“Aye.” He cupped her cheek. “And I’ve a man’s love for you. Will you not admit what you feel for me?”
He felt the tension in her body ratchet up a notch further. Her shoulders felt like stone, her mouth pursed, and her brows drew down as if in preparation for a blow. When she spoke, the words sounded forced through a constricted throat.
“You know how hard life is, Connall Aberbeag. Do you know the funerals I attend? It’s not just the old who perish from sickness. My own mother died before she saw thirty.”
“Aye.” As chatelaine for the MacCleal, she would have seen every illness, every infected wound, every soul taken before his time.
“Should I doom you to such a life of grief? Or myself with all the chances you take?”
He shook his head. “It’s been a long time since I was reckless. And I only did it then to catch your attention.”
“And well you did,” she snapped. “Every time you leaped across a ravine, every time you swam a rushing river, I thought of your body crushed and broken. And of my father’s grief at being left alive when his love had gone.”
Her words shocked him. He thought she cared nothing for him when in truth, she had been worried for him? And afraid of life without him? A clever man would say something now to ease her fears. A smart man would be able to logic her out of the risk. But he had no words to offer her. Life was uncertain. Death came for the quick as well as the slow. And yet, he would not lose her to fear. That he would not abide.
So he kissed her. There in the shadows or standing at an altar before God, he would not hide his love for her. Nor would he let her run from hers for him.
He did not hold back as he took her mouth. He slanted his lips over hers, reveling in her mew of surrender. How he loved her soft gasp accompanied by a sound of need. He knew it well after their night together. And he claimed it now with a thrust of his tongue.
God, how he wanted this woman. She was everything to him, and he’d be damned if he let her go. He told her that with his touch and his tongue. He took her mouth, he caressed her bottom, and he pulled her tight against him, so she could feel the length and heat of his need for her.
And when he had breath, he whispered in her ear. “I will no’ give this up out of fear, Mairi MacAdaidh.”
He thought to feel her melt then. She had already half surrendered to him by allowing his kiss, his touch, and his heat. Instead, something different happened.
She stiffened in shock. The change was instant and distressing. Her body went rigid, and she shoved backwards from him. His instinct was to grip her tight, but he would not hold her against her will. Still, his eyes shot open and he—
He heard a hard voice in his ear.
“Move one inch, gov, and I’ll gut you, then have her.”