“I will slaughter any man who dares lay a hand on ye.” A spoken vow. “Every. Last. One.”
Her eyes were wide and dark, her lips parted, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
“Is that all I get?” The question came breathless, half-laughing, half-wrecked, her gaze dropping to his mouth. “A few wee kisses on me fingers?”
His grip tightened, fractionally, involuntarily.
“Aye.” His voice dropped low, rough with the kind of want he’d stopped bothering to disguise. “Fer now, that’s all ye get.”
Her chin lifted—defiant, daring, devastatingly beautiful with ash in her hair and battle written across her knuckles. “I remember ye promised me, on our weddin’ night. That when ye kissed me, ye’d be thorough.”
“Fer now, I’m finished wi’ ye, little wolf,” He leaned closer, close enough to feel her breath against his mouth, close enough that closing the gap would cost nothing more than a thought. “But soon, I’ll make good on it, ye’ll nae be askin’ anythin’.” His thumb traced a slow circle against the inside of her wrist. “Ye’ll be too busy tryin’ tae remember yer own name.”
Her breath caught and her fingers curled against his palms. He held her gaze for one searing, impossible moment, then released her hands and stood up.
“Get some rest,” he said, his voice admirably level for a man whose eyes were blazing with want. “I’ll have food sent up.”
“Ye’re leavin’?” Disbelief threaded through the want in her voice.
“Aye.”
“After allthat?”
“Especially after that.” He paused at the door, his hand white-knuckled on the frame.
The look she gave him could have set the hearth ablaze twice over.
“Coward,” she said softly.
His laugh was low, strained, and entirely genuine. “Aye, well. Even the Stag of Uist kens when tae retreat.”
He stepped into the corridor and pulled the door shut behind him.
Then he stood there, one hand braced against the stone wall, while the ghost of her pulse still thrummed against his lips and the memory of that sound she’d made when he’d kissed her third finger unraveled him from the inside out.
And the distance between them felt heavier than any battlefield he’d ever walked away from.