Something occurred to him, another who would benefit from the power in this place. He turned to Brianna and saw her eyes widened as the thought occurred to her at the exact moment it did to him.
“Violet,” they said in unison.
Luke and Brianna went over to where Violet sat clasping her hands in her lap.
She grinned up at them, her blue eyes wide. “That was brilliant!”
“Aye, sprite,” Luke said. He glanced at Brianna before he crouched down and lifted her in his arms. “‘Tis not over, though.”
Brianna hugged Luke as she wrapped one arm around her sister’s shoulders.
Violet gave a gasp and stiffened, finally laughing out loud as Uncle Seamus had.
“Oh, Brianna!” she cried.
* * *
Brianna’s heart beat slowly as she studied Violet. The little girl’s cheeks were rosy and her eyes bright, as she had looked so long ago in Cornwall. She was healed as
surely as Luke’s uncle had been.
“Luke,” she said.
“‘Tis true, lass.” Luke dropped a kiss on Violet’s cheek before setting her down gently on her feet. He grabbed Brianna to him and she felt like laughing as Violet had.
“And love be the treasure I’ve been seekin’ all along.”
“Took you long enough to be knowin’ it, lad!” Seamus laughed.
Luke turned to talk to his uncle as Luke’s brothers stepped closer to Brianna. She gazed up at Patrick, seeing his eyes were clouded. When he took her hand this time, she didn’t feel the cold politeness he’d shown right after her and Luke’s vows had been blessed. No, he seemed to be genuinely pleased at the union now. She couldn’t summon anger; if it had been possible to meet the person responsible for Violet’s illness, she wouldn’t have been civil.
“Brianna, I…” Patrick smiled crookedly, his grin much like Luke’s though he didn’t look as though he smiled as much as his older brother. There was a darkness there, and her Pixie senses picked up a cloud of something—confusion, anger, desperation?—
around his heart. She could tell none of this was directed at her.
She took his hand when he offered it. “Yes, Patrick?”
He blinked, and then wrapped her in a hug. “Thank you, Pixie.”
Brianna reached up to return the embrace, but when she touched his shoulder, he flinched. That darkness was back, and Brianna could almost taste his fear.
He straightened and fixed that grin on his face again, and she knew he wouldn’t tell her about his shoulder or about what haunted him. So she inclined her head and her new brother-in-law stepped away to let his younger brother come closer. Sean not only hugged her but also lifted her off her feet and twirled her around.
“Thank you, lass!” He set her down and kissed her cheek. “Sister.” His blue eyes
sparkled. “You saved Uncle Seamus.”
“Aye, Sean,” Seamus said. “Luke’s Pixie was the magic we needed.”
Luke looked at his uncle, his brow furrowed, and Brianna wondered what was on his mind. “You said something earlier, Uncle. Something about thirty years?”
Seamus shook his head, but Brianna didn’t miss the glint in his eyes. There was something there. Hadn’t the man known to fit her now-absent key into the amber? Surely, he’d known that all along.
“Not now, Luke.” Seamus winked at Brianna, who flushed. It was easy to see where Luke got his charm. “You be havin’ a wife to see to,” he finished.
Brianna soon found all the MacDonalds’ eyes on her, and her flush turned hotter.
Her sister looked at them in obvious confusion, her lips pursed.
“What do they mean, Brianna?” Violet finally asked.
Patrick chuckled and turned away as Sean studied a spot on the floor.
“Come, darlin’.” Mrs. O’Grady stepped forward and placed a hand on the little girl’s shoulder. “Your sister and Master Luke have to go to his cottage and see to settin’
up their house.”
Violet looked confused, and then a look of understanding crossed her face. Oh, God.
“You want to kiss Luke,” Violet stated. “Alone.”
Brianna looked up at Luke, at the passion and love in his deep green eyes. Yes, she did. She wanted to kiss him until he couldn’t see straight. “Aye.”
While the rest of the family made their way to Seamus’s cottage for a celebration without benefit of the bride and groom’s attendance, Luke hurried Brianna the short distance to his house. Their house. When she entered and saw his Spartan bachelor furnishings, she paid it little attention.
Luke shut the door and trailed his fingers over the lacing at the back of her borrowed gown, sending any thoughts of shopping and decorating right out of her mind.
He spun her to face him and she wanted him out of his fine clothes, wearing nothing but the smile she’d put on his face. She reached up, removed his neck cloth, and began to work the buttons of his shirt free. He shrugged out of his jacked and she pulled the tails of his shirt out of his very tight pants. The bulge in front strained at the buttons, and she couldn’t resist touching him through the fabric.
“Ah, lass,” he growled. “Give me some time.”
She stroked her fingers once more up the hard ridge, watching as his jaw
clenched, and stepped back. “Time is what we have, Luke. Plenty of it.”
He grinned and ran his gaze over her. “I thought you looked amazing in those jeans, but this dress…”
She tilted her head to one side, the curls one of the old women had created brushing her cheek. “Are you saying you want the dress, Braunach? Surely you know it’s borrowed.”
Luke blinked. “Brianna, what—?”
