Sweet Home Highlander_Tartans and Titans

by Amalie Howard

  “Do you like it?”

  “Very much.”

  “It’s truly remarkable. Makenna told me a hermit made it.”

  Niall drew a deep breath, his fingers caressing the glass flanks of the animal. As much as it troubled him to tell her the truth, it didn’t seem to be an appropriate time to keep more secrets. Moments like these were rare. He pushed a smile to his lips. “I suppose the last six years I’ve taken to being a hermit.”

  It took a minute for the revelation to sink in. Her eyes widened. “You made this?”

  “Aye.”

  “And all the other pieces?” she asked incredulously. “The jewelry? The daggers?”

  “No’ all of the rings and pendants, but the daggers, yes.”

  Her mouth fell open, and then her face went red as she reached for the wolf. “Give that back. It’s ludicrous for me to give you a gift of something you made. You’re the artist.”

  “Nae,” he said, holding it out of her reach. “’Twas a gift.”

  “I’ll get you something else.”

  “Aisla,” he said quietly. “It’s perfect. Ye could no’ have chosen something that meant more to me.”

  That she had admired the wolf enough to purchase it made him happy, but that she’d wanted to give him a gift…any gift at all…made him feel cared for, even appreciated, and that was something entirely unexpected.

  She laughed then, the sound making a feeling of joy bloom in his heart, and for a moment, he wanted to laugh, too. The starkly admiring look on her face was almost too much to bear, but soon, her lips trembled into a frown. “What is it?” he asked.

  “It feels like I don’t know you anymore,” she said after a prolonged moment. “The man I knew would not have done all you have. He would not have opened a mine or employed disabled men and widowed women. He would not have taken the time to create beautiful art like this.”

  “Ye’re right, he wouldnae have,” he said. “But I’m no’ that man anymore, Aisla. Losing ye made me want to change. I wanted to offer ye the man ye deserved.”

  And the truth was he still did.

  He stared blindly into the flames of the hearth. Everything had changed. His plans for revenge, her comeuppance, the wager, all of it. None of it mattered anymore. He did not feel the driving need to punish her, change her mind, or make her sorry for leaving him. He just felt…empty.

  He cleared his throat and made to rise, but Aisla’s slim hand on his shoulder stalled him. Her eyes were limpid. “Stay,” she whispered.

  “Why?”

  “Because I want you to.”

  …

  The bold, heartbreaking words were out before she could stop them. But Aisla knew she did not want him to leave. She did not want to lose the warmth that had made her feel more alive than she had in years. She slid off the chair to kneel in front of him, meeting those Maclaren blue eyes that gleamed like dark indigo in the firelight. She wouldn’t think about tomorrow. For now, they had this moment, and only this moment.

  She lifted her hands to cup his face. “I want to know that man.”

  “What are ye saying?”

  “You know.” She couldn’t help the blush that enveloped her.

  “Aisla…”

  “Don’t think, just feel,” she told him as she tugged on the ribbons to her night rail. Within seconds, the fabric opened over her breasts. “Please, Niall. Don’t make me beg.”

  He didn’t. His mouth was on hers in a kiss so hot she felt it in her toes. She bit at his lips and sucked on his tongue even as he devoured her with kisses that swung between sweet and savage. She grasped at his shoulders as he turned her, shifting her flat on her back on the soft carpet in front of the hearth. He propped himself up on one elbow alongside her and drew a lazy fingertip through the valley between her breasts.

  “Have ye any idea how lovely ye are?” he said hoarsely.

  “You’ve seen me before, Niall,” she said blushing.

  He shook his head. “Nae, I havenae. Aye, the promise of perfection was there, but no’ this.” With a deft movement, he removed the entire garment from her body. Aisla’s breath deserted her, but the carnal, appreciative look in his eyes as they swept her nudity more than bolstered her failing courage.

  He bent his head to capture a taut nipple with his mouth, making her back arch in a burst of pleasure. He paid homage to the second, and by then, Aisla could barely see straight. “I’ve wanted to do that for weeks. Everything about ye is perfect.”

