“But–”
“We’ll do it,” he repeated. Then tipping her chin up and lowering his head, he placed his lips on hers.
Chapter Seven
The kiss movedthrough Mara’s body like liquid flame.
After enduring so many years of not feeling anything, the heat of it was almost too much. Like stepping out into the sun after being inside. But she’d rather shine with Callum in the light than wither with the demons in the dark, and thus she put everything she had into all that he was offering.
A brush of their lips turned into a passionate exploration of their tongues as she shifted her weight, pushing her knees into the ground on either side of his hips while rising up along his torso; a mermaid cresting above the waves that fought to drag her down to the depths.
She sank her fingers into his hair, moving them through that thick, glossy mane of auburn while his mouth skimmed along her jawline. He kissed a path down her neck and then across her slanted collarbones, tracing the sensitive lines with his tongue and teeth before returning to her mouth.
On a keening whimper, she kissed him back while time slowed and then stopped, forming a protective barrier around them devoid of curses and evil creatures and worries of what might be.
Warmth followed the first hard slam of heat, gradually filling every inch of all the nothing inside of her. From her toes, to her legs, to her belly, to her breasts, the aching emptiness was expelled, and in its place, Callum poured himself.
He gave her everything, and he gave it openly. For this wasn’t a taking, but a giving. Agrantingof every wish she’d ever dared dream. And it was wonderful. And glorious. And beyond anything she’d ever imagined possible, both in her last life and in this one.
Sprigs of heather tangled in her hair as they stretched out beside each other on the soft meadow floor, fingertips dancing across the hills and valleys of their bodies like a thousand butterflies taking flight.
Callum drew on her bottom lip, suckling it between his teeth before releasing the suction with a tantalizingpop. He began kissing his way down her front, lingering in all the right places while she writhed helplessly beneath him, quivering from the onslaught of such potent desire after decades of lying dormant. If this was to be her reward for not surrendering to the darkness then she’d accept it gladly, for a minute in Callum’s arms was worth a millennia of imprisonment.
When they finally joined together, moving in perfect unison towards an elusive peak that she’d never yet reached, Mara cried out, her long legs circling around Callum’s powerful thighs in a convulsion of sheer, unadulterated pleasure as fire raced through her veins.
“Look at me,” he ordered, and her eyes swept open to irises of piercing blue. “I want ye tae see me, Mara. I want ye tae be with me. Mind, body, and soul.”
A clever stroke of his fingers where they had become one, a fierce kiss that brought her right to the edge of the precipice and, together, they flew over the edge. Not down into the tumultuous surf. But up, up, up into the sun. Where they ignited into a flame so bright, and so brilliant, that it drowned out the dark.
In the aftermath of their intimacy, Mara could no more lift her head off Callum’s chest than she could reach up and capture a star.
The handsome Scot toyed absently with her hair, running his fingers through the tangled ebony curls with one hand while the other stroked her back from shoulder to hip.
Had she the ability, she would have purred. In the absence of such feline traits, she stretched her tired muscles and gave a throaty moan, raising her cheek for the span of a heartbeat before closing her eyes and letting her neck fall.
If she was destined to haunt Blackmoore Castle for a thousand years more, it was this moment that she would remember. This moment that she would cling to. This moment that she would use to maintain the last traces of her humanity when she was more monster than woman.
While the sun shone overhead, the wind played lightly through the trees, and Skye grazed contentedly nearby, Mara dozed in and out, lured to slumber by the steady rise and fall of Callum’s chest.
Like food, rest had become more of a habit than a necessity. A way to spend the hours between midnight and morning. But she never awoke feeling refreshed and relaxed. If anything, she was always more weary than before she forced herself into slumber. But cocooned in Callum’s arms, it wasn’t long before she drifted off…and slept the sleep of the dead.
Mine.
The thought, as unbidden as it was formidable, echoed in Callum’s mind like the beat of a drum as he watched Mara sleep.
With her lashes fanning across her cheeks and her lips slightly parted and her countenance a rosy pink from their lovemaking, she was heart-wrenchingly human. This was no ghost or Black Bride he held, but a woman trapped in a nightmare not of her own making. And he intended to free her from it, no matter the cost.
What Callum knew ofCaoineagsand cursed cliffs wouldn’t fill the first page of a book. But he knew Mara. He knew that she was stubborn. He knew that she was strong. He knew that she was steadfast. And he knew that she had strength left yet to stand beside him against the terrors that would keep her from leaving here.
He’d come to this godforsaken castle to find a ring…and had found his last first kiss instead. Whatever came, he would hold on to that. He would hold on to Mara. Come hell or sea orCaoineag, he would hold on to her. To his final breath, to his last heartbeat, it would be her…or it would be nothing.
Secretly, he’d always wondered why his brother, Lachlan, would dare risk evoking the Campbell Curse by marrying Brynne. They’d seen what had happened to their father. What was happening to their eldest brother. True love and Campbell men went together like oil and water. But now he knew why Lachlan had tempted fate.
Some women were worth risking everything for.
He pressed a gentle kiss to Mara’s brow, and then he let her rest. She needed to sleep. There were purplish shadows under her eyes and the wee lass was at least half a stone underweight. The burdens, he supposed, of being forced into eternal exile. If it were tangible person who had done this to her, they would already be dead.
Callum had never killed before. He wasn’t a violent man, prone to bursts to temper. What anger he had, he internalized. Let it brew until it simmered to nothing, or he calculated a way to exact his revenge that was far more long-lasting than physical pain. A bloke knew better than to cross the likes of Callum Campbell. But in this instance, he wouldn’t hesitate. If he could put his hands to the throat of the being who was keeping Mara here, he’d squeeze until the light left their eyes.
