Chapter Nineteen
Avery wasn’t exactly sure how it happened.
One moment they’d been arguing, interrupting each other with growing frustration, and the next Morggán had fallen silent.
He continued to look at her, though not with the exasperation that had brought him to her door or had sustained his argument.
Something changed in his expression, softening neither the stern set of his mouth nor the lines of fatigue carved by the long day, but drawing all of his attention so completely upon her that she found herself forgetting what she had meant to say next.
Slowly, he closed what little space remained between them.
The little house, never generous in its dimensions, suddenly seemed smaller than ever.
The counter and shelves behind her offered nowhere to retreat, though she doubted she would have done so even had the room stretched twice its size.
She had spent the better part of the afternoon seething over his high-handedness, insisting that he would not command her.
She had no intention of yielding ground now merely because he stood close enough that she could see the day's stubble shadowing his jaw or the faint flecks of brown that speckled the gray of his eyes.
His hand settled lightly against her waist, managing in an instant to steal any other thought.
His hand rested there with quiet certainty, in no rush, as though he meant to discover whether she would draw away before he took another inch. Avery's breath caught as she held his powerfully intense gaze.
When she made no move to disengage herself, his hand slipped around her back, drawing her nearer until she could feel the solid warmth of him through the layers of wool and linen between them.
Her hands lifted instinctively, telling herself to push him away, but they only hovered awkwardly for a moment before coming to rest against the sleeves of his tunic.
He lowered his head with such deliberation that she understood that he was letting the choice be hers.
She was still angry. The argument remained unresolved, and she wasn’t sure he understood her position in it still.
Yet when his breath stirred the loose strands of hair at her temple and his lips brushed her cheek with the lightest touch, the anger no longer seemed equal to the strange ache that had lived inside her since she had pulled away from him the last time he touched her.
The last of her resistance gave way.
She swallowed weakly and turned her face toward his.
His mouth found hers with a certainty that stole the breath from her.
There was nothing hesitant in the kiss. It carried all the urgency that she felt inside herself. His hand tightened at her back, drawing her firmly against him until there was no longer room for anger—for anything—between them.
For one suspended heartbeat she remained perfectly still, more startled by his hunger than unwilling.
Then the familiar warmth of him, the quiet scent of smoke and pine that always seemed to cling to his clothing, and the unmistakable tenderness hidden beneath what seemed like yearning unraveled the last of her resolve.
Her fingers curled into the heavy wool covering his shoulders.
He deepened the kiss with the practiced confidence of a man who knew exactly how to coax rather than conquer, his mouth lingering just long enough to draw a response before demanding another.
Every gentle shift of his lips invited her nearer, until she found herself answering him in kind, rising instinctively toward him as though some part of her had been waiting all day to do exactly this.
The world narrowed to the growing urgency between them.
She felt it in the unsteady rhythm of her breathing, in the way her heart thumped beneath her breast, and in the curious weakness that stole into her knees until the hand at her back was no longer merely welcome but necessary.
She moved her hands, wanting to be closer, to climb inside him if she could, one hand finding the nape of his neck while the other disappeared into the thick hair at the back of his head, holding him close with a wantonness that should have embarrassed her but somehow did not.
He answered with a quiet sound she felt more than heard, gathering her closer still, and the simple certainty of being in his arms undid her completely.
His tongue teased her lips, until her sigh opened them, and she joined her own with his.
Kissing him still felt exactly as she remembered—warm, exhilarating, and so completely right that she responded to him with a hunger that surprised her every bit as much as it seemed to delight him.
In that moment, there existed no English army, no argument, no thought of time-travel.
There was only Morggán, holding her as though he feared she might slip beyond his reach, and she, kissing him back with every bit as much longing as burned inside her.
“Tell me I imagined it,” he said against her lips then. “Tell me that wasn't real.”
Kissed to the point of incoherency, it took her a moment to understand what he meant.
