Page 76 of Here in Your Arms
But for now, just for a little while, she allowed herself to rest in it. To lay still in his arms, her body flush against his, and pretend—just for tonight—that he was hers and she was his.
Tiernan, unwittingly or not, derailed the happy flush of her thoughts, his voice cutting through the silence, rough and low, pulling her from her thoughts.
“Is it true?”
Rose blinked, her hand going still mid-stroke against his ribs.
“Is... what true?” she asked softly, lifting her head slightly to look at him.
He wasn’t looking at her. His gaze was angled toward the foot of the bed, or just beyond it, lost in the fire. She thought there was a tightness in his jaw, and now something hesitant in the way his thumb absently traced the curve of her hip.
She felt a flicker of unease, a sudden alertness. For a fleeting second, she wondered if he was asking whether she’d really been a virgin, if that was what this was about. But his voice didn’t seem to be filled with either accusation or disbelief. He sounded... cautious, as if he didn’t quite want to ask at all.
“That ye come from another time.”
His thumb continued its slow, absent movement over the curve of her waist, as if he didn’t even realize he was doing it. That small, thoughtless touch should have reassured her, but it only made the knot in her stomach tighten.
“Yes,” she said finally, her voice low, uncertain. “It’s true. I was born hundreds of years from now. Nineteen-fifty-seven.” Laying her head on his arm again, she stared at the wooden beams above them, choosing her words carefully. “Where I come from, the world is faster. We’ve learned how to travel great distances in hours, how to light entire cities with a flick of a switch. Food can be kept cold without snow or ice, heat comes without fire, and messages can be sent instantly, even to people across an ocean.” A sinking feeling turned her stomach, and she rose onto her elbow, facing him again. Her mouth pulled downward with faint displeasure while she looked athim, searching for something in his expression. “But... you don’t actually believe me, do you? Did you ever?”
Tiernan didn’t answer right away. His fingers brushed against her skin once more, slow and deliberate, his grip shifting slightly as if adjusting his hold.
“I canna say,” he admitted after a long moment. “It sounds mad. But then... nae anything about ye has ever made sense.”
Rose let out a breathless, humorless laugh, more bitter than she had intended. “And yet, you just slept with me.”
Tiernan’s silence in that moment was more telling even.
Something cold began to settle in her chest, spreading outward like frost, replacing the warmth she’d felt only minutes before. She’d thought she understood what tonight was, had told herself she could separate the emotions from the physical, that she wasn’t naïve. But now, with the air thick with the truth between them, she wasn’t so sure. Because the truth she’d blithely ignored, the one she was staring down now in this awful silence, was that she hadn’t done this just for comfort or curiosity. Not even for connection. She’d slept with Tiernan because somewhere along the way—whether she had meant to or not, whether she had realized it or not—she’d started to feel something for him. Real feelings. Tangled and complicated and with timing so wrong, but real all the same.
And now she was beginning to understand that for him, it had been so much less, nothing more than release—simple, uncomplicated, forgettable. Maybe she had just been... convenient.
She swallowed hard, blinking against the sting behind her eyes.
Her pulse pounded in her ears, drowning out the soft crackle of the fire, the distant patter of rain. She didn’t want to ask the question, didn’t want to hear the answer she already knew. But she couldn’t stop herself, she needed to hear it from him.
“Why?” Her voice cracked, but there was steel beneath it. “Why would you sleep with me if you thought I was lying? That I made it all up—or worse, if you thought I was just mad?”
Tiernan sat upright, the muscles in his jaw working. “I dinna plan it, Rose,” he said forcefully. “But I looked at ye and....”
The words landed softly, but they struck with force, quiet and devastating.
And saw Margaret, she assumed he meant. Rose’s breath caught.
More gruffly, defensively, he said, “I’ve done naught but try to stay away from ye. I dinna... It should have been....”
Should have been Margaret.
Rose gasped, the sound sharp and stricken. For a moment, she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but stare at him as the truth settled over her, a tight fist around her heart.
Oh, God.How had she missed it? No. No! She hadn’t missed it. She’d chosen to ignore it for those brief hours tucked in his arms. Her stomach twisted violently, nausea rising in her throat, choking her.
She scrambled away from him, out of the warmth of the furs, not caring that the cool air licked at her bare skin, raising gooseflesh or that she was naked to his gaze.
Margaret. It had all been because of Margaret.
The realization burned through her, searing hot and humiliating. She had been so stupid. So utterly, completely stupid. Her hands shook as she yanked her shift over her head, the fabric tangling in her haste. She could feel Tiernan watching her, could feel his gaze boring into her back, and through the tangled fabrics she saw him rise swiftly from the bed, tall and towering.
“Rose,” he ground out, his voice rough.
