The Promise (Highland Lairds of the Crest #4)

Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17

Brianna awoke with a smile, humming quietly at the feeling of Aidan behind her, the weight of his hand covering her thigh possessively, even in his sleep. If she hadn’t already, after last night, she considered herself lucky on all fronts that fate had chosen Aidan for her. She had a new appreciation for his all-business demeanor, too, especially now that she knew how his focus could be directed toward that . He’d been just as thoughtful and deliberate afterward, too, when he’d gone downstairs and returned with large pales of hot water and bathed her, which didn’t bother her at all, considering how deep in each other’s business they’d just been. Then they’d sat before the fireplace, eating Coq au vin, not caring that it was nearly cold, while Aidan sang her praises. And not just for the food. When he took her back to bed, he’d tucked her in his arms, and she fell asleep as he ran his fingers through her hair.

It had all been such an incredible experience, one she never imagined, and, she shouldn’t have to say, especially in the fifteenth century, but it was still difficult not to. It was true that she’d been taken with Aidan, fascinated even. He was strong and powerful, clearly intelligent and attuned to his environment, all of which were attractive qualities, even before you took his good looks into account. But last night, what she’d felt between them had been different. It was electric, the only word she could think of. Their chemistry seemed about to combust, and she’d found it impossible not to respond to him.

When she thought about all the moments that had led up to last night, most of which (or all) were significant in hindsight, not to mention intense, was it really any wonder? Brianna smiled, thinking about how even despite his initial doubts about her, she and Aidan had shared an easy rapport and camaraderie from the start. She remembered how their energy had been so surprising and refreshing, synergistic even, though now, looking back, she considered that maybe what was between them at the core was more innate. If they were fated, maybe that’s just how it worked, naturally (or was it un naturally?). How else could she explain that in less than a week, she was waking in his arms, as his wife?

Brianna felt her cheeks heat just thinking about the way he’d touched and looked at her, but what surprised her most was that while it was happening, not once had she felt awkward or inexperienced even though she was, and he knew it. She’d only felt intense desire and intensely desired . She’d been so caught up in the moment, especially once she could feel his erection pressed against her, thick and throbbing, and filled with so much heat, she’d become desperate, frenzied even, reaching for him, touching him, holding him in her hands, which was crazily more thrilling, and more exciting than any artifact she’d held in her entire life.

Smiling at the thought, she stretched a bit, noticing how tender she felt in ways she certainly never had before. She’d been fully sated and well-loved, to be sure. At that thought, she paused, suddenly uncertain. She’d been well-loved but maybe not loved -loved. Aidan had certainly tended to her, and she knew he cared for her…or had he cared after her? She knew she mattered to him, so did it really matter whether or not what he actually felt for her was love ? It only took a second to poke around with that thought to realize that, yes, it did. Brianna sat upright, not liking how she suddenly felt. Insecure. She may have only recently begun to re-embrace the idea of the O’Roarke wee bit of magic, but she’d always held dear the fact that all O’Roarke marriages were the products of true and enduring love. She looked over, and of course, Aidan was staring at her with the oddest look on his face.

“Breea, what is it?”

Well, she didn’t want to say now.

“Did you have a bad dream? Did I hurt you?” He sat up and reached out so gently as if she suddenly might break.

She wasn’t sure why she was filled with doubts all of a sudden, but it was true that they’d never really spoken about their feelings or if they had any. Yes, he’d said they’d fulfill the lore, and yes, he treated her like she was special and showered her with praise. He even vowed to honor and protect her and see to her welfare, and she knew he meant it, but being destined or fated or whatever it was and then vowing to be together because of it, wasn’t the same as realizing you liked someone, and pursuing the natural course of things from there. Not that she had ANY experience in any of that, destiny and fate aside, but still, beyond agreeing with her that he felt the magic too, which might have (for him) been about the physical, Aidan had never once said he liked her or cared for her, or verbally expressed having feelings for her. Just that she was pretty, or passing fair, which was basically the same difference, and supported the physical part, not the other.

She took a deep breath and turned to him. “I know this is going to sound silly, but…you’re happy, right? Passably at least? I mean, I know we…I know it’s because of fate ,” she did a little one-handed air quote thing, “but…happy is a good start, isn’t it?”

While he gave her his full attention, he wore the look of someone trying to decipher another language. After a moment, he cocked his head to the side, still staring at her curiously. “What precisely do you wish to ask me? Please, be very clear.”

Brianna took a breath. “Do you like me?” she asked, cringing inwardly, but she desperately needed to know .

His eyes narrowed, then he shot upright and pulled her close. “Brianna. You ask me this, in earnest?”

Brianna felt herself redden. Well, when he said it like that, it was kind of hard to believe. Still, she shrugged and nodded. Feelings aside, her reasoning was valid.

“Breea.” He shook his head. “Have I given you cause to believe that I don’t?”

“No. But that’s my point. Here we are…” she trailed off and gestured to the tangled bedclothes, their intertwined limbs. “But are we here because we know that’s what’s expected of us? By fate or whatever? Would we be where we are now otherwise?”

