“And God help me, I want every inch of it.”
Her hands slid beneath his shirt, palms flattening over the scars and heat of his chest. “Then go on and take it.”
He inhaled sharply, hips jerking forward, the table creaking under them.
Harris kissed her with teeth and tongue and weeks of survival snapping all at once, devouring every sound she made until she was clinging to him, legs tightening around his waist, pulling him closer, closer—
The table nearly toppled.
He caught it with one hand, swore viciously, then gathered her into his arms in a rush of instinct and hunger, carrying her the last few feet toward the bed with a force that stole both their breaths.
She laughed and sank her teeth lightly into his shoulder.
He groaned like a man undone.
“Woman,” he panted, lowering her onto the mattress, bracing himself above her with shaking arms, “ye’ll ruin me.”
Their lips met again, and the world narrowed to heat and breath and the soft, inevitable fall of two people who had no business wanting each other this much.
The candle guttered.
The shadows closed in.
And when Harris finally let go…
It wasn’t quiet.
Chapter 26
Heather—Present Day
The ferry docked with a hiss of hydraulics and a groan of steel on steel. Flynn eased the truck down the ramp, tires thumping onto Skye’s wet tarmac, and the island smell rushed in: salt, seaweed, and something wilder underneath.
Heather leaned out the window as they followed the narrow road into town. The landscape was sharper here, carved by wind and rain; the kind of place that felt old enough to remember the things people forgot.
“You weren’t joking,” she said softly as Portree unfolded below them. The harbor gleamed like a paintbox—pink, blue,yellow, white—all the little buildings pressed shoulder-to-shoulder along the curve of the water. Gulls wheeled. The tide sighed against the stone pier. “It looks like someone built it out of candy and secrets.”
Flynn grinned. “Both’ll rot your teeth if you stay too long,” he remarked.
He turned the wheel down the hill, and she noticed the way his posture changed to be looser, familiar. “You’ve been here before,” she realized.
He shrugged. “Couple o’ times. Got a crew workin’ a restoration job right now.”
She blinked. “Wait, really? You weren’t just using that as our cover?”
He shot her a sidelong smile. “Cover’s always cleaner when there’s truth baked in.”
“So what are we restoring?”
“The roof of that wee pink one down by the pier.” He nodded toward the rainbow row. “Portree’s most photographed gutters, apparently.”
When they pulled into the harbor lot, two men were already unloading timber from a flatbed. One waved when he saw the truck. The other, tall and broad-shouldered with wind-tangled hair, looked up from a clipboard.
Flynn parked, and Heather climbed out into the wind. It whipped her scarf against her cheek and tasted like salt.
The foreman recognized her first. “Heather Campbell!” he called, voice booming across the street. “How’s Glenoran treatin’ ye? Flynn said you’d moved in for good.”
She laughed, caught off guard by the casual normalcy. “Still standing, mostly. One of your boss’s gutters tried to eat me, but we’re making peace.”
