Page 73 of Hot Set

“Not we. You.” Niks kisses both my cheeks. She swivels and flits toward the double doors to the lobby. “I’ll say I’m last out and every lock will goclick click click.” She nods to the set. “Go, sweet thing. Step onto the page of your own story.”

Niks pauses briefly to shut off the last bank of overhead work lights before she disappears through the doors. In the dark, my eyes are drawn to the buttery glow on the opposite side of flats blocking Donal Cam’s bedchamber.

I stand motionless, waiting for something to happen, but nothing does. Heartbeats roar in my ears as I take a step toward the set and then another. I duck under the rope holding the hot setsigns. When I round the end of the last flat, every breath is stolen from my chest.

The room glimmers from the light of a hundred candles. Standing before an arch on set is a figure from an illuminated manuscript or a stained-glass window. Jack’s already impressive height is enhanced by an ornate clan headdress. His body is swathed in layers of silvery fabric, a jewel-tone blue tunic, deep brown leather, and bands of silver over his arms. Candles turn his hair into rivers of molten gold, flowing across chieftain shoulders. He is magnificent.

Speechless in the presence of this glorious vision, I’m frozen in time with him.

Slowly, he glides over to take my hands. One step at a time, he brings me through the frame into his world. Words still inside me. It is not my place to speak in his kingdom.

Jack drops to a knee before me, my hands in his. Flickers of candlelight reflect off the silver in his headdress. The features of his beautiful face soften in the radiant shimmer. The eyes are far from soft; they burn with the intensity of sapphires reflecting the sun itself.

“You are my heart, my breath, the very blood that flows through my body. Without you, I am as weak as a breeze that dies before it makes a single leaf dance on the rowan tree.”

I recognize the words from the love song Donal Cam sings to Nieve on the night they pledge themselves to one another for eternity because I have used some of these very words in my telling of their story.

Jack releases my hands to slowly lift his headdress and set it down beside him before he twines his fingers through mine. He drops his forehead to touch our joined hands. “I pledge myself to you through every phase of the moon. I promise you my loyalty in the blessing of every sunrise and the peace of every sunset.”

He raises his eyes to mine. “Will you take me as I am, daughter of the stars, to fill your spirit with light and love?” Strong arms wrap around me. “I do adore you…”

I tense within his touch. How can he use that word, that horrible, awful word that’s poison to me?

Jack gives me a gentle shake. “It’s true I adore you more than reason, but beyond that, I love you, Gillian Bettencourt—with all that I am and all that I will ever be. I love you. I love you, and nothing or no one has the power to change that. I will do anything you ask of me to honor and protect that love. I’m asking you to believe this of me.”

Essence of myth and magic surrounds us. Nothing but truths dare enter this sacred realm. With the strength of my own truth beating in my breast, I fall to my knees and take his lovely face in my hands. “I love you, Jack O’Leary.”

For a long moment, we revel in each other’s eyes, and then he draws me closer, lightly brushing his lips against mine. Ever so slowly, he parts my mouth with his, taking me into a kiss that begins as a caress then goes deeper, burning with an intensity that melts my bones until his arms are the only things keeping me from falling.

Jack runs a hand up the back of my neck into my hair, pulling gently until my throat is exposed to his lips. He kisses in time with the pulse beneath my skin and whispers over and over, “I love you. I love you.”

Not so gently, I pull his mouth back to mine and take him in a kiss, leaving no doubt any barrier between us has risen into the sky like dawn mist over a loch.

He lifts me into his arms without a break in the kiss, increasing the already scorching heat between us. I feel as if we fly across the room to the massive fur-covered bed. There he lays me, standing above me with an expression equal parts love and lust. I’m dizzy with wanting him. I gasp as he backs away.

When I try to rise onto my elbows, he lays a palm between my breasts and eases me back down. His fingers dance along my body, slowly peeling off clothes until I’m naked before him.

Standing at the end of the bed, he stares down at me. “You glow like starlight.”

And I do. The gentle luminescence of candles kisses my skin with ribbons of light.

I raise myself, sliding closer to where he stands and lift his tunic. To my delight, he is naked beneath and fully ready for what I need from him.

He untangles himself from my grasp, kissing my hands as he places them at my sides and once again has me on my back. “Tonight, I’m going to give myself to you as an honorable chieftain’s son worships his love.”

My body pulses, and I’m ready to scream if he doesn’t get down to the business of giving himself to me.

His touch is silk against my skin. Fingers circle and slide up my calves, crossing over thighs and then lingering in places that have me arching and moaning for him. “Please, Jack. Now. Please now.”

His lips replace his fingers and I soar straight into the sun with a cry of pleasure that draws his mouth back to mine. His hand cups the tender place he’s just set aflame, and I feel myself pulsing against his palm. Before I fall from the height of near madness to solid ground, Jack’s touch invites me to rise again. This time, he joins me.

The roughness of leather sliding over my breasts brings me to the brink of fracture. I run my hands up his thighs under a silken tunic to guide him home. Once there, he loses himself as I am lost. I rise to meet him. He drives deeper and deeper, never forcing, but claiming more and more of me. Our hips sear together, igniting a conflagration as bright as the center of a star. We both fall back to earth, bodies scattering in a downpour of golden raindrops.

He finally allows me to rid him of his costume. I kiss my way across the soft, curly hair of his chest, delighting in moans he doesn’t hold back.

“I love you, Jack.”

He rolls me onto my side, pressing my body against his. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

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