Aidan shook his head. “Does that matter? In truth? These are not ordinary circumstances—as you know, better even than I.”

Brianna nodded—he had a point. Though they’d never said it out loud, that she’d somehow landed here from the future was an unspoken constant between them. Still, she felt uncertain.

“And regardless,” Aidan continued, “what we shared last night was true passion. We are rife with feelings, you and I…feelings that are new to both of us, just as we are new to each other…” He’d been tangling his fingers in her hair, but gently grasped her neck, bringing her a fraction closer to him. “Let us explore them, enjoy those feelings, let them happen, and grow as if we hadn’t been drawn together by a prewritten plan. Aye? ”

She felt his words move through her, scattering her fears, and proving them to be unfounded. She realized that Aidan had never given her a reason to doubt anything, that fate had chosen so well for her. At this thought, she smiled softly, and he did too. Feeling happy and secure, she leaned forward and brushed her lips to his. “Thank you,” she whispered. She was so grateful as she settled against him, that he always knew just what to say to help her through something or see it differently.

They lay that way for a few minutes in easy silence, Aidan running his fingers through her hair while Brianna closed her eyes, enjoying the sensation. Then she felt him stiffen, his fingers suddenly frozen in place. Confused, she looked up toward him just as the oddest look crossed his face.

“Breea.” The breath literally escaped him, and he sat fully upright, taking her with him. His eyes fixed on hers, staring so deeply, but she couldn’t be sure what had happened, what had struck him so suddenly, until he tilted her head to the side ever so gently, and pushed her hair over her shoulder as if to get a better look at her neck. Then, it was Brianna who froze in sudden realization as Aidan’s fingers brushed over her tattoo, and he whispered something, clearly to himself since she was right there, and she couldn’t make it out.

“How do you have this marking?” he asked her, his eyes darting quickly to hers, fingers now pressed into the tattoo.

Instinctively, Brianna moved to cover the knot with her hand, but her reach met Aidan’s hand instead, and she rested hers on top of it.

“I saw it once,” she said vaguely, suddenly feeling protective of it.

" This knot,” he said, moving her hand to look again. She shivered as he brushed over her skin with his fingers. “You saw this specific knot— this circular symbol?”

She nodded, unsure where this intense surprise had come from. She’d thought at first that he was just shocked that she had a tattoo at all, but it didn’t seem like he cared about the ink itself.

“Nay,” Aidan said. "This knot is uniquely mine.”

At this, Brianna’s breath caught. She kept still, but her eyes darted to meet his. She’d always felt that this specific knot was hers . "What do you mean?” she whispered, unsure if she felt so weird because he was claiming it, a symbol that she’d never previously seen anywhere else in her entire life, or if because deep down, something was telling her that the knot being personal to them both was more significant than a simple appreciation for Celtic art.

“When Pembrooke was passed on to me, this symbol was created,” Aidan said. “A braided thread was added around the knot that my brethren and I have shared for years as our symbol of loyalty to one another, making it mine, while still tied to them.”

“That’s where I saw it, Aidan. When my grandfather took me as a little girl.” She could still remember tracing her fingers over the symbol, cut deeply into the stone. Brianna’s heart started to beat wildly with all that this implied. “So…I didn’t just permanently connect myself to Pembrooke, but to you ? I did this years ago, the second I was old enough to get a tattoo—well before I knew you ever existed.” Thinking back, she suddenly remembered the medallion. “Aidan…” She gasped and shook her head, then scooched from their bed, wrapping a blanket around her as she rushed over to her satchel.

“Brianna?”

She heard him call her name but was so singly focused on finding the medallion that she didn’t reply. She reached inside her bag, then into the pocket hidden on the side. Finding it empty, she had a moment of panic before remembering that she’d taken it out of the wet bag the night they arrived. Looking around the room, she saw the stack of linens by the tub and rushed over, breathing a sigh of relief when she found the medallion hiding beneath it. She picked it up and held it to her chest, rubbing her fingers over the cool metal, feeling the etchings on its two sides under her fingers. It was in that moment that she had the sudden realization that it was the medallion (which she truly believed was always meant to be hers) that had brought her here and to Aidan. She would have never stepped (or, okay, fallen) into the tidepool otherwise. Anxious to finally show him what brought them together, she turned back toward the bed …and ran right into Aidan, who had come up close behind her. Seeing him in the clear light of day, bare-chested, with just a linen wrapped around his waist, looking so ha ndsome and so formidable was a bit shocking if not distracting.

“What is it?” he asked, his eyes searching hers.

“I found something,” she said, then slowly lowered her hands.

When she opened them, revealing the medallion, he went quiet as he stared at it, his fingers brushing over the symbol on one side, then turned it around and studied the bear on the other. When he looked at her, his eyes were filled with emotion.

“You found this?” he asked, his voice catching ever so slightly.

She nodded. “Yes.” She hesitated, but then added, “At Abersoch. Look, it has the symbol, your symbol Aidan.” She laughed and brushed her tattoo. “ My symbol. And Aidan, it even has a bear on the other side.” At this, she teared up. “My father’s name was Arthur.”

