Tempest Heart - Paula Quinn Page 0,79
soft and tight. She was tight everywhere, resistant and yet so willing.
“Have I told ye how precious ye are to me, Wife?”
She leaned down close and whispered over his lips. “You show me, over and over, my dearest love.”
She moved slowly, edging down on him. She cried out twice as she let him through. He had to stop to keep from drowning her in his rapture.
“Aye, I love you,” she admitted breathlessly, as if she had been wrangling a beast. She had been. He was more than halfway through. His own breath came hard and fast.
“Everyone knows the terrifying you. The one who hides in trees and always kills his target—and eleven of his friends.” She moved and shivered. He felt her body quiver and sucked in his bottom lip.
“I know that fearsome man, but he has a good heart toward me.”
She finally kissed his waiting lips and bore down on him. She sank on him once more and cried out, taking him to the hilt.
It was difficult to think. But gazing at her, he knew what he wanted to say.
“I didna think my heart was knit together fer the purpose of love, only fer life and death. But ye kicked death in the arse and came back to me and began chippin’ away pieces of my heart. I dinna know the exact moment my heart was lost to ye, but I know I love ye, Rose. Ye mean more to me than there is time to tell ye.”
He stared at her and smiled; her closed eyes, and long black lashes. She was in no more pain.
All right then.
He slipped one hand down her back and cupped her nape in his other hand and moved faster.
She let out a short gasp and then matched movements until her breathing grew shallower. He swallowed up her cries, kissing her and telling her how much he loved her, as they reached their release.
They both panted for breath and shivered in each other’s arms at the force of their love.
“I promise to be a good wife, Tristan,” she said in his arms a few moments later.
He smiled instead of casting any doubtful glance her way. He didn’t doubt her being a good wife. It was being an obedient one that he was skeptical about. He promised to be a good husband and then grew silent, wanting to rest his eyes for a wee bit.
“Oh, are you going to sleep?” she asked, sounding disappointed.
Her question fired up his insides again. If she didn’t want him to sleep, what did she want him awake for?
She turned her back to him and began to move away. He stopped her by blocking her departure with his left arm and dragging her back to him with his right arm coiled around her waist.
She fit perfectly against him with her rump cradled in his thighs.
“Tell me now what you think of my father. Innocent or guilty?”
He wasn’t sure, and his reply, promised softly against her ear, proved that he had relinquished his judgment to God. “It doesna matter. He willna die by my sword.”
He felt her release a long breath in his arms. “Thank you, my dearest love. You do not know how happy this makes me.” When she turned her head to him, he cupped her face and emblazoned the sight of her on his soul. She was his, and he was hers.
He felt the overwhelming desire to tell her how he felt, to open up to her as he had to no one else. He decided that if he’d gone mad over her somewhere along the way, which was very likely, he didn’t care.
“Rose, ye have worked yer way into my heart and calmed the seas that quaked and roared within me. Even though our journey together thus far has been fraught with one thing or another, I feel at rest. Ye are the respite I so desperately needed.” He looked down at her and kissed her again. “Father Timothy would say that God sent ye to help me become human again.”
She turned in his arms to stare into his eyes and lifted her fingers to his jaw as he spoke.
“From my childhood, I was taught to fight, to always expect war, and to know how to protect my life. No matter what the priest tried to teach me, bein’ a Scot meant my father was right. There was always a battle to be fought. So, I dedicated my life to learnin’ everythin’ I could. I went into