Chapter 14
Goodbyes
Alina stared into eyes the color of rain. A
soft, nourishing rain that had brought her to life as a woman.
Deep, penetrating, and quenching. A rain whose lack of she would
thirst for until she could drink of it freely, whose long absence
would leave the woman she’d become a dried-up, hollowed out,
withered husk of herself. A rain she would dream of every night and
day until she felt its wet pouring over her again. She laid a hand
over her belly, hoping Roark’s seed had taken root in her womb,
praying that he would live to someday see and know their child. A
child, or children, born of earth and rain.
“Lady Alina?”
She pulled her gaze from Roark’s to the
fiddle player. “Do you know ‘Somebody’?” she asked.
He nodded and played the first melancholy
strains. Alina took a deep breath and blew it out. She sought and
found Roark’s piercing gaze and began to sing the sad, bittersweet
words to Roark as if she could will him to sail to her side again,
raising her voice to the gods and the fates.
The fiddle’s last long note faded into the
hall, the silence broken by a female sniffle or ten and the sound
of men coughing and clearing their throats. Roark stood and
clapped, his rain eyes glistening as the rest of the assembly stood
and clapped, and laughed and cried. Alina dipped her head to the
fiddle player and resumed her seat beside Roark as the assemblage
took full use of their linen napkins and sleeves.
“Thank you, my lady owl,” Roark whispered
roughly. “That was…”
“The most beautiful, gut-wrenching song I’ve
ever heard sung,” Laird Owen said.
“It truly was,” Lady Siusan said, swiping at
her wet cheek. She sniffed and laughed lightly. “If there was ever
any doubt of you being Oona MacLeod’s great-granddaughter, that
song put an end to it.”
“Thank you, Lady, Laird,” Alina said with a
tremulous smile. Roark covered her hand with his under the table.
“I was inspired.”
“Wasn’t that the song Oona the Swan sang to
Asad the Lion, the first night they met?” Rose asked. She spoke to
Alina, but her gaze was on Roark. “The night they first met and
fell madly in love?”
“It was,” Alina answered. She smiled at
Roark. “She was a true MacLeod woman, destined to fall in love with
her mate at first sight, as he was destined to fall in love with
her.” Her smile turned bittersweet. “A love that neither time nor
distance could ever lessen.”
The hall was silent again. Alina tore her
gaze from Roark’s only to realize that all eyes and ears were on
them, none more intently than Rose’s. Clearing her throat, Alina
raised her cup to the laird and lady.
“To the MacLeods,” she said, her voice
steadier than her hand. “May they always find their true
loves.”
“To the MacLeods,” a chorus of voices
toasted. “To true love.”
***
Alina pushed off the bedcovers, cracked open
the door, and peeked into the dark, quiet hallway. It wasn’t quite
midnight, which was when Roark had come to her room the past two
nights, but she couldn’t wait any longer. She’d been in an almost
constant state of arousal since singing “Somebody” to Roark in
front of an entire hall of people, and if she didn’t get some
release soon, she feared she’d be crawling up the walls like a cat
in heat. What was she going to do when they parted?
She padded barefoot to Roark’s door and
knocked lightly. The bolt slid open almost immediately, and then
she was standing eye to eye through the crack in the door with
him.
“Ali?” He opened the door, pulled her in,
shut and bolted the door, and crushed her to him. “Ach, Ali girl,
I’ve been pacing round and round this room, trying to wait until I
was sure everyone else was abed before I went to you.” He held her
by the shoulders and peered intently into her eyes. “Are you
unwell? Is anything amiss?”
Alina shook her head. “Everything’s fine. I
couldn’t wait to be with you. Besides,” she said with an
unapologetic shrug, “I’m fairly sure the entire household knows
we’ve shared a bed together by now.”
“Aye,” Roark said, grinning slow and easy,
stirring her insides from a simmer to a slow boil. “I’d wager
you’re right.” He leaned in close and whispered in her ear. “After
your singing ‘Somebody’ tonight, I’d wager every couple in this
house are doing the verra same thing we’re about to do.”
Alina placed her palm on his cheek, met and
held his gaze. “I sang it to you, Roark, for you, only you.”
He took her hand in his and kissed her palm,
his lips warm and full of promise. “I know, love,” he whispered
roughly. “I’ve been near to bursting with pride and need ever
since.”
She snaked both hands behind his neck. “Then
take me to your bed, sir stag,” she breathed into his lips. “Show
me what a proud, lusty man you are.”
He scooped her up in his arms, grinning at
her little shriek. “Your wish is my command, my lady owl.” He
tossed her onto the bed and shucked his tunic and breeches as Alina
hastily doffed her borrowed night shift, and then he stood at the
side of the bed, gazing down at her. “Damnation, you’re a beautiful
woman, Alina.”
