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“I love that ye’ve spent months pretendin’ what’s between us is nothin’,” I say, my voice breaking a little on it, “and I still wake up wantin’ you. I love that ye’ve made me earn every bit of this. Because it means when I have you—if I have you—it’ll be real.”

Ellen’s eyes squeeze shut.

One tear escapes, tracking down her cheek as if it’s found a way around her will.

And that—that is the moment she breaks.

She rises too quickly, turning away before I can see what it costs her.

“Mo rùn,” I say, the Gaelic term rough with how dry my throat is.

She huffs, as if the endearment has found the place she most wanted guarded. A strangled sound follows, anger and relief and longing all tangled together. Then she turns and lurches toward me so fast I barely have time to brace before she collides with me.

I catch her by instinct, one hand at her back, the other at her waist, holding her upright as her forehead tips toward my chest. I feel the tremor in her. I feel the fight in her too, the part of her that wants to pull away even as she clings to me.

My throat tightens hard enough it hurts.

I lift my hand to her face and brush my thumb along the wet track on her cheek, catching the tear before it can fall any farther.

That small touch undoes her.

Her fingers fist in my coat and she drags me down with a kind of desperation that steals the breath from my lungs.

“James,” she says, as if my name is both accusation and plea.

She surges up into me, and I go down to her without thinking, meeting her halfway like I have been waiting my whole life to do it.

Her mouth finds mine with a hunger that is not practiced, only true.

There is nothing gentle in the kiss. Nothing tentative. Only desperation, fury, and hunger.

I make a sound I don’t recognise and wrap my arms around her on instinct, lifting her clean off the ground. She clings, bared feet leaving the earth, as her fingers bury in my hair.

I kiss her back with everything I have not said.

When we break apart, it’s only enough to drag in fresh air.

Her lashes are wet, her cheeks flushed, her mouth swollen from mine, and her hands remain fisted in my coat, white-knuckled and trembling.

I touch my mouth to her brow, slow as a benediction.

“Mo rùn,” I whisper again.

I press my forehead to hers and hold there, breathing her in, holding myself together by sheer force.

“I love you,” she blurts, as if she couldn’t keep it caged another second. “I love you, yer ridiculous pride, yer—” She makes a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. “You.”

It splinters my composure in one blow.

For a brutal beat of time, my voice deserts me. I can’t do anything but pull back and stare at her, stunned by the audacity of it. And by the miracle of it… she said it first.

Then a laugh tears out of me, raw and incredulous and full. It doesn’t feel like humour so much as relief.

“That was meant to be my line,” I manage, breathless.

Ellen’s mouth twitches, even with tears still clinging to her lashes. “Then ye should’ve been quicker on the mark.”

I let loose another laugh, and this time it’s pure joy.