Chapter 20

"You were the most fascinating person in my life," she said, pulling away finally.

"What about Marcus?"

The memory of him was fading, oddly enough, as if not fixed and sure in her mind. But she still could see Fergus and James and their parents as clear as if they stood before her now. Still, it felt disloyal to speak of him when he was not here to defend himself. Silence was a better recourse.

"Where did you meet him?" he asked a few moments later.

"He was Fergus's friend," she said, amused at his curiosity. But then, she felt the same about him.

They began to walk, hand in hand, until they came to the foot of the caves where she'd always found refuge. She smiled.

"I used to come here and think about you," she confessed. In fact, after he'd kissed her, she'd gone to her hiding place in the cave and stared at Gilmuir for hours. The confusion and delight she felt had been equal to her shame. She could still recall that look of astonishment on his face when she'd slapped him. She'd returned to Gilmuir to apologize, only to learn of the tragedy.

"Did you?" he asked, sounding surprised.

The words were muted in the forest, overcome by the sound of the wind sighing through the leaves, the crunch of brush beneath their feet. Even the forest creatures, accustomed to night for cover, were louder than her confession.

It was time to reveal another secret. "The kiss you gave me didn't really disgust me," she said, focusing her attention on the tips of the trees. In the moonlight they looked like arrows pointed at the sky.

"Shall I kiss you again?" he said, his lips curving into a smile, "just to test that fact?"

She glanced up at him, amused. "Haven't you already?"

"I would hate to be wrong," he teased.

He kissed her again, and long moments later, she pulled back. "No," she said weakly, "it doesn't disgust me."

Above them the moon was a pendulous globe in the sky, illuminating the edges of the surrounding clouds with pale blue light.

Turning, she took his hand once again, pulling him up the incline.

"Where are you taking me?" he asked, his voice laced with humor.

"To my secret hideaway," she admitted.

He pushed back the bushes, following her into the cave.

"We should have brought a candle," he said, turning slowly. "Or a lantern."

"The better to illuminate the changes," she said, smiling. "You would no doubt find the space a disappointment."

"A comparison between my childhood memories and my adult perceptions?"

"There is often a difference," she said.

"Not so far," he said, turning to her. He found her in the darkness, extending his arms around her. He stood close, speaking near her ear. "I recall everything about you, Leitis," he said. "From the shape of your ears to the way you laugh. Nothing disappoints me."

She was stunned by his words. Not that he felt the way that he did, but that he could be so unhesitant in voicing his feelings.

The past year had altered her. She was no longer the confident woman she'd thought herself to be all her life. Instead, she was a person wary of others. Experience had taught her that she had more to fear than to trust.

She had lost so much, how could she bear to lose him? It was wiser to hold herself aloof than to drown in his words.

"And you, Leitis? Does the man pale beneath the boy?"

She answered him with the truth, unable to do less with Ian. "The boy charmed me," she said hesitantly. "The man frightens me."

He fell silent, the next few moments filled with tension.

She placed her hands on his upper arms, tightened her grip. She wanted to keep him close even as her words would probably induce him to leave her.

But he surprised her by threading his fingers through her hair, his palms resting on her cheeks. "Is it so hard to love, Leitis?"

She nodded, tears coming to her eyes with his tender words.

"It is easy enough," he said softly, moving his hands until they were on her shoulders. "At least it was for me."

She held herself still, waiting.

"All you need do is accept it. I love you, Leitis."

She bowed her head, leaning her forehead against his chest. She could not breathe, and her heart was beating too loudly. The words of caution would not come, the warning not to spend his emotion too lavishly, make himself too vulnerable. Because she needed to hear his declaration just as she needed to feel him close.

"When did I begin to fall in love with you?" he continued. "Was it when you stood in the priory and insisted upon protecting me? Or when you laughed at my inability to give away a chicken?" he added, his voice amused. "Or could it have been all those many years ago when you handed me something from your heart and I crushed it?"