“Morggán,” she said, breathless, “I wasn't rejecting you. I was rejecting your authority over me, which you have no right to.”
“Have I the right to kiss ye?”
She nodded against him, seeking his mouth again.
Morggán persisted, though. “Me and nae other.”
“You and no other,” she vowed.
“And will I stop?” he asked, his voice thick.
“No. Don’t stop,” she begged, and with her hands in his hair, pulled him back to her kiss.
He broke the kiss abruptly.
Avery stared at him, dazed by the suddenness of his absence. His breathing was as uneven as hers, and his arms remained around her, but something had changed. She watched his expression tighten with a kind of restrained misery that caught her entirely off guard.
He rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes for the briefest moment.
“If I dinna stop now, lass,” he said, his voice thick, “I willna be able to stop at all.”
Whatever he meant, it clearly pained him to say it.
“What happens,” she asked quietly, “if you don't stop?”
“I’d make love to ye.”
She studied him with quiet curiosity. “What does that mean?”
His brows lowered a bit, as if he now was confused. “It means I’d take ye as my woman. It would make ye mine.” His hand came up to cradle her cheek.
“And you would be... mine?” she asked, filled with wonder at the very idea.
The hint of a grin lifted one corner of his beautiful mouth. “Aye. Ye would belong to me and I to ye.”
She had only the vaguest understanding of what he meant by making love.
She knew, in the abstract, that there was something more between a man and a woman than kissing, something that bound husbands and wives together, but she had never imagined herself standing at the edge of that unknown place.
She wasn’t frightened by her uncertainty—if this was what it meant to belong to him, then she wanted it.
Whatever it was, she wanted it because it would be with him.
She smiled then, bright and sure, if a little shyly. “I think... I'd like that.”
In response, Morggán cupped her face in his large hands and pressed his lips to hers with a tenderness she had not felt before.
Avery met his kiss without hesitation, unable—and unwilling—to resist him.
Her arms tightened again around his neck, her fingers sliding into the thick softness of his hair, and she answered him with everything he had taught her about kissing.
When his lips parted, her tongue found his, and she felt the deep rumble of his groan as he kissed her back, fitting himself more intimately against her, pressing a hardness into her belly.
She continued to kiss him with a calmness that belied all the screaming, joyful tumult inside her.
She gave not one thought to consequences, and how could she with Morggán's expert hands and lips upon her?
Somewhere deep inside, however, she knew this moment had awakened a longing far older than the kiss itself.
For years she had lived with almost no human touch, no easy conversation, no one with whom to share even the smallest pieces of herself.
She could not honestly say she had spent those lonely years imagining this exactly—to be kissed, held, and seemingly cherished by a man—but she recognized the ache all the same.
It had never truly been for romance, but for closeness, for companionship.
For the simple comfort of knowing she mattered to someone.
When Morggán said she would belong to him, and he to her, the words had reached some quiet place inside her she had scarcely known still existed—a desire to belong, and not simply to the forest that had become her refuge, nor to the lonely little house that had kept her alive, but to another soul who chose her as surely as she chose him.
She hadn’t realized how desperately she had hungered for that until he placed the possibility in her hands.
Only then did she fully understand the question he had once asked her, whether she had grown weary of being alone. She hadn’t answered him then, but the response deep within had been yes, she’d been weary all along. She had simply forgotten there was another way to live.
His hands found the hem of her shirt, hesitating only long enough for her eyes to meet his.
When she offered the smallest of nods, he drew the garment upward with unhurried care, lifting it over her head before setting it quietly aside.
Beneath it remained only the thin undershirt she wore.
He slipped the second garment over her head with the same gentle deliberation, treating the simple task with an almost reverent tenderness.
Cool air brushed across her newly bared skin, and for the first time since he had kissed her, a flicker of self-consciousness stole over her. Instinctively, her arms folded lightly across herself, more from unfamiliarity than shame.
Morggán's hands found her wrists with infinite gentleness.