  With her muddled senses, Aisla understood that his touch and his words were both combining to seduce her senseless. Though he hadn’t lacked as a lover, he’d never been much of a talker in bed. This was yet another improvement she liked in Niall the man.

  “What else has changed?” she gasped as his tongue found her again.

  He smiled up at her, decadently, his chin resting between her bared breasts, and had the audacity to wink. “Besides these?”

  She blushed at his obvious approval. “Yes.”

  “Well, let’s see, shall we?” Niall’s laugh was wicked. His knuckles brushed down the sensitive exposed skin of her belly, leaving cinders in their wake. “If I recall, ye were ticklish here.” His thumb grazed the bottom of her last rib, but she wasn’t of a mind to laugh when his long fingers reached lower to the rise of her hip bone. He traced the slight swell of her belly to its twin on the other side. “And sensitive here.”

  His voice had taken on a husky quality as his palm brushed over the fine, wispy curls at the juncture of her thighs. Aisla nearly leaped out of her skin.

  “You have on far too many clothes,” she said and proceeded to yank the soft lawn shirt off his body.

  Her husband obliged with a huff of laughter. “Impatient, are ye?”

  Aisla was too busy staring in wonder at the golden expanse of bare chest to respond. Good Lord, he was in prime form. Her mouth actually watered at the sight of his sleek, defined muscles and the spattering of deep russet hair that narrowed to the line she remembered. It bisected the prominent ridges of his abdomen and disappeared into his breeches. She refused to look lower…she wanted to savor every moment of discovery.

  Her fingers reached out tentatively to touch his hot skin. His muscles leaped at her touch. “You’re so much…larger than I remember.” Her tongue felt thick in her mouth.

  Niall chuckled. “That’s what laboring in the mines will do to a man.”

  Aisla touched her lips to his chest and let her open mouth trail against his skin. She heard him drag in a breath. “I appreciate your mines even more now,” she whispered, kissing and nibbling at him. She skimmed her fingers over the hard muscles of his chest, her greedy mouth following. As her thumb brushed against one taut, flat nipple, her tongue swirled over the other, the skin there smooth in comparison to the roughness of the rest of his skin.

  Niall groaned, his fingers digging into the flesh of her thighs as he fell back onto the carpet. “God, Aisla, that tongue of yers.”

  Her lips curved into a smile as she leaned over him, a jolt of lust shooting through her as her nipples brushed the coarse hair sprinkled over his chest. The rough-napped friction made her tighten her legs together against the pulse of want.

  “Do ye remember what I can do with this tongue?” she teased, one purposeful hand slipping down his stomach, toward his hips. Niall’s fevered eyes sharpened for a moment as her brogue made its appearance, and he huffed a restrained laugh.

  “The memories are what I’ve been living on, lass,” he said, though he sucked in another breath and gripped Aisla’s wrist before she could grasp him through the tented fabric. “Easy. I dunnae ken that I can withstand yer touch. It’s been some time.”

  She frowned, a spike of rejection warring with confusion. Until delayed understanding of his confession dawned on her. He hadn’t been with a woman in a while, then. How long had it been? Days? Weeks? Months? Hardly. Niall was much too virile of a man to curb his body’s needs. Still, satisfaction burned just under her skin at the kn
owledge.

  She nipped his lips with her teeth and wrested her wrist, attempting to free herself and reach for him again. God, she wanted to feel his shaft in her hand. Wanted to hear him breathing, hot and rapid, with the pleasure from her touch.

  “Nae, my sweet lass,” he ground out again. “I want to make this last as long as it can. And after six years…”

  Aisla stopped fighting his grip and instead, slid her bare foot up his shin, reveling in the crisp hair on his legs. She wanted to explore every inch of him all over again. Learn his magnificent body anew.

  “I know what you mean,” she whispered. “We’ve been apart for so long.”

  “Aye, but that’s no’ entirely what I meant.”

  Aisla’s foot stilled, and she lifted her lips from where she’d been nuzzling his broad shoulder. His eyes met hers, and though they were still hot with desire, she saw something else within them. Something more vulnerable and unguarded.

