“I heard ye with her outside,” Glynis said, her voice still very low.

“I was asking her to leave.” He took her hand and kissed it again. “Glynis, ye are the only one I want. Are ye determined to make me suffer longer, or will ye come to bed with me now?”

Glynis looked at him with her clear gray eyes. “I will.”

Finally, he was taking his wife to bed—a place where he knew his ground.

CHAPTER 40

What are ye doing?” Glynis cried when Alex lifted her off her feet and started carrying her up to the house.

“I’m letting everyone know that I’m dying to ravish my wife,” Alex said, grinning at her.

Glynis felt embarrassed and pleased at the same time by his intention to proclaim to the entire household that she was the one he’d chosen, the woman he wanted. The guests who had stayed overnight cheered as Alex carried her around the hall—overjoyed, no doubt, that they would have a fine story to tell. As Alex carried her toward the stairs amid the shouts, Glynis caught a glimpse of Sorcha sitting between his parents. All three were clapping, and Alex’s parents both looked happy for once.

“Ye can put me down now,” she said when they reached the bedchamber door.

“Hell no,” he said. “I’m no risking the bad luck that lurks in doorways a third time.”

She rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t help laughing when he kicked the door open and carried her through. As soon as he set her on her feet, he swung the door shut and pressed her against it. The laughter died in her throat when she saw the longing in his eyes.

“Ach, I’ve been wanting ye so much,” he said, holding her face in his hands.

Her eyes closed as his mouth met hers. For a long, long time, he just kissed her, not as a step to something else, but as if he wanted to do it forever. His fingers slid into her hair and supported her head as their tongues moved against each other in deep kisses.

Glynis felt adrift and breathless as he kissed her cheeks, her eyelids, her hair.

“Cronaím thú,” he said. I missed you.

His hands slid down her shoulders and arms. As they fell into deep kisses again, he held her in a firm grasp with his hands splayed over her ribs and back. Her breasts ached for his touch. Desire swept through her. She reached between them and rubbed her hand over the length of his erect shaft, drawing a deep groan from him and a sigh of her own.

“O shluagh,” he said, calling on the fairies for mercy.

Alex’s mouth grew hungry, feverish, devouring hers as he ground his hips against her, pinning her to the wall. His fingers dug into her hips, and still they could not get close enough. When he lifted her up, she wrapped her legs around his waist. He ran his hands under her gown along the bare skin of her thighs until he cupped her bottom.

Through their clothes she felt his erection against the sensitive spot between her legs. She clung to him, urging him closer, but there was too much fabric between them. It had been days and days since he’d been inside her. She wanted to meld into his heat, to go to the dark depths of passion with him. She rocked against him, begging. Please, please, please.

Tension radiated between them as he tugged at her bottom lip with his teeth in barely controlled violence. But she wanted to feel the full force of his desire for her, unleashed, unshackled, freed of all restraint and caution.

He had one hand on her breast, massaging and kneading, as he held her buttocks with the other. His tongue and breath were hot in her ear. “You’ve too many clothes on. I must feel ye.”

She heard the ping of buttons as he pulled her bodice down.

“Aye,” she breathed when his rough palm cupped her bare breast. Her head fell back against the door. She was lost in a haze of desire as he squeezed her nipple and dragged his tongue and lips along the side of her throat.

“I need ye now,” he said, panting against her ear. “Oh, please, Glynis, right now.”

Aye. Now. She tugged at his shirt, but they were pressed too tightly together. His mouth covered hers again as he moved his hips away just long enough to jerk his shirt up.

“Oh!” She felt the tip of his shaft against her. When he paused, squeezing his eyes shut, she dug her fingers into his shoulders. “Now, Alex. Now.”

He made a strangled sound, and in one deep stroke, he was inside her. She wrapped her legs tighter around his hips. She bit his shoulder as Alex’s control broke, and he rammed against her, again and again. Her back banged against the door, and she didn’t care.

“Harder, harder,” she cried, as their bodies slammed together. She heard herself scream as he surged against her, and a shattering rapture shook her.

Alex collapsed against her, his body hot, his breathing harsh against her ear. She shivered as he ran his hands along her thigh and over her hip.

“Hold on to me,” he said, and then he carried her to the bed. With one hand, he pulled the bedclothes back and then fell sideways with her across the bed.

“By the saints, ye nearly killed me,” he said. “But it was like touching Heaven.”

He enfolded her in his arms and slung his leg over her as well. She fell sound asleep surrounded in his warmth.

Glynis didn’t know how long she had been sleeping when she was awakened by a breeze tickling her face. She opened her eyes to find Alex blowing on her.

“Why are ye doing that?” she asked with a slow smile.

“I woke up and wanted your company,” he said. “Do ye mind?”

“Nay.”

“Ye see, I’ve been lying here thinking of ways to make up for being useless the night of our wedding.” He had a devilish glint in his eyes that made the room suddenly seem warm. “I probably know a few things we haven’t tried yet.”

It would be easy to let him distract her, but Glynis had a serious question.

“Why did ye get so drunk that night?” she asked.

“I hadn’t seen Connor, Duncan, and Ian in a long while and—”

“I think it was something else,” she said.

Alex looked away and did not speak for a while. Finally, he said, “Ye know I had never wanted to marry—you’ve met my parents, so now ye know why.”

Her stomach tightened, but she had asked the question so she should have been ready to hear the answer.

