She rubbed her hand against him slowly.
His breath changed at once. She felt it against her cheek, and she pressed harder and felt him push into her hand in answer. She worked her palm against him with more intent and his headdropped back, jaw loose, a rough broken sound escaping him into the night air. She watched his throat move and she watched what must be the last wave of control leave his face.
“Ava, ye cannae—” the rest of his words disappeared in utter pleasure.
His hips rolled forward against her hand. Once, then again, slow and helpless, as a low moan came out of him that he made no attempt to catch. The sound sent heat straight through her while his hand fisted in her hair and his breath came in ragged pulls.
Then, almost out of nowhere, his hand closed over her wrist and drew it firmly away.
“Nae tonight,” he said. His voice was wrecked. “Nae like this.”
Ava lifted her head and looked at him. His jaw was tight, his eyes dark, and he was still breathing unevenly. She did not argue. Something in the way he said it held a weight.
He held her gaze for one moment and then his fingers moved again.
Whatever restraint he had exercised before was gone now. He touched her with intent and precision, reading every sound she made and adjusting accordingly, and she gripped his shirt with both hands and held on.
The pleasure built fast and her thighs trembled. She could practically hear herself because the night was too quiet and it shamed her not at all.
“Ciaran.” His name came out wrecked and bare.
His mouth found hers at once.
He kissed her deeply, covering whatever sound followed, swallowing it whole, and she felt it crest through her like a wave breaking from a long way off.
The climax rolled through her body in a way that locked her breath and arched her spine and dragged a sound from her that he caught cleanly against his lips.
She gripped the front of his shirt and held on while it moved through her in full, every part of her shaking, her face pressed close against his and his mouth firm over hers until the very last of it.
For a moment neither of them moved, then Ava sat back enough to look at his face to watch him.
He said nothing.
CHAPTER 27
Ciaran gotto his feet first and held a hand down to her.
Ava took it without a word.
He pulled her up carefully, steadied her when her legs wobbled for a moment, and let his hand remain on her waist longer than was needed.
The grass by the loch was cold underfoot, and the coat had slipped half aside in the struggle of the last few minutes. Above them, the comet still burned, pale and long in the dark, as if nothing on the ground had changed at all.
But he knew better. Everything on the ground had changed.
He bent, shook out the coat, and spread it properly again. Ava gathered her cloak close and lowered herself onto it. He sat beside her after a short pause, close enough that he could feel thewarmth of her skin and the slight tremor still running through her.
For a little while, neither spoke.
The silence should have felt easier than it did.
Her breathing had not fully evened. Nor had his. He could still taste her on his mouth. He could still feel the shape of her in his hands, the urgency of her confession, the force of her body answering his.
He had wanted her too fiercely, and he had taken too much comfort in the wanting. He had done it under the same sky that had given her something sacred.
He looked out toward the loch and said the first thing that came to his mind. “I am sorry.”
The words fell flat the moment he heard them.
