Her smile was sad. “No. He’d put me in a hospital for the mentally ill or something.”
“So what did ye say?”
“I said I was going to travel the world. Then I arranged for my aunt Christel, who lives near Inverlochy, to send him a letter a year from now that explains the truth. I wrote that he may think I’m insane, but he should know I’m happy, and that I found love. And that love is worth going crazy for.”
He kissed her again, loving her, appreciating her like never before. He kissed her chin, then down her neck, inhaling her scent as though he wanted to make her a part of his bloodstream. He ran his hands down her body, undid the belt on her tunic, and went under it with his hands, brushing his fingers up her soft skin.
She cocked her head back and arched a little into his touch. He pulled her tunic up and marveled at her beautiful body.
“How lucky I am.” He kissed the lower parts of her breast. “Ye’re a woman like nae other. Made of pure wonder and brought to me through time by magic.”
She stilled, looking at him with something like reverence in her big eyes.
“Mine,” he whispered through a hard knot in his throat. “Ye’re my wonder.”
She sniffled a little, and he came back to her breasts. “So beautiful,” he said and took her nipple in his mouth.
He sucked and licked it, fondling the other one with his fingers.
“So soft,” he whispered, tracing his lips down her stomach.
“So delicious.” He undid the fastening of her breeches and pulled them down, then with some difficulty unlaced her boots and pulled them off, too. He stared in awe at her graceful hips, at her stomach, and at the triangle of dark hair in the apex of her thighs.
His cock twitched, hardening and aching. He pulled her breeches off, nested between her spread legs, and slowly kissed her thigh from knee up to her groin while kneading and massaging the other thigh. She rewarded him with a low, sweet moan and the curling of her toes. He reached her sex and inhaled her scent, so feminine and deliciously wanton.
Desire for her set his blood on fire. He spread her folds and put his mouth on her sex, licking and suckling her sensitive bud. She was already wet and tasted divine.
She started making small whimpers of need, like a kitten, and he felt a surge of a male satisfaction that he was the one giving her this pleasure. He wanted to give her more. He wanted to give her everything.
To be everything for her.
Everything she’d ever want and need.
He inserted a finger inside her warm wetness, and she clenched around him. He craved for her to clench like that around his erection, to plunge into her silky depths and feel that she was his. That she belonged to him.
He began moving his finger in and out of her, but she suddenly sat up. She was flushed, and her full lips were parted. She panted, her eyelids half closed, her eyes like a dark night.
“No,” she said. “That won’t do.”
“Nae?”
“You. I want you. Not your finger. Inside. Now.”
He shook his head with a soundless laugh. “Happy to oblige, lass.”
He pulled the tunic over his head and unfastened his breeches. She eyed him with appreciation, her gaze moving slowly up and down his body. He loomed over her, his hands on either side of her head, and supported himself on straight arms. “Lass, stop looking at me like I’m food, or I’ll blush,” he purred.
“You’re better than food.” She slapped him on his arse and pressed on his hips, urging him to come closer. “You taste better, and nothing brings me as much pleasure as you.” She dug her fingernails in his arse. “Now prove it.”
“I’ll need to talk to ye about yer manners.” He palmed his erection, but she brushed his hand away and took his cock in her hand. She positioned his tip against her entrance, and he groaned from the hot, wet feel of her.
“Is yer back healed enough for this?” he said.
“Yes, it’s fine.” She wriggled against him, her sleek movements driving him wild. “Your leg?”
“I’ll live.”
“Good. Now take me.”
He looked deeply into her eyes. It was amazing how much they’d survived together. How much they’d both changed. And how much happiness there was still to come.
He thrust into her, pleasure shooting from his toes to the very tips of his hair. She moaned and arched her back, closing her eyes. She clung to him, wrapping her arms around him, her fingers digging into his muscles.
He started thrusting into her, his desire wild and hot. He was as deep as he could go. She wrapped her legs around him, and he buried his face in her neck, inhaling her scent. He breathed heavily, unevenly, his heartbeat erratic.
She wriggled under him, meeting each thrust like a perfect wave. They climbed towards the climax together, sweat misting their skin. Her moans of pleasure spurred his own hunger. Her head was thrown back against the mattress.
And then he was there. He arrived at the peak with her, bucked and lost himself into her body, wild and furious waves of pleasure crushing him. He dug his fingers into her hips, feeling her clenching and unclenching around him, her body shuddering and tensing under him. She cried out his name like a prayer, and he tried to hold on to the reality that this divine woman, a goddess from another time, was his.
This happiness, this expansion of his heart and whole body, was going to be his future. His love for her opened him up and filled his heart.
She was his first love. She was the first woman to touch his heart. And as long as they both lived, his heart would whisper her name with its every beat.
Epilogue
Six months later…
* * *
The road was quickly disappearing under the horses’ hooves. Amber thought that the Pass of Brander couldn’t be more beautiful in this weather. Owen rode next to her and eyed everything with a relaxed alertness, ready for any threat.
The summer was warm, and the sky was blue, the sun making the colors around them more vivid and bright. River Awe was brilliant, almost sapphire blue, and the mountains around them were lush with greenery. A breeze touched her skin and brought the scent of river water, grass, and flowers. The air was alive with birdsong and leaves rustling in the wind. The river murmured to their right.
They were on their way from Owen’s new estate, Kinleith, where they’d spent the winter and spring, to Glenkeld. After that, they would continue down south. They had no destination and no goal. Amber suggested they might travel around Europe, and Owen, who’d never been anywhere apart from Scotland, loved the idea.
The secret of Amber’s real origin, as well as Amy’s and Kate’s, was kept safely within a close group of people. The past six months had been blindingly happy. She’d never thought she could be this happy. Ever.
And now that she knew she could stand up for herself and those she loved, now that she knew how David must have felt when he confronted Goliath, she knew she and Owen could do anything as long as they were together.
And they decided what they wanted together was adventure.
They got married on his new estate a month after she arrived back. Although she didn’t want to live the life of a housewife, she’d enjoyed a few months of her and Owen in their own little cocoon, settling in the new house, and starting things their own way.