“When they arrived at Dunscaith, it brought all that back to me—the bickering and fighting, the endless misery between them.” He turned his gaze back to her and touched her cheek with the back of his fingers. “It worried me for a bit, but it didn’t last.”

“I’m glad ye told me the truth,” she said. “I want ye to promise ye will never lie to me.”

“I won’t lie to ye,” Alex said. “And now I’ll tell ye what I want.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“I am happy to fight my clan’s enemies—in truth, I enjoy it—but I don’t want to fight with you.”

“We might argue once in a while,” she said.

He shrugged. “I want things peaceful between us.”

Glynis suddenly felt uncomfortable with her gown bunched around her. She sat up on the edge of the bed and tried to untwist it. “I hope I can find a needle and thread so I can fix my gown myself. If I have to ask one of the servants to do it, they’ll be talking about us for weeks.”

“Let’s take your gown off all the way,” he said, trailing his finger over her bare shoulder. One light touch, and she was like soft butter. What this man did to her.

He sat up and unfastened the rest of the buttons down her back and then pressed soft, warm kisses down to the base of her spine. Then he pushed her gown down farther and nipped at her bottom, sending little thrills of sensation that echoed in a tightening of her womb.

“Stand up so we can get this off ye,” he said.

When she rose up, he helped her step out of her gown. Then with sure hands on her hips, he pulled her back to sit between his legs. He moved her hair to one side and kissed her neck while one hand fondled her breast and the other inched up the inside of her thigh.

“When ye said ye wanted company,” she said, “I thought ye meant ye wanted someone to talk to.”

“I do,” he said. “I want ye to tell me all the ways ye want me to touch ye.”

“This is good,” she managed to say, as he started stroking and circling between her legs. She let her head drop back against his shoulder.

“Ye are beautiful like this,” he said in a hoarse whisper, as his fingers worked their magic. “I want to hear ye keen and moan when ye find your release.”

She gripped his leg as the sensations grew stronger. His shaft was hard against her buttocks, but he seemed intent on her pleasure. When her breathing changed, he sucked on her shoulder and stuck his finger inside her. All the while, he was rolling her nipple between his thumb and finger. She arched her back as the tension grew inside her until she feared she might snap in two.

But this was Alex in control, the skilled lover who knew how to please a woman, any woman.

“Stop,” she said, pulling his hand away.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She turned and pushed him back on the bed.

“I want to feel ye inside me, with nothing between us,” she said, as she leaned over him. “I want to touch ye in a way no other woman has. I want to touch your heart.”

“Glynis, I can’t—”

“I’m no saying ye have to love me right away,” she said. “But I can’t do things halfway, Alex. I’m not that sort of person.”

“Ah, Glynis, don’t.”

“I love ye, Alexander Bàn MacDonald,” she said. “I won’t say it again because I know it makes ye uncomfortable to hear it. But ye need to know that ye hold my heart in your hands.”

She straddled him and slid slowly down onto his shaft.

“Jesus, Glynis,” he said.

“It means ye can hurt me badly,” she said. “And if ye do, I won’t be able to forgive ye. Not ever.”

“I won’t hurt ye,” he said as if it were a plea, as they began to move together slowly. “I won’t.”

CHAPTER 41

North Uist

Two Months Later

Alex stood on the wall of Dunfaileag Castle with Tormond, the crusty old warrior who had become his right-hand man in overseeing the rebuilding of the castle’s defenses.

“We’ll be done patching this last hole in the wall today,” Tormond said, as they examined the work.

“’Tis a shame this old castle wasn’t built on an offshore island,” Alex said, not for the first time. Unlike many castles in the Western Isles, including Dunscaith and the MacNeil stronghold, Dunfaileag sat on a rocky hill above the shore, where it was accessible by land. “We’d have trouble withstanding a large attack by another clan.”

“Not much risk of that here, is there?” Tormond said. “Now that it’s patched up, Dunfaileag will do fine against raiders.”

The pirates relied on stealth and speed, usually attacking with a small group of men. When Alex first arrived, he had regular skirmishes with raiders. They ventured onto his side of the island less and less now. But he hadn’t seen Hugh’s ship at all, and he wondered why.

Alex smiled when he turned and saw his wife and daughter on the beach below the castle. It reminded him of the first time he’d seen Glynis without her disguise on the beach at Barra. He chuckled to himself, remembering the blotches of red clay sliding down her face. What a determined woman his wife was.

These days, Glynis focused that determination on turning Dunfaileag Castle into a home that ran smoothly and was a comfort to all who lived and worked within its walls. She thrived on being in charge of a large household.

The weeks had flown by. Alex didn’t even know how it had come to pass that he could no longer imagine his life without her. She had come upon him slowly, insinuating herself like a warm summer mist permeating his skin, his senses, and his very soul until he needed her like air to breathe.

“Take over for me here,” Alex said to Tormond. “I’m going to have a wee visit with my wife and daughter.”

Tormond nodded. “Ye are a lucky man to have those two.”

But luck was a fragile thing that could turn on you in a moment. Alex knew that a sinner like him did not deserve his good fortune, but he was praying that mending his ways counted for something.

He went down the steps and then followed the trail to the beach. When Sorcha saw him, she ran to him holding out an oyster shell.

“I see ye found a magical shell.” Alex held it up, examining it carefully. “This one came all the way from Ireland on the back of a dolphin.”

Sorcha laughed and snatched it back. Her laughter came more and more frequently now, and sometimes she seemed within a breath of speaking. Before long, he would hear his daughter’s voice, he felt certain.