Chapter 19
Ciaran did not move, and that stillness cost him more with every breath.
Ava sat beside him on the bench, close enough that he could feel the warmth of her body through the thin space between them.
Her nightgown fell open at the throat just enough to remind him that she had come up here from her room, drawn by the sound of him when he had meant to be alone.
He could still hear his own question in his ears.
The tower had gone quiet after that in a way that sharpened every small thing. Her breathing. The shift of her hands in her lap. The fact that she had not backed away. She sat there looking at him with too much understanding in her eyes, and he felt the danger of it in his gut.
“Ava.” Her name came out lower than he had intended. He meant it as a warning.
She did not flinch. “Aye?”
The softness of her answer made his jaw tighten.
“Ye should go.”
The words were wrong, even as he said them. He heard the lack of force in them and even heard the invitation hidden inside the failure.
Her mouth curled into a strained smile. “Ye have had many chances to sound convincing when ye say that to me.”
He released a short breath through his nose. “I am trying now.”
“I can see that.”
The reply carried hurt, wit, and knowledge all at once.
She was still angry with him. She had every right to be.
He had pushed her away and pulled her close by turns until neither of them could stand on solid ground.
Yet she stayed. She sat in his tower, in her nightgown, looking at him as if she meant to coax the truth out of him whether he wished it or not.
“Ye daenae understand how difficult ye are making this,” he said.
Ava’s eyes narrowed. “Do I?”
“Nay.”
“How?”
He looked at her. Really looked at her. His eyes settled on the color in her face and the way she held herself still, though he could feel the tension in her.
He looked at her mouth. The set of lips he had wanted for days and denied himself for days and had not stopped wanting, even when he had hidden from her like a coward.
“By sitting there as if ye daenae ken.”
Her breath caught. He felt it.
“I do ken,” she said, and the softness of it reached him more deeply than if she had raised her voice. “I only wanted ye to say it.”
That landed hard. He had no defense ready.
The piano had once given him cover. The music had let him empty himself without a witness. Now the instrument sat beneath his hands and beside her body, and there was no shelter left in it.
The tower had become a trap built from every piece of him he had tried to keep separate. The telescope by the window. The piano bench. The night air. Ava in the middle of it all.
He could send her away. He still could. Stand up. Put distance back between them. Open the door. Speak like a laird and husband, and make her obey.
But he did not want to.
That thought broke free from him, and he felt a wave of desire run through him. Before he could speak again, he rose in one swift motion.
Ava looked up at him, startled, and for one second, he saw the question in her eyes. Then he bent, wrapped his hands around her arms, and lifted her from the bench.
She gave a small sound and grabbed at his shoulders. There was no struggle in it, only surprise and the instinct to hold on. Her body settled against him with a trust that nearly undid him right then and there.
He lifted her and placed her on the piano.
The instrument took her weight with a low wooden shift as he set her on its closed lid.
Her nightgown loosened further when she moved, and his throat tightened at the sight of her pale skin and the column of her throat laid bare for him.
He stepped between her knees before reason could return.
Ava’s hands stayed on him.
“Ciaran,” she whispered.
The sound of his name on her lips shattered what restraint he had left. He didn’t think too long before he leaned in and kissed her.
He had done it with caution before, but this time… this time he was not trying to be respectful. His hand came to the side of her neck, then slid into her hair, and he took her mouth with all the want he had kept locked down since the wedding.
She answered him at once, opening for him and drawing him closer with both hands on his shoulders until their touch became urgent.
He could feel the heat of her skin through the linen and wool, and could hear the quick rise and fall of her breath.
He could also feel her resolve in the way she leaned into him.
The kiss deepened fast.
His other hand moved to her waist, then higher along her side, tracing her curves through the thin fabric.
Ava’s fingers tightened around the back of his shoulders, and the small sound she made when his mouth moved to the line of her jaw went straight through him.
He kissed the spot below her ear, and her head tipped back against his hand, giving him more access.
The knowledge that she wanted this too drove him harder into the moment.
The piano at her back, the tower around them, the night beyond the window, all of it narrowed down to her body under his hands and her breath breaking whenever he touched her somewhere she had begun to feel too keenly.
He stopped only long enough to look at her.
Her hair had come loose. Her face was flushed, and her lips were swollen from his kiss. She looked at him with the same hunger he knew must be plain on his own face.
And then he bent to her again and sealed his mouth over hers, his hand trailing down her side.
Ava threw her head back as his mouth left hers and moved slowly to her jaw, her throat, and then a spot beneath her collarbone.
Her hands tightened in his hair by instinct and then loosened when he moved lower, his mouth tracing the rise and fall of her chest over the thin fabric of her nightgown.
His hands slid down to her waist while he kissed his way down with a patience that made her breath stutter.
He lowered his head as well, going his knees.
“Yer taste is maddening,” he rasped, his voice reverberating through her and making her shiver.
She realized what he intended to do when his mouth reached her hips. She did not stop him.
He slowly pushed her nightgown upward, and the cool air immediately kissed her bare skin, making her gasp. Before she could form a word, his hands were on her thighs, spreading them with a firmness that left no room for hesitation.
He looked up at her once from where he knelt.
