“Ye know ye like this,” he said in a low voice that vibrated through her.

Like it? She loved it. She dropped her head back down on the bed. If she had to spend some time in purgatory for this, she was willing.

She sucked in her breath as he ran his tongue over that same sensitive spot. Oh, my. She clenched the bedclothes in her hands and gave herself over to the storm of sensations as Alex licked and sucked and ran his tongue over and into her. She tried to be quiet, but sighs and moans and a kind of pleading sound came from her throat.

She tossed her head from side to side, but Alex was relentless. When she felt herself rising to a peak, he clutched her body tighter. He would not let her move away from him until her body spasmed into an explosion of pleasure.

She shuddered when he ran his tongue lightly up her stomach. When he stretched out beside her, she turned into him, still shaken from the intensity of her release, and wrapped her arms around him. She buried her face in his neck.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for days,” he said, as he ran his fingers up and down her side and her back.

“That felt so good that I’m certain it must be verra sinful,” she said against his skin.

She felt the low rumble of his chuckle. “Nothing is sinful between a man and wife, but if it pleases ye to think it is, then I won’t argue with ye.”

When she scooted closer, his shaft pressed against her belly, reminding her of his need. And just like that, she wanted him all over again. She pulled him into a deep kiss. Alex groaned in her mouth as she rubbed her palm up his shaft.

He needed no more encouragement. When he rolled her on her back, she wrapped her legs around him. She closed her eyes against the rush of pleasure as he slid inside her. When she opened her eyes again, he held her head between his hands and stared down at her.

“I missed being with ye like this,” Alex said, as if the confession was torn from him against his will.

“I missed ye too.”

With their eyes locked on each other, he started moving in and out. His breathing was ragged, and his face strained. She knew Alex prided himself on his control, but she sensed that he was barely hanging on to it—and she wanted it to snap. She wanted to feel his raw need, to know that he was as affected as she was.

As he moved faster and deeper, she gripped his shoulders and wrapped her legs more tightly around him. She had so many emotions swirling inside her—desire, affection, hope, longing—that she felt as if her chest might burst.

I love you. The words were in her mind and almost on her lips.

Waves of blinding pleasure coursed through her as he thrust inside her again and again. He cried her name as he drove deep inside her one last time.

Then he collapsed on top of her, his weight heavy but reassuring. He was hers. At least for now, he was hers.

After a short while, he rolled to his side, bringing her with him. Her limbs felt limp, as if they would bend in the waves like seaweed. She lay with her head on his chest and his heart thundering in her ear.

Something profound had happened, and it had altered her forever. It wasn’t that she had agreed to wed him, though that would certainly change her life. God help her, but there was no avoiding it—she had fallen in love with him. Was she alone in this, or had Alex felt as much as she did when he was inside her?

Alex lay on his back with one arm about her and his other hand holding hers on his chest. Glynis watched his profile while he stared at the ceiling.

“What are ye thinking?” she finally asked.

“That it’s strange to be married without Connor, Ian, and Duncan knowing it,” Alex said.

She swallowed back her disappointment. “Ye are close to them, aren’t ye?”

“Aye. The four of us have been through everything together,” he said with a smile in his voice. “They are the first ones I will tell.”

“What about your parents?”

He blew his breath out. “I’ll tell them when I see them.”

Would his parents not be pleased with the marriage? Did they have someone else in mind for him?

Alex turned toward her and cradled the side of her face with his hand. “We shall wed properly when we return to Skye,” he said, with his eyes intent on hers. “I’ll send word to your father. As soon as he arrives, we’ll say our pledges again before witnesses and have a great wedding feast at Dunscaith Castle.”

“I’ll meet your parents at this wedding feast?” she asked. “What are they like?”

“We can talk about my parents later,” he said, as he brought his lips to hers.

 * * *

It was not like Glynis to go back on her word. All the same, Alex would not be content until he had a formal marriage contract with her father, and they had said their pledges before a dozen of their clansmen. If Alex could find a priest, all the better.

While they made love, his anger and resentment had burned away in the hot flame of desire. He was so lost in his passion for Glynis that nothing else mattered. And then after, as she lay in his arms, happiness took told of him for long moments, blinding him to truths he should not let himself forget.

