Sinking with her in the sand, he dropped to his knees to face her as she kneeled also, and he pressed her to him in a deep kiss. Then she sank, and he went with her, stretching out with her on a soft cushion of white sand, rolling slightly, so that he lay beside her.
Gathering her to him, he traced his hands over her. Keenly aware of what he wanted, he hoped she wanted it, too. But he could not go on until he knew that she would be his entirely, without hesitation.
Cupping her face in his hand, he pulled his lips from hers and drew her into his embrace, touched his lips to her ear. She gasped, a breathy thrill.
“Lass, tell me,” he whispered, kissing her earlobe, “if you understand what we are about here, if you feel this between us too.”
“I know what we are about,” she said, her lips brushing his neck, his jaw. “You are here now. That is all I need to know.” She stretched for his kiss.
“God, Meg,” he said, dragging his lips from hers, determined to make certain all was clear between them, “wait.”
“Dougal, what,” she said, cupping his jaw, her face close to his.
“I must ask. The fellow on the beach the other day. Norrie told me his name. A fellow from Edinburgh, he said. Tell me—if he means something to you.” Voice low and ragged, he hated himself for asking. But he had to know. “Because if he does—we need to stop, aye.”
“He is no one,” she murmured, her mouth tracing over his. “No one at all to me.”
He lay back, gathered her into his arms, held her. “You kissed him.”
He felt a little jealous of that, but more, a strange sense that she was his and he was hers, and no one could come between them now. But he had to know that was true.
“He kissedme. I did not want it. Nor do I want to talk about it just now.”
“Then just now, my lass,” he whispered, “tell me what you want of me, of us, just now.” He knew what he wanted—her, with him, forever. He kept still, heart driving hard in his chest.
With her arms looped about his neck, she went still and quiet. He thought she might pull away and end this. Fair enough, if that was what she needed.
Then she sighed. “I want the dream. Just once, I want the dream.”
“What dream?” he whispered.
“The dream that I am with you and we are so happy together. The dream where I have all I need, and I—I am who I am. Where one man has my heart in his keeping, and always will.”
He could not speak for a moment. “I have had a similar dream. And you were part of it.”
“Was I,” she said, breath upon his cheek. “Then just for tonight, the dream could be true.”
He felt her thumping heartbeat through her slim rib cage under his hands. “And after that?” he eased his lips over her cheek, her earlobe, teasing, tugging.
She moaned on a breath. “After that, we return to the world just as it is.”
He wanted to take her with him into his world, where he moved from one beautiful, remote place to another, if only she could be with him. She had always been the dream for him. And now he dared hope that he was hers as well.
Rolling her to her back, he rose over her, propped on his hands as she lay in the sand. The water swept cool over his feet. Far beyond, he could hear the faint strain of a fiddle in the night.
“Would you go with me into this other world?” he asked.
“That is not easy, I think.” She pulled him down toward her. “I have often thought about that night we spent together. Strangers, and yet we seemed to know each other perfectly, as if we were always meant—well. I often wished we had never separated. But that was not real,” she whispered.
“It could be real now, lass.” His feelings for her had waited, dormant, until he found her. Now, as he came to know her kind heart, her sweet honesty, he was more and more sure of love.
“It is not so easy, truly.” Her answer surprised him. “Let us have the dream tonight,” she said, sliding her fingers into his hair. “Please,” she whispered, the plaintive sound striking through him, where longing and desire ran hot and deep. “Please—”
He took her mouth with his, took the word from her, and turned it into a kiss. He traced his tongue over her lips and shifted lower, drifting kisses along her jaw, her long and beautiful throat, until he found the swell of her breast. He fingered gently at the buttons of her plain woolen gown and opened the bodice, slipping his hand inside the warmth there, sliding beneath layered cotton and cambric. Touching the incredible softness of her skin, he heard her breathy cry, and his body tightened like a fist with burgeoning need.
Dipping his head, he touched her nipple with his tongue, coaxed it to stiffen, heard her whimper as she slid her fingers through his hair, over his ear, and down, until she was tugging at his shirt, and he in turn slipped her blouse from her and fingered the delicate laces of her camisole.
Gasping, moaning softly, she undressed him quickly, and he drew off her garments, one after the other, until they lay nude on a scattering of dark clothing and pale sand, hidden in the black shadow of the headland where no one could see them, where they had found a small private space to relish each other.
