This Fierce Splendor

20

Surrounded by the falling rain, gazing into the ever-changing brilliance of the leaping flames, was rather like being enclosed in a silver box holding a glowing ruby, Elspeth thought dreamily. It was not as exciting as the wildness that had preceded the storm but was still very satisfying.

“I think it’s time to go to sleep.”

Elspeth lifted her gaze from the fire to look at Dominic in surprise. “It’s not even dark yet. Why would-” She stopped. She suddenly became conscious of how very small was their silver box, only a few feet separated her from Dominic and she could sense every action of his body: The rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, the tension of his hand as it gripped the blanket, the slight hollow beneath the bones of his cheeks as his lips tightened. And his eyes…

Dominic jerked his gaze away. “What the hell else can we do?” He shifted restlessly. “The rain doesn’t look like it’s going to let up. We may be stuck in here until morning.”

“I see.” The scent of rain, earth, and burning pine surrounded them together with the warm, clean male fragrance that belonged to Dominic. She wanted to breathe in that aroma, have it in her nostrils, in her body. The pagan thought sent a ripple of shocked awareness through her.

And that wasn’t all of him she wanted in her body, she realized. She wanted to be joined to Dominic in that same searing fashion she had known once before. She wanted to look at him without all those cumbersome clothes. She wanted to touch him as he had asked her to touch him before. She moistened her lips with her tongue as she experienced a hot melting sensation between her thighs. Lust. Strangely, she felt no shame. She had an idea that with Dominic lust could be almost as beautiful as love.

“Well, then cover up and go to sleep.” Dominic didn’t look at her as he pulled off his boots and then took off his gunbelt.

“We could play cards,” Elspeth offered tentatively. “You could teach me that game you played at the Nugget.”

“Poker?” He crushed out the fire and pulled the blanket up around his shoulders. “I don’t seem to have the concentration tonight.”

“I know piquet. Perhaps we could-”

“Elspeth, I do not want to play cards.”

She sighed. She didn’t want to play cards either, but she certainly didn’t want to go to sleep. If they played cards, she could have watched Dominic’s expressions, and perhaps he would smile his special smile that lit his face with warmth. She thought for a moment. “We can talk. Why does the ocotillo keep out the rain so well?”

He closed his eyes and turned his back to her. “I don’t want to talk.”

“You’re not being very sociable.”

“I don’t feel sociable.”

It was no use. She reluctantly scooted down and pulled the blanket around her. “You obviously don’t feel like being polite either.”

Polite? He would have laughed out loud if he hadn’t been hurting so much. The good Lord knew what he was experiencing had no resemblance to anything as civilized as the desire to be polite. Just don’t talk to me, he prayed silently. Don’t let me hear you move, don’t make me look at you.

Two hours later the rain was still falling and Elspeth was still wide awake. Dominic’s breathing was deep and even, and he hadn’t moved for a good twenty minutes. At least one of them was able to sleep, she thought ruefully as she stared into the darkness. She turned over on her back and looked up at the ocotillo sticks overhead. Perhaps if she counted them, it would lull her.

One, two, three, four… When she reached twenty-five she turned onto her side, her gaze on the sticks above Dominic’s head. She forgot to count. She even forgot to breathe. One of the sticks was moving!

It was the last stick on Dominic’s side of the lean-to. She stared in helpless fascination as the stick slid forward and then wound itself around the support post.

A snake!

Dear God in heaven, a snake! Curling slowly around the post, bonelessly gliding around and down toward Dominic’s feet.

She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t utter a sound. No. Make it go away. Please make it go away. But the snake didn’t go away, it kept coming, gliding closer and closer to Dominic’s feet.

“No!” She wasn’t aware of the scream that had torn from her lips. She reached for the stick with which Dominic had stoked the flames of their small fire. She rolled out onto the rain-soaked earth and jumped to her feet.

“No!” She swung the stick and struck the snake on the support.

“No!” She swung the stick again.

“Elspeth, what the devil?”

She struck the snake again. “No!”

The support gave way and the ocotillo roof collapsed, landing on top of Dominic. She heard him cursing but paid no attention. The snake had fallen to the ground and she was hitting it again and again and again.

“Elspeth, for God’s sake…” Dominic had managed to crawl from the wreckage and was beside her, trying to take the stick away from her. “Elspeth, stop it.”

“It’s a snake.” She jerked her arm away from him. “Don’t you understand? It’s a snake.”

“It was a snake,” Dominic said. “It’s dead now. Stop hitting it, Elspeth.”

“No, it will come back. I have to…”

“God!” He tore the stick away from her hand and threw it aside. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “Listen to me. It won’t come back. It’s dead, Elspeth, you killed it.” Rain was running down his face, plastering his dark curls to his head. “Everything is all right now, Elspeth.”

“No, the snake…”

Dominic stepped back, releasing her. “I’ll get rid of the snake. Stay here, don’t move.”

He was bending and picking up something. He had that horror in his hands!

“Don’t do it! You’ll-”

“Hush, Elspeth.” His voice was soothing. “It won’t hurt me.” Then he was striding off into the darkness. He was back almost immediately. “There. It’s gone. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

The snake couldn’t hurt Dominic. A harsh sob broke from her throat. It hurt. She hurt. She fell to her knees on the muddy ground, hugging herself, barely conscious of the rain driving ceaselessly against her body.

“Elspeth, no…” Dominic was kneeling in front of her. He sounded as if he were hurting, too, she thought numbly. She wanted to help him, but she couldn’t seem to move. “Elspeth, love, don’t do this to me. God, don’t cry!”

She couldn’t seem to stop. The sobs kept coming, hurting.

Dominic’s hands were cradling her face and he was looking down into her eyes. “Why didn’t you just call me? You didn’t have to do it yourself.”

She shook her head. “I had to do it myself. Daddy said I mustn’t be afraid. I mustn’t be a coward.”

“You’re not a coward, you’re very brave.” Dominic’s voice was urgent. “You have to believe that.” His fingers gently brushed back a damp strand of hair from her cheek. “Why did your father say you were a coward?”

“The cobra. I didn’t drink my milk that night and a cobra crawled