Epilogue #2
When Ciaran took his turn to kiss every inch of her, she found that it was not merely a simple pleasure.
Rather, there was an element of torture to it, to the way he slowly moved across her ribcage before peppering little sucking kisses across the sensitive undersides of her breasts; the way he caressed up and down her legs in long strokes but not quite touching where she needed him most.
“My sweet, perfect wife,” he praised as he moved to kneel between her spread legs. He looked down at her, a disbelieving smile on his face as though he could hardly trust what he was seeing—as if he could hardly trust that she was truly his.
Eilidh could easily recognize that look, because it was the same one that she knew shone in her eyes.
“My strong, glorious husband,” she returned. She wanted to sound steady, as he had, but her voice was trembling with need. “Please. I cannae wait any longer.”
He was determined, though, because he made her wait just a little longer, just enough for him to lower himself slowly atop her, kiss her mouth so long and hard that it left her breathless and her lips throbbing.
Then, and only then, did he guide himself inside her.
Eilidh gasped at the sensation, no longer entirely novel but not yet familiar, of being filled in the most glorious fashion.
Her body had been wanting him all day—and indeed, for weeks before that—and it made the glide smooth.
She canted her hips up to meet his, seeking more of the feeling, more of him.
“Eilidh,” he groaned when he was fully seated within her. “How I adore ye.”
“Show me,” she begged, wrapping her arms around his neck.
He began to move, each slow thrust leaving them panting each other’s air.
Eilidh clung tight around his neck, letting his hands on her hips guide her to finding her own rhythm of movement until they were together in every way, united in their pursuit of pleasure.
The heat that had been banked low inside her burned brighter and brighter, and she met each of his forward motions more and more fervently until their movement became frantic and irregular.
“Ciaran. I love ye. I love ye.”
Her breathless words ignited something even further in him, and his movements became so powerful that they pressed Eilidh into the soft mattress beneath again and again. It was so much feeling, so much—and yet she needed more.
With a gasp and an oath, Ciaran shifted his weight so that he could bring a hand between them.
He pressed strong fingers against that sensitive spot, rubbing harshly in such a way that Eilidh was launched off a cliff and into ecstasy.
She heard Ciaran groan his own pleasure through the roaring in her ears as her crisis seized her, as she held on even tighter to this man—her husband, her destiny—as she sought to squeeze every last ounce of pleasure through their joining.
When their blood cooled and their breaths slowed, Eilidh burrowed under Ciaran’s arm as though there was any greater way to join them together than what they had already shared. She did not think she would be finished touching him, caressing him, loving him for a very, very long time.
“Us, together,” she murmured as the day caught up with her and sleep edged in.
“Aye,” he agreed, a hand coming up to smooth her hair back from her face. “For as long as we both shall live.”
“Ye will be giving people improper ideas, looking as happy as all that.” Ciaran’s words to his wife might have sounded like chastisement, but his tone was naught but pride. “They’ll suspect that I’ve been doing something to put that look on your face.”
Eilidh scrunched that pert little nose of hers at him, but her smile didn’t fade a bit.
“We are newly married,” she said, as though he needed the reminder. “They will think what they will think. But I dinnae intend to hide my happiness for even a moment.”
They were dining as a family that morning, rather than in the Great Hall, and it made Ciaran feel strangely hopeful to think of himself as a member of the family.
For so long, it had been just him and Aunt Kirsty as part of the clan’s original leading family, and he’d felt as though he needed to shoulder all his burdens alone.
No longer. Now he had his wife—and the brothers and sisters that her extended clan brought along with it.
The Laird’s parlor had been laid out with food, and the mood in the room was muted but cheerful.
Ciaran and Eilidh had been able to hear the party going late into the night, and Mairi Buchanan, for one, looked as though she might be suffering the aftereffects of the combined wine and revelry.
Ailsa was rocking her small son, looking down at him with a fond, weary expression that said that celebrating too much was not the reason for her lack of sleep.
Everyone murmured their felicitations anew to Ciaran and Eilidh, and they had just gone to take a seat beside Davina and Arran when Vaila and her husband hurried into the room, looking distressed.
Ewan and Graham both, with a laird’s sense of urgency, sat up in their seats at once, any traces of exhaustion gone.
“What is it?” Ewan demanded, his eyes on his captain’s face.
James’ expression was grim.
“We’ve just had word,” he announced. “Keep McPherson is no more. Gordon and his men… they burned it through the night.”
At Ciaran’s side, Arran went very still and very pale.
“Caden?” he asked, seeming as though he dreaded even mentioning his brother’s name in the wake of the reference to such a tragedy.
Vaila gave him a resigned look. “We don’t know,” she admitted. “Nobody knows if there were any survivors.”
Davina let out a shocked gasp, and Eilidh’s hand shot out to clutch at Ciaran’s arm.
Ciaran felt that old, familiar feeling of impending battle settle over him, along with the readiness that he always brought to such scenes of violence. His wedding celebration was at an end, it seemed. It was time for war once more.
But now, he had more to protect than he ever had before.
“We will get through this together,” he promised Eilidh, gazing resolutely into her shocked green eyes until she nodded, a little color returning to her cheeks. “No matter what.”
It was time to make good on his oath to defend his new family by marriage. It was time to finally show Gordon that his reign of terror had come to an end.
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