Chapter Thirty-Three
T he ache that had dogged Liadan all the day long eased only when Ardahl came through the door. A persistent sort of hunger it had been, gnawing at her despite all her other worries and preoccupations, without stopping.
When she saw him standing there with his hair and clothing dripping wet, the relentless worrying—like a dog at its bone—at last ceased. He was here. From that moment, nothing else mattered.
She’d done her best this day to cleanse the hut. To fashion it anew as her own. She did not know if she’d succeeded, but the fire burned low and bright. She had food set aside—for Ardahl, only for him. Everything from now on would be for him.
“Is my mam no’ here?”
“She has gone to help at a birthing. A difficult one. Imagine, a babe choosing such a time to be born, and backward, so she said when she stopped on her way.” Liadan caught Ardahl’s gaze. “She will no’ be back tonight.”
“Ah.” He said no more, but she caught the flicker of the thoughts, light and dark, in his eyes. Just the two of them here alone. Them and the ghosts.
The ghosts had better turn their eyes away, given what Liadan had in mind.
“Come. Get those wet things off. I will fetch a cloth.”
When she returned with one, he had taken a few steps closer to the fire but had not otherwise complied with her instructions. He stood, hands dangling at his sides, only his gaze following her.
She tugged off his hood—sodden—and began untying the bindings of the leather armor beneath. She stripped away the armor. Took the cloth and dried his face. His arms. Moved around to his back. His hair hung past his shoulder blades. She gathered it into the cloth before returning to the front and beginning to unfasten his belt.
“Liadan—”
“Aye?” She kept her tone light even though her fingers trembled. Not with fear, or even honest nerves. With desire.
She had wanted this man a long time. Much had come between her and her desire. Now it had become so much more than a physical want.
When she went down on her knees before him to unfasten the bindings over his leggings, he stiffened and seized her shoulders.
“Liadan—”
“What?” She gazed up at him, met his eyes. “Did I no’ tell ye earlier what I wanted?”
“Ye did. but I am here in your brother’s stead. To all purposes, I am your brother.”
She got to her feet. “Ye could no’ be less my brother had ye descended from the moon. Now, d’ye have any hurts ye need tending? Before I finish removing your clothing, I would know.”
Stricken silent, he shook his head.
She had an excuse to strip him down, him being wet from the rain. No such excuse to remove her own clothing, though she shed it anyway, not quite daring to meet his eyes. Though she had never experienced the act she wished to perform this night, it required little or no covering on either of their parts.
She’d seen her brother naked while growing up. Living in such close quarters, glimpses in passing proved unavoidable. She’d never thought much of it. Men and women were, aye, different. There was a purpose in it, planned by the gods.
No unintended glimpse she’d ever caught of any man approached this.
He was beautiful, her Ardahl. So beautiful, despite the wounds, scrapes, and bruises that fair covered him, it stole her breath away. Made her heart pound. Made her fingers quiver.
Broad, strong shoulders aglow in the light from the fire. A finely molded chest patterned with auburn hair. Strong legs without bulk, and hips whipcord slim.
Her mind failed her there. Her mouth went dry. Och, holy Brigid! He was made for me. Only for me.
He said nothing as she met his gaze at last, not aloud. His lips did move, though no words came, and his eyes sang her a song. One so ancient and holy it did not need to sound in the air.
She heard it instead in her mind. In her heart.
“Ardahl,” she whispered when they were both stripped naked. She moved into his arms. Och, and she could feel him, every part of him as he wrapped her in his arms and drew her in, natural and wonderful as breathing. As being alive.
They kissed. And kissed.
She gave herself to him, fairly and freely she did. Arms wound around his neck. Fingers twined into his hair. Legs around his hips.
He boosted her up without effort, his palms at her bottom, and breathed into her. “Where?”
Not in Conall’s sleeping place, nor here beside the fire where her mam had died.
“There.” Her parents’ sleeping place, which her mam had abandoned after Conall’s death. Unused now.
He deposited her there gently, as if she were something precious. She pulled him down on top of her.
“Wait, Liadan.” He said no more as he stood and looked at her by the light filtering in from the fire. She’d never been self-conscious about her body, never been conceited about it either, or given it much thought. But now she wondered what he might think.
She wanted to be beautiful for him. No one else.
She reached up for him, pressed her mouth to his, and he came down atop her. All other thoughts flew as sensation—blinding in its intensity—seared her mind.
Desire rose in a staggering wave even before he put his tongue into her mouth, deep. She understood it then. She had been created to open herself and accept him. Give to him on a rush as strong as a flowing river.
He began to run his hands over her, gently and carefully, palms abraded and rough with callouses. They smoothed the skin at her sides, cupped a breast, traveled over her belly and downward. All the while Ardahl and she continued to kiss as if fused mouth to mouth, unceasing.
So easy was this, so natural, and at the same time utterly transforming. She teetered on the edge of becoming someone she’d never imagined.
Ardahl’s woman.
“Ardahl, please.” She broke the kiss to gust the plea, breathless, into his mouth.
“Ye be certain o’ this, lass?”
“I need—”
“Aye.” He gusted a half laugh. He lay upon her, and she could feel the hot hardness of him resting on her belly.
Greatly daring, she reached between their bodies and wrapped her fingers around him. His whole being jerked in response.
“Please,” she begged again.
Instead, he bent his head. His mouth found her breast, and though she would not have thought it possible, her mind shattered again. The rest of her was primed to follow. If she did not have him soon, deep inside her, she would die.
Leaving go of him below, she buried her hands in his hair and drew him to her, fingers urging. The closer he got, the closer they got. She held him to her breast and rocked him. With a kind of sigh, he stopped suckling, lifted his face, and studied her in the dim, filtered light.
Gazed straight into her eyes. Repositioned himself.
And slid inside her.
It felt so right, she nearly missed the sudden pinch of pain. That did not matter, for he was suddenly where she wanted him, where he was meant to be. In this moment she belonged to this man—nothing before and nothing after, one being, with one heart and one flesh.
She rose through the sensation and expanded, taking him with her. Her blood beat for him, like the beating of wings, and his blood beat through her. Mouths still fused, she tasted nothing but him as she shattered.
His arms guided her as they tumbled back down to earth onto her parents’ sleeping bench. She lay there, her body still singing, striving to think. There were no words for trust such as this. For bonding such as this.
Without words, she lay quiet. He touched her face, her neck, her collarbone.
“I am sorry.”
“Sorry?” she echoed, barely comprehending the word. “Why?”
“I spilled myself. On your belly.”
Had he? Indeed, she felt wet there, and warm.
He whispered, “I did no’ want to give ye my babe.”
Oh. Aye. The result of such an act, such joining. She experienced a rush of tenderness at the thought and touched his face in turn. “Did ye think I would no’ want your bairn?” She wanted every part of him.
“I thought, given our situation, ’twould not be wise.”
Their situation. She crashed down to earth far harder than before.
“I do no’ care.”
“Ye should, Liadan. Ye must. This is not meant to be.”
“There could be naught more meant to be than ye and me together, Ardahl. There could be naught more right than this.” Did he not feel that? She’d just given herself to him. Her life and her being. All that she was.
Should she tell him she loved him? Nay, love did not even touch what she felt.
“Bonny lass, beautiful girl,” he crooned, “ye must see ’tis impossible.”
“It canna be impossible. For I am here and so are ye. ’Tis the gods have sent us this, Ardahl. Amid all the loss and the pain and the ugliness.”
He buried his face in her neck and held on tight.