The warmth of his regard and his praise
suffused her limbs with liquid heat and filled her heart to
bursting. She reached out and touched the soft tip of his erection,
grinning as it jumped.
“And you are a handsome figure of a man,
Roark MacInnes.” She held out her arms to him. “Come to bed and
make love to me. Take me away to our own special world.”
“It will be my honor and my pleasure,” he
said, his voice husky with desire. He laid himself over the length
of her and propped himself up on his elbows, nestling his thick
erection in her thatch. He lowered his mouth to hers, claiming her
with his kiss, and Alina surrendered herself with a soughing sigh.
He lifted his head and stared into her eyes, his own shining like
rain in moonlight.
“How am I supposed to live without those eyes
pouring down on me?” Alina asked him, the gods, the fates. “I’ll
become like the earth in a drought, all dried up and dying for lack
of rain.”
“Don't say that, Ali love,” he rasped. “Know
that wherever I am, I’ll be thinking of you, remembering you,
remembering this, and dreaming of when we can be together
again.”
“If we can ever be together again,” she
whispered, her throat constricting and hot tears blurring her
vision. She squeezed her eyes shut. She’d promised herself she
wouldn’t cry, not in front of him. That she would hold her tears
through sheer will if she had to, at least until she was on a ship
and sailing away from him. Crying wouldn’t change anything. It
would only make them feel worse. She met his somber gaze and filled
her own with determination. “Promise me,” she said. “Swear to me
you won’t let Roger kill you to satisfy some noble notion of what
you owe your family. That you’ll fight the lying, vindictive snake
with every fiber of your being.”
“I promise,” he said, his voice rough. “I
swear to you I’ll not go without a fight.” He held her face in his
hands, his expression serious. “What I can’t promise, love, is that
I won’t end up dead anyway.”
Alina closed her eyes to keep back her
tears.
“Or worse,” he said. “Married to
Gwyneth.”
Alina burst out laughing. “A fate worse than
death,” she agreed. She bumped her pelvis against his. “See that
you remember who your first wife is.”
“My first.” He kissed her forehead. “My
last.” He kissed her cheek. “My only, as far as my heart is
concerned.”
Alina drew his head down and kissed him.
Kissed him long and hard and searing, branding him with her lips,
claiming him, his love. He was hers as she was his. “I love you,
Roark, now and always,” she told him. “Nothing will ever change
that.”
He burrowed his face into her neck and kissed
and nipped his way to her breast, taking her nipple into his mouth
and suckling until she was arching her back to give him more, to
give him all. He kissed his way to her other breast, repeating his
attentions as he moved his hand down her belly and through her
curls, running a fingertip along her folds, wet and eager for his
touch. She sighed as his mouth left her breast, and then purred as
he kissed his way down her belly, parting her curls and flicking
the tip of his tongue over her bud.
“You taste as sweet as honey,” he said, his
low growl vibrating from her flesh to her bones. He ran blissful,
tortuous circles around her nubbin with his tongue until she was
writhing in rhythm with him, and then he took her nubbin in his
mouth and sucked. She bucked her pelvis straight up and went rigid,
all sensation centered in that one tiny piece of flesh as he licked
and suckled, pulling her up and up until she soared over the
precipice, her body a mass of raw nerves and pulsing pleasure.
She drifted back to reality, to Roark, and
moaned as he lifted himself over her and between her legs. He
nudged her still-sensitive flesh with the soft, blunt tip of his
erection, and Alina opened herself to him, welcoming him, all of
him, deep inside her, filling her with his hard, pulsing heat.
He placed his mouth over hers as he began to
move inside her, the taste of her on his tongue exciting and
stirring. She moved with him in their primal dance whose steps
they’d made their own, their pace and rhythm quickening with
urgency and need, until with one final thrust Roark shuddered and
called out her name, a call reverberating from Alina’s core to her
soul.
She woke sometime later to his big, warm hand
cupping her breast, his thumb teasing her peaked nipple, and his
growing erection pressing against her buttocks. She sighed and
wiggled her backside closer, and her sigh turned to a soft moan as
he kissed her shoulder and ran his hand down her belly and between
her thighs. He pushed his fingers through her curls and cupped her
mound.
“You’re already wet for me,” he whispered
hoarsely into her ear.
“I’m perpetually wet for you, my rutting
stag,” she murmured, pushing her pelvis into his palm.
“But this is…” He pulled his hand away and
pushed up onto his elbow, holding his hand up to the low glow of
the candle’s light. “This is blood.”
Alina rolled onto her back and stared at the