Epilogue #2
“I ken,” she said, reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck and pull him back down for another kiss. “Ye have never let me down. I love ye. I love ye.”
“Katrina,” he murmured into her mouth. “My wee healer. I love ye.”
Katrina was leaning into the kiss when, once again, Blake pulled back. She made an inarticulate sound of protest.
“Why?” she demanded. If someone was attacking them right now, Katrina was going to rip them apart with her bare hands. Blake could fight what was left of them when she was done.
But Blake wasn’t looking toward the trees, and he didn’t have that warrior’s look on his face. He was looking at Katrina with the single-minded focus he brought to everything he did.
“Ye said ye would marry me here and now,” he said, his fingers flexing against her back, holding her close. “I plan to hold ye to that promise.”
He pulled his hands free for a moment, reaching down into his belt to pull out his dagger. The blade ripped through the edge of his plaid until he had a long, thin strip, which he used to deftly bind their hands together.
“Ye have far too much experience tying my hands, ye ken,” she muttered, though her voice was already growing thick with emotion.
“Aye, but this is the only one that matters,” he said as he secured the plaid so that their wrists touched, pulse to pulse.
“I dinnae ken the right words,” he said, using his free hand to reach up and stroke hair from her face with such tenderness that she felt tears prickle at the back of her eyes.
“But I love ye, Katrina. I want to be yours—your man, your husband, your warrior. And I will stand by ye. I will love ye. I will protect ye with every last breath in my body. I would die for ye… but I would rather live with ye by my side, as my wife. As the beating heart in my chest. I love ye, Katrina. May we be bound forevermore.”
Katrina couldn’t stop the tears of happiness that were coursing down her cheeks now, though Blake looked distinctly alarmed by them as he wiped her cheeks with his thumb. She turned her face, pressing a kiss to the center of his palm.
“Blake MacFarlane,” she said, sniffing a little against the onslaught of emotion. “I love ye. I will protect ye always—your good heart, and your honorable soul. I will heal your hurts. And I will honor ye. We will fight together. Ye are my husband, and I am your wife. Forevermore.”
His fingers were firm on her arm under the tie that secured their handfasting, and he used the joining to tug her forward to kiss her.
This time, he didn’t pull away.
Instead, he pulled her closer and closer, gathering one arm under her behind until he could hoist her so that their heights matched a bit more evenly.
There were many things that Katrina adored about her very tall husband—she thrilled just to even think the word—but she could admit that the effort it took to reach his mouth was substantial.
Fortunately, he was strong enough to manage it.
He was strong enough for anything that this life could throw at them. She knew that. And she would be strong, too.
Blake pulled her closer, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, scrabbling with her unbound hand to pull her skirts out of the way.
Blake groaned when his hand beneath her was no longer pressed against the wool of her frock but against the soft expanse of her thighs, and she let out a parallel moan when he hand turned to cup her leg, his big grip and wide fingers putting his touch almost close enough to where she needed to feel him.
“Blake,” she murmured into his mouth. “Please.”
She felt the curve of his lips against hers. “Far be it from me to deny my bonnie wife,” he said, and she could taste his smirk.
“Ach, ye are rather pleased with yourself, are ye nae?” she teased, peppering his face with short kisses between each word. “Dinnae forget that this was my idea, after all.”
He reached up to yank the tie of plaid apart with his teeth so that he could use both hands to hold her.
Katrina felt everything inside her clench with how gorgeous he was.
He used another rough movement to yank apart his plaid, then draped it on the ground, all without letting his hold on Katrina falter.
“Aye,” he said, sounding precisely the same amount of pleased with himself as he laid her down. “I told ye that your best weapon was your sharp mind. I’m just the man clever enough to listen to ye and your wise counsel.”
“I love ye, Blake MacFarlane,” she said.
“I love ye, Katrina MacFarlane,” he returned.
She gasped at the sound of her new name, then gasped again when he pressed his mouth to where she was wet and aching for him. He devoured her like he would die without her, like he was trying to imprint himself on her soul.
He was already indelibly etched there, but she was not about to object to the onslaught of pleasure that he inflicted upon her. When she felt her climax charging toward her, however, she tugged him up, pulling his face to hers in a sloppy kiss.
“Together,” she said. “I want to feel it together.”
He pressed inside her, and it filled something she hadn’t known needed to be filled. Not just her body, but her heart.
When she fell over the abyss, he was right there with her.
They lay there, together, as the sun’s first rays broke out over the world.
It was a new day, and Katrina planned to face it as she planned to face them all—with Blake. No matter what came next.