Taken by Angeline Fortin (great books of all time TXT) 📗

her neck, shoulders and belly.  Then his lips, so gentle, as he worshiped every inch of her.  Desire fluttered deliciously in her belly but that wasn’t all the feeling he roused in her.

Finally he rose above her, his elbows propped on either side of her head so that he might look down at her.  Laird held her gaze firmly as he slowly entered her until they were fully joined.  Her body absorbed him, memorizing the sensation of his possession, the hard thighs between hers, the rippled abdomen pressed against hers.  His shoulders, massive and wide beneath her hands.  His bristled jaw, shaggy hair.  His eyes, molten pewter, churning with feeling.  “Chomhlánú tú dom, mo ghrá.  A dhéanamh tú go hiomlán mé.  Beidh mé grá duit that am féin.  I gcónaí.  Ye complete me, my love.  Ye make me whole.  I will love ye across time itself.  Always.”

Again he didn’t give her a chance to speak, but took her lips as he began to move inside of her.   Deliberately, as if the pace itself could stop time in its track.  Aching, devastating emotions such as Scarlett had never known, gripped her chest like a vise.  Even as pleasure cascaded over her, it scored her soul.  Sobs built up inside of her and she buried her face in his neck as the tears began to stream down her cheeks but his lips were there once more, taking the tears away.  Murmuring again words that branded her heart.  “Tá tú mianach, mo chroí.  Always mine.”

Yes, she was.  Losing him would be even more heartbreaking because of it.

Her body bowed beneath him as her release came with bitter sweetness.  She cried out in exaltation.  In anguish.  For what she had found and what she was to lose.  Laird’s chest rumbled as he moaned throatily against her lips.  He collapsed on top of her, nearly crushing her beneath his massive body but Scarlett didn’t care, wrapping all of her limbs around him and holding him tightly.

Yes, she was his.

But he would always be hers as well.

39

 

“Don’t go,” she whispered into the darkness just before dawn, compelled to try one last time to keep him safe.  Scarlett had lain awake all night holding Laird in her arms even as he held her.  Savoring, memorizing and cherishing every moment with him, knowing… fearing that they might be her last.

“Ye should sleep,” he said, buckling on his armor and chainmail.  He wore thick leather padding beneath them today but Scarlett knew deep inside it wouldn’t be enough.

“I can’t.  Stay, Laird.  Please.  For me,” she begged, scrambling to her knees to wrap her arms around his shoulders as he sat on the edge of the bed to pull on his boots.

“We’ve been through this.  I hae nae choice, mo chroí.  I maun fight.”

“But you know what’s going to happen.  You can’t do this, Laird.  It’s suicide.”

Laird only shook his head.  “I’m uninterested in hearing more of yer protests on the matter, lass.”

“And I’m uninterested in a life without you,” Scarlett retorted and realized in the space of a heartbeat that it was true.  “I don’t want to stay here without you if you die.  When you die.  I don’t want to go back to a hateful world filled with hateful people either.  To go back to where there is no real life for me.”

“Hae ye nae one… there?”  He added that last word hesitantly as if he could not give it any other name.

“Other than my parents, I have one older brother who wants nothing to do with any of us.  A slew of stepfathers and stepmothers, if you can call a woman not much older than you that,” she said.  “I don’t want to go back to that.  I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

“Then stay here wi’ me.”

“Will I be with you, though?” she asked.  “If you die…”

“Och, enough now, lass.  I cannae be a coward and hide myself away.  I maun fight wi’ my clansmen and watch over my brothers.”

Of course, he would.  He was a brave man.  A caring one.

Scarlett lifted a hand and raked her fingernails lightly through his whiskers and then curled her fingers into the shaggy, mahogany locks at the nape of his neck.  Pressing her body flush against him, she tugged his head down until she could reach his lips.  She brushed her lips across his, running her tongue over his luscious lower lip before drawing on it and gnawing gently.  He threaded his fingers through the short hair at her nape and pulled her head back to kiss her more fully.

The kiss was full of promise and passion but over too soon.  Laird pulled away and looked down at her, his fingers toying with her earlobe and the hair behind her ear.  “Ye’ll hae curly hair when it’s longer, me thinks.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I should like to see that.”

I would like you to see it, too.  Scarlett swallowed back a tortured sob.  “Laird, I…”

“What is it?”

Her blood roared in her ears, buzzing in protest.  “Nothing.”

“I ken that particular ‘nothing’.  What’s amiss?”

Scarlett stared up into those remarkable eyes that would haunt her forever.  “I’m just so terrified by the thought of losing you.”

It was true.  All true.  Her heart pounded like a drum in her chest as if she hovered on the brink of a precipice but Scarlett pulled back from the edge, a skitter of nerves chasing down her spine.

A man who wanted nothing more from her than her heart and the love she could give him.  Everyone else had wanted something more from her, from her parents or from their fame.  A piece of the Scarlett Thomas pie, carved out of her soul.

But what Laird wanted from her could not be taken or forced.  It had to be given.

Scarlett realized then that it had been.  All her attempts to keep an emotional distance from him had been pathetic.  She’d fought against him in vain.  All her denial just a bunch of natter to fill her head and drown