Chapter 31 #2
He places a single fingertip under my chin to keep my face tilted to his. “Mo ghràidh. This is more than I ever imagined. You. You’re more than I ever thought a person could be. When I’m with you, it doesnae matter what my clan is, or what I’ve done, or who I’ve fought. I can show weakness—”
I reach up and clasp his wrist. “If this is you weak, I’m afraid to see you strong.”
He gives me an abashed smile. “You ken my meaning. With you I can be…”
“Yourself?” I finish for him, my voice gone serious.
He gives me a relieved nod. “How’d you ken the truth of it?”
“Because it’s the same for me.” I tighten my grip, holding his hand in place like I might never let him go. “When we’re together, I’m not someone’s kid, or caretaker, or grandkid. I’m just…me.”
I barely get the words out before his lips crash into mine.
The whole world vanishes. Soon, we’re lying down, and as his hands grow braver roaming my body, I forget myself in ways I never believed possible.
Let myself do things I’ve never done. I arch into him, lost in the heat of him.
My fingers tangle in his hair, his breath burns against my skin, and I feel wild. Unraveled.
A creature of fire beneath an endless sky, with only the stars to witness us.
He pulls away, and his eyes are hooded and dark gazing down at me, his hair a chaotic halo around his head. Breathless. Astonished.
“Och, Rosie-love. I’m sorry. I should slow but…o mo chreach sa thàinig…I forget myself when I’m with you. Are you all right?”
“More than all right.” My hands are eager on him, already pulling him back down to me, but I stop.
Because he’s right. We should take it slow, at least until I figure out seventeenth-century contraception.
A feeling rushes through me, something like relief.
As though he’s seen and understood a part of me that even I hadn’t.
My mother was pregnant at nineteen. I won’t be.
I flop my head back, moaning with frustration. “Yeahhh…we should probably slow down.”
He rests his head on my shoulders, catching his breath. “I’ll not ruck up your skirts and take your maidenhood like a savage. But, och, love”—he raises his head to meet my eyes—“I’m but a man, and you’ve all the power and pull of the sea.”
He savors me with gentle kisses then, lavishing along my cheeks, my hair, my neck and ears, so charmingly old-fashioned as he apologizes for forgetting himself.
He mingles murmured Gaelic and English until it feels like a warm stream of adoring sentiments washing over me, Callum telling me I’m a gift to be treasured, that he honors me. That we’ll wait…for more…until we can do things properly.
For Callum, there is no end goal. No race to the finish line. Just this, us, sweetly together.
I place a hand along the side of his face, shushing him. His jaw is hard, as if clenched teeth might help bite back his desire.
“I’m not the sea,” I tell him. “This thing between us, that’s what’s huge. It’s stronger than any tide. It’s what brought me to you. It’s bigger even than time.”
Callum’s mouth quivers, like he wants to smile, laugh, thank me, and protest all at once. Has this man, this wondrous miracle of a man, ever been shown pure love and affection? I put a finger to his lips, wanting my words to sink in.
But he snatches my wrist and gives a light nip to my fingertip.
I laugh, but then I’m the one lost for words as I try to comprehend the emotions cascading across his features. “What?”
“I’m thinking…”
“Yes, Callum?”
He shrugs, looking abashed. “Perhaps you’ll let me kiss on you a while longer. If I vow to behave.”
My grin must light up the night. Has there ever been anyone sweeter? “There are other things we can do,” I assure him as I plunge my fingers into that thick, black hair.
And we do them.
I wake up shivering in the middle of the night. I’m tangled with Callum, who of course is sleeping soundly, but the fire has sputtered low, and his body heat is no longer enough to warm me.
I’d swear the temperature’s dropped twenty degrees. Despite the blanket under us, the ground is a block of ice, leaching my heat, leaving my muscles rigid with cold. Though we’re pretty much as close as two people can get, I try to get even closer.
He wakes instantly, eyes clear and alert, like he’d only been pretending to sleep. Seeing my expression, his hand flies to my cheek. “Rosie-love, you’re cold as stone.” He untangles from me, hopping to his feet, and I gasp as paralyzing cold seizes me where his body had been pressed against mine.
He adds wood and stokes the fire, watching to make sure it catches.
All the while, I’m watching him, mesmerized by his confident movements.
With one flick of his buckle, he sends his kilt tumbling to the ground.
Now only his thin linen tunic covers him, revealing the muscled length of his thighs and the broad span of his chest straining against the fabric.
