by Willa Blair
Thankfully, after they traded only a few more threats and insults, Colbridge abruptly jerked his mount around and rode back to his camp. Toran quit the rampart on the run, determined to find Aileana and clear up the misunderstanding. Damn it, she’d just begun to trust him!
He found her in the empty hallway outside her chamber, crying, as she tried to open the door. Thank God, it was stuck. If she’d locked herself inside, she might never come out after what she’d just heard.
“Aileana, wait,” he called after her. She glanced around and redoubled her efforts to force the door open. Her flushed, tear-streaked face nearly broke his heart. “Aileana, I was goading Colbridge. Ye’re no’ a prisoner. Ye ken that.”
She paused, then apparently gave up on opening the door and ran to the far side of a large table set against the wall, as if she needed protection from him and that barrier could keep her safe, which finished breaking his heart in two.
“Not a prisoner? Then let me leave. Not in a year and a day. Now.”
Toran’s breath caught in his throat at her appeal. He began to move around the table to her.
“Don’t,” she commanded, putting her hands up to ward him off. “You lied to me. I’m no guest here, nor do I belong here. I’m as much a prisoner as I was in Colbridge’s camp, allowed the freedom of the keep only because I can do something you need. You care nothing for me. I heard you say it.”
Toran stood still, assessing. Her back pressed against the wall, tears streamed down her face, but then she leaned forward and splayed her hands on the tabletop, challenging him. He admired her spirit, even as he damned himself for hurting her.
“No, Aileana. I didn’t lie to ye. I lied to Colbridge. Ye’re no’ a prisoner. Never that.”
Her hesitation heartened him even as her words betrayed her fear. “I don’t believe you.”
He fought to keep his voice calm and quiet as he continued. “I willna negotiate with Colbridge over ye. I willna give ye back to him.”
“Perhaps not, but you’ll still hold me against my will.”
“Where would ye go, lass?”
“’Tis none of your concern.”
Toran sighed, reaching for something, anything, to tell her that would convince her. The only thing he could think of was a promise he did not want to make, but it was all he had.
“When this is over”—he paused, grimaced at what he was about to offer to regain her trust, and continued—“when he is gone, if it is what ye truly want, ye may leave.”
At his words, she straightened, still poised to flee, but listening to him.
“But that is not what I want,” he continued. “I want ye to stay in the Aerie, make yer home here, with us.”
“As your healer,” she stated, flatly, not moving.
“Aye, of course.” Toran said, but before he could go on, she interrupted.
“Why is that any different than the life I had with Colbridge’s army? I had a purpose there, too. But I’ve spent the last two years learning that having a purpose is not the same as belonging.”
Aileana fisted her hands on her hips, and marched around the corner of the table, coming to stand toe-to-toe with Toran. “He’s a tyrant. What makes you any different than him? Because you have the Aerie? I’m told he has a keep in the south. Because you inherited a clan? He has one, too—misfits and lost men, all, but he’s made them his. Why do you think you’re so different?”
“Because,” Toran finally interrupted her tirade, angered at being compared to her former captor, “because ye ken I’m no’ like him. Yer anger is speaking for ye. Ye dinna really mean that.”
“Don’t tell me what I mean or don’t mean.”
Toran sighed. “Have ye no’ seen enough by now to ken the kind of man I am? Have ye no’ seen better from me than that?”
“I don’t know what to believe.”
“Then believe this.” He touched a finger to her damp cheek, and felt the warmth spread between them, melting his ire. “I dinna take what doesna belong to me, lass. If ye dinna belong to me, if ye truly do no’ wish to stay with me, then I’ll let ye go when it’s safe to do so. But ye feel how I want ye. And ye want me, the same. I feel it, too. We have something together, ye and I. I dinna claim to understand it, but ’tis there.”
She pulled back from his touch, stared up at him as if he’d lost his mind, but didn’t step away. Emboldened, he stroked the side of her face, wiped a tear stain softly with his thumb. “Ye feel it, too. I can see it on yer face, and feel it in the way yer heart beats faster when we touch.”