But with the dawn, his caution returned with his resentment.

Alex knew he had no right to resent that Glynis only agreed to wed him after she learned D’Arcy was not offering her marriage. Nor should it have angered him that Glynis saw him as the least offensive of undesirable choices, for Alex had made that very argument himself. And if she also did it because she wanted to be a mother to his daughter, he should be glad of that.

And yet, all these things ate at him.

Alex had not wanted to marry any more than she did. But when he decided to, Glynis MacNeil was his first and his only choice. No one else would do.

And that troubled him most of all.

CHAPTER 33

Poor Bessie had shown herself to be a Lowlander by spending much of the long sail with her head over the side. While Glynis tucked a blanket around the sleeping maid, she heard Alex laughing and talking with the Campbell men who were sailing them to Skye.

The Campbell chieftain had provided a boat to take them home, and Alex had persuaded the Campbell men sailing it to let him take the rudder. Under his sure hand, the boat glided over the water and around the rocks as smoothly as a fairy flying through trees in a forest.

Glynis bit her lip and fixed her gaze on the Isle of Skye ahead on the horizon. Alex had not laughed with her once since they left Inveraray Castle days before. From the moment she had told him she would be his wife, he had lost his easy cheerfulness.

Clearly, Alex did not want this marriage. He needed a wife—or rather, a mother for his daughter—but he was not happy about it. She should have taken heed from her first conversation with him back on Barra. Ye are quite safe from finding wedded bliss with me.

Wedded bliss, indeed. Misery seemed more the way of it. What had she got herself into?

Glynis sat back down next to Sorcha and combed the child’s windblown hair with her fingers. When Sorcha smiled at her, she was reminded that the marriage did have its good side. It brought her motherhood, a precious gift she had thought she would be denied. And Alex did not constantly criticize her and expect her to be other than what she was, as both Magnus and her stepmother had. He would protect her with his life, no doubt of that.

But Alex was bound to break her heart. When Magnus took other women, it had hurt her pride, but that was all. It would be different with Alex. When they lay together, he not only gave her pleasure—though there was plenty of that, to be sure—he showed her parts of herself she had not known before. After what they had shared, she could not bear to know he was going to another woman’s bed.

Because she loved him. God help her.

When Alex turned his sea-green eyes on her, the laughter left his face, and her heart sank. He gave the rudder to one of the other men, crossed the boat to sit beside her, and took Sorcha into his lap.

“The land to our right is the Sleat Peninsula of Skye.” Alex rested his hand on Glynis’s shoulder and tilted his head down to hers as he pointed. “And the castle ye see there is Dunscaith, my chieftain’s castle.”

Glynis’s body felt pulled to his. She longed to lean into him—but she did not.

“Dunscaith got its name from Scáthach, the warrior queen who had her legendary school of heroes on the verra spot where our chieftain’s castle now stands,” Alex said, speaking first in French for Sorcha and then in Gaelic. “Those mountains ye see beyond the castle are the Cuillins, which are named for Cúchulainn, the most famous of the heroes Scáthach trained.”

Glynis could not help smiling, for she recognized the start of one of his stories. She added Alex’s storytelling to her list of good things that the marriage brought her.

“Now, Scáthach would only train the bravest and most skilled young warriors. To prove himself worthy, a man first had to penetrate her fortress, which had many defenses, including magical ones. Cúchulainn traveled here from Ireland as a young man, after the father of the lass he loved said he would only agree to their marriage if Cúchulainn was trained as a warrior by Scáthach.

“Young Cúchulainn succeeded in getting inside the castle and was accepted by the warrior queen. Later, as part of his training, he helped Scáthach subdue a neighboring female chieftain who was causing Scáthach trouble. In the process of fulfilling this task, Cúchulainn had a child with the woman. And though his heart was always with the young lass he loved back in Ireland, he also became friendly with Scáthach’s daughter. Unfortunately, he had to kill the daughter’s husband in a duel, which I’m sure he regretted. I believe it was after the daughter that Cúchulainn became friendly with Scáthach herself.”