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"Anything."

"Have ye ever imagined it?" she said cautiously, watching his face. "Children. A family of our own, once all of this settles."

He was quiet a long moment, and she watched wariness enter his expression. The same wariness that had closed over him the night she'd first found the kerchief.

"I have," he admitted finally. "More than I'd have told ye a month ago. I used tae push the thought away entirely, whenever it rose because I was so certain, for so long, that I'd nae make a fit father, given the only example I'd ever truly had of one. I was afraid of becoming him, Neilina. Nae simply in how I treated a wife. In everything. I didnae trust myself tae raise a child without some piece of his cruelty finding its way intae me despite every effort tae keep it out."

"I dinnae believe that," she said, quiet, certain. "I've watched ye this past fortnight, Marcas. I've watched ye steady a servant girl's fall without a flicker of temper. I've watched ye teach children tae sit a saddle with more patience than I've seen from grown tutors. I've watched ye hold me through a night of fear and ask naething of me in return but that I let ye." She reached for his hand, threading her fingers through his. "Ye're naething like him. Ye never were. I think the very fact that ye're this afraid of becoming him is proof enough that ye never will."

He looked at their joined hands a long moment, something working behind his face.

"I want it," he said, finally, low. "I want a family with ye. I want a house full of noise and small feet on the stairs and bairns who ken naething of fear when they see their own father coming, only welcome. I want tae raise them somewhere they'll ken they're loved plainly, every day, nae wondering whether the ground beneath them might shift."

"Where," she asked, softer now. "If ye could choose. Where would ye want tae raise them?"

He considered that, genuine thought behind it now rather than old grief.

"Nae in this chamber," he said, faint humor returning. "It's a fine enough room for a laird, but it's my father's before it was mine, and I'd rather build something new for them than hand them down a room heavy with what happened before they existed tae carry it." He turned the thought over further. "Somewhere near the water, I think. I've always found the sea easier tae breathe near than the inner keep. A house with proper light in it, nae just arrow-slits and cold stone. Somewhere a child could run without a guard's shadow following every step."

"That sounds like a home," she said, quiet, "rather than a stronghold."

"Aye." He looked at her, something settled and certain in his eyes now, all the old wariness finally, fully given way. "That's precisely what I want it tae be. A home, Neilina. With ye, and whatever bairns we're given, and naething of what I grew up with left standing anywhere near it." He lifted their joined hands, pressing a kiss to her knuckles, his eyes never leaving hers. "I want that future with ye. All of it including every ordinary, unremarkable day in between."

She felt her throat tighten, the whole warm, aching weight of what he'd just handed her settling deep into her chest, and she leaned into him, resting her head against his shoulder, still faintly damp from the cloth, his arm coming around her without hesitation to hold her close.

"Then that's what we'll build," she said with quiet certainty. "Together. Whatever it takes tae get us there."

He raised her chin and dropped a kiss on her lips then another on her nose, then another on her chin and forehead. She closed her eyes and sighed happily as he continued dropping kisses down her neck. Through the fabric of her dress, he captured one nipple in his mouth and suckled on it until she squirmed. Then he caught her by the shoulders and pushed her gently on the furs.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Neilina lay back against the coarse furs, her breath coming in shallow, uneven hitches. Marcas shifted, his large frame moving with a predator's grace as he slid down the length of her body.

He didn't rush. He paused just above her thighs, his eyes dark and heavy with a hunger that made her stomach flip. He looked at her as if she were a feast he intended to savor slowly. , He bunched her gown with one hand, as his gaze traced the curve of her hips and the dampness already blooming between her legs.

Neilina let out a soft, trembling sigh as he finally settled between her thighs, his heavy weight pinning her legs open. He didn't touch her with his mouth immediately. Instead, he used his thumbs to part her folds, exposing her swollen, sensitive nub to the open air. She arched her back, a whimper escaping her lips at the sudden vulnerability.

"Patience, Neilina," he murmured, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through her very bones.

He began with slow, agonizingly light kisses. He pressed his lips to the soft skin of her inner thighs, trailing fire upward in a slow ascent. Each kiss was a deliberate torture that left her skin tingling and her mind racing. When he finally reached the center of her heat, he didn't dive in. He merely parted her more and breathed against her, his warm breath sending shivers racing up her spine.

Then, his tongue made its first contact. It was a single, long, wet stroke from the base of her opening up to the peak of her pleasure. Neilina gasped, her fingers digging into the furs beneath her, her hips instinctively bucking upward to meet him.

Marcas chuckled, a dark sound of satisfaction, and began to work her with methodical precision. He used the flat of his tongue to lap at her, tasting her essence, swirling in slow, wide circles that built a simmering tension in her lower belly. He was relentless in his patience, teasing the edges of her pleasure without ever fully granting her the release she craved.

He focused his attention on her clitoris, flicking his tongue against the tiny bud with a rhythmic, fluttering motion. The sensation was electric, a sharp contrast to the broad strokes from before. Neilina’s breath turned into broken moans, her head tossing from side to side. She felt herself unraveling, the world narrowing down to the point where his mouth met her flesh.

"Marcas... please," she whimpered, her voice strained.

He responded by sliding two fingers deep inside her, stretching her walls while his tongue continued to punish her peak. The combination was overwhelming. He began to suck her, pulling her clitoris into his mouth with loud slurps and swirling his tongue around it with a fierce, hungry intensity.

The pressure built, a coil of white-hot tension tightening in her gut until she couldn't bear it. She felt the first wave of her orgasm crash over her, a violent shudder that started in her toes and ripped through her entire body. Her walls clamped tight around his fingers, milking them desperately as she cried out, her voice echoing through the stone chamber.

Marcas didn't stop. He stayed clamped to her, his tongue continuing to flick and suck even as she peaked, driving her deeper into the throes of a prolonged, shaking release. He drank her in, tasting every drop of her climax, refusing to let her go until she was completely spent, limp and trembling beneath him in the golden morning light.

He moved up to kiss her and she could taste herself in his mouth. They kissed again until something in her gave way. She caught him by the shoulders and pushed him back onto the bed just like he did, following him without breaking the kiss. A startled breath escaped him when she climbed over him, settling astride his hips, her hands still tangled in his hair.

He looked up at her for half a heartbeat, as though he could scarcely believe what she was doing.