"You gave me heather," she said softly, the words tinged with tears.

"I'd give you a country if I could," he said. "All these long years you've been in my mind waiting."

A sound escaped him when he bent and kissed her, finding her lips damp with tears.

"Leitis," he murmured against her lips. He made of her name a word of wonder and solace. Winding her arms around her neck, she stood on tiptoe to return the kiss, deepen it, enchanted by the tenderness that led so quickly to heat.

"I never knew a kiss could be like yours," she said a few moments later.

"How are mine different?" he asked teasingly. He bent and brushed a kiss over her lips. Softly, like the touch of a butterfly wing.

"As if birds flew in my chest," she murmured.

He deepened the kiss, her lips falling open as she sighed into his mouth.

"Like my blood is too hot," she confessed.

He smiled against her lips, then kissed her again. Cupping his hands on either side of her face, he traced the curve of her mouth with the tip of his tongue.

She was selfish in her need, wanting him to love her. Yet at the same time she recognized that love was a dangerous emotion. It sliced with invisible wounds and wrapped around her heart and strangled it with grief. She could not bear to feel the same anguish again. To love was to lose.

"Would you lay with me?" she asked. She could not give the words back to him, but she could give him herself.

"No," he said unexpectedly.

Startled by his refusal, she could only stare at him.

"Why?"

"Because you might have a child from it, Leitis," he said gently.

She wanted to argue with him, decry his protectiveness, but at the same time she appreciated the fact that he wished to shield her. Hamish had done the opposite, willing to sacrifice her for his own hatred.

"Please," she said.

He placed his hands on his arms, drew her closer. His breath was warm against her cheek. "It is my dearest desire, Leitis, but it might bring danger to you."

He felt her tremble beneath his fingers, suddenly awed by her courage. Her comment about stallions and mares that first night in the lairds' chamber indicated well enough her opinions of loving. Her experiences must have been unpleasant for her, yet she offered herself to him.

But he would not bind her to him with a child.

Slowly, he stepped back, facing the direction of the cave opening. He felt her behind him and sensed the confusion of her thoughts.

"I cannot," he said, wondering if she knew that refusing her was one of the most difficult tasks he'd ever set for himself.

He wanted her to know that coupling could be done in sweetness and passion. He wanted to hear her sob in his arms at the pleasure of it. But most of all, he wanted her safe.

"Please," she said again.

"It would not be wise, Leitis," he said.

"We have not been wise in our deeds thus far," she said.

"But those acts would not leave you with a child," he argued.

"No," she said, moving away from him. "But have you ever regretted the things you've not done, Ian? I have. I wish I had told my brothers that I loved them, and hugged my father one more time. I wish I had been kinder to those friends I lost. I have regrets, Ian, enough to fill the whole of this cave, but I would not regret this."

She walked around until she stood in front of him. "Lay with me, Ian."

"I am no saint, Leitis," he said, his tone filled with rueful humor. His greater honor was being swamped by his wishes and wants.

"Please," she said, extending her hand to touch his chest. He felt the burning imprint of each of her fingers.

He removed his gloves slowly, giving her time to change her mind. He reached out and placed his hand on her bodice, tracing the curve of her neckline. His mind counseled restraint, but his fingers fumbled in their haste to untie the bow.

He wanted, almost desperately, to touch her. To cup her breasts in his hands and place his mouth on her nipples. She had vanished his battlefield dreams and replaced them with visions of her. And each of them led to this moment.

Spreading her bodice open, he pushed her shift downward. He heard her gasp as he touched a finger to the inward curve of her breast.

His fingers followed, greedy and impatient, smoothing over her skin, feeling the warmth and silkiness of it. Her breasts were full, filling his hands. She made a little start of surprise when his palms brushed over her nipples, gently abrading them.

She was an innocent despite her claims of experience. She knew nothing of seduction, of passion that could range from tenderness to lust. He wasn't surprised to feel both for Leitis.