  “What did you mean then?” she asked.

  “That it’s been six years.”

  She laughed. “I know how long it’s been, Niall.”

  He didn’t return her grin, and Aisla understood what he meant. He wasn’t talking about the length of time they’d been apart. He meant…oh, God.

  “In all this time, you haven’t been…” she started to say, but her throat grew thick.

  “Nae, I havenae,” he whispered, his hand releasing her wrist and coming up to her face. He cupped her cheek and brushed his thumb against her skin. “There wasnae any woman I wanted. None that could take yer place, no’ by my side, no’ in my bed, no’ anywhere. I tried, mind ye, but ’twas an impossible task.”

  Her whole body felt frozen with shock. No one? Not one woman? Her eyes narrowed. He could be lying, but what reason did he have to do so? She was already giving herself to him. Aisla could barely breathe let alone form words, so she continued to stare at him, an indescribable warmth beginning to saturate her from the inside out.

  “I ken it’s no’ the same for ye, and as much as it turns me mad with jealousy, I—”

  “You don’t know,” she interrupted. She closed her eyes and tried again. “I mean, I haven’t, either.”

  His brows pinched together. “What about Leclerc?”

  Aisla shook her head, a spring of impetuous tears threatening her vision. “He’s only my friend, as I told you. Niall…there’s been no one but you.”

  He was a stone beneath her, his fingers still kneading into the back of one thigh, his other hand caressing her cheek and the tear that managed to slip down. “All this time, I thought…”

  Aisla kissed him, so he wouldn’t have to finish his sentence. He’d thought she was taking lovers in Paris. Welcoming men to her bed. Julien, especially. And all this time, she’d thought the same thing about her husband, when the truth was, both of them had been alone in their beds for years. Yearning for what they’d lost. For comfort and warmth and another body. And not just another body. They’d yearned for each other.

  It was as if an invisible barrier shattered at that moment. Niall surged up, his mouth claiming Aisla’s with renewed vigor, the kiss even more fraught and unhindered than before. His tongue wound around hers, stroking and gliding and pulling until Aisla had to cling to him to keep herself from collapsing backward onto the carpet. He held her against him, his big hand stretching wide over her back, before rounding forward and palming one of her breasts. She moaned in helpless surrender.

  This would not be a long and languorous joining, a homecoming between them to savor and string out. Niall had said he wanted to last, but as he took her to the carpet and urged one of her legs to the side, opening her to him, Aisla knew there was nothing but primitive need coursing through her husband’s veins. There was no pretense left between them. Only feeling. She arched her back when his hand slipped between her legs and touched the heat of her.

  “Ye’re as I remember,” he whispered against her lips, his mouth nibbling down the column of her throat. His hot breath rushed against her. “Hot, sweet, and ready for me.”

  A gentle, but insistent, finger glided into her, and Aisla tilted her hips, the only desire rampaging through her mind to get closer to him. For more of him to fill her. He soothed her with a few hushed sounds against the base of her throat as he nipped and licked his way to her breast, his teeth scraping over the peak of one nipple before sucking deep. The hint of pleasure-pain made the pressure inside her, his fingers stroking slow and deep, even more exquisite. And torturous.

  “Niall, please,” she whimpered, clamping her trembling thighs around his hand as a second finger joined the first. They pushed and retracted, the wet glide of his work-roughened skin making her moan with frustration. She wanted more. She wanted him. Aisla felt the hard, hot length of his erection against her hip and reached for it again. He didn’t stop her this time, and Aisla’s fingers closed around the thick jutting length, the iron underneath the fabric of his breeches throbbing against her palm.

  “God in heaven, Aisla,” he groaned, and though he pulled his stroking hand from between her legs, she didn’t lament the loss, because she knew that in the next few moments, something more satisfying would take its place. He unfastened and kicked off his breeches, just as impatient as she.

  “You’ve tormented me long enough, my laird,” she said, loving the heavy press of his naked body as he came on top of her. He braced himself with his elbows and looked into her eyes, his own stormy with desire.

  “I’ve only begun, my lady,” he replied, and without hesitation, aligned himself at her opening, and pushed forward.

  “Oh.” Aisla gasped at the sensation of fullness, accompanied by the smallest twinge of pain.

  “Ye’re so tight, love,” he groaned, pausing and lifting his head to look down at her. “I’m sorry, lass, did I hurt ye? I should have been more careful.”

  She shook her head and rotated her hips flush against his, moaning at the burst of pleasure between her thighs. “Don’t you dare stop,” she said, and when she arched herself against him once more, Niall shifted to meet it with a shallow thrust of his own.

  This time, the sound coming out of her was a sob of undiluted pleasure. How could she have forgotten how this felt? She’d thought she’d remembered. In Paris, she’d played out their lovemaking in her memories at night while in bed, her fingers bringing her to her own release. But no memory, no matter how detailed or strong, could hold a candle to the percussion of bliss and rapture rushing through her right then.

  He seated himself fully and covered her cries with his mouth. Angling his hips, Niall retreated in a slow slide and rocked forward, filling her again. His tongue mimicked the motion, licking deeper. Again and again, he thrusted, his tongue tangling with hers in a lewd dance. She felt the carpet beneath her disappearing with every pound of his hips and every hard rasp of his chest against her breasts. He filled her everywhere, and their energetic coupling was more euphoric than Aisla could ever remember feeling. She felt alive.

  She couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything more than meet his hips, and grip his back and shoulders, her nails digging into his skin as a storm cloud of sensations built and crested within her. Finally, the storm broke, and a jagged burst of lightning lit through Aisla. It illuminated her world, blinding her as it scorched through her body. As if sparked by the current surging through her inner muscles, Niall broke their airless kiss. He threw his head back and groaned, piercing her once, twice, and a third time before lodging himself deep, shuddering with his own release. He held himself there, his breathing ragged, as the licks of lightning ebbed, leaving in their wake a numbed warmth.

  Niall collapsed onto his side, pulling her with him, cradling her in a tangle of their arms and legs. He kissed her forehead, and she felt a tremble on his lips.

  “I bloody missed ye,” he breathed, and though Aisla wanted to agree and say the same thing, she couldn’t speak. Not because she was breathless, even though she was a bit. There was an aching
ball in the middle of her throat. She’d missed him, too, yes.

  Even worse, she still loved him.

  And that could only mean disaster. She’d promised Julien she’d leave Scotland, her hands untied, but now, she’d set them—and her heart—in knots.

  Chapter Sixteen

  After a night of passionate lovemaking, Aisla had crept back to her chamber just before dawn. Niall had still been asleep, and she’d stared down at him, her trembling heart in her throat. A lock of hair curled over his temple, his wide mouth parted in sleep. She’d wanted nothing more than to remain and wake in the clasp of his embrace, but it was too dangerous to give him more of her heart than she already had.

  Oh God, what had she done?

  She’d been the one to invite him to stay. She’d told him she needed him, made what she wanted explicitly clear. She’d been vulnerable and foolish. And lonely. He had, too. But Niall didn’t love her. What had happened between them was a product of history and lust, and misplaced emotion after Fiona’s traumatic birthing.

  Comfort. That was all it had been.

  I bloody missed ye.

  His whispered confession had nearly undone her. She’d missed him, too, fiercely. Her body had welcomed his with the happy anticipation of coming home after a long absence. And she had come home.

  And what of your promise to Julien?

  Aisla groaned, sponging herself quickly with the cold water on the nightstand. She bit her tongue as the icy liquid touched her heated skin, but didn’t want to wake Pauline who slept in the small antechamber. Once dressed in a clean night rail and wrapper, she watched the sun rise on the eastern edge of the loch, heralding the birth of a new day, and felt nothing but despair.

  Everything would change.

  It couldn’t change.

  Her heart could not survive what it had endured in the past. Going back to what she’d left meant that every scrap of herself she’d fought for would be lost. She’d taken her tattered marriage and the loss of her child, and made herself into something strong. Into something unbreakable. But with one look, one touch, Niall had threatened her foundations.