Page 3 of Loving Graystoke's Heir

At home, before she’d go to bed, Tamsin would run herself into the ground. Most nights taking a long, exhausting run around the property. She’d follow the fence line and progress all the way to the riverfront for a mile before heading back through the woods. It was there that she lost the rest of her worrisome thoughts.

She forced her body past the limits of her endurance, running until she could barely make her way up the stairs and fall into a deep sleep after her shower.

Unfortunately, such a luxury wasn’t available on a plane.

Within the confines of the luxurious cabin she felt herself struggling to relax. She felt caged.

The numbers on the reports she’d started to read blurred together and an ache formed in her chest. She stood and the papers cascaded to the floor, spreading out into a jumbled mess.

Part of her head urged her to pick them up and put them all back together, but there was a deeper need that drove her onward. Far more pressing than her need for order was her need for understanding.

She had a question that demanded an answer, and without the mind and body numbing effects of running, she was falling prey to the worry in her soul.

What had she done to make him leave her behind?

It was, she had reasoned before, the question of an innocent. She had a different way of looking at the world after Donal left. She had forced herself to realize that what she felt for him had obviously been unanswered in his own heart.

Still, before the moment she woke in her empty bed, she thought their bond unbreakable. That the connection between them had been more than childhood friends.

Turning the lock on the bedroom door, Tamsin discarded her jacket and slacks, draping them over a chair, before tumbling onto the freshly made bed.

As her eyes drifted closed, she realized her mistake. Thinking of him, being on her way to find him after all these years, had been like a magic spell, summoning him into her thoughts.

“Come with me…”

Maybe she hadn’t heard him correctly through the sounds of her own aching heartbeat. The thought of losing him for the year he’d planned to be away had turned her insides upside down.

“I need you…”

That, she’d heard.

The answer had been a resounding yes, and when his lips descended on hers, she knew it was real. Not a dream.

Not a figment of her imagination.

His kiss… kisses… had made her feel excited and scared at the same time. There was a need in the way he held her that she’d never felt before, and soon they were doing more than kissing.

She’d always stopped herself from imagining what it would be like to lose her innocence to Donal. She wanted it, but she’d never allowed her thoughts to go there, afraid that whatever she might see in her head would scare her, warn her away from his touch.

His hands worked their way down from her cheeks, along her shoulders, down her arms, and before she could understand what was happening, he’d wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tight against him.

Questions, so many questions, appeared in her thoughts, but every time their lips moved apart one of them would close the gap until she was talking to him against his lips.

It didn’t matter what she was saying, it wasn’t as though she was thinking.

She was feeling.

His hands worked their way under her blouse, and with his thumbs tracing up the front of her belly, he slipped his tongue into her mouth.

The sudden sensation had stunned her, opening her mouth further until his tongue had full reign to explore as his hands found her breasts and cupped them, stirring her nipples into hard peaks against his palms.

Tamsin remembered the way her very thoughts had stuttered inside her head when her voice hadn’t been available. Her hands falling to his shoulders to hold him in place.

She’d never had such a feeling before. Never taken the chance to touch her own body in such a way because good girls didn’t do such things.

But the way that Donal touched her, the way that he cradled her breasts and swept his fingers over their peaks made her feel so good… so loved… that she couldn’t deny him.

Couldn’t deny herself.

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