Page 49 of The Story of his Highland Bride

And I couldn’ae be prouder.He smiled and joined his wife beneath the waterfall, gasping with delight as the water thrummed down against his skin. She had been right—the sensation of the water cascading over him was far greater than the stewing feeling of a bath. It was… refreshing, awakening his body in a way that even a long rest could not.

“I feel as if I’d had a shower and a massage, all in one,” Eloise murmured, stretched out on the furs that Jackson had laid out upon the flat rocks beside the pool.

Jackson lay on his side next to her, his fingertips caressing her smooth skin. She looked ethereal, naked in the moonlight. Indeed, there were times when he had to keep reminding himself that she was not a creature of magic, masquerading as the most beautiful woman he had ever beheld.

“Are ye content?” he asked.

She smiled over at him. “If I were any more content, I’d be asleep.”

“Daenae sleep yet,” he urged, dipping his head to kiss her.

She chuckled against his mouth. “I wouldn’t dream of it. We’ve still got a wedding night to have.”

“Aye, and I would ken the pleasures of me wife, learnin’ what she likes,” he said, smiling as he kissed her more deeply, giving into the familiar desire that had not diminished at all, though they had been betrothed for three months. If anything, his need for her had only grown.

In the flickering torchlight and the silvery sheen of the moon’s encouraging glow, Jackson eased himself into his wife’s silken depths, their mutual gasp of satisfaction rose up into the air, carried away by the sound of crashing water.

By now, they knew one another intimately, attuned to everything that drove them to the point of delicious madness, both of them pursuing paradise together. And as they moved as one, a tangle of limbs and shallow breaths and warm skin, Jackson thanked whatever mystical force had brought them together. He never failed to offer his gratitude, fearful that if he did not, that force would seek to take her away again.

“Yes, my love! Oh, yes!” Eloise gasped as he slipped his hand between them, strumming her secret nub as he felt the surge of his own conclusion, racing toward him.

Before long, their bliss filled the circle of stone, their moans and cries sinking into the rock and rippling across the pool as they reached their euphoria together. And as the pleasure ebbed within them both, she collapsed into his embrace, melting into him as her smile curved against his throat.

“I much preferred that one,” she repeated, chuckling.

He laughed softly. “Och aye, the first was a performance I never want to repeat.” He kissed the top of her head, smoothing back the wayward hair that had grown wild with their lovemaking. “I love ye, sweet Eloise.”

“I love you more,” she protested sleepily.

“Impossible.”

She shook her head. “Nothing is impossible.”

Just then, a starling fluttered down, landing a short distance away from the blissful couple. And above them, perched upon the rocky shelf, more starlings peered down, as if waiting.

Eloise stared at the scout that had dared to hop too close. “I thought we’d been over this?” she said, breaking into a smile. “You don’t have to keep checking in on me. I’m not going back. I’m never going back, and if that’s not the answer you want, then you shouldn’t have sent me through the stones to the man—thehusband—that I love.”

The starling chirped cheerfully, and took off into the air, pursued by the rest of its winged followers until the couple were alone again.

“Do ye nae miss it?” Jackson had to ask.

She grinned up at him. “Not even a little bit, now that I have a shower. Maybe, one day, those starlings will get the message.”

“I daenae mind them,” he admitted, brushing his thumb over the apple of her cheek. “Whenever they come, it reminds me of how fortunate I am. I just hope there’ll never be a day when ye go with them.”

“There won’t. Like I’ve said a thousand times, and will say a thousand times more,” she whispered, lifting up to kiss him, “you’re stuck with me.”

He kissed her back, knowing that no words would ever make him happier.

The End?