She reached up and tugged one shoulder free, running her fingers over her
collarbone. “Surely you’re thinking of the girl who wore this dress, Luke. One of the many in the dell who found you quite to her liking?”
Luke threw back his head and laughed. “If I could remember whose dress that is, I wouldn’t be thinking of her right now.”
She stepped closer and ran her hands over his chest, reaching beneath to push the shirt off his marvelous shoulders. “A few of the girls in the chapel seemed disappointed to see you married.”
Luke rubbed her back, the laces hanging open in the back of her gown as he
stroked lower to her bottom. “Ah, none of them had a claim on me, lass.” He kissed her neck, her throat. “No one did. Until you.”
She let him remove her dress, her chemise and her stockings, as he danced her into the bedroom. Oh, she’d seen the big bed earlier, ignored the flutter in her belly at the knowledge that they’d share the magnificent thing tonight. She glanced at the bright light filtering through the serviceable curtains at the window. Make that this afternoon.
He placed her on the bed and straightened, watching her while he fumbled to remove the rest of his clothes. His breath came fast. Good. He was as affected as she was, and every breath he took expanded that beautiful chest.
Soon he was naked, and she leaned up on her elbows as he stretched out on top of her. His chest brushed over her nipples, sending heat coursing through her. She arched, relishing the answering growl deep in his throat.
“Ah, Brianna…” He finally brought that mouth to hers and kissed her, deeply, sweetly and completely.
She sighed as his lips left hers to trail over her skin. His tongue flicked over the pulse point at her throat, drew another sigh from her lips as she grabbed a fistful of his hair and urged him toward her breasts. Laughing softly, he took a nipple in his mouth and she closed her eyes. His fingers, strong and insistent, found her center and began to pet her. Trembling, her legs fell open, knowing he’d take her there again. To the place only he’d shown her. The place he’d hinted at from that first kiss in the alley behind the coffee shop.
“Aye, Brianna,” he rasped, his breath chilling her wet nipple. He kissed the valley between her breasts. “Take your pleasure, lass.”
no glass shattering as the climax shook her body. Only her wildly pounding heart and his murmurs of encouragement added to her cries of pleasure. And it was only Luke holding her when she regained her senses.
“In your pleasure,” he began softly, coming up to kiss her. “Aye, ‘tis true there was never a lovelier sight.”
She caught her breath and looked up at him. His eyes were still dark, his breath labored. The hardness pressed to her leg told her the reason.
“Lean back, MacDonald,” she said, pressing a hand on his chest. “I want to see you in yours.”
* * *
Luke let his wife take the lead, curious to see what she’d do to him. ‘Twas true, just looking at her brought him close to his release. When she began to trail kisses along his throat, his chest, he silently vowed to hold on to some control. Her fingers, light and clever, stroked him, reached down to grasp him. Luke was torn between collapsing on the pillow with his eyes shut to leaning up on his elbows so he could watch as she aroused him to almost painful hardness. When she dropped a kiss on his belly, he chose the latter.
Brianna’s hair, once done up as the lasses of his time, now tangled down her back and over her shoulder. He recalled how she’d thrashed beneath him in her pleasure, how she’d cried out to him as she’d found her peak. God, he nearly spent himself now at the memory. The memory wasn’t nearly as incredible as what she did next.
Her tongue flicked into his navel and Luke sucked in a breath. Tossing her hair over one shoulder, she brought her mouth to him. Her lips ran over his flesh, soft and insistent, as he watched her. He could hear his pulse pounding, feel every stroke, every kiss, straight through to his heart. She wasn’t as skilled as the harlot in the dell and surely not as the woman who’d put herself in Luke’s bed in Indianapolis. But God, Brianna took
him where he’d never been before. So close to the edge he could feel each lick, each kiss, on his soul.
Her silky hair trailed over his thighs, her clever hands touched his belly, his shaft, as she closed her mouth over the head. Luke watched as he began to move beneath her, his restraint weakening as she moved her lips over him, up and down, again and again.
“Brianna!” he rasped.
She lifted her head and smiled up at him, her eyes sparkling. “Aye, Braunach?”
Choking on a laugh, Luke grabbed her to him and kissed her. Urging her on top of him, he began to move against her soft belly. She shifted, cradling his heat with hers, and he clutched her bottom with both hands. Her knees were up against his sides, and she was open. Wide open and wet and hot and he lifted her. With one smooth motion, he was inside.
She gasped as she moved, stroking him as she had with her hands, her mouth. The bed creaked as he matched her rhythm. He turned and pinned her beneath him then, grabbing her hands and stretching her arms up over her head. He was on top now, moving in and out of her as she began to pulse around him. Her legs wrapped around his waist as she met each thrust and he let go of his control.
“Open your eyes, Brianna,” he said. “Look at me.”
She did, her pupils dilating as their gazes met and held. Love flowed between them, its threads stronger than the passion so thick now. Her eyes closed and she cried out his name.
As she arched beneath him, finding her second release, Luke drove deeper still.
His release tore a cry from him as he poured himself into her.
