Page 139 of Laird of Flint
He knew as soon as he tried the door that he had the right chamber. The soft floral scent that wafted out of the lightless room was all hers.
“Who’s there?” she called out.
He wasn’t sure what to say. If he told her who he was, would she sob with joy? Or scream for help?
“A friend,” he mumbled.
She gasped. He heard rustling from the bed. “Hew?”
He frowned. How had she recognized his voice? Even his cousins had no idea he was among them.
“Is it ye?” she breathed.
He closed the door behind him. “Aye.”
“Och, Hew.” They were only two words. But into them was poured a deluge of emotion. Grief. Hope. Sorrow. Relief. Misery. Gratitude. Heartbreak.
Despite his intentions to remain aloof, to work things out logically, to have a calm conversation, his heart immediately went out to her.
He rushed to the bed, groping his way along the coverlet in the dark until she threw herself into his arms.
For a long while they said nothing.
She wept against his shoulder.
He cradled her head, growing more and more determined with every pitiful tear to play the hero and steal her away—his cousin, his clan, his king be damned.
Curse his cousin! How could Grim Gellir have made his sweet and precious Carenza so miserable? God’s eyes! He hadn’t even wed her yet.
Hew ground his teeth. He should never have let her go. Never have let her out of his sight.
Until now, Carenza had been able to conceal the strongest of her feelings. Aside from a few slipped confidences to Merraid, she’d bottled up her sorrow, her frustration, her heartbreak, her despair. And labeled them as sickness.
But now, in the arms of the one at the root of all those emotions, she collapsed into a puddle of raw emotion. All the heartsickness she’d hidden spilled out in its purest form as Hew held her. She no longer felt alone. She felt heard. Seen. Understood.
She didn’t know exactly when the change happened. But in one moment she was raining tears upon his throat. And in the next she was lapping them up with tender kisses. The fists she’d clenched so desperately in his plaid found their way around his neck. Her hitching sobs became gasps of awe and need and urgency.
And then he began to respond.
With a low growl like a hungering wolf, he feasted on her again and again, savaging the tender flesh of her throat. His hands clasped and squeezed and caressed her, brushing aside linen to graze her bare skin. He tumbled her onto her back and fumbled beneath her leine, slipping his fingers up her thigh, closer and closer to where she wanted him most.
She couldn’t wait. If she waited, she’d start thinking. If she started thinking, she’d hesitate. If she hesitated, she’d begin to regret. And she wanted to regret nothing.
So she took the reins. She scrabbled at his clothes in such a wild frenzy, he had no choice but to tear them off. She buried her face in his delicious flesh, kissing his chest, bathing his stomach, nuzzling lower.
He groaned and rolled her beneath him. Then, with a whisper of “I’ll love you fore’er, Carenza,” he sank deep inside her, sheathing his hungry cock and filling her thirsting womb.
It felt like coming home. Like he belonged inside her. Like this was right.
When they moved together, it was natural and perfect.
And when they gathered speed, it was with the grace and power of a falcon, its wings beating faster and faster, thrumming against the forces of nature to defy the pull of the earth and fly high into the heavens.
They dove together as well. He grunted, and she gasped out a shrill cry of need before they dropped from the sky, shivering and circling and settling into a downy nest of release.
Their breath mingled and swirled as they clung to each other in the dark.
Carenza was afraid to speak. She wanted to preserve this moment just as it was. A moment where she would forever be with the man she loved. Where they had just experienced sublime happiness. Where it was their precious child growing inside her. Where the future was bright.