“Ciaran…” she panted, looking down at him.
The sight of his head between her legs made heat curl in her belly.
Soon, his mouth found the inside of her knee. The warmth of his lips traveled up through her before he had moved an inch. By the time he reached her inner thigh, her breathing had grown ragged. She braced one hand against the lid behind her, and the other stayed curled in his hair, holding on.
When his mouth finally found her sex, the sound she made tore through the tower. His tongue circled and pushed into her, and she felt pressure build in her belly.
She ground her teeth, her eyes rolling to the back of her head as he continued to stroke her. Her thighs trembled against his shoulders, and her head fell back. The hand in his hair tightened.
“Ciaran.” His name came out broken and breathless. “I am close.”
He rose to his feet and pressed his mouth briefly to the side of her neck as his hand replaced his mouth between her thighs.
Ava felt a wave of pleasure rush through her as his fingers found the same rhythm without missing a beat. She gripped his shoulder hard, unable to say anything. She could feel him against her hip, his length poking through his trousers.
His breath was warm against her ear. “Ye drive me absolutely mad. Do ye ken that?”
It was not a question, and she could not have answered it anyway.
Her climax came with a force that surprised her, rolling through her in a long shuddering wave that broke whatever restraint she had been holding onto. She pressed her face into his neck and felt him hold her through it until the tremors ceased, leaving her sated and limp.
For a moment, neither of them moved. Then he brought his hand up slowly. She felt him taste his fingers, and something moved through her at the sight. He kissed her after, and she tasted herself on his lips. For some reason, she did not pull away.
When he finally lifted his head, she looked at him.
His hair was disheveled from her hands, and his eyes were dark and hooded. She swallowed hard as he leaned in.
He kissed her again, slower now, deeper, and she surrendered to him without hesitation. Then he shifted, and the piano edge caught the back of her thigh.
“Ow.”
He stopped at once. “Did I hurt ye?”
Ava blinked at him, then let out a breathless laugh. “Only me pride, I suppose.”
For a beat, he stared at her as if he had not expected laughter in the middle of this. Then his mouth curved. “Yer pride?”
“Aye,” she said. “But daenae worry, the piano isnae jealous.”
That drew a rough, low laugh from him, and the sound of it loosened something in her chest. She laughed too, still flushed, still unsteady, her forehead nearly resting against his as the tension from the interruption faded into something warmer.
His thumb brushed lightly over her cheek. “Are ye all right?”
“Aye,” she replied, and this time there was no breathless confusion in her voice. “I am.”
The answer settled in the space between them.
He looked at her for a second longer, then kissed her once, slowly, as though the pause and the shared laughter had somehow made the next touch more intimate instead of less.
For a few seconds after, Ava could do nothing but breathe. His right hand remained on her waist, steady and warm. The other rested against the piano lid beside her. She could hear his breathing too, slower than hers, though only just.
When she opened her eyes, the room looked the same as it had been earlier. She could see the candles, the dark wood, the open window. Yet nothing in her felt the same as it had been when she had first climbed those steps.
Ciaran looked down at her with an expression she had no proper name for. She saw hunger still and something more open than she had ever seen in him before.
He helped her down from the piano with more care than when he had lifted her onto it. By the time her feet touched the floor, her knees felt weak.
She sat against the side of the piano, pulling her cloak closer around herself by instinct. Ciaran sat down beside her, one knee bent, one arm draped loosely over it. He looked as if he did not know what to do with himself.
For a little while, neither of them spoke.
Then Ava looked at his hands and exhaled. “Ye play beautifully.”
His gaze flicked to the keys above them. “I hadnae played in a while.”
“Why nae?”
He paused. “I almost thought I wouldnae be able to anymore.”
She turned that over in silence. He had meant more than the instrument. She could hear that much in his words.
“Ye were marvelous,” she said softly.
His eyes came back to her face, and heat rose into her cheeks again, though she had already given him more than praise. She did not take the words back. They were true.
He started to move, perhaps out of habit, perhaps because remaining here in the silence with her felt harder than touching her had been.
“We should go,” he uttered.
Ava reached for his hand before he could rise fully. The contact stopped him at once. “Stay.”
His gaze dropped to where her fingers held his. “Ava.”
“Only a little longer.”
There was no urgency in her voice now. She did not ask for more. She only wanted his presence. She wanted this—the tower, the floor, the minutes after—before either of them put distance back in place and pretended they could still stand where they had been earlier.
“We can stay for a few more minutes,” she added.
He looked at her, then sat back down without argument.
That small concession touched her more deeply than she had expected.
They sat there together on the floor by the piano while the night air drifted through the tower. Ava let her hand remain in his, and he did not pull away.
Warmth spread through her slowly, mixed with astonishment and the plain knowledge that their marriage had crossed into something neither of them could describe.
She turned her head and looked at him.
He was staring ahead, quiet and hard to read, but she could feel the weight of whatever sat inside him. He had no easy road back from this. Neither of them did.
The room held them in stillness for those few extra minutes, and Ava understood with sudden clarity that nothing between them was simple now. And when they rose to their feet, neither of them would be able to call their marriage a convenient arrangement again.
It had become complicated.