She pushed away from his chest, looking up into his face, her big wet eyes filled with suspicion. “How can it be the truth you speak? What sort of a man would wait for the Fae to rip them from the tapestry of their lives and toss them through time to a place they dinna belong?”
“An unhappy man,” he answered honestly, stroking his thumbs down the sides of her cheeks in a vain attempt to dry the still flowing tears. “A man who’s spent his life searching for the purpose he was to fulfill, waiting for one particular Faerie to send him where he belongs.”
“You believe this is where you belong? In truth?”
Looking down at her face, so filled with trust and hope, he’d never been more sure of anything before. Being here in this time, with her, it was as if he’d been reborn into the place he was always meant to be.
He pulled her to him, covering her mouth with his.
She molded herself to him as he played his tongue across her soft lips, dipping inside to trace the contours of her mouth when those lips parted. She tasted of herbs, of mint and balm and a thousand other flavors, like an exotic dish, fresh and steaming from the oven, prepared to his exact specifications.
Her hands skated over his chest and up to his neck, her fingers tangling in his hair, pulling him closer as if they might melt into one another.
There was only one way he could think of to get any closer.
He lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed, shoving the heavy curtains open before lowering her onto her back.
She extended a hand, catching his fingers and pulling him down on top of her.
Balancing his weight on his forearms, he dipped his head to capture her soft, willing lips.
He wanted her so badly he could taste it, but he was determined to take it slow. This moment he had waited for all his life was too important to rush through.
Her hands slid under the tail of his plaid to follow the length of his leg, stopping only when one petal-soft finger stroked against the heat of his inner thigh. He sent a silent thanks to every supernatural being he could think of for the invention of the plaid. Had he only known, he would have been wearing them his whole life.
Slow and easy, he reminded himself, kissing a trail down the side of her neck, nuzzling aside the neckline of her dress to trace his tongue over the soft skin of her shoulder. His good intentions almost deserted him when her finger moved again, forging a path around his leg to brush against his swollen manhood.
A quick count of ten, backward, and he pulled at the neck of her dress, almost frantic in his efforts until her own movements allowed the cloth to slip down, revealing one perfect breast.
His mouth settled on the exposed treasure and he circled his tongue around the hardened nipple, his breath catching as she moaned and lifted her body against his.
It must have been a woman who designed these dresses. A man would have invented a snap-front micromini rather than the yards and yards of frustrating fabric that encased Christiana’s body.
“Wait,” she demanded, her warm fingers deserting the heat of his body.
He froze, one hand wrapped in what felt like fifty yards of linen separating him from where he wanted to be. Disappointment raged with the need to ignore her, but his better angels prevailed.
She wiggled enticingly beneath him and he counted again, backward from twenty this time.
“Better now,” she whispered, pressing herself to him, her gloriously naked skin burning into his.
His better angels, thoroughly rewarded for their honorable behavior, took flight, giving way to pure need.
THE FIRE IN her belly raged out of control, turning all rational thought to instant cinders. Nothing mattered as much as extinguishing that fire.
Orabilis had told her there was only one way to accomplish that.
She knew the mechanics involved, even though she’d not experienced it herself. She’d seen animals mating. And she wasn’t completely without knowledge of what passed between men and women.
When she was younger, she’d overheard her father’s soldiers discuss their prowess at swiving, bragging about the tarse that hung between their legs, and the pleasure they’d brought some maiden in bending her over a table to shove that member into her womb while pulsing out the seed that might create new life.
None of that had sounded particularly pleasurable to her then, so what she’d expected was nothing like the immense pleasure she felt with Chase’s hot, wet mouth fastened to her breast. His tongue moved in rapid little flickers across her nipple, creating the most wondrous sensations that rippled through her whole body.
The soldiers must not have known how to do this correctly, because Chase’s every touch only seemed to set the fire in her belly burning brighter.
Chase’s hand slowly smoothed a path down her side, leaving a trail of chill bumps rising in its wake and creating a sensation in her loins that threatened her sanity.
Once again she slid her hand down to Chase’s tarse, trailing one finger from its base to its tip. It was large and stiff and velvety smooth, not at all like she’d imagined. She closed her fingers around it and slid her hand upward. As she stroked it, it twitched as if it had a life all its own.
Chase groaned at her touch, his breath hot against her breast until he lifted his head and cold air covered the spot where his mouth had been.
She waited, every fiber of her body so sensitive even the breeze created when he pulled his shirt over his head felt like a caress.
When he lay back down next to her, her heart pounded in her chest. This was it.
Wasn’t it?
Again he bent his head to her breast, his tongue forging a path from her throbbing nipples down the center of her stomach as his hands caressed her waist before sliding down to grasp her hips.
He spread her legs apart and fit himself on the top of her, the heavy heat of his manhood pressing against her delicate warmth.
As if her body had a mind of its own, her legs tensed, fighting to bring her knees together.
“Relax,” he whispered as his hands gently smoothed their way from her hips around her thighs to the spot where his tarse pressed against her. “Trust me,” he urged. “Let go.”