Brianna was still trembling, each little movement doing amazing things to his shaft buried within her, and Luke leaned up on his elbows and stared down at her. Her
skin was damp and flushed, her eyes closed as she panted through parted lips. Her breath was reedy and his was harsh as the evening shadows finally began to spread through the room. Luke kissed her and held her until she came back to herself as his own heartbeat finally slowed.
“Luke MacDonald,” she sighed at last. She opened her eyes and grinned. “That charm of yours is going to kill me.”
Luke laughed, the sound harsh as he caught his breath. “Nay, lass. ‘Twas your charm that brought me to my knees.”
She held on to him, with her arms and herself, and Luke knew then that the passion, the magic and the love was tied into one amazing miracle. The miracle he held in his arms.
Chapter 26
The next day, their first full day as man and wife, Luke awoke with an erection.
He peered through one heavy-lidded eye to see the reason. Brianna was draped over him, murmuring in her sleep as she rubbed his chest with her hand. And his cock with her leg.
She was all soft and pink from sleep, and he eased her onto her back.
“Brianna, lass,” he whispered, close to one dainty little ear. “Wake up, Brianna MacDonald.”
“Mmm,” she sighed. She stretched then, the sheets straining against her breasts.
“Brianna MacDonald.”
Her eyes snapped open and she stared up at him. “MacDonald!” A lazy smile teased her rosy lips. “G’morning, husband.”
Luke kissed the smile from her lips as he found another way to wake her. He caught her sighs of pleasure in his mouth as he found his own release inside of her. ‘Twas true, there surely wasn’t a finer way to greet the day.
He sat up and brushed his hair back from his face as his wife moved slowly to a sitting position. She yawned behind one hand as she glanced around the room.
“I’m glad there doesn’t seem to be any damage when we… When I…”
She flushed and Luke couldn’t help laughing. “No broken glass, Brianna? No books thrown from their shelves?”
She laughed with him. “Thank God I don’t have to restrain myself around you.”
Luke felt pure masculine pride fill his body. “Aye. And ‘tis a good thing, if the sprite is going to live with us.”
Brianna’s brows rose. “Violet will live with us? I hadn’t thought about it.”
“She is your sister, lass.” Luke took her hand. “And my family, now.”
The smile she gave him was dazzling. “I know that. You love her as much as I do.
I thought she’d want to go back to Grandmother’s, though.”
Hollowness filled Luke when he thought of Violet clear in the future, let alone in Cornwall. “I suppose I could take her there with Seamus’s amber. But without your key?”
He shrugged.
Brianna tapped a finger against her lips, her brow furrowed. “We’ll have to ask your uncle, I believe. He seems to know more about all of this than he’s letting on.”
“Aye.” Luke stood at the side of the bed. “And this morning will be a good enough time to learn what all the old man has been hiding.”
“Hiding?” Brianna faced him.
Then her eyes ran over his naked form and Luke didn’t think about Violet or his uncle’s secrets. “If you keep looking at me like that lass, we won’t get to Uncle Seamus’s cottage much before midday.” The grin she gave him shot a spark straight to his groin.
“Cheeky lass.”
Brianna laughed and hurried past him to duck behind the screen set against one wall. He gave her a few private minutes as he dressed, his mind working. Violet would want to return to her grandmother. And Brianna would want to see the woman as well.
Again, he thought of what his uncle had said about waiting thirty long years. However, between the events of yesterday—and last night and this morning!—Luke wasn’t as clearheaded as he could be. He laughed to himself. He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
“Luke, I wondered about your brother Patrick.” Brianna stepped out of the
dressing room wearing nothing but her chemise from last night. “He seemed… distant. Is he always so shuttered?”
Luke focused on what she was saying, despite the way the linen clung to her sweet body in the pink morning light coming from the window. “Since Seamus
got sick,
Patrick has been on edge.” He walked to the washstand behind the screen and splashed water on his face. “He’s always been quick to temper. He used to be just as quick to laugh.”
When he stepped back into the room, he saw her disbelieving expression.
“I doubt I’ll see that brother’s laughter any time soon.”
He walked to her and took her hand. “Patrick will love you, Brianna. You saved our uncle and he won’t be forgettin’ that.”
She waved one hand in the air. “I know. There is darkness in him, Luke. I only hope that… Oh, I don’t know what troubles him.”
“Nor I.” Luke recalled something as he finished dressing. “Mrs. O’Grady said she left you some more garments in the dressing room.”
In an instant, Brianna was gone through the door at the back of the room. He could hear her murmurs of delight as she found the castoffs the girls in the dell had given her. He’d dress her in finery, just as soon as they had a chance to go to the dressmakers.
He’d miss her jeans, though. And the sweet little T-shirts that suited her body so well.
She emerged, a day gown of blue wrapping her figure. A blush colored her cheeks as she stepped closer to him. “What do you think, husband? Will I suit?”
Luke grinned. “Aye.”
When they arrived at Seamus’s cottage, sounds of talk and laughter drifted out of the front windows. Seamus’s deep rumble was paired with Sean’s lighter tones and Violet’s high-pitched laughter. Luke could feel the delight coming off Brianna as she tugged his hand toward the front door. His own heart was lighter than it had been in weeks.
Luke pushed open the front door to find his uncle in his favorite chair with Violet perched at his elbow.
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