Chapter 20 #2
The world narrowed down to the taste of him—salt, spiced ale. He shifted his weight, his heavy boots scuffing against the timber as he guided her back into the deeper shadows of the Solar, away from the windowsill, until her spine met the solid, cold masonry of the chimney breast.
The contrast was shocking, the freezing stone against her back and the boiling, chaotic furnace of Sebastian’s body pressed flat against her.
He broke the kiss for a fraction of a second, both of them panting heavily, their breaths mingling in the darkness.
Sebastian did not let her recover. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, his mouth hot and wet against the sensitive skin beneath her ear, his teeth nipping at the cord of her throat until Alba let out a sharp, breathless whimper that echoed softly against the rafters.
“Sebastian,” she choked out, her head falling back against the stone, her eyes tightly shut as a shiver racked her entire frame.
His hands were relentless. He unbuckled his heavy sword belt with a single, swift motion, letting the iron clatter uselessly to the floorboards in the shadows.
Then, his fingers found the front of her gown.
Sebastian did not have the patience for delicate silk laces; his rough thumbs hooked into the top of her bodice, pulling the fabric taut until the linen threads groaned and snapped in the quiet room.
The cool air hit the bare skin of her swelling breasts, making her nipples harden instantly, but before the chill could settle, Sebastian’s warm, heavy palms replaced the fabric.
He cupped her, his thumbs sweeping across the sensitive peaks with a slow, deliberate pressure that made an ache expand deep within her core. Alba arched into his touch, her hands gripping his broad shoulders for balance as her mind spun out of control.
He traveled downward, his mouth following the path of his hands, kissing his way down the line of her throat, across the curve of her collarbone, until he took one hardened peak into his mouth through the thin, damp linen of her chemise.
Alba let out a louder gasp, her fingers twisting violently into his dark hair, her hips instinctively shifting against his thigh as he sucked her deep into his mouth.
The heat was blinding, a pulsing, rhythmic current that made her administrative brain shut down completely.
There were no more MacLarens. There were no more MacGregors.
There was only the friction of his skin against hers and the terrifying certainty that she wanted him to consume every remaining piece of her.
Sebastian’s hand drifted lower, gathering the heavy, bunched wool of her green skirts, his fingers lifting the layers of petticoats until his rough palm met the bare, smooth skin of her thigh.
Alba shivered as his hand traveled upward, his fingers tracing the curve of her hip, moving with a heavy, possessive slowness that drove her to the brink of madness.
She could feel the thick, rigid length of him pressing against her lower belly, the absolute urgency of his body matching the desperate, hollow ache between her own thighs.
And then he stopped.
She opened her eyes, her vision blurred by the dark heat of the moment, and looked up at him.
Sebastian had pulled back just an inch, his face flushed, his dark eyes near-black in the shadow of the Solar as his heavy chest heaved against her breasts.
He was staring down at her with a look of raw, unadulterated hunger that made her soul tremble.
Alba stayed still, her fingers resting, trembling against his jawline.
She was waiting. In the quiet space between their ragged breaths, she expected something from him.
She needed the man to speak, not the Laird.
She needed him to say that he wanted her.
That he was keeping her here because his own soul would starve if she rode south, that he needed her voice in the corridors and her hand in his, not for the sake of the Castle, not for the sake of Brian’s lineage, but for himself.
Sebastian looked into her wide, dark eyes, and for a single, fleeting second, the fierce warlord looked entirely terrified.
The sheer vulnerability of what she was asking for, the emotional surrender, choked him.
He had survived the Northern Fires by keeping his heart behind an iron wall, and his pride refused to let him bend, even as his body burned for her.
"Tell me," She whispered, her voice barely above the sound of her own pulse. "Tell me it's more than the border, the tenants, the treaty." Her fingers curled against his jaw, holding onto the last of her nerve.
He swallowed hard, his jaw clicking as he forced his hands to steady against her waist, his expression hardening back into that cold, logistical mask she hated.
“It is the most efficient way to secure the Southern Border before the snow blocks the Pass,” Sebastian said, his voice flat, gravelly, and entirely transactional. “A married house ensures the tenants will nae riot when the MacKenzie wagons arrive.”
The words landed between them.
Alba froze, her fingers instantly going still against his jaw.
The blinding, chaotic heat that had been consuming her core vanished in an instant, replaced by a cold, sickening numbness that made her stomach turn.
He had not said it. He had looked straight into her soul and given her a trade report.
She stared at him in the silver moonlight, her breathing slowly hitching as the full weight of the humiliation hit her. She had opened her heart; she had let her ice melt, and he had used the moment to calculate the efficiency of his winter stores.
Alba pulled her hands back from his hair, her face going carefully, perfectly blank as she pushed against his broad chest with all the strength she had left.
She turned without another word and walked out, her boots quick and hard against the stone floor, and the heavy timber door cracked shut behind her loudly.