Page 62 of A Constant Blaze

A breath of laughter stirred her hair, and then his hand on her nape dragged her up to meet his mouth. “Never,” he muttered against her lips.

His kiss was rough and long and ultimately tender. She couldn’t help touching his cheek, caressing, holding as her mouth clung to his. Strange and yet familiar, like him. This new, mature Malcolm, the echo of the youth she’d married and loved so much. And yet in his efforts—and hers—to marry up past and present, was there not hope of something even deeper and greater? His mouth promised so much…

As did his clouded yet tumultuous eyes when he finally released her lips and drew back. Still holding her gaze, he rose, drawing her to her feet. Her heart thundered in her breast. But it seemed he was only kicking Tomas awake.

The man sat up immediately, his dagger in s hand.

“Your watch,” Malcolm said, low and still holding Halla by the hand, walked away into the friendly cover of the trees. He didn’t go far before he dropped the blanket from his shoulders and threw it on the ground.

“They will know,” Halla said with difficulty. “They will all know.”

“Do you care?”

She shook her head dumbly. There had been other nights under the stars, with companions sleeping closer by than this. When there had been no one in her world but him. But this was different, so very different that her whole body trembled as he laid her on his blanket and covered them both with hers.

“There were times, black times when I thought I would never hold you in my arms again.”

“Did you close your eyes and imagine other women were me?”

“There was no point. They smelled wrong.” His hands were beneath her gown, at once avid and worshipful, tugging aside her clothing and his own. The delicious weakness of arousal flooded her, frightening her because since he’d last lain with her, there had been no one else. She no longer knew if she was capable of giving or receiving pleasure except in dreams.

“But you took them anyway,” she whispered.

“You don’t care for that any more than I did.” His hand found the desperate, raging heat between her legs, and she gasped. “They never stopped me missing you for a moment. But God knows it was a comfort I would never have denied you or blamed you for.”

He moved over her, taking her face between his hands so that she couldn’t look away.

“I couldn’t,” she whispered. “How can you even ask me that now?”

“You mean now that I’m finally taking you again?”

“Yes,” she gasped as he entered her with slow, aching strength. This older, different,biggerMalcolm.

His whole body shuddered, and he dropped his forehead on hers as if in anguish. “Halla,” he whispered. “Dear God, Halla.”

She wrapped her limbs around him, one hand in his hair, the other flat against his hot, heaving back, and from sheer instinct, began to move her hips. And from then, there was no question but that nature would take its course.

Even so, she expected that first reunion to be quick and frenzied. It wasn’t. Whether for her or for him or for them both, he made it slow and tender and somehow more deeply sensual than anything she remembered from their youth. Perhaps this was his moment of resuming control. She could never have begrudged him that, even supposing there was anything she could have done about it. As it was, it appeared she was still more than capable of both giving and receiving. Of loving this stranger who echoed her husband, whowasher husband still.

With caressing hands and lips and the slow, deep strokes of his body, he brought her singing flesh to the edge of bliss, and then, watching as he strained, he pushed her over the edge and dived with her. She reached for his mouth with blind, delirious gratitude, but he didn’t at once give her his kiss. Even through his own climax, it seemed he needed to see hers. And then he fell on her like a starving man on a feast.

At last, she lay with her cheek on his damp chest as he stroked her long hair across his skin. She rose and fell with his every breath. And at last, she could say it.

“I have grown too fond, too needful, of my own dignity. When you didn’t come, I thought you’d gone with her, with Mairead. Even when I knew you hadn’t, I couldn’t bear the humiliation of your neglect. That is why I left Brecka.”

He moved, turning her onto her back and looming over her. “I know I hurt more than your pride, and for that, for all of it, I’m sorry.”

She touched his cheek, his lips with her fingertips. “Shall we begin again, Malcolm mac Aed?”

He shook his head. “No,” he said with unexpected ferocity. “Never. It’sallus, even the twenty-two years apart, even the hate and pride and jealousy. I won’t lose any of it.”

Strangely enough, it was their second coupling that was frenzied and quick, like a sudden blaze of sunshine in a storm. His open mouth covered hers, muffling their cries.

As soon as their lips parted in satisfaction, he was asleep. She lay with him in her arms, smiling to the darkness and stroking his hair, his skin.

Malcolm,she thought in new wonder.My Malcolm.

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