He bent and kissed her throat, alert to her in a way he'd never before been. As if he could see her in the darkness, breathed in a matching rhythm, even joined his heartbeat with hers.

Delicately, he touched her skin with the tip of his tongue. He pulled back, knowing as he did so that one taste would never be enough. He wanted to love her until the memories of any other man were banished.

Gently, he pushed the bodice of her dress downward, trailing a necklace of kisses from shoulder to shoulder. He pulled her sleeves down to her wrists, felt her hands clenched into fists.

Another indication of her innocence, one that angered him. The man she had loved had used her, leaving her with memories of pain instead of pleasure.

Removing his shirt, he let it fall to the floor, then followed that with his boots.

"Are you undressing?" she asked faintly.

He smiled, unfastened his breeches, and lowered them. "Yes," he said, "and then you."

She remained silent, but he heard her indrawn breath.

He bent and grabbed the hem of her skirt, pulling it over her head along with her shift. He lay the garments down on the floor next to his clothing. Not a suitable bower, but it would have to do. He bent and removed her shoes, sliding them from her feet as if she were a princess and he her manservant. One by one he removed her stockings, rolling them down her legs slowly. He warned himself about haste again, even as he stroked his hands from her ankles to her knees.

There were times in his life when he'd been awed by the spectacles around him. The majesty of a mounted regiment, the beauty of the sea as it changed colors and moods. But nothing had ever affected him as deeply as Leitis trembling in the darkness, waiting to be ravished.

He stood and, taking one of her hands, placed it flat on his chest.

"Touch me," he said softly. "I want to feel your hands on me."

Her fingers drew up until her fist rested against his skin. Then, hesitantly, she spread her fingers again, moving her palm across his skin, mapping him. He took her other hand and, curling her fingers with his, brushed a kiss against her knuckles. "Leitis," he said. Just that, her name as an endearment.

He reached up and untied his mask, letting it fall to the floor. On this occasion, on this night, there would be nothing separating them.

Something landed on the floor and she reached up and touched his face, hoping it was his mask. His face was bare, revealed as it had never before been. She wished for a shaft of moonlight, the dawn sun, something that would illuminate his features.

"Are you certain you've been protecting me?" she teased. "Or have you grown ugly in all these years?"

"Would you care?" he asked, his voice somber.

"No," she answered truthfully. But she couldn't imagine the boy had grown to be anything but handsome.

The darkness offered her concealment for her daring. Her hands reached up and traced the line of his nose, his cheeks, and his jaw. Her thumbs brushed against his closed lids, feeling the feathery-soft spike of lashes. There was no deformity to be found beneath her fingers, no scar to mar the perfection of his features.

"Will I do?" he asked, standing quiescent beneath her touch.

"Yes," she whispered before standing on tiptoe again to kiss him. The most audacious act of all, and one she'd never before done, to kiss a man because she wished it. To place her lips on his in wonder, hoping that he would show her how to render him as enchanted as she felt.

Suddenly he bent and, placing an arm beneath her legs, bore her up into his arms.

"It's a strange experience," she said, "to be carried about like this in the dark. It makes me feel as if I'm floating in the air."

"I thought you were an angel once," he said teasingly. "Perhaps you are in this moment."

She laughed, the sound reverberating throughout the cave. "I cannot claim any angelic virtues," she admitted.

The kiss he gave her then was sweet and deep. She surfaced from it with a delectable dizziness. As if she'd twirled and twirled on the top of Hamish's hill until she was left reeling.

He lay her down on their bed of clothes, then knelt beside her, kissing each of her fingers delicately and slowly, as if they were precious things and not callused on their tips and sides from years of working the loom.

But he did not move to mount her.

She lay there quietly, waiting. "I'm not frightened," she said, "if that's why you're taking your time."

"You wish me to hurry?" he asked, the amusement in his voice causing her to frown.

"Only if you wish to," she said. "I don't mind either way."

"You don't mind?" he asked in a whisper as dark as the cave.

