Chapter 35 Grant This Knave a Favor
AILEAN HELD HIS breath as she stared down at him, shock rippling across her features. Whatever she’d expected him to do next, it hadn’t been this. For a heartbeat, she didn’t move. Didn’t speak. And in that suspended silence, he felt utterly exposed.
She could crush him with a word.
“Ye can’t marry the likes of me,” she whispered at last. Her gaze dropped briefly—to her hands, to the rough stones beneath his knees—as if the very floor proved her point.
“Maybe not once, when I was heir to Dounarwyse,” he replied, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Although one of my closest friends threw aside convention. And the world didn’t end for it.”
“Craeg MacLean of Moy,” she murmured.
Aye. The scandal had shaken half the isle. Once, Ailean would have called it folly. Now, he understood it for what it was: love.
“Things are different now, lass … I gave it all up, remember?”
Her brow furrowed. “I still can’t believe ye’d refuse yer father. All that power … all that land.” She gestured around the tower. “This place is humble beside Dounarwyse.”
Something twisted deep in his chest.
“This place is everything,” he answered gruffly. “It remade me. One stone block at a time. Every wall I raised … every beam I set … taught me who I really am.” He exhaled slowly. “But none of it means a damn thing without ye.”
The words hung between them, raw and unguarded.
“In truth,” he continued, throat tight, “ye deserve to one day be Lady of Dounarwyse. The best silks. A warm solar all of yer own, and servants running after ye. The most I can offer is this cold tower and a steward’s life.
But if ye choose it—if ye choose me—I’ll break my back to make ye happy here. I swear it.”
Silence fell.
His heart thundered so loudly, he was sure she could hear it. What if she pitied him? What if this was guilt speaking, not love? He needed truth, even if it destroyed him.
“Do ye love me, Fiona?” he asked, his voice hoarse now.
She swallowed. “I do,” she whispered.
He swore his heart stuttered. Heat flooded his chest so fast it stole his breath. His eyes burned. For a moment, he thought his knees might give out entirely.
“Then will ye grant this knave a favor he surely doesn’t deserve … and be mine?”
Tears spilled down her cheeks, but her gaze never wavered. “I will.” Reaching out, she threaded her fingers through his, squeezing hard. “Now get off yer knees, ye daft man. Those stones look hard and cold.”
He huffed a breathless laugh. “They are … but I’d have stayed on them all night waiting for yer answer.”
She smiled through her tears. “And have I given ye the one ye wanted?”
In answer, he rose swiftly to his feet—so fast she gasped in surprise. A heartbeat later, his mouth was on hers, claiming, devouring. She recovered just as swiftly, her arms rising to link around his neck, hauling him against her.
She kissed him back with a passion that bordered on ferocity, and things quickly spiraled.
The feel of her soft, lush body pressed from chest to thigh against him burned any restraint away.
His hands slid down her back and over the swell of her hips, grasping her tight.
She groaned into his mouth, grinding her hips against him, and Ailean lost control.
His teeth grazed her lower lip as his hands deftly undid the ties of her cloak.
It fluttered to the ground. Fiona heeled her boots off.
Moments later, he was hauling her kirtle and lèine over her head.
She clawed at him too, and since he was clad only in loosely tied braies, it took little to undress him.
When they were both naked, clinging to each other, lips and tongues exploring, heat pulsing between them, Ailean tried to rein himself in.
This was the most important moment of his life.
He didn’t want to rush it. As much as he wanted her, he wanted to be tender too—to ensure she felt loved and revered.
They’d had passionate encounters before. Lust ignited like dry kindling between them. But tonight, there was something different. Tonight, they’d both admitted their love. The feelings between them ran far deeper than mere lust.
And yet, he couldn’t help but feel his words had been inadequate.
Instead, he’d show her.
Fiona squealed as he scooped her into his arms and carried her away from the hearth, shouldering through the curtain that enclosed his makeshift bower. There he laid her down upon the rumpled sheepskins he’d tossed aside when the knock came at his door.
Crawling over her, he slid his hands across her curves. The curtain hung slightly open behind them, letting a little firelight intrude, giving him just enough light to see by. He was glad of it. He didn’t want to take her in the dark. He wanted to remember what she looked like tonight.
She was lovely enough to steal his breath.
Her unbound hair was a golden halo on the pillow. Her lush breasts rose and fell swiftly. Her lips parted. Her cheeks flushed. Her eyes were dark with desire.