Aidan didn’t need any further explanation. With even more emotion showing in his eyes, his head shook slightly as he traced the side of her face with his hand. “Arthur. Bear.”

Brianna nodded, smiling through her tears. “Yes.” She hesitated then, something tugged at her, something she should know, but in her excitement, she couldn’t quite grasp what it was. Figuring it would come to her eventually, she showed him the rest of the medallion’s details. “And, look, this knot around the rim…” She traced it with her finger. “It’s an infinity knot, the endless knot. It’s all connected, the things that have become our symbols. ”

He shared her awe, and grasped her head in his hands, kissing her forehead, before pulling back to look at her.

“Breea,” he said, looking at her intently, “this…this medallion is mine.”

“Yours?” She breathed. So many things were swirling in her head, and she suddenly remembered the thing she hadn’t been able to a moment before. “Aidan…Aidan means bear, too.”

He nodded. “Aye, my brethren and I each have a crest. This one, however, was forged by my mentor. I never thought to see it again—I dropped it weeks ago…”

They stared at each other, eyes widening at the same time, and not missing a beat, said together, “In the tide pool.”

Something lit in his eyes then, and he dragged her in for a firm kiss. "Brianna,” he said, once he’d pulled back, “you worry that what we…that — this,” he said, motioning between them, “what we share is naught but an illusion because fate pushed us together, aye?"

She shrugged. "Maybe?" However, her feelings said differently. Feelings she couldn’t deny having that were amazing and terrifying at the same time.

"What if it’s nothing of the sort?” he said, his breathing ragged. “What if fate brought us together because we should be together? What if we would always have found one another…” He paused, then stated out loud what had never been said between them, “Had it not been for the centuries between us? What if you were supposed to be born here, in this ti me, to fulfill your destiny? I say fate did not bring us together now to fulfill its natural order, but to correct its mistake.”

"And maybe that’s why I was so drawn to Pembrooke, and to this specificsymbol?" Brianna wanted to believe him so badly, it was the most incredible, romantic notion she could ever imagine, but…she felt herself hesitate, drifting off into a series of rationalizations that still failed to explain how she was here, in the fifteenth century, with a man she was sure she could love, and maybe did already. The weight of what finding herself in love would mean started to settle on her. If these were only the beginning hints of what she might feel for him, she wasn’t sure there was enough magic anywhere that she could endure losing him, losing someone else.

Aidan gripped her by the shoulders—firmly, but not roughly. “Do not go behind your wall, please. I will not hurt you. I will not leave you. Ever.”

She swallowed hard, feeling tears prickle, but held them back. While she knew her reasoning had been valid from the start, Aidan had hit on something far more profound. He pulled her into his arms, his lips pressed to her forehead.

“You are not alone anymore,” he said. “You are Brianna O’Roarke, of the House of Pembrooke, by right and by marriage.”

She fell in love with him a little bit then, or, if she was being honest with herself, a little more. He hadn’t actually come out and said that he loved her, and come to think of it, he hadn’t even said he liked her, but neither mattered anymore, especially since his actions spoke loud and clear. Aidan Sinclair got her in a way no one else ever had, and surely that counted for even more.

She pressed her hand to his chest, and stared deeply into his eyes, repeating his words, as if saying them aloud would seal her fate. “I am Brianna O’Roarke, of the House of Pembrooke, by right and by marriage.”

“Aye,” he breathed, so moved, he grasped her head and covered her lips with his.

She clung to him, kissing him back, wanting to believe it with everything in her being. She hummed, and when he answered with his own, she felt it rumble deep in his chest.

His hands slid down, and when he lifted her, she wrapped her legs around his waist and continued to kiss him as he carried her back to bed. She almost asked him to make love to her, but stopped herself, wondering what she should say, or how.

When he drew back and looked at her, he must have read something there. “I beg of you, lay your worries aside.”

Since he’d already gone so far to allay them all, at least for now, technically she wasn’t worried, but she still felt herself blush as she nudged his lips with hers, and whispered against them, “I was wondering how to ask you to make love to me without naming it so.”

If his grunt was an indication, she guessed he knew what she meant, and a moment later, it became clear that he did, when he covered her mouth and kissed her, deftly settling her beneath him. Then he pulled back and stared down at her for a moment.

“When I look at you, Brianna, and when I hold you…” his next words were whisper soft, “like this…” he pulled her closer before continuing, “or when I’m granted a mere touch in passing, I have never once, felt this sensation that I feel with you, not once. I’ve yet to name it, for I’ve never known it … but there is no doubt in my mind that love is precisely what we have between us, and what we are making here.”

At this, her heart turned over, and her hands framed his face, this beautiful man who had never once failed to show her in word and deed his reverence for her. Her words were whisper soft too. “So, it would be alright to ask you to make love to me directly, then?”

“’Tis required.”

Brianna felt the last of her defenses give way. Whether fate had brought her where she was supposed to be, or to where she should have been all along, it almost didn’t matter. She just knew that there was nothing for her to fear anymore. “Will you make love to me, Aidan?”

“With everything that I have, Brianna…and with all that I am”.