Page 98 of A Highland Healer Captured
“Aye,” she said, smiling into him, cheek brushing his beard. “I’d say it as many times as ye need.”
“Once was enough,” he murmured, and kissed her again.
Clothing became something to navigate rather than admire. He found the ties by touch, not hurry; she answered with the quiet intake of breath a man learns to covet.
He laid her on the bed and braced himself above her, he was careful of his shoulder, that is, until desire threw caution to thewind. She traced the white lines of old wounds as if reading his history with her fingertips and choosing to keep every page.
“Zander,” she whispered, the name a blessing and a dare, and he answered with the reverence a man gives when the thing he’s wanted finally wants him back.
They were not shy. They moved like flames finding dry kindling, bodies arching toward one another with an ancient hunger.
Her fingers traced the curve of his spine, leaving trails of fire in their wake. When his mouth found the hollow of her throat, she gasped and pulled him closer until there was nothing between them but heat and want.
He thrust into her with reckless abandon, not hurried and clumsy, but sure and aimed to push her past pleasure and into ecstasy. Zander’s rhythm was relentless as he crashed into her again and again. “Say yer mine,” he commanded through gritted teeth.
The words tumbled out of her mouth in a crazed frenzy of curses and prayers. And his world narrowed to the feel of her molten-hot sex throbbing around him.
Mine.He said to himself. Again and again with each thrust. Each moan and cry that escaped her lips sent an undeniable sensation coursing through his veins like liquid metal.
When she fell, she cried out, clutching him as if he were the only solid thing in a dissolving world. He felt the sting of his stitches open, but pounded into her still until he found his own release moments later, her name a broken sound on his lips.
They lay there, tangled, sweat cooling on flushed skin. His fingers traced lazy circles on her hip; her leg hooked possessively over his, anchoring him to her as surely as a promise.
“Ye ken,” he said into her hair, voice lazy with the kind of peace that sits rare on a man like him, “ye’ll never be able to leave now.”
She tipped her head back to look at him, eyes narrow with mock challenge. “I’d like to see ye try and stop me.”
He huffed a laugh that shook them both. “Och, I’ll make a sport of it.”
“Will ye, now?”
“Aye. First, I’ll bribe ye with a stillroom key. Then with a lad who cheats at dice. Then with a keep that insists on bein’ mended exactly the way ye like.”
She pretended to ponder. “And if that fails?”
“I’ll ask ye,” he said simply. “Every mornin’ I wake, I’ll ask ye to stay. Every night I sleep, I’ll thank ye if ye do.”
Her mouth softened. “That’s a terrible trap.”
“Aye,” he said, grinning. “And ye sprung it yerself.”
She squealed once when he rolled, tugged, and drew her atop him again—more laughter than sound—and then quieted with a kiss that felt like a promise they would learn to keep in a hundred plain ways.
“I love ye,” she said into his smile.
“I love ye,” he answered, and the keep—stone-sure, blood-cleaned, storm-tested—held their words the way old walls hold heat: slow to take, slow to lose, steadfast through weather.
EPILOGUE
Skylar stood in the great hall beneath a bower of late-autumn greenery, a sprig of rowan tucked behind one ear like a talisman against her own mother. Astrid Dunlop, Lady MacLennan, held two ribbons at arm’s length as if deciding which snake to fling at her daughter.
“The thistle ribbon,” Astrid declared, “says sturdy peasant with notions. The gold says proper bride of consequence. Choose with the wisdom God gave ye, Skylar.”
“The thistle one, then,” Skylar said sweetly, “since I’d hate to look like a consequence.”
Astrid’s sigh could have swept a chimney. “Ye provoke me on purpose.”
“Only a little.” Skylar reached to test the thistle-weave; it felt honest in her hand, like something that had touched rain. “Besides, gold will catch the firelight and blind half the hall.”
