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 Ban 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.
When Sorcha went off in search of more treasures, Glynis took his arm, and they walked along the shore. Ah, life was very good.
“Have ye noticed how Peiter, the young fisherman who brings fish up to the castle sometimes, stops what he’s doing every time Seamus’s sister walks by?”
Seamus was the ten-year-old lad who followed Alex around like a young pup. At Glynis’s suggestion, Alex had finally given the lad the job of cleaning his weapons.
“Seamus’s sister?” he asked.
“Aye, she’s that pretty lass with the golden hair,” Glynis said. “Her name is Una.”