At first, all I can do is gape in mute admiration. I’ve touched that body—eagerly and extensively—but staring up at it, at him, lit by the faint glow of the fire, it takes my breath away.
Then reality hits. “Wait, I’m not that cold. Put your kilt back on.”
“I told you, it’s a plaid.”
I roll my eyes. “Fine, plaid, whatever. Just get back here before you freeze to death.”
He gives me a wry smile. “Doubt not, fair Rosie.”
Then he walks away.
I scramble to my feet, clutching my cloak around me as best I can, and scamper after him.
“What are you doing? Is this one of those things where you’re so cold you think you’re hot?
” I follow as he ducks through the trees, and as promised, Loch Long is there, smooth and black as obsidian in the night.
“Seriously, Callum.” I catch up to him at the water’s edge. My mind is warring between the desire to ogle the thick ropes of muscle along his bare legs and the sheer panic of what he might be doing. “Have you lost it? This isn’t funny.”
“There’s naught I’ve lost. I should’ve thought of this sooner,” he adds in a mutter to himself. “But I was waylaid by a most magnificent distraction.” He looks over his shoulder with a wink.
Then he dunks his entire plaid in the loch.
I shriek, but he hushes me with a whispered laugh. “’Twill make the wool warmer,” he says as he hauls the long stretch of fabric back out of the water. “I swear it.”
I hurry after him back to our shelter. “The only thing freezing water will do is make something colder. I swear it.”
He tosses the plaid, and it lands beside the fire with a splat.
“Now it’s all wet. Callum—”
“Och, woman,” he interrupts with a chuckle, “give a lad a moment. You’ll see.”
Once he’s wrung the wool out and arranged it to his liking, he lays down and opens his arms to me.
“You want me to lie down? On freezing wet wool?”
“The wool goes over your head. You’ll be verra warm soon enough. Come.” He spreads his arms wider. “Trust me.”
“I do,” I admit with a sigh, and go straight to his side, my body tucking along his as naturally as breathing.
A gust of bitter air whooshes up my dress and my arms tighten convulsively around him.
My shivering intensifies immediately. “And if you ever doubt it, remember this moment. If we don’t both freeze to death first.”
The thing is, I honestly do trust him, and it astounds me. I’ve spent my life being the one in charge, the person making difficult decisions. Finding myself entrusting my well-being so unquestioningly to another person feels like jumping off a cliff. A really freezing one.
He tugs the wool higher, and it lands on his shoulder with a heavy slap. Using his shoulder and knee, he keeps the wet fabric from my body as much as he can, winding and tucking until we’re conjoined mummies.
“I cherish your faith in me, Mo ghràidh,” he murmurs with a kiss to the top of my head. “Mo chridhe.”
Whispered Gaelic endearments spill from him, and the feel of his hot breath along my neck, the side of my face, in my hair, sends a warmth pluming through my body that quickly turns to something hotter, brighter. The thrill of his naked legs tangling around mine is almost unbearable.
His lips find my ear. “See now?”
It takes a moment for me to come out of my daze enough to understand what he’s referring to. A thin crust of frost has encased the outside of the wool, sealing in our warmth. He’s eased down from his elbows, but the plaid has stayed in place.
I wriggle my toes, luxuriating in the sensation of feeling warmed-through for the first time in days. A pleased squeal escapes me. “It’s like an igloo.”
“You wish to glue yourself to me?”
I swat him. “Not that.”
He angles his head and gives me an adorably bereft expression.
With a small laugh, I admit, “All right, maybe that.”
He slides his hands to my waist and hoists me higher along his body. His lips brush mine as he murmurs, “’Tis a relief as I’ve already well and truly bonded myself to you.” His arms flex tighter, adjusting to nestle me even closer.
I kiss him hard, and his surprised moan reverberates through me until I feel like some exotic instrument, my every cell thrumming with joy and yearning and life. He slides his hand lower, drawing up the hem of my skirt, skimming up the back of my thigh. His hand cups my bottom. Squeezes.
And for the second time that night, I’m lost.
Eventually, I say, “We really should sleep.”
It’s not the first time those words have been said between us. But even though our eyelids are drooping, there keeps being one more kiss. One more thing to say.
“Aye, so you’ve said.”
He’s right. I keep putting off sleep, unwilling to be done with him for the night. And now I find I have yet another thought to share. “But first—”
“You want another go?” he asks with a low, suggestive chuckle. He hikes me up his body so he can nuzzle my hair. “I knew you for a wee hellcat.”