Chapter 18
Neil moved before thinking. He reached for her, caught her by the waist, and lifted her onto the table. His hands were firm and sure, but not cruel. Never cruel.
Kristen gasped as she landed half sitting, half reclining, her elbows braced on the wood and her hair tumbling over one shoulder, her breath coming in quick bursts.
Neil planted his palms on either side of her hips and leaned in, his breathing harsh in the silence.
She stared him down, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright. “If ye regret yer choice of wife, ye should have thought about it a little bit sooner.”
“Regret.” The word came out raw and nearly pained. His mouth twisted into a smile. “Is that really what ye think I feel? Regret?”
Her chin lifted. “Aye, regret. Ye would save us both time if ye’d speak plainly.”
He bent slowly, as if a rope was pulling him and he could not cut it. His knuckles grazed her cheek, the touch featherlight, so gentle that it put the broken plates at his back at odds with the man above her.
“Lass,” he whispered, “ye were right. Ye daenae understand anything.”
Her lips parted. His eyes snagged on the movement, dark and steady, then dragged up to meet hers.
“Then tell me,” she challenged, her voice laced with both defiance and heat. “Or let me go.”
He breathed out hard, and the sound scraped the air. “The thought of another man touching ye makes me go mad,” he rasped.
A flush crawled up her throat. “I havenae let anyone touch me,” she whispered. “Nae once.”
A beat passed. His hands pressed harder into the table as if he needed the wood to anchor him.
“And ye’re nae allowed to touch me either,” she added, lifting her chin again. “According to me rule.”
He stared at her. The reminder hung like a blade between them, bright and sharp. She held it there and did not look away.
“We have an arrangement.” Her voice shook, but not from fear. “In case ye forgot.”
The corner of his mouth curved, slow and dark and entirely male. “Och,” he said softly. “Do I nae?”
He leaned in, caging her with his arms, his broad shoulders blocking out the candlelight. The air between them tightened; there was nothing in it but the thud of hearts and the heat of a dark look.
“Say ye daenae want me,” he taunted, close enough that the words brushed her mouth. “And I will take my hands off this table and walk away.”
Her lashes fluttered. “Daenae order me about.”
“I am asking ye,” he said. “For once.”
She held his eyes, fighting the quiver in her belly and the ache that had no name but all names. “I told ye me rule,” she forced out. “I made it for a reason.”
“Because ye daenae trust me.”
“Because I daenae trust what this will make of me,” she corrected. “And because ye left.”
“I left and came back as a sharp dagger,” he said roughly. “It cuts the wrong people. I ken that.”
“Then sheath it.” The smallest breath of a laugh escaped her lips. “Ye are in a hall, nae a battlefield.”
His gaze fell to her mouth again, heavy as a hand. “If I sheathe it,” he murmured, “I will unsheathe something else I have kept buried since the day I let ye go.”
“Ye never had me,” she whispered.
His eyes flashed. “I have thought of ye every night I could manage to think. Does that nae count for anything?”
“It doesnae warm a bed,” she pointed out, heat bleeding into her tone. “And it doesnae keep a woman from being a joke in her own castle.”
He leaned closer, so close their noses nearly touched. “Prove me wrong,” he murmured. “Tell me ye feel nothing. Tell me ye want me to walk away.”
Her throat worked, but the words did not come. He heard her breath, quick and thin, and she heard his, rough and heavy, and neither of them moved.
“Neil…” His eyes closed at the sound of his name on her lips. “I cannae… speak lies.”
“Nor can I,” he said, opening his eyes again. They raked over her face, slowly softening. “That is why I am here, and why I am a fool.”
Her fingers curled into the fabric at her sides. “Ye will regret this in the morning.”
“I have endured five years in captivity,” he said. “I will allow me first regret to be me own, nae yers.”
He pulled her skirt up to her waist.
“Ye think that makes it noble?” she asked, her breath hitching. “It doesnae.”
“It makes it honest,” he emphasized. “And I have nay honest thing left but this.”
With that, he sank to his knees. The cold from the stone bit through his trousers, and the heat of her hit his face. She was right there, bare as ever, open to him.
Without saying another word, he buried his face between her thighs. His tongue was a broad, flat stroke through her center, and she threw her head back, suppressing a moan. She tasted salty, musky.
He groaned into her, the vibration making her hips jerk. Her fingers fisted in his hair, not to guide, but to pull, the burn sharp on his scalp.
“Christ,” she breathed.