She continued to stare at him, a deer frozen in the hunter’s sights, ready to bolt.
“I am sorry,” Toran whispered against her hair. “I’ve ne’er wanted ye to run from me, to make ye cry over something I’ve said or done.”
“It wasn’t just you who said those awful things,” she said, softening a bit, he hoped. “It was Donal, too. But you didn’t deny them.”
“Ye ken why I couldna, no’ then. But ye understand how I feel about ye.”
She tensed under his hand, then exhaled slowly and he watched her shoulders drop slightly as her fear and anger turned to something else. Ever more gently, he captured her breath with his own, caressed her lips with his, slowly. She stood still as Toran continued to drop light kisses over her face, tasting the salt of her tears. He wanted to soothe her, but he also wanted her passion. As he continued to coax her, Toran’s need rose within him like the tide. He took her in his arms, held her. She hesitated, as if stunned, then wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him.
“Oh, Toran. What are we to do?”
He answered her between kisses. “What we want…what we need…what we must.”
He lifted her, crossed to her chamber and freed one hand to turn the latch, then kicked the door open. When Aileana did not protest as he carried her inside, he closed and locked the door behind them. Setting her on her feet, he stroked her back, lost in the way she fit against him, her head tucked onto his shoulder, breasts to his chest, hips to his hardness. As if she belonged there. As if she had been made just for him.
He kissed her again, pulled her up on her toes and nibbled her earlobe, her throat. He slid his hands along her sides, caressing her, then he set her away from him. He smiled as she watched him, her uncertainty reflected in her wide eyes as he untied the shawl she still wore. “I willna hurt ye, Aileana,” he promised. “I willna make ye cry, no’ again, never again. But I willna let ye leave me. Ye are mine.”
Her chin lifted, and he feared he’d said the wrong thing, but she reached for his face, and pulled him down to kiss her again. “Aileana,” he murmured, moving his mouth over hers, tasting her. She responded with her lips, and her pulse beat faster under his fingers as he slipped his hands down along her throat to untie the bodice of her dress.
****
Aileana burned. The moment Toran touched her, she was lost. His remorse doused the flames of her anger, and his kisses ignited needs she had never known to be within her. Fire ran under his fingertips and trailed across her skin. Yet her core was molten liquid, seeping down her belly to scald her thighs with heat and longing, leaving behind a void that must be filled. She barely knew what was happening between them. She could only feel. Toran’s hands, Toran’s breath, his hot, demanding mouth, his steely muscles moving under satiny skin as he caressed her, coaxed her, enticed her. Won her.
Her hands moved over him almost without her direction, unlacing his shirt, unpinning the plaid from his shoulder and pulling it down to his waist. Those were all things she had done as he lay unconscious on her surgery table, movements she knew and did not have to think about. She ran her fingertips across his chest, and it was broader and stronger and more heated than she had ever imagined in her deepest longings. His breath hitched as she slid her palm down to his waist. His belt fell next, and the plaid slipped to the floor. She slid her hands up under his shirt, memorizing each ripple of muscle along his tight belly, the silky slip of his chest hair bet
ween her fingers, and the tiny knots of his nipples. Toran’s groans.
At any other time, his voice captivated her with its deep resonance. But his wordless sounds of passion were intoxicating. They stole her breath, stopped her heart, and drove her mad with longing. That she could bring a man of such strength, wisdom, and goodness to moaning out his need for her gave her a sense of power beyond anything she’d ever known before. He was hers, and she was his. Nothing had ever felt more right to her, more real.
Toran released her to step out of his boots. His gaze pinned her as he reached for her. She could only stare at the man her hands now knew, broad and strong, and hungry for her touch. So she reached out to him and he breathed her name.
His eyes were dark and fierce as he pulled her hands away. He bent to unlace her clothes, finally pulling the layers from her as quickly as he could.
Cool air caressed her skin, and Toran’s gaze roamed freely over her body, a license no man had been allowed ’til now. Suddenly shy, she thought to cover herself just as he lifted her effortlessly and laid her gently on her bed.
