unhurried, intentional—she wanted him to watch every second.
Flynn’s throat bobbed. “Christ, Campbell.” His hand slid into her hair, not to guide, but to hold on. “I’m not walkin’ out of this room alive, am I?”
She slid the condom off him with a teasing drag of her fingers, earning a sharp curse from Flynn. She paused there, her breath warm against his skin, letting the tension stretch until Flynn’s hand trembled in her hair. The heat of him filled her mouth on the first slow slide. The weight, the taste—it was overwhelming, intimate in a way that made her pulse skip. Flynn’s hand fisted in the quilt at his side, his other gently grasping her wild curls as if he couldn’t decide whether to hold her there or draw her closer.
“Mo chridhe,” he groaned, the Gaelic slipping out raw, instinctive.
My heart.
Her body flushed at the sound, at the way his hips jolted despite himself. She set her rhythm deliberately—slow, savoring—her hand working where her lips couldn’t. Every groan, every curse, every tremor in him was hers to summon.
When his head tipped back, eyes squeezing shut, she smiled around him and pressed deeper, desperate to steal more of those sounds.
“Sweet Christ—Heather—” His voice broke, hips threatening to buck. “Lass, if ye keep…”
The warning died in his throat, torn away by another guttural groan.
Heather only pressed deeper, steady, relentless, her hands braced at his hips to anchor him. She wanted this; not just the taste of him, not just the power of undoing him, but the way it felt to give him everything without fear. To prove, without words, what she was too terrified to speak.
If I can’t tell him, then I’ll show him. I’ll show him until he knows.
His fingers threaded into her hair, trembling, not pulling but holding, like she was the only thing keeping him upright. The sound of his voice—broken Gaelic, whispered reverence, her name fractured by need—seared itself into her bones.
“Mo chridhe… mo nighean ruadh…”
Her chest clenched so hard it almost hurt.
God, I could love you. I already do.
The thought came unbidden, dangerous, but she didn’t run from it this time. She sank into it, giving him more.
“God above…” His voice cracked, rough with desperation. “I can’t—Heather, I’m—”
She didn’t stop. Her pace matched the frantic beat of his pulse, every gasp and shudder winding her tighter with something fierce, something unshakable.
Flynn’s body went taut, his breath shattering into a ragged cry. He spilled into her mouth, Gaelic curses torn from his throat as though she’d broken him apart in her hands.
Heather held steady, swallowing him down, her body thrumming with triumph, tenderness, something so sharp it could only be love. She stayed with him until his shudders eased, until his grip loosened in her hair and the storm inside him gave way to trembling silence.
Only then did she pull back, her lips swollen, her chest heaving. She looked up at him—this man who had wrecked her and remade her in equal measure—and thought:
If this isn’t love, I don’t know what else it could be.