And something else.
Love.
He took his time then. Capturing her lips once more and kissing her slowly and deeply. Allowing her to explore his mouth with her tongue. Never had a kiss felt so intimate. So right.
Then he trailed his lips down the column of her throat. He tasted her skin, exploring its softness.
Fiona sighed, her eyelids fluttering shut as she gave herself up to him.
Smiling, he moved down to the twin mounds of her breasts.
Magnificent.
He brushed his lips over a hard, swollen nipple. He then lathed it with his tongue, enjoying her sharp intake of breath before he drew the nipple into his mouth.
She groaned his name.
Ailean began to suck slowly and deeply. When he’d given one breast his thorough attention, he moved to the other one, sucking until she groaned beneath him.
Finally, when she was starting to pant and tremble, he moved farther down her body, over her belly, to the nest of dark-golden curls between her thighs. He stroked her there with his knuckles, his pulse quickening as she opened for him.
Breathing harshly now as he fought to keep his self-control leashed, he slid her legs over his shoulders and parted her wider still.
“Please,” she whimpered. “Touch me.”
He lowered himself between her spread thighs. He’d planned to go slowly here too, and draw out her pleasure once again, but the sight of her sex bared for him made him snap.
Growling, he plowed her with his tongue.
Fiona gave a throaty cry, lifting her hips off the pallet. “Oh God … Ailean!”
He didn’t reply. He was too busy. Too hungry for her. Too desperate to taste her.
Within moments, she shattered against his mouth.
Breathing hard, he rose from between her thighs. She stared up at him, sweat glistening on her forehead, her face flushed from the force of her peak. “Ye wicked man,” she teased huskily.
“Aye.” His lips curved. “And that’s not the end of my wickedness.”
“Really?” Pushing herself up, she reached for him, one small hand curling around him. “Maybe it’s time I was wicked too.”
She gave a soft groan as she touched him that made him bite down on his lower lip. Christ—if she continued to make sounds like that, he’d spill here and now. But he wanted to be buried deep inside her when he came.
“Yer prick is scalding hot,” she murmured, her expression rapt as she gazed down at its glistening crown.
Ailean muttered something under his breath—curse or plea, he didn’t know.
He was too far gone. All he could focus on was the firm pressure of her fingers sliding up and down his shaft.
When she bent her head and licked the tip, heat gathered at the base of his spine.
And then, the firm, soft suction of her mouth on his rod made his eyelids flutter.
“Fiona—” His body trembled as he pushed her back gently but firmly onto the sheepskins, spread her thighs wide, and thrust into her in one movement.
She gasped his name in answer.
In the past, he’d liked to watch their bodies meet as he swived her. It was erotic, and he’d enjoyed feeling in control. But tonight, he didn’t want to observe; he wanted to lose himself with this woman.
He lay over her, holding himself up on his elbows so he didn’t crush her, his mouth finding hers as he rolled his hips and began to move inside her in teasing strokes. He had to take it slow. He was on the edge now.
Bracing on one elbow, he reached up, taking her hand and entwining his fingers in hers. He then pressed it into the sheepskin as he continued to ride her.
And as they moved together, he stared deep into her eyes. “Mo ghràdh,” he whispered. My love.
In answer, she sighed his name.
Their lips found each other once more, urgent and fevered now. He thrust his tongue into her mouth, mimicking each smooth glide inside her.
Fiona wrapped her legs around him, urging him on. Her heels dug into his arse. Her breathing turned ragged. She arched up, grinding herself against him as if she could never draw him deep enough. He felt her slick heat clutch around him.
It was too much.
Bracing himself, he drove into her again and again until his vision dimmed and he let himself go.
Fiona watched the sun rise over the water.
She and Ailean stood together leaning against the well, both wrapped in sheepskins and wearing nothing else but boots on their feet.
They’d slept little during the night, yet she wasn’t tired.
Indeed, she’d never felt more alive, more at peace with herself and the world around her. Never had a dawn looked so beautiful.
The sky turned from indigo to gold, delicate ribbons of rose unfurling. Frost glittered around them, and their breath steamed in the sharp air, but Fiona hardly felt the cold.
There were some moments she would treasure forever. Seeing Ailean lower himself to one knee before her was one. But this was another—the first morning of a new start.
“It is a truly lovely spot, this,” she murmured finally, breaking the companionable silence between them.