Even when his touch left her skin, Aileana was aware of him. She knew she would be able to find him on the darkest night in the deepest forest. But when they did touch, her heart beat with his, and his hot blood seemed to course through her veins. His hunger for her was a living thing. She missed that knowing as he leaned over her from where he stood by the bed, so she reached for him.
“Are ye certain, lass?” Toran asked, his voice deep, his brogue thick with his need. “As much as I want this, I willna, if ye dinna want it, too. It’s too important.”
Was she certain? How could he doubt it? She’d never wanted like this, never needed, not like this.
“What have ye done to me?” she asked, her voice a soft reply to his harsh demand. Some called her a witch, but this man had bewitched her in truth. She answered for him, before he could speak. “You’ve made me need you more than I need breath. Aye, I’m sure, Toran…Laird Lathan…”
“Laird Lathan, is it?” Toran asked, and his quick grin betrayed his relief at her answer as he knelt over her, straddling her slim thighs with his strong ones. He pulled his shirt over his head, revealing his need to her.
The time for shyness had passed. “Aye, laird. If you’ll have me,” she replied, reflecting his grin for one brief second before he bent down to her.
“Oh, I’ll have ye,” Toran promised, leaning in to kiss her throat, her breasts, her belly. “As long and as often as ye like.” His kisses moved lower, while his hands stroked her hips, her thighs, her breasts, anywhere in his long reach. Aileana reveled in the strange yet wonderful sensations running through her from all the places that Toran touched. In answer, she raked her fingers through his long dark hair, stroked his shoulders and upper back, reaching for him, desperate to touch him, too.
She tensed as his fingers caressed her molten center and tested the barrier of her innocence that he found there.
“Ah, lass,” he murmured, “we’ll take this slow.”
His mouth followed his fingers. Embarrassed, Aileana tried to pull him back up, but he would not be deterred. She gasped at the dizzying spiral of sensation his touch produced as he kissed her thighs then traced upward with his tongue. The clenching need in her core turned sharp, almost painful. Sliding his hands under her hips, he lifted and opened her completely to his teasing mouth. “So sweet, ye are,” he whispered, his hot breath adding to the delicate torture. “Like honey.”
With each stroke of Toran’s tongue, Aileana surrendered to the sensations he produced in her. Her body tensed, arcing up, twisting, while in her core, a wanting the likes of which she’d only heard about from love-sick village girls wove a tighter and tighter spiral. Behind her closed eyes, she saw streaks of light, much like the ones she’d once seen in the dark of a late summer’s predawn sky. She felt herself spinning ever upward to meet those falling stars.
What was this rapture? Her heart beat furiously, but her breath caught with each groan Toran gifted to her. How could something as simple as his touch, the heat of his mouth, the sound of his voice drive her to madness?
Finally, when she could no longer sense the earth beneath her and Toran’s touch became more than she could bear, she exploded across her starry sky.
When she could breathe again, she opened her eyes to Toran’s satisfied smile. His hands rested on her thighs, his fingers warm where they played on her skin. He stroked up her belly to her breasts, paused to kiss each tightly puckered tip, then moved up to drop gentle kisses on her mouth. He wrapped her legs around his waist, then covered her, taking his weight on his arms. His hardness rested where his tongue had worked such magic. “There’s more?” she asked softly against his mouth, though she knew full well what was to come.
“Aye, lass, much more. There may be a wee pain at first, but that will be gone in a moment, and then ye’ll feel pleasure again.”
“Aye,” she answered, uncertain despite her healers’ knowledge. Knowing and doing were two very different things. Then his shaft breached her entrance, filling her, stretching her, intruding little by little as her body accepted his invasion. He was silky, then hot, then unrelenting as her moisture flowed over him and he suddenly thrust into her.
