to think that when they’d first met, he’d been determined to think of her as his enemy. What a fool he’d been. He wouldn’t be surprised if she said no, but he wouldn’t stop asking. He wouldn’t stop fighting for her, if he had to do it until the very last breath left his body.
“I am yours, Jenny,” he murmured, “whether ye want me or nay. Do with me as ye please. Love me, marry me, put me in the barn, or send me on my way, but know that every day for the rest of my life, I am yours.”
Her face transformed then, her eyes crinkling. “Sending ye away is not an option, Fraser, for when I’m not with ye, I feel that a piece of myself is missing. I canna live in a world without ye. And yet I dinna know how to be all the things I must at once. A laird, a warrior, a wife, a mother.” She shook her head, bit her lip, and the fan of her lashes closed off her eyes from his view.
“Ye dinna have to be everything, ye know this. But if ye want to try, I’ll be right there with ye, aiding ye in every way ye want.”
“I want it all, Toran. Is that selfish of me?” She blinked, eyes wide and imploring.
“No’ at all. I want it too. Warrior, leader, husband, father…lover. Ye’re the most determined person I’ve ever met. If anyone can do it, ’tis ye, and I swear, ye dinna have to do it alone.”
Jenny lifted up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his. She slid her arms over his shoulders and threaded her fingers in his hair, tightening her hold on him, kissing him hard and deep. There was so much emotion in that kiss, so much flooding of relief, and yet at the same time, it was frantic. Their tongues slid over one another, caressing, tasting. It felt like meshing, as though in this kiss they were declaring to one another that they were on the same team—that pleasure and happiness would be the end result.
Toran turned them slightly, pressing her rear against the stones and pressing the hardness of his arousal against the apex of her thighs.
“Just one kiss, just one touch of your lips on mine and my body reacts. I want ye,” he growled, sliding his lips over to her ear where he bit down gently on the lobe. “I need ye.”
“Aye,” she crooned, lifting her leg around his hip to give him better access to her heat.
But she was in trews and he was in his kilt, and they were standing atop the wall, on watch in case of a nighttime ambush.
“We canna,” he said, disappointment thick in his tone.
“We can,” she crooned back, her hands sliding down the muscles of his chest, one circling around back to grip his arse and the other in the front to stroke his hardened cock.
Toran groaned, wanting nothing more than to lift her up and pound into her, to hear their flesh slapping against the stone and her whimpers of pleasure against his ear.
“I need ye, Toran, and I’ll go crazy if I dinna have ye. I want ye for life. I want ye to be my husband.”
Those words alone were enough to send him into a whirlwind. She’d said aye.
He had two options now—make love to her right here where anyone could find them and where they might miss the signs of an oncoming army or carry her into the castle and demand some of the men take their spots.
As if they’d been listening to his thoughts, Camdyn and Dirk’s voices broke him and Jenny apart only seconds before the two men appeared. Toran shifted his sporran in front of his tented kilt, trying to hide the evidence of his arousal, even though in the dark it was unlikely they would be able to see.
“We thought we’d take over,” Dirk said with a wink.
“Aye, my laird, if ye dinna mind, I was hoping to have my first watch.” Camdyn had the nerve to wink at his brother too.
The bloody mongrels had been spying! But he didn’t care, let them spy on two people in love. Toran grabbed Jenny’s hand, muttered his thanks, and whisked her down the stairs.
They walked briskly across the courtyard, murmuring good evening to those they passed until they reached the inside of the castle. No one stopped them on the run up the stairs to her bedchamber,