Page 75 of A Celtic Vow
“Ta.”He brushed his lips across hers. “’Twas the foul chair yer da sat upon, so I made sure it was fit for ye. For the queen ye should have become had we married and lived the life we deserved.”
“And it’s a beautiful chair,” she replied. “As was what lay beyond the window.”
“Because you crawled through it,” he assumed. “Had to have because you came from that direction the first time I saw you. Came from a direction you couldn’t possibly have come from.”
“I did.” She nodded. “That’s when I saw you sitting on our rock, almost as if you were waiting for me.”
“Because I was.” He still recalled seeing her for the first time. How taken he was by her flaming red hair and big bluish-purple eyes. “I had never seen such a pretty lassie.”
“You weren’t so bad yourself.” She touched his cheek. “I remember for a second seeing the burns you had carried from another life yet, as dreams tend to go, thought nothing of it when they weren’t there moments later.”
“Yet you sat on the rock beside me with your heart in your eyes and asked me if the fire hurt.”
“And you said, “How can it hurt when I don’t even know how to embrace my inner beast?” Then you grew angry and claimed you didn’t want to anyway.”
“I had no one to show me how to shift.” Aodh remembered how frustrating that could be at times. “Honestly, I was in a constant tug-of-war with myself over if I really wanted to. If I wanted anything to do with what lived inside me.” He trailed his finger along her jawline. “Until I saw you. Then something...came alive inside me, and I finally looked through my dragon eyes for the first time. Looked atyouthrough them.”
“Something came alive in me, too.” She smiled at the memory. “Literally, because meeting you for the first time ignited my inner dragon.” As if in response, her dragon eyes flared. “And it didn’t scare me.” She shook her head. “Not at all.”
“Nay.” He couldn’t help but chuckle as he recalled her shifting then and there. She had looked at her little wings curiously and hopped from foot to foot in excitement. “You were remarkably at ease in your new body. Then again, itwasa dream.”
“That first time, anyway,” she conceded. “I think after that it might have been a dream for me but very real for you. That I was actually here visiting. That we essentially grew up together in a way.”
“Because we did.” He recalled how charmed he become by her. How he counted down the hours to her return. “That was why I kept what recently became the burnt side of our castle closed off to the best of my ability. Because I didn't want anyone interrupting us.” He shook his head. “And the only reason I relate it with being such a lonely place is because itwaswhen you weren't there.”
He brushed the top of her cleavage when he fingered the material of her dress and went on. “I remember when you started wearing red to match your scales so I would see how easy the transition was to our other halves.”
“That’s right.” A small smile curled her mouth. “I was convinced it would somehow be easier on your eyes.” She chuckled. “Not sure why I thought that would help you shift, but I was willing to try anything at that point.”
“And it worked.” He met her smile. “For some reason, itdidwork, and I shifted for the first time.”
“And you were adorable.” She kept smiling. “Of course, that happened after I retrieved the dagger from beneath your castle.”
“’Twas half the reason I was so determined.” He frowned. “I should have been able to get that for you.”
“Why when I knew how to fly?” She shrugged. “I might have been ethereal, but I could still take flight.” She perked a brow. “Besides, we Unnamed Ones tend to retrieve our own blades.”
“True.” He thought about what happened after that. “And as much as you were taken by it, you didn’t think it should remain at my castle. That it would be safest back where we first met.”
“Safer still protected by a piece of King’s Heart.” She rested her hand over his heart. “More than that, a place protected by a mighty dragon’s magic from another time. Protected by the love he put into that magic.”
Before he could respond, she pulled his mouth down to hers and kissed him with a passion that made it hard to think. Impossible to do anything but lose himself in the taste of her. Feel of her.
“Please,mo thine,” she murmured against his lips, reeling him closer. “Just one more time before we fight Siobhán.”
There was more to talk about. Things he still didn’t understand. But his curiosity faded when her hand inched beneath the material of his trousers, and she stroked him. Made it impossible for him to do anything but hike her against the tree and thrust deep.
To feel her tight heat welcome him.
She groaned his name in his ear so they wouldn’t be heard and urged him on. Dug her nails into his shoulders as he rode her. Gasped that she wanted her chance to ride him as well.
However difficult it might have been when he wanted to maintain control and have her until she screamed in release, he lowered them until he sat with his back to the tree, and she straddled him. As she reminded him how often he’d fantasized about this, not just in their last life but this one.
How often he had dreamed of loving every inch of her.
“I felt the same,” she murmured, cupping the back of his neck. Riding him so slowly while rolling her hips that his thoughts scattered again. Became harder and harder to hold on to as her movements intensified. “I wanted to do this on the shore of King’s Fall. In our cave. At your castle. Every place we ever stepped foot together.”
Heat only seemed to intensify as she wrapped her arms around him and pressed closer. In turn, he wrapped his arms around her and held on tight. Suddenly fearful she might vanish. That she might not really be here.