She shook her head, then realized he couldn't see her. "No."

"That's very gracious of you," he said dryly. "If it is all the same to you, I'll be long at it. I like to touch your skin, you see."

The strangest tingle ran up the back of her neck at his words. Or it could have been the fact that he kissed her throat again. She pushed her hair out of the way so that he might do it again.

"You like that," he said, murmuring against her skin.

"I do," she admitted, the words coaxed from her by delight.

His hands were slow, his fingers soft upon her skin, dusting where they touched as if to leave only a hint of their passage. The darkness both hid his intent and absolved her ignorance.

He brushed his cheek against her temple, his night beard gently abrading her skin.

Her sole experience with a man had been a furtive coupling in the forest where the trees had acted as sentinel. The ground had been cold, and the day wet, as if nature itself knew of the parting to come and wept for it. This dark cave was not a better trysting spot, but it did not seem to matter at the moment.

"Kiss me again," she demanded, startled to hear her own words.

"My pleasure," he murmured.

He kissed her until her blood felt heated. His hands learned her in the darkness, trailing from her shoulders to her ankles.

She reached out her hands and did the same, remembering his words. Touch me.

His skin was warm, almost hot. The muscles of his arms bunched beneath her exploring touch. She wrapped each palm around his shoulder, then gasped as he stroked his fingers across the tips of her breasts. Her nipples tightened, the tingling sensation his touch evoked spreading outward to her toes and fingertips.

He bent and touched his lips to her breast, startling her. Then he placed his mouth upon the tip of it, his lips capturing her, gently moistening before suckling tenderly. The spike of pleasure she felt muted her protest. He was as adept at this type of kissing as the other.

She had thought the act would be swift and painful. But he did not hurry in his possession of her, seemingly content to touch every inch of her skin. His fingers trailed from her waist to her hips and back up again to rest beneath her arms, inciting small shivers. His hands cupped her knees, the bulb of her heels. One hand moved to rest against her stomach, the heat of his palm seeping into her body.

She moved restlessly, a stranger to the feeling that flamed within her, a need as elemental as the requirement for food and drink.

"Slowly," he whispered, placing a gentle kiss against her lips.

She had never been explored this way, never felt as if her breasts were swelling and heating, their tips both puckering and elongating at the touch of his tongue.

At the base of his throat his blood beat heavy and strong, and so quickly that it mimicked hers. Her thumb rested there as her fingers spread over his neck.

His hands suddenly fisted in her hair as he kissed her deeply, inhaling her sigh. She felt like a supplicant, a neophyte, a virgin trapped in wonder and delight.

"I've dreamed of this," he confessed in a whisper. "But it was daylight and you were lying in the glen, your arms outstretched to welcome me. Your hair sparkled like fire, and even here was lit by sunlight," he said shockingly, trailing his fingers through the curls between her legs.

Reaching up, she cupped his cheek with her hand. He turned his head and kissed her palm, a gesture so filled with tenderness that she felt the spike of tears.

This night would be forever etched into her mind like the leaves she'd sometimes found embedded in rock.

She felt him heavy and hard against her thigh. She was no maiden, but at this moment she felt as untried as one, as ignorant of the deed as if it had never before happened to her. Tentatively, she reached out and touched him, a gesture that elicited his gasp. Another touch, less timid and more fascinated, had her placing her palm upon the length of him. She noted with fascination that he was larger than the distance from her wrist to the tip of her middle finger.

"You're very big," she whispered, both intrigued and anxious.

He laughed again, and pulled her to him, until she was draped over his chest like a warm and living blanket.

"I never thought to spice my loving with humor, Leitis," he said tenderly.

"Is it a foolish thing I've said?" she asked, embarrassed.

"No," he said tenderly, placing his hand on the back of her head. He pulled her gently toward him for another kiss.

Yes, please—a last cogent thought for several moments.