A quick, sharp stinging shocked tears from her eyes. But Toran’s soothing murmurs and gentle kisses helped her forget it. He filled her completely and she gripped him tightly as she fought to relax, to breathe, to allow herself to know this man in a way she’d known no other. She’d wanted him since she first saw him, and he’d wanted her, too. Oh, how he wanted her. The evidence burned deep within her body. After a few deep breaths, she managed a nod, then took his face in her hands. His look of surprise amused her. She gave him a small smile as she stroked his cheek and ran her fingertips over his lips, then tangled her fingers in his hair and pulled his mouth down to hers. Slowly, gently, he began stroking in and out, letting her become accustomed to his size and pace. The fire rekindled deep in her middle as his passion rose, and hers climbed along with his. His heart pounded in time with the powerful rythym of his loins. His need for her burned in his kiss, and she gave herself over to him completely.
He was struggling to be gentle with her, but Aileana soon decided that was a battle he was about to lose. Full of a sense of power like nothing she’d ever known before, she arced up to meet his thrusts, demanding more. He groaned her name into her mouth as he tensed. Suddenly he began kissing her wildly, devouring her breath as if he had no other. His fingers gripped her shoulders, then his hands slid under her head and lifted her mouth closer to his as he rocked their bodies in his ardent rhythm. She slid her hands down his broad back to grip his buttocks where they clenched and relaxed with each stroke, pulling his hardness deeper into her core. She wanted him, all of him. As her nails bit into his flesh, his climax took him, and he pushed even deeper, crying out her name as he leapt over the edge. The power of his release shocked her into another of her own, and they soared, breathing one breath, hearts beating as one, together.
****
Aileana awoke with the dawn the next morning. For a moment, she didn’t know where she was and expected to open her eyes to the interior of her sleeping tent. But the softness of the bed beneath her and the warmth of the deep covers quickly brought her back to the present. Toran…her eyes flew open and she looked over her shoulder. No, not just the warmth of deep covers, but the warmth of a very large man sprawled at her back.
Toran! He wasn’t supposed to be here. Senga would box his ears, if she could reach them. Or perhaps not. Aileana smiled. She had slept soundly the night through, and had not even been aware that Toran had remained in her bed. Surely Senga could not complain about the comfort his presence gave her.
She yawned and stretched, then turned to curl against Toran’s massive chest, resting her head on his shoulder. She draped her arm across his belly, intending to let sleep take her again, but found that she could not resist exploring the warmth of his skin under her p
alm. Her fingers trailed upward, sliding into the silky hair on his chest. When they brushed across his nipple, she found a tiny, hard bud. Under it, the beat of his heart, at first slow and lazy, begin to increase in pace. He was awake.
“What will Senga say when she finds out where you spent the night?” Aileana asked softly, still brushing her fingers across Toran’s chest.
“Perhaps she’ll no’ discover it,” came the lazy rumble beneath her ear. “If we do no’ tell her, who will?”
“Elspie has a habit of coming in without more than a quick knock on the door,” Aileana warned him.
“Ach, Elspie will never tell on me.”
Aileana propped her head up on one hand and continued to trace lazy spirals on Toran’s chest with the other while she eyed him. His eyes were still closed, but his smirk was almost more than she could bear and she grinned back at him even though she knew he wouldn’t see her.
“Elspie tells on everybody. She’s the worst gossip in the Aerie.”
“So, then,” Toran said, opening his eyes as he grasped her wandering hand and urged it lower, “what if we give her something more interesting to talk about?”
As her hand skimmed over his belly to his hip, Aileana discovered that Toran was naked. “Do you always sleep this way?” she asked as he released her hand and lifted his to stroke the side of her face and neck.
“At home, aye. Away from the Aerie, the ground’s too cold and hard to sleep like this.”
“I do have some familiarity with sleeping on the ground. This bed is much better.”
“Ah, so ye approve of the bed, do ye? What of the man ye find within in?”
“I approve of him, as well.”
“In bed or without?”
“I suppose I must approve both, because I’d rather not do without.”
“Lass!” Toran’s laugh was loud and Aileana took her hand from his hip and put it over his mouth.
“Ssshhh! Someone will hear you!” He lifted her hand away and kissed her fingertips, her palm, and her wrist.