“Let go.” She repeated his words breathlessly, willing her muscles to release, allowing him to do as he would.
He nudged her legs around him and she locked her ankles together behind his back. His hands clasped around her waist, pulling her hips toward him as he rocked against her.
Hundreds of new sensations assailed her body and she lifted her hips, fighting to meet the movement of his next push.
“Take it slow,” he murmured, his lips tracing a path down her neck. “We’ve got all night.”
“All night,” she echoed him again, her mind unable to think of any words of its own, consumed as she was with the pleasure of his touch.
With each thrust of his hips, she rocked against him, until, at last, he was inside her, filling her.
And still it was not enough to satisfy the heavy need bearing down upon her.
His hot breath fanned over her sensitive skin as he dipped his head to kiss her again. So gentle, so enticing, his tongue flickered over her lips and into her open mouth. With each thrust, slow and deep, an unfamiliar tension built, pulsing and throbbing until, at last, it felt as if her world stopped. She tightened her fingers into his shoulders as a pleasure such as she’d never known gripped her body. It robbed her of her breath, immobilized her except for the intense, rhythmic contractions where their bodies joined.
Her ears thrummed with the sound of her own heartbeat and she gasped for air as Chase stilled over her.
“You are so beautiful,” he murmured into her ear as he withdrew and filled her once again. “My own Christiana.”
Tiny pinpoints of light sparkled behind her eyes when he stilled over her again, his head thrown back, his body pulsing against hers.
They lay still, bound together as one, gasping for air, their hearts beating in unison so that she could
n’t be sure which beat was his and which was hers.
This was not at all what she had expected. This was so much better than anything she’d ever imagined.
You’ll know.
Orabilis’s promise rang in her ears, keeping time with the pulse of her blood.
There was no longer any sliver of doubt.
“You okay?” he asked, as if he needed reassurance that what had passed between them was as it should be.
“That was . . .” She paused, searching for the words to express what she felt, but failing to find them. “That was more than I had imagined it would be.”
“And that’s a good thing?” he asked.
“It is,” she confirmed. “Perhaps you can help me to learn to give you the same measure of pleasure that you brought to me. If we’re to do this again, that is.”
“Oh, Christy, my love, we are definitely doing this again.” He rolled her into his arms, dragging the heavy woolen blanket that covered the bed over their naked bodies. “Absolutely, most definitely, doing this again.”
As if by magic, even his words pleasured her now.
Twenty-nine
CHASE TIGHTENED HIS arms around the warm body curved against his. This was the way he wanted to start every morning for the rest of his life.
Morning? His eyes popped open to confirm what his brain already knew. The beginnings of a new day edged the shutters in hazy purple.
“Shit,” he grumbled, sliding his arm out from underneath his sleeping beauty.
Arm retrieved, he bent his head to nibble on her earlobe, instantly realizing the error of his ways as his body jumped to life. There were so many things he wanted to do at this moment.
One, really. One thing he wanted to do at this moment. But time was not his ally today.
“Wake up, Christy. We have to get out of here. We have a big day ahead of us.”
A very big day, though between all the sharing and . . . well, sharing they’d done last night, he still hadn’t broken the really important news to her this morning.
“Come on, sleepyhead,” he encouraged, sweeping the curtain of dark hair from her face. “We’ve got to get you back to your tower before the Tinklers get there.”
“What?” Christiana rolled to her back, her eyes tightly shut. “My mind is too heavy with the need for sleep. I canna . . .”
He jostled her shoulder as her words trailed off. “Up. Now. I know you’re exhausted, but we have to get out of here.”
“Out of here?” She focused on him through narrowly squinted eyes, blinking as her wits came to her. “We’re in the keep? Oh, fie, how did we let this happen?”
“I think we both have a pretty good idea of how it happened.” He dropped a quick kiss on her forehead as he rolled over her and hit the cold stone floor with his feet.
“What did you say about Tinklers?” She’d pushed up on one elbow, clutching the blanket to her breasts.
He spared a thought to forgetting everything in favor of returning to her bed, but good sense prevailed. It was his only choice if he wanted to make sure waking up with her in his arms was to be more than a onetime thing.
And that was exactly what he wanted.
“Hall and I made arrangements with them to get Bridget away from Tordenet. When they come for her, you’re going with them.”
“I’ve no seen that on any of Skuld’s paths.”
“Then Skuld needs to get herself some new paths, because this is the way we’re handling it. My mind’s made up. You’re leaving this place this very morning. With the Tinklers. It’ll be a twofer when they deliver Bridget back to Malcolm’s protection.”
“I dinna think what you plan is possible, Chase. That’s no the way of it.” She tipped her head to the side, reminding him of a teacher lecturing a disappointing student. “The Norns weave the tapestry of our lives. Skuld may well offer choices, but only those she’s already woven for us, no the ones we make up for ourselves.”
