“We needed to leave Lowlands, that has been the truth of it for a long while. The persecution of witchcraft is embedded in the people’s minds here, as it has been for over a hundred years. I had tried to bring about change, but with enemies such as Keavey, I cannot take any more risks. You have given me the strength and purpose I needed to move on. There is also the matter of Jessie.” He smiled. “If it had not been for the fact that I was coming to Edinburgh to find you I would not have found my sister, who I have hunted for all these years.”
There was luck in that, Chloris reflected. Could she truly believe this was meant to be?
“Most of all, you have given me what I needed, a woman to love, a woman to cherish. Every man needs those things, but I did not know how much loving you would alter the way I live, the way I see and feel. I am stronger, I am a better man.”
She saw what he was trying to say, not only as a man, but in his magic.
Nevertheless, she still wondered if they were too different. She shook her head and turned her face away, breaking contact. “I fear it cannot be, or will not last.”
“It can and it will.”
She met his gaze. It was there in his eyes and she all but melted.
“I know that you could not wait for me,” he said, “but this is our true beginning. I love you and I know that you love me.”
“When we were together...when we were there that last day in the forest and you painted a picture for me of how it could be, it was too much like a dream, Lennox. I am older than you, a married woman, and a burden because I am so different to you. I do not share your nature.” The shortcoming she felt on that score grew deeper still. She lowered her eyelids, afraid that he would see the grief and pain she carried.
Lennox shook his head. “All of that means nothing. You cannot turn away from a life with me. You were not happy when you came to me, you as much as admitted it, and I have seen you blossom while we’ve been together. You cannot deny that.”
“No, I cannot deny that.”
He drew her to him and looked into her eyes beseechingly. “I will not let you say no to what we could have together.”
“You told me it would be hard, but that is the truth for you, too.”
“Do I need to remind you how we are when we are as one?” He closed in on her, his mouth covering hers.
Chloris whimpered, then melted and relinquished herself to him.
His kiss was soft and persuasive at first, reminiscent of those first few kisses he’d given her, and then it came as she knew it would—the full-blown passion that flared between them. How she adored it, the sheer and absolute immensity of the reciprocated desire they shared.
Cradling the back of her head with one hand, he moved the other around the outline of her breasts and waist, where he gripped her tightly and drew her closer against him. The firm, hard line of his body against hers—together with the feeling of being held in his arms while he plundered her mouth—shooed everything else in the world away. She let it, savoring him.
He eased her down onto her back. Chloris sank gratefully onto the couch, not breaking from the embrace. To feel the closeness, the presence of his body over hers, made her heart soar. “Lennox, you make me...you make me feel, everything.”
“It is the same for me, and you and only you make me feel this.”
He meshed his fingers with hers, and she stared at their joined hands. She wanted this, wanted him—for always, just as he suggested.
He looked down at her with passion in his eyes. “Let me love you.”
Chloris groaned. When he said that, she could not resist. Turning her face to one side, she was ashamed of her blatant reaction, here in this borrowed parlor where everything should be proper and moral.
Lennox swooped down upon her, kissing the soft, sensitive skin that she had exposed in turning her face, raining kisses down her throat and into her cleavage, his hands around her waist.
Desire sprang at her center, heating her groin, making her entire body throb with need. Between her thighs her core clenched, reaching for him, reaching for the certain pleasure of his hardness inside her.
With one hand on the couch above her head, he rested his knee by the side of her hip and caressed the curved underside of her bosom through her bodice and corset. It made her breath come ever quicker, the damp heat between her thighs growing. Moaning softly, she shook her head, but her hands moved and she ran her fingers into his hair, craving every part of him.
Sensation overwhelmed her, her need for him blinding her to their surroundings, to the danger inherent in their situation. She looked at him, her lips parting, and put her hands against his chest, her head pressing back as her body arched to his.
His hands roamed, squeezing her through her clothing. Even through her skirts she could feel his erection solid and real, promising her untold pleasures such as those she had experienced with him over the past few weeks.
“We should not,” she whispered. Yet she did not resist when his mouth lifted at one corner and he lowered his hand and pulled up her skirts, his fingers quickly working between her thighs to delve into the heat he found there.
“Lennox,” she breathed. The stroke of his fingers opening her up sent her spinning. She felt panic, and bliss. Pressing back against the cushions, she shook her head. “Please, don’t.”
Even as she said that she knew she was helpless. She could barely resist him, she was powerless under his hands, and now it seemed even worse than before because he had professed his affection for her, affection she reciprocated deeply.
Lennox laughed softly. “You pretend you can resist me, yet this—” he stroked his thumb over the seat of her pleasure, making her moan “—says something different.”
She cried out, her hands fisting.
Again he chuckled. “Even when your words deny me, your body tells me what it is you want. It has been that way since the beginning.”
He was so sure, just as he had always been.
“Of course I want you. I always have, for you have seduced me thoroughly. That is a task that you are very good at. It is the wisdom of our actions that I query, that and matters of the heart.”
