Priss paused then, and gave a considering look. “I believe you mean that.” She shook his hand, then turned it over front and back, before glancing back to Maura with a wicked grin. “I believe he passes another test, as well.”
Maura’s eyes widened and her cheeks grew pink. “Well. Thank you so much for your input.” Her gaze shot to Tag, who was grinning now, and, as always, that, instant wham! thing happened. Where the rest of the world sort of fell away, leaving the two of them gazing at one another, thoughts and needs being communicated with one wordless glance.
“Well, well,” Priss commented. “I suppose, I’ll leave ye to having at each other, then. Which, from the looks of things,” she went on, though neither of them so much as blinked in her direction, “I can see is going to happen whether I leave or no’.” She grabbed her purse. “And though you’ve watched me, I believe I’ll pass on the return engagement.”
That got his attention. Tag lifted a brow, dragging his gaze to Priss, then back to Maura.
“Oh thanks, Priss,” Maura said with a sigh.
Priss grinned and sketched a brief curtsy before heading to the door. “Don’t thank me. Pleasure’s all mine.”
Maura followed her to the door, her dry smile surfacing finally. “Oh, I wouldn’t bet on that.”
Priss’s laughter trailed behind her as she sailed out. After she was gone, Maura closed the door, then leaned back against it and turned her attention to Tag. “She takes some getting used to.”
Tag’s mouth curved slightly. “The same has been said of me on more than one occasion.”
“I’m sorry if she offended you.”
“Don’t be.” Unable to wait another second, he crossed the room and took her in his arms. His mouth found hers for a slow kiss. He never got tired of how well they fit together.
“Are you hungry?” she asked, sighing as he trailed kisses along her chin, to her neck. “Priss brought scones.”
“It’s not scones I have a hunger for.” He continued his assault on the soft curve of her shoulder.
“No?” she said, dropping her head back on a sigh and allowing him full access.
“But first I was thinking maybe a nice hot shower would steam the chill out of my bones. I’m afraid I’ve adapted too well to life on the equator.”
“Yes, I can see you’re terribly distressed by the weather.” She moaned softly as his hands slid down her back and cupped her to him.
“Terribly,” he murmured, shifting her away from the door and backwalking her toward the stairs leading up to her bedroom. “In fact, I should probably have help in the shower.”
“Should you?”
“Just to make sure there are no aftereffects from prolonged exposure to the elements.”
She laughed. “Oh, you’ve been exposed all right, but I don’t believe the elements affecting you were out there about the loch.”
“You have no idea,” he said, grinning and scooping her up against him when her heels banged into the first riser. There were some sheep giving me a few sideways looks out there. I could have nightmares.”
“Well, it is cold and they have been awfully lonely,” she said earnestly, earning a bark of laughter from him.
To think he’d once thought he was the one doing the catching. Christ, but he was hopelessly ensnared. He’d rushed here earlier, all wound up with excitement over his discovery, dying to share his plans with her. But now they were finally alone, and she was in his arms again. And suddenly there was no rush to do anything but just savor the absolute pleasure it gave him to hold her like this. Nothing seemed so important as making her sigh, making her laugh, making her want him the way he wanted her.
Would, it always be like this? he wondered. And when she chose that moment to pull his mouth to hers and kiss him, so softly, so perfectly, that last edgy, unsettled, disconnected part of him finally clicked into place. Because now he’d have all the time in the world to find out, wouldn’t he? Here he’d raced to share with her his excitement over his latest adventure, only now he realized he’d already embarked on the grandest adventure of them all.
“I see they lent you some reading material from their extensive library,” she commented, nodding over his shoulder at the stack of books.
Filled with a whole new kind of energy and excitement, he set her down on the second step and pressed his lips against the advantageous opening provided by the vee in the front of her shirt. He didn’t want to talk about the books now. Or the dig. Or financial arrangements. Or his ancestry, castle restoration, or whether it was this blasted cold all year round. There would be plenty of time for all that. All the time they needed. And where she was concerned, he had a deep, unending well of need.
“Actually,” he murmured, nudging aside her shirt so he could kiss the freckles dotting the swell of her breasts, “they wouldn’t part with so much as a pamphlet.” To think he could chart every freckle on her body. Every day. For the rest of his life. He was truly a very lucky man. “I came in through the main house. I hope you don’t mind, but I pilfered a few to look through later.” He started opening the row of buttons. “At the moment I’m hopelessly sidetracked by something else entirely.”
She gasped when his cold hands circled the warm, bare skin at her waist. “I’m sensing a pattern developing here.”
He lifted her up to the next riser, so he could lean in and kiss the spot right above her navel. “Is this a problem?”
“I—I’m sure it will be. At some point.” She was sounding distracted. He intended to keep her that way. For at least the next hour or so. “I have work to do,” she managed to choke out, as he tugged the knot free on her sweats. “A proposal. And some paperwork that needs filling out.” She sucked in her breath as he nudged the front of her sweatpants down, exposing the elastic band of her panties. “Tenants’ calls to return. Oh!”
