My pulse races, my breath hitches, and I can’t breathe for long seconds as pleasure spasms through my body. My grip on the bed is so tight it hurts, but I’m grasping for purchase as he loses himself in me, and I in him. Our pleasure is joined, our pain is forgotten, and right then and there, we’re meant to be together like this.
I start to come down from my climax when a second ripples through me, this one sweeter and more intense than the first. I come with abandon, moaning and writhing, as he works me to completion. “Beautiful girl,” he mumbles. “I love watching you climax.”
I moan against him, shivering with the aftershocks that linger.
“Works well for me,” I pant. “Because I do fucking love climaxing.”
He squeezes my arse, and I squeal a bit. I shiver as he places delicate kisses along my neck to my shoulders, my arms, then down my back.
“I hated being apart from you, even for a little while,” he says. “I’d made up my mind you were safer this way.”
My throat feels suddenly tight, and I close my eyes when they burn. “You can’t do that to me again, Carson,” I whisper. “Never again. I wasn’t born into a family of saints, you know.”
“I know.”
“And I can handle it… being your woman,” I say. “You’re intense, but it’s one of the things I love best about you. There are so many things I love about you.” He’s still in me. Our bodies are still heated, still one. “We can do this, you know,” I say, and my voice is softer than normal. I want to tread lightly.
He gently pulls himself out of me. “Stay here,” he whispers. “Be right back.” He comes back a moment later with a washcloth and towel. We clean up, then he leads me to the bathroom in silence. I’ve accepted that he’s often a man of few words. It’s his actions that speak louder anyway. The gentle forehead kisses. His warm hand on the small of my back. The way he tucks the duvet in around me when I go to sleep. The way he’s shown me absolute dedication and trust.
We shower in silence. He lathers a washcloth and rubs it over my body, spins me around, then I do the same to him. He towels me off and leads me to bed, and when I slide beneath the covers, my eyes feel heavy.
He tugs me onto his chest and weaves his fingers through my hair. My cheek rests on his clean white t-shirt, my fingers tightly gripping him.
“I love you,” he says. “I’ve fucked up, and for that I’m sorry.”
I nod. “We both have, haven’t we?”
“Aye.”
“We all do.”
“Right. If I’ve learned anything from my brothers, it’s that we all make mistakes, but it takes a man to admit to them and ask forgiveness. I was wrong to keep you in the dark, Megan. Wrong to try to protect you by pushing you away. And I’ll never make those mistakes again.”
“Those mistakes?” I tease. “Do you mean you’ll make others?”
He tweaks my nose. “Aye, naturally, as will you.”
“Me?” I ask in mock surprise. “Bollox.”
He snorts with laughter. “Tomorrow, I want to take you the shooting range again. You showed some real promise, and I’d like to teach you some more advanced techniques.”
“Ooh, I’d love that. It’s like riding a motorbike, you know.”
“How’s that?” he asks.
“Such a masculine thing, it turns me into all kinds of aroused.”
His shoulders shake with laughter. “Didn’t think you needed much help in that area.”
“Oh, Carson,” I say. “You love it.”
His chuckle makes me smile. “I do. I love everything about you, lass.”Chapter 19CarsonIn the weeks and days following Eve’s death, I drowned in misery. It hurt when I woke. It hurt to move. It hurt to draw in breath.
With the help of my Clan family, and with the passing of time, the acuteness of my pain began to ebb a little. But I replaced it with the thirst for vengeance. I lived, breathed, and drank revenge. And though I believe my lust for revenge was justified, I know now that it dimmed the light that surrounded me. I couldn’t see the beauty in the every day. I had no goals or aspirations beyond ending the lives of those that killed Eve. I yearned to hurt them.
But I know now that I let my longing for retribution darken everything else about me. I went through the motions of taking care of Breena, but she rarely saw me smile, and rarely heard me laugh. I took good care of her, but who I was and the life I led was muted.
And that’s changed now, due in no small part to Megan. To the light that she brings and the wholeness she inspires.
A week after the O’Gregors were exiled, Lachlan and Tiernan confirm through a thorough sweep of the city that they are, indeed, gone. After a long, intense meeting, when we discuss whether or not we take over Stone City, we finally decide to reconvene at a later date. Megan’s waiting for me for lunch, walking wee Breena in the garden. She’s got flowers in her hair no doubt helped by Breena, and they’re both barefoot.