Gently he turned, leaning above her, but instead of kissing her again, he bent and pressed his lips against her waist. His hair, clubbed at his nape, fell loose, spreading over her skin like a delicate fan. A whisper of touch as he tasted her with mouth and tongue, kisses that anointed her skin and warmed it.

He taught her more about herself than she'd known before. The inner curve of her knee proved to be as exquisitely sensitive as the front of her ankles and the area above her heels.

"You shiver when I touch you," he said, his voice a dark whisper.

She nodded in agreement. "I can't help it," she confessed.

His thumbs brushed against the inside of her wrists tenderly, then moved to her elbows. "Your arms," he said, as if to mark the place with his words and his touch. Bending his head, he bestowed the most tender of kisses on each nipple. "Your breasts."

He leaned over her. "I want to know everything about you," he declared softly. Her hands gripped his upper arms. "What you wish for most in your life. What causes the sad look in your eyes. What your dreams and nightmares are made of."

She pressed her fingers against his lips. "Stop," she said. "Please." It was too much. Her heart hurt with his words.

He kissed her fingers, then removed them. "What sound you make when you find your pleasure," he said purposely.

He flattened his palm against her stomach, his fingers splayed. Slowly, so slowly, he moved his hand, touching her again. Her breath felt too tight. She closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around his neck, feeling a curious mixture of embarrassment and a new achy sensation.

His thumb stroked through her softness, circled slowly. She bit her lip, raised her hips instinctively. But he didn't hurry. Instead, he kissed her deeply, his tongue and his fingertips in tandem at exploration.

She'd never known that her body might be overcome by such sensations, as if it were separate from her will. Captivated by his hands and mouth and softly whispered words.

"I want to know what it feels like to be inside you, Leitis," he said, his words oddly breathless.

"Please, Ian," she said. A welcome in his name, an invitation in the slow widening of her legs.

He entered her slowly, filled her completely, and stretched her gently. His possession of her wasn't painful or rushed. Instead, she bowed beneath him, astonished by the sensation. She bit her lip and arched farther toward him as if to deepen the feeling. But he would not move. Instead, he remained perfectly still, his breathing harsh and rapid.

She lay with eyes closed, savoring the pleasure.

Slowly, excruciatingly slow, so that it felt as if time itself halted, he withdrew from her. Her sound of protest changed abruptly to delight when he entered her again.

Her openmouthed gasp was inhaled by his mouth, transformed into a moan as he withdrew and entered her again. This time her hips arched higher, meeting him in an instinctive dance. Her hands gripped his arms, rubbed from elbow to shoulder in wordless encouragement.

She had thought to keep herself invulnerable, yet now she welcomed her surrender. Her bare heels pressed against the slate floor as she lifted herself to him again. Her eyes closed, her fingers splayed almost into talons.

She was almost there, to a place she'd never been before, the destination as much a mystery as the journey itself.

"Leitis," he said, his voice a guttural rasp. A sound escaped her, a sob of delight.

"Please," she said, ignorant of what she wanted. But he seemed to know, because he plunged into her again. His kiss was an accompaniment, deep and ardent, stealing her breath and emptying her mind.

All that remained was sensation.

A waterfall traveled through her body, carrying with it heat and a breathless joy. It was simple and pure and wondrous and eternal.

Something was happening to her. It felt as if she were being torn in two, but the rending was accomplished in excruciatingly slow degrees.

She wound her arms around his neck, pressed up into his kiss, seeking succor and safety within his embrace. The darkness of the cave was suddenly altered by the sparkling light behind her eyelids.

A moan escaped him, a sound that echoed her own body's bowing delight. She cradled him, rocked him, and held him tight to her.

Suddenly she cried aloud, the sound echoing through the cave. She was insensate, clutching him, lost in the sensation and him, helpless and humbled.

An eternity later, she reached up and cupped his face with her palms, suddenly overcome by a feeling so acute that it stole her breath. This was not simple mating, but a joining in a way she'd never known before, never suspected might exist.

It felt like love.