He’d tugged the skinny band of elastic down with his teeth, as he braced her hips with his palms, then slowly began sliding down both her panties and sweats. “Could you make those calls after our shower?” he murmured as he drew his mouth lower, then lower still.
One hand flailed out for the stair railing, while the other grabbed the top of his head. “It’s possible I could— dear God,” she said, her knees buckling as his tongue found her. “See—see my way clear to—Jesus.” Her nails raked his scalp as she clutched at him for support. Whatever else she’d been about to say was lost on a long moan of pleasure.
He was already so hard he ached, but he’d noticed how carefully she’d stood up earlier, when he'd first come in the room. She was sore. Hell, so was he. But at the moment, that didn’t seem to matter. Not that he intended to do anything to her that would make it worse. Giving her pleasure was too intensely satisfying to him. But there were ways to please and soothe. In fact, that deep tub in her bathroom would be a nice place to start.
But first things first. Gently, softly, with a tenderness he’d only ever possessed with her, he used his tongue, his lips, and brought her slowly up. He wrapped an arm around her thighs for support, and sunk his tongue deeper, flicked softly, then on a long, slow groan of satisfaction—both his and hers—he took her over. She was still shuddering when he straightened and scooped her up into his arms.
She was limp and soft against him, her arms immediately coming up to circle his neck as she buried her face in his chest. “How is it you do that to me?”
He slowly climbed the stairs, brushing his lips across the top of her head, fighting the ache of his own raging hard-on as her hips brushed repeatedly against it. Fighting against the need to tell her everything he was feeling, afraid he’d overwhelm her if he did. “I could ask the same thing,” he said quietly.
He pushed the door to the bedroom open with his foot, and carried her directly into the bathroom before letting her slide to her feet. She stayed in the circle of his arms, pressed up against him in a way that left no doubt about his current state of arousal. “I’m thinking bath instead of shower,” he told her. “Scrub my
back?”
She slid her hand down his chest, then made him both jerk and groan as she cupped him in her hand. “Are you sure it’s your back that needs attention?”
“You’re sore,” he said.
“But—”
“Run the bathwater. If you’ve got anything soft and scented to dump in with it, that would be fine, too.” He tugged her hand away, put it back up on his shoulder. “I just want to lay in the warm water and soak, with you leaning back against me.” He brushed his lips against hers. “Just for a little while.”
“Sounds like a very nice way to spend the morning.”
“That was my thought,” he said, then kissed her again, deeply, slowly, until they both sighed. “I’ll even fix lunch later, while you work. Although I have to warn you, my cooking skills are best described as rustic.”
“I’m okay with rustic,” she said, her dimples winking as she smiled at him.
Yes, a man could get used to this. To bartering a bath for lunch, seducing her away from her work, or anything else if it would make her smile at him like that.
“Only I don’t have anything in my kitchen at the moment. I have to make a run into the village to—damn,” she said, breaking off, frowning all of a sudden.
“What?”
“The village. I didn’t say anything to Priss about not talking about you, so she’s probably down at the Fox and Pheasant right now blabbing all about you.”
Now Tag was frowning. He wasn’t sure he felt anything one way or the other about being fodder for village gossip. They’d get to know him eventually. But it was clear that Maura did. “Is it because you have a man staying with you, or because the man happens to be a Morgan that’s the problem?”
She looked at him then. “Neither, it’s—” She broke off, chewed on the corner of her lip. “We’re progressive enough that a single woman entertaining a man is hardly going to raise eyebrows. That you’re a Morgan might, but even that I don’t so much mind. It was just—” She stopped again, sighed, then shook her head.
He tipped her chin up. “What?”
She looked at him, then with a little eye roll, said, “This is going to sound silly, but… well, I guess I just don’t want to share you. This. I’m still sorting it all out and I don’t really want any input from anyone else.”
“You told Priss.”
“Yes, but I had to. You see, she—God, but that’s another long story.”
His lips quirked. “Yes, so I gathered.”
She gave him a little nudge in the ribs. “It wasn’t so sordid as all that. It’s no’ like I planned on watching. I walked in on her in bed with another man.” She chewed on her lip again, then swore under her breath. “Okay, I may as well just tell you the rest. The bed they were in was mine.”
Tag’s eyebrows lifted. He didn’t know which question to ask first.
“Remember the night we met, and I told you I’d had a really bad day?” she said.
“That was the day you found them?”
She nodded, but looked away again.
“There’s more?” She nodded again and he had to nudge her chin back again. “Just tell me. It can’t be as bad as all that.”
She touched his cheek. “It’s just that, I don’t want to ruin… anything.”
He smiled. “You’ve intrigued me, no doubt. But honestly, I can’t imagine anything you could say that would—”
“The man she was in bed with was the guy I’d been dating for the past six months,” she blurted out in one breath. “That’s what she was apologizing for today. I—” She broke off, shook her head.
The news did take him aback. More than a little. Inappropriate though it may be, somewhere along the line he’d come to feel proprietary where she was concerned. He didn’t want to think about her with anyone else. In the past, or in the future. Then the rest of it hit him. The night in the car in the storm. The same day as—
“I know what you’re thinking and yes, that was likely why I was so forward with you. Initially, anyway.”