“You will be able to consider our matters of the heart more honestly, while I reacquaint myself with you.” Again he stroked her sensitive folds.
Chloris writhed against the couch. “You are terrible! I need you there, inside me.”
His smile was triumphant. “A moment longer. Let me study you while I touch you, and then I will have to be inside you.”
“You are shameless.” She gave him a rueful glance.
He ducked to press a kiss in the cleft between her breasts, then thrust one finger inside her. “I am merely demonstrating how well we are matched.”
Chloris covered her mouth with her hand to stop herself from crying out. The hard intrusion felt too good, and her body clasped it, instinct taking over. Her hips bore down, and when they did his thumb rode over her swollen bud and released a tide of heat that bloomed within her.
He lifted his head and looked down at her, holding her gaze. His finger stroked in and out of her damp niche. Slowly, so slowly, he moved, coaxing her to enjoy. He circled his finger around her sensitive opening. “I want every ounce of you, Chloris.”
Her body was trembling, so intense was the connection. She saw what he meant now, about considering matters of the heart. When he had her this way, she could think of nothing else but how much she loved him, and that she wanted to be with him for all time. She clutched at him. “Please,” she whispered.
He pulled free the laces at his groin, freeing his manhood. It was hard against her and when she felt its size she shivered.
“I am needy for your most precious embrace,” he murmured.
She wrapped her fingers around his girth, testing him. He was solid, long and thick, and the skin was hot to the touch. She stroked her fingers down around the shaft, then cupped his sac, squeezing it gently in her hand.
He shot her a warning g
lance. “Tread carefully, my love.”
He spread her legs, arranging one over the side of the couch. The other he lifted along his flank, encouraging her to bend her knee. Slowly, he eased his length inside her, his hands cupping her bottom as he lifted her to arrange her and gain entry. Chloris moaned as he stretched her open, moving his cock deeper.
Then she was gloriously full and he held his position.
His breath was warm on her mouth and she breathed him in. His hair fell forward, enclosing them as he kissed her softly, the stubble on his jaw grazing her face. It was too good. Chloris wanted to stay locked that way forever.
But then he stroked the leg that pressed alongside his flank and shifted it, folding it high against his side as he ground his hips into hers, slow and deep, his teeth gritted, and she was soon close to spilling. They both were. She could see the muscles in his neck working, his eyelids lowered as he watched her reactions.
A trickle of her moisture slid free and ran down between them.
He smiled at her. “You are awash, my love.”
Chloris didn’t respond, but her cheeks flamed.
“And how you blush.”
“I cannot help it, my emotions are tender.”
“Good.”
She felt the swollen head of his cock throbbing against her deepest point, and it made her whisper his name, over and over, her release imminent.
He pulled back when he felt the depth of her response. “Oh, Chloris.”
Then he drove her on, riding her slow, hard and deep, until she began to pant aloud. He arched up his shoulders with effort. She bore down, meeting him, and the release came sudden and sweet and hot and wild, flooding her groin with pleasure. When she clenched on him, her core rippling, he groaned, jerked inside her and spurted hot and copious, equaling her release. Chloris held on to his shoulders with weak hands, shuddering.
When he drew away, it was only after he had kissed her for as long as he could stay inside, and then he stood up and laced himself up, before he lifted her in his arms and set her upon his lap. “There, now that we are reacquainted, did you think on our matters of the heart?”
“Long and hard.” She laughed and rubbed her face against his.
“And you see it, don’t you, this will always be the way between us. This is nature’s way, the most powerful vitality there is, and when it grows this way between two lovers who are meant to be together, it is immense and undeniable.”
She nodded her head, clinging to him. That first time in the bluebell glen, when she had wanted to turn him away but had begged him to fulfill her, was close in her mind. There was regret, but it was nothing in the face of her growing desire for him. She’d woken the next day longing for more, longing to be in his arms again.
For the first time she let herself believe this was right.
“When you first came to me we met as if strangers, both driven by different needs in our union. The draw between us was powerful even then, and because of that I fast grew to care about you and nothing else mattered, not your cousin nor what he thought, or how well I could fox him by seducing you.”
Chloris drew back. Her breath caught.
Lennox, whose passion had clearly undone him, cursed when he realized what he had said.
“You...you are saying that you seduced me in order to upset Tamhas?”
Even as she said the words, her heart ached. More fiercely than all the pain and loss she had experienced over these past few days, a knife ran deep in her heart. She shifted, climbing off his lap.
Lennox hung his head. “For a while, I thought that was why you had gone from Saint Andrews, that you had thought on it and realized.”
“I left because he threatened to punish your people.”
“That is what he is like. You have seen it. He detests my people, you know he wanted to run us into the ground and have us burned at the stake. I cannot help that I reacted to that.” He reached out for her.
Chloris pulled away. “But you...you made a fine show of your talents, in order to get to me, because of him.”