She could barely be coherent through the waves of blinding pleasure.
Neil used his mouth on her like a man eating a ripe fruit, messy and hungry. He licked into her, his nose pressed against her. He found the little bundle of nerves and sucked, not gently.
Her thighs clamped around his ears, muffling the world outside the hall, and all he could hear was the wet, sloppy sounds of his mouth working her and her ragged breath.
He slid a finger into her, then another. She was tight, hot, and slick. He curled his fingers, pumping slowly in time with the strokes of his tongue.
She was dripping, her arousal slicking his chin. He added a third finger, stretching her, and she let out a curse in Gaelic that might as well have been gibberish.
He could feel her body coiling, her belly quivering under his other hand. Her heels dug into his back, and the table legs screeched on the stone floor, a rhythmic scrape against her gasps.
“Daenae stop,” she moaned. “Daenae ever stop,”
He had no intention to.
His jaw ached, but the ache was good. It was a feeling. Her taste was all over him—in his nose, in his mouth. He pushed his fingers deeper, curling them, and his tongue continued to stroke her, fast and relentless.
Her body contracted one last time with a shout that echoed off the low ceiling. The sound was raw, like it was ripped out of her depths. Her walls clenched around his fingers rhythmically, pausing with a slick grip.
He kept his mouth on her, stroking her more gently a she rode out the wave of pleasure. Soon, she grew way too sensitive and gripped his shoulder hard, silently telling him to stop. He withdrew his fingers and pulled back.
She lay on the table, panting. The linen was warm where her hands had curled. A spoon lay on the floor, and a shard of porcelain glittered near a chair leg.
Neil stood over her, his chest rising and falling. His gaze flicked over her face, then away, then back. Something akin to satisfaction glinted there, but so did something akin to regret. He reached out as if to touch her cheek again, then paused, his hand curling around air.
Kristen tried to sit up, but her legs trembled. The edge of the table bit into her palms. He steadied her with a single hand under her elbow, firm and gentle. A simple touch, but it felt like a pack of needles.
She searched his face and could not find any mockery there. Instead, she found care and restraint. She found a man who had kept himself on a tight leash and had used that same control to make sure she did not fear him when every muscle in her quivered.
A sound rose outside the doors, followed by a shuffle of boots, a low murmur, then silence.
Kristen flinched before she could stop herself. The hall felt too large and too small at once. Shards lay on the floor, and candlelight danced across the walls. The table was hard and cold beneath her. Her breathing would not slow.
Neil did not speak. He stood close enough that the heat of his body warmed her knees through the soft fall of her skirts. He glanced over at the doors for a heartbeat, then back at her. His hands rose, slow and careful, as if he were approaching a skittish horse.
“Hold,” he murmured.
She went still. He reached for her bodice with steady fingers. He found the loosened laces and tied them, patient with the stubborn lace. He eased her shift where it had twisted, then smoothed the rumpled panel across her ribs.
She watched him, the dark hair tied at the nape of his neck, the set of his jaw as he worked like a craftsman repairing a thing he had no right to break.
“Ye daenae have to,” she whispered.
“Aye,” he said quietly, “I do.”
His thumbs fixed her sleeves back into place, one after the other. He checked the knot at her waist and retied it.
His gentleness shocked her. Moments ago, he had sent cutlery flying. Now he was touching her as if she might bruise. As if bruising her would ruin him.
Was there ever a man more confusing than Neil Adair?
The corridor stirred and went still again. She drew air that tasted of ash and bread and the faint salt of his sweat. Her heartbeat slowed a little. Only a little.
He finished with the last tie and stepped back, his hands lowering to the edge of the table beside her hip as if he needed wood to ground him.
“Kristen.” His voice had lost its edge. It sat low and steady in his chest. “I asked ye something before. Before all of this.”
Heat crept up her cheeks. She knew what he meant.
Her fingers found the folds of her dress and worried them once. “Aye, ye did.”
He waited patiently for her to continue. He held the silence the way he held himself—tight and without flinching.
She fumbled for a voice that would not shake.
“I think a cèilidh would bring folks together,” she said.
“It would cast a kinder light and show the truth. That in the past five years, neither of us bedded other people.” Her mouth went dry at the last words, but she forced them out anyway.
“Folks will stop guessing if they hear the truth from our mouths.”
His eyes darkened, and he gave a small nod. “Good.”
The single word felt like more than agreement. It felt like a line cut into stone.