He reeled the rest through his mind, but while it didn’t make him feel wonderful to know she’d had someone else in her bed so recently, she’d done nothing he could truly fault her for. But there was one thing he did have to know. “Do you love him?”
“Once upon a time I wanted to think so. But no. I realized that day I was in love with being in love, with being in a relationship. But I wasn’t in love with Jory.” Now she cupped his cheek, turned his gaze back to hers. “I know this doesn’t say a lot about me, but honestly, I don’t just jump from one man to the next.”
“It’s okay, you don’t have to say anything. You’re an adult, free to do what you want. With whom you want.”
She continued to look into his eyes. “Priss told me some things today that made me realize I haven’t been all that open with people. That I’ve never really opened myself up to anyone in a relationship. She and Jory have been together less than a week and she already knows more about him than I knew in six months. For that matter, in all the years we’ve both lived in Ballantrae.” She brushed her fingers across his cheekbones, along the side of his face. “You know, I wouldn’t have believed it was possible to form that kind of connection with anyone in so short a time. Or in any amount of time. But maybe it just takes meeting that right person. Then you don’t have to think about whether to be open, you just are. Because you can’t be anything else.” She let out a short laugh. “Of course now you’re going to think I don’t know my own mind, and God knows I’ve thought that about myself a lot lately, but I need you to believe me that with you it is different. I’m different. Entirely different.”
I know, he thought, thinking how he was not the same man when he was with her, once in a lifetime different.
“And maybe I’m making a bigger fool of myself by assuming this matters to you at all, but—”
He stopped her with a kiss. “It matters to me,” he told her intently when he lifted his head, then kissed her again. “It matters.”
She looked into his eyes, searching. “Tag, I—”
“What matters to me now is that it’s over. It is over for you, isn’t it?”
She nodded so solemnly, but that didn’t stop her lips from quirking ever so slightly. “I think you can safely say that, yes. Even before you and I met, it was definitely over.” She held his gaze. “If it hadn’t been, if my heart had truly been engaged, I could have never done… well, what we did. Have been doing ever since.” Her dry smile faded. “I think that was the hardest part. Realizing just how little I did feel. I was more hurt by Priss’s betrayal than I was by Jory’s.”
He wanted to ask her how she felt now, about him, about what was developing between them. If it would be as easy for her to put this aside as it was for her to put her last relationship aside. From what she’d said, and that she was so worried about how he’d take this news, made him believe otherwise.
“I wish the timing had been different,” she told him. “But you don’t get to choose when you meet someone. And had I the chance to go back, I wouldn’t change anything I did that night.” She brushed his cheek. “I just hope this doesn’t change things between us now.”
“It’s okay,” he told her, turning his head so he could kiss her fingertips. “We’re okay.” And for a man who’d spent his life thinking in terms of “I” and “me,” it surprised him to discover that thinking in terms of “we” and “us” wasn’t as difficult an adjustment as he’d have thought it would be. Perhaps she was right. Maybe you just had to meet the right person.
“Thank God,” she said, looking so relieved it made him feel even better. “I wasn’t prepared for this. I don’t mean Priss’s visit, or telling you what happened.” She looked at him, a true smile edging out now. “I wasn’t prepared for you. And what I said before, about the village, about you meeting everyone, that wasn’t because I don’t want you to know them or vice versa. It was just me being selfish. I’m still getting used to… all of this. To us. It’s a small vill
age and they’ll talk about you, about us, for years. I—”
He quieted her again, this time with a long, deep kiss, until she relaxed against him and kissed him back. They were okay. More than okay. Then he pulled her into his arms, tucked her against his chest, and let out a long sigh of his own. “You’re not the only one who’s feeling selfish.”
She wove her arms around his waist, and once again he was struck by how just the feel of her against him soothed something inside of him. Everything else ceased to matter, and it was so much easier to believe things would all work out, when they just held on to each other.
He debated for a moment on whether to try and put how he was feeling into words. But if not now, then when? “I’ve never felt any particular connection to my past,” he began. “Not in the intimate, personal way you do. And yet… I can’t help but feel I have a very particular connection to you. One that feels like it goes beyond the short time we’ve been together.” He pressed a kiss against her hair. “Does that sound crazy to you?”
She lifted her head. “No,” she said, the word barely more than a whisper. “Not at all.”
Now it was his turn to sigh in relief. He should have known she’d understand. “In rational terms,” he went on, “this all seems very fast and overwhelming. But then I think about it and I don’t see how it could have been any other way between us. What you do to me, what you make me feel, simply… is.” He cupped her cheek, wove his fingers into her hair. His heart was pounding and his knees felt all funny. But he’d come this far, so he came out with the rest. “And I don’t want to walk away from that. I don’t want to walk away from you.”
Chapter 20
Maura’s heart was pounding so hard she was certain she hadn’t heard him right. But the way he was looking at her, the way he was touching her… Surely he didn’t mean—“I don’t want you to walk away, either,” she said, returning his honesty. “But—”
“I signed the papers,” he said quietly. “I’ll need to make a call to get the ball rolling, but you’ll have your funding. Including what’s owed you since my father died.”
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