“It is how it started, but soon discovery was the last thing I wanted, because most of all I wanted you.”
She stared at him, remembering how it had been, her mind going back to that very first evening when she had asked his assistance. He had questioned her, and when he saw her with Jean his mind was made up. He had set out to ruin her in Tamhas’s eyes. That is why he was so driven, why he pursued her even when she wasn’t sure if she wanted to go ahead with the ancient ritual he described. “The ritual to increase my fertility, was that even real?”
“Of course it was real.” Dismay filled his expression. His chest rose and fell rapidly, and he ran his fingers through his hair and cursed beneath his breath. “What we do cannot and should not be taken for granted. We can summon the gifts of nature to share with others but we must do it with respect.”
“I thought you wanted to help me.”
“I did.” Wild-eyed, he rose to his feet, opened his arms out at his sides and faced his palms upward. He bowed his head, but still he held her gaze, and his eyes shone with unruly fire. He spoke beneath his breath, strange words.
The fire she saw in his eyes leaped from his palms, too.
It was so sudden and so powerful that Chloris backed away, astonished.
When she did, he put an end to it, closing his hands and extinguishing the fire. “I love you, Chloris. What I showed you there is as nothing, compared to what flares in me when I am with you.”
And I love you.
Determinedly, he continued to plead with her. “Please understand, Chloris. There was some temptation in seducing you because of who you are, but that became insignificant for me very quickly, I assure you.”
Chloris looked at him with fresh vision. She could not bring herself to think of being without him, but she saw that his cause had been far from the pure, nurturing thing that he had described when he spoke of the ways of his people, in tune with nature and the seasons rather than the Church and its rules. No, she was torn between what she felt, and what she saw before her—a man who she did not know well enough.
“Please do not look at me that way,” he begged. “I was in error, badly so. I had been working for years to make my people accepted, to avoid the fate that has fallen upon so many of us this last century in the Lowlands. Your cousin was the worst contender, constantly trying to undo everything I did to guarantee our acceptance in Saint Andrews. I have told you what kind of man he is.”
“I know what kind of man he is,” she responded coolly. “What concerns me is that I do not always know or understand what kind of man you are.” That hurt him, and it hurt her when she saw the pained look in his eyes. But it had to be said. “I had not realized you were driven by that. I thought you wished to help me.”
“I did. I cannot deny that there was some pleasure in thinking how shocked he would be if he knew I was under his roof and in your bed.”
Chloris reeled. Covering her eyes with her hands she shook her head. “Please do not say any more.”
“But I must, for that is how it began. I beseech you, Chloris. It is very far from being that way now. When I asked you to meet me, to be with me forever, it was because that situation had changed. I love you. That is why I came here to Edinburgh, to plead for you to leave with me, to plead for your hand and your heart.”
There was contrition in his expression, and she wanted to believe him, but it was all too much. “I cannot order my thoughts, please. There is too much to think on.”
The chime of the clock marking the half hour brought her back to their surroundings. “I must leave now. I do love you, Lennox, but I need to let my thoughts settle.”
“Promise me this, for all the precious moments we have shared, that you will try to forgive my poor judgment.”
Chloris stood there, looking at the desperation in his expression, and her whole world was spinning. She nodded, then collected her cloak and forced herself to turn away and walk to
the door.
He whispered her name.
When she paused at the door, he said, “I will be waiting for your response.”
“I know, and I will return and give it to you soon.”
Her legs trembled under her as she went down the stairs. When she reached the hallway, Jessie emerged.
“You will come with us, yes?”
The question, her smile and the fact that Chloris was quickly warming to Lennox’s sister, made the tears well. Chloris wiped them away and looked back up the stairs. “I fear we do not understand each other well enough.”
Jessie studied her silently for a moment before she responded. “That will come. It is not easy at first, because the things that draw us together also conspire to keep us apart. We have to sacrifice part of what we were to meet in the middle.”
Chloris stared at Jessie. “You are a wise young woman.”
“I know that he loves you.”
Chloris nodded. “And I love him. But I am not like you, I do not understand your nature and your ways, and I think that puts distance between us.”
Jessie grasped Chloris’s hands in hers. “But you will. My lover, he is not one of us, and he is my defender still.”
“I had not realized.” Chloris felt her encouragement.
“It will be that way for you, too. Lennox is fierce in his affection for you.”
“I need to be sure.”
Jessie studied her and squeezed her hands. “You already are.”
“Perhaps.” Chloris mustered a smile.
Jessie reached into her pocket and drew out a small wooden object. She pressed it into Chloris’s palm. “Here, take this. It is a charm that Lennox crafted for me and it will protect you. If you need him hold it to your heart. He will know.”
Chloris stared down at the small wooden object. It was roughly hewn but pretty, and it resembled a wildflower. It made her think of the forest where they had lain together amongst the spring blossoms. She shook her head, offering it back. “I cannot take it if it is yours.”
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