She lifted a finger to her lips as we heard Duncan calling after me. He was close. A minute later, when he called out, he was farther away. I let out the breath I’d been holding.
“Thank you,” I said again.
“Don’t thank me. I’ve been in the same situation a time or two. We girls should stick together.” I hated to think she’d been stalked. She looked young but in her eyes I found a soul far wiser. “I have to get to work. Ye’re welcome to stay here. My da won’t be back til dawn. I can offer ye bread and ale.”
The sound of pouring rain had her reaching for a cloak as I muttered yet another, “Thanks.”
She nodded and opened the door cautiously before slipping out. The place was small, not much more than one room that held a table in the middle, a bed with bits of straw peeking out from the coverlet on one side, and a cot I couldn’t see well on the other. On the back wall was the hearth with a small fire. There was precious little else.
On the table, a lit candle illuminated a bowl that held bread and a pitcher that likely held the ale she mentioned. If I had money, I would have left her some. I didn’t, so I didn’t take anything she offered.
I focused on my next steps. I would need to go back a little further in time if I wanted to catch the witch. But first I had to return the cloak. As it was, it was threadbare. Whoever owned it took very good care because it probably couldn’t be replaced. I had to return it at all costs.
It was silly to tiptoe to the door given the pounding rain, but I did it anyway. I opened the door a crack and saw nothing. When I widened it, Duncan stood there, soaking wet.
“It is ye.” His bloodshot eyes took me in. “I’ve dreamt of nocht but ye for days.”
It was too late to hide, and I couldn’t leave him standing in the pouring rain. I stepped back, allowing him to come inside. He didn’t move at first, just stared at me. I nodded as if he needed permission and it worked. He came in.
“It’s like I’ve ken ye all my life from the wanting of ye.”
I took off his wet coat and draped it over the chair closest to the fire. His brogue was thicker now than it had been when we’d first met. He closed his eyes, and I began to step away, but he caught my wrist. “The ache in my arm—” He went silent as the light burst from my tattoo to his, the colors following the outline of my wrist to his. When it finished, he added, “Witchcraft. Yet I dinnae ken. I want ye so bad it hurts.”
He made no move to take me by force. He stood there with my wrist in his hand, waiting. “Say something,” he said, slightly slurred.
I wanted to cry for the man who suffered guilt for something I now understood hadn’t happened. Duncan didn’t move to the bed, even though I could feel the war inside of him as if his feelings were my own. He’d walk away if I told him to.
But I didn’t want to. As for the side of me that needed convincing, I rationalized it was better that it be me than some random girl. He was mine, and I was his, as fate had decided. The other half of me didn’t need a pep talk. I was all in. “Have me,” I said.
Then my face was in his big hands. His hungry mouth feasted on mine as I gave as good as I got. Then I was reaching for the hem of his shirt and tugging it up. He pulled free, only to rid himself of the garment. His fingers found the tie on my cloak and loosened it. I shrugged out of it and went for his pants.
There wasn’t a button to unfasten or a zipper to release, just a tie. With a flick of my wrist, his pants hit the floor, and he stood there before me, a dazzling specimen of male perfection.
Every muscle in his chest was ripped as if carved by Michelangelo himself, down to the defined V on his hips. But it was his shaft that jutted out long, thick, and hard that held my fascination. Then he moved and stood behind me.
“Forgive me, lass.” That was when I heard fabric tear and watched as tiny fabric buttons were released in the air. He tugged hard on strings, and I was free of the corset too.
I let my arms hang and the fabric slipped down to pool at my feet, leaving me in the sheath that contained my virtue.