Page 52 of Outlaw Ever After (Highland Handfasts #3)

Christ but he was so frustrated with need he couldn’t slow. Undulating into her as she cried her need and clung to him, heaven and torture churned together, begging to be bloody sated yet wishing he could slow down, savor.

When ye meet the right woman, whose soul is part of yers, she ruins ye…

Niall’s words of wisdom pulsed through his mind. Here, in this old cottage, he could put to rest the ghosts he’d been chasing his whole life. Here, in this cottage, she could seek refuge from a past that haunted her. She would belong to a man who cherished her

instead of used her, as MacGregor intended.

She accepted him, even if he ended up with naught to his name on the morrow. He accepted her, whose music had won over his people, even if he could never regain his birthright. The mother of his bairns, God willing, but if not, he’d be here to hold her this time, to grieve with her.

Her sweet tongue was earnest. He hissed as she wriggled. Blessed torture. Seamus was going to be bloody furious.

He yanked lose the neck of her chemise to free her breasts when a chain tangled in his fingers… Her necklace. His ring.

He plunged in union as he dragged it over her head and slipped it off the chain and onto her finger.

She tore her swollen lips away from his. Looked to her hand to see his promise glinting in the streak of the moon’s harvest light.

“Never take it off again,” he commanded as he delved back in for another helping of her mouth.

Her eyes misted. “Yer promise,” she mashed between kisses, pulling up on a gasp. “I’m sorry I nay trusted, nay believed…”

His finger lay across her lips, capturing them once more with his mouth.

“I shan’t make the same mistake again, songbird.

” A tear slipped over her eyelid and slickened the joining of their lips.

God, this feeling, this need within him that only she could satisfy.

“The kirk of Duthil is just nearby. I’ll be damned to nay have ye at that altar before the sun rises in the morn. ”

“We will breach every contract, doing this,” she breathed raggedly.

“To hell with contracts,” he growled.

They crashed together as he plunged again, desperately chasing heaven.

He fought to maintain rhythm, watched her eyes flutter shut and her head loll back, opening her throat to him.

She was close. He gazed down at her beauty, dragged her chemise up her belly to reveal his manhood rolling within her, her belly— too

thin. Her ribs cut a clear edge over which the flat skin of her navel was stretched to her protruding hips.

He dragged her chemise open so the garment slumped down her shoulders to reveal such bonny breasts.

So lush, he wanted to swipe his tongue across them to suckle their sweetness.

Bountiful flesh that filled each palm with their weight.

She sucked in as he rolled her breasts between his fingers. Cried out as he shifted, his shaft hitting deep, places he was going to spend a lifetime discovering each time he took her to bed.

He couldn’t slow the galloping in his blood as his fingers wove with hers, as his hand gripped her thigh to keep her molded to him.

This fondness he felt… Love. So young and yet, the deepest he’d ever known. And it was blooming so he could see the beauty of what Niall had once professed: when a man found the lass meant for him, he was as rich as a king because it was as if the stars had formed a constellation all his own.

Her silky fingertips scored across the welts on his back as if the mere touch could heal them.

“Never let me go again,” she begged, and God have mercy but her pleasure racked her body and rocked him to his core.

It had been so long, and yet, he’d gladly wait a hundred more years if he knew this was the reward awaiting him.

She writhed beneath him and, so sensitive, a roll of thunder tumbled up his throat.

He drank from her lips. Each cry, he swallowed as his boon.

Each bite of her nails as she gripped his neck, he’d wear proudly among the other cuts he’d survived.

He pushed and pulled, rooted and unrooted, basking in her want of him.

Faster, harder, he didn’t want to hold back anymore. Wanted to take from this woman’s well of acceptance and give back what he had to give. She cried out as he rocked harder, pressed deeper, reveling in how easy this love was when they embraced each other’s light.

And before he knew it, his spine tingled and body burned.

He turned them both, slid down to the ground, flung his unfurled kilt beneath her to settle her atop it.

He shoved upright as the ring gleamed on her finger flung over her head onto the mossy ground. Mine

.

Gripped her thighs wide and dropped his head back to the heavens. Thrust hard one last time and rode the tide of pleasure, growling, “I missed ye, I missed ye…”

He pulsed three months of angst free of his body, basking in her limbs wrapped around him. A wave of uncontrolled passion, he collapsed atop her and buried his face in her neck, clenching her head to him, curling in on her as he gave her the potent part of him he’d never given another but her.

Nay, strike that. Two parts. Because in this moment, he’d just given his revived heart away once more and if she left it bleeding on the ground again, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to scrape himself up a second time.

He simply lay atop her. Remained joined even as he softened, caressing her hair as she caressed his, Comyn colors draped around her in disarray. His legacy. He laced his fingers with her ringed one.

Stinging pricked his eyes. But he kept them pinched tight. Kept his face buried against the heartbeat fluttering in her neck. Kept petting back her hair that he’d clenched savagely just moments ago.

“Ye’re humming,” he whispered, tracing her heartbeat with his nose.

“I always hum when I’m happy,” she whispered back.

A wan smile settled on his lips, her song finally revived. A soft kneading pulled on his chin and he realized she was idly twisting his beard again, her favorite toy, and…he was so content, listening to the waters lapping at the shore.

That ring. He gazed at it, an omen.

“And her brother doth said I’ll take his head.” He pressed a kiss to her temple.

“Run, oh run, ye laddie,” she whispered.

He’d need to watch his head now more than ever.

Her stomach growled loudly against him.