Page 133 of The Highlander Steals a Virgin
She could still hear faint laughter trailing up from the courtyard.
“Ye’re quiet,” he said softly as they took to the stairs.
“I was just… lettin' it all sink in,” she murmured and slowed her step a beat.
Rhys stepped closer and rested a hand on the small of her back. “And how does it feel?”
She looking up at him and smiling. “Oh, it’s incredible. We’re married now.”
He leaned in, chuckling, and brushing a kiss to her temple. “Nae quite...”
At the top of the stairs, they slowed to a stop. The fires were all low in the keep, and the wind outside had picked up, gentlycaressing the ceiling tapestries like a lover. Somewhere, faintly, they could hear Billy and Myles singing off-key and very much drunk. And the musicians played on.
They both smiled at each other, clearly soaking it all in together, and he held her hand with that quiet strength of his, thumb brushing hers, as though tethering them both to something holy.
“Our home,” he said, his voice was warm and steadfast. Speaking the words that had been right on her mind.
They moved then, as one, in step, hand-in-hand, through the twists and turns of the corridors. The darkness somehow not dark enough for them to lost the way to their rooms. They both knew the way.
The sounds of the ceilidh melted away as the door to their chambers clicked quietly behind her.
“Ye seem nervous,” he said, voice like honey dripping down her spine delectably.
“Aye, I am, a little,” she admitted.
That pulled something fierce from him. His calloused hands ran up her arms slowly, carefully. “Do ye trust me?”
She did.
He met her halfway, lifting her chin with gentle fingers. “Wife.”
“Aye, husband,” she whispered. “I trust ye.”
“Ye have me heart, forever, lass,” Rhys said, and then he kissed her.
Amara moaned against his mouth, fingers fisting in his shirt. He walked her backward, one careful step at a time, until her back hit the edge of the bed. Then he lifted her like she weighed nothing, and laid her on the coverlet, following her down, mouth never leaving hers.
She pulled his shirt off first, palms splaying over hard muscle, old scars, and new scars. He pressed kisses down her throat, across her collarbone, down the line of her bodice, pausing to look at her.
“Let me see ye,” he murmured.
She let him.
He undid the tiny buttons with a kind of reverence, eyes dark with want but hands patient. Her dress slid away, and her chemise followed, leaving her bare to him in the firelight.
Rhys exhaled something that sounded like a prayer.
“God, lass… Ye’re destroyin’ me.”
Amara smiled, breathless. “Ye’re still overdressed.”
He shed the rest of his clothes without a word and hovered over her.
Then everything else fell away.
He kissed her and worshipped her. He touched her like he already knew every inch of her, and he had but this felt new, he was exploring. Memorizing.
And then his mouth closed around one nipple, her back arched off the bed.