“Is that so?” he asked, pulling open the curtains on all sides of the bed to allow the morning’s light to reach her. He didn’t have time for the luxury of this debate. The purple haze peeking around the shutters had already lightened to a battleship gray. “Then that must be one crazy-ass tapestry your Norns are weaving, what with your Faerie friend popping me out of the twenty-first century to drop me here.”
She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, obviously struggling with some internal debate.
“No,” she said at last. “It is what it is. We’ve none of us a way around it. Neither god nor Mortal is exempt from the work of the Norns.”
“Okay then, no problem. Since we’re neither god nor Mortal, but Faerie.” He reached for her hand and pulled her from the bed, not letting go until her feet were on the floor. “Let me ask you a question. Did you see this happening between us in any of your visions?”
“No,” she said quietly.
“Well, I saw it. From the moment I met you, I knew we would be together. It’s my path. Now quit arguing with me and get dressed. The way I see it, it’s probably best if we aren’t spotted coming out of the garden together. So you can go back the way we came, and I’ll go out the regular way, through the door.”
Confined spaces were not his preference. Not when they could be avoided.
“The garden’s no the place for me, either, this time of morning. I’ll use a different exit from the passageways. Through the kitchen’s storage rooms would likely be best, once the cooks have had time to finish collecting what they need to prepare for their day.”
“As long as you hurry. We don’t want you missing your ride. You be careful, okay?”
He grinned at her and started for the door, turning back after only a few steps to take her in his arms for a proper parting kiss. She molded to him, her lips every bit as wonderful this morning as they had been the night before.
At last he pulled away from her to say good-bye. The words that popped out of his mouth surprised even him.
“I love you.”
Leaving her standing there, the blanket all that separated him from those enticing curves, was harder than almost anything he’d done before.
“Won’t be long,” he promised himself under his breath as he stepped into the hallway.
He loved her. Not just her body or having sex with her; he actually loved her. Where that knowledge had come from or when it had penetrated his thick head, he had no idea. But it was the absolute truth. He’d never been one to say a thing he didn’t mean, and to his core he knew that he’d never meant anything more than those words he’d just uttered.
He loved her. And thanks to the Faeries, he would get to spend the rest of his life with her.
Visions of her popping into the kitchen out of some mystery hole in a storage closet filled his thoughts as he made his way through the back halls and down the stairs, until he stood on the bottom step in the main entry hall of Tordenet.
“Here, now! Where do you think yer going?” Cook stood in the entryway to the great hall, a cloth-covered basket on her hip. “What are you doing here at this hour?”
“Kitchen,” Chase blurted out, the first word that came into his mind upon seeing the cook. “I’m starving this morning.” Not too far off the mark, come to think of it.
“Get back to yer kitchens, Cook. I’ll see to him.” Ulfr descended the staircase at the back of the hallway, his arm around a smaller figure whose features remained hidden in the recesses of a heavy cloak. “And as for you, Noble, you’ll wait for the morning meal like everyone else. Or in yer case, you’ll eat what’s in yer pack as you ride.”
Chase dipped his head respectfully, grateful he’d made it this far unnoticed, considering how many people apparently wandered the halls at this hour.
“Whatever you say, Captain. But it’s a damn shame a man can’t find some bread or fruit or something fit to put in his belly around here.”
His stomach chose that moment to rumble loudly. He really was hungry, having missed his evening meal in favor of s
omething much more appealing.
“It’s yer arse, no yer belly, what will get the workout this day. Even now Artur assembles the men to accompany us to the Sinclair. So be off with you. It’s time you were readying yer mount for the ride. We leave as soon as I see this one home.” Ulfr growled the last, shoving his companion ahead of him.
The woman gasped as a cold burst of wind buffeted her at the open doorway, tossing the hood of her cloak back.
Chase recognized her as one of the servers he’d seen in the great hall at mealtime, a small, dark-haired woman who, from the back, he’d more than once confused with Christiana.
No confusing her now, not with her eyes swollen shut and blood oozing from the cuts to her lower lip.
“What happened to you?”
“Best you move along and forget what you’ve seen here,” Ulfr warned quietly, pulling the hood back up over the woman’s head. “This concerns none but our laird.”
Torquil had done that to her?
Walking back to the barracks, Chase sent a silent thanks to the Fae that he’d soon have Christiana out of this place, even as his mind scrambled to figure out some way to make the beast who ruled this castle pay for what he’d done to that poor woman.
HE’D SAID HE loved her.
Christiana bent to the floor to retrieve her chemise and dropped it over her head.
I love you. He’d said those very words not five minutes past.
Neither her physical exhaustion nor her concern over Chase’s obvious lack of belief in the power of the Norns could steal this joy from her. She wouldn’t allow it.
Instead, she’d consider how to keep him safe in spite of his erroneous belief that he could control what was to come. The future was woven and could not be undone. She was confident in that knowledge, though the memory of the gaping hole she’d seen in the distance did trouble her a little.
What if, as Chase claimed, the Faerie’s interference had changed everything?
“No,” she whispered aloud, crossing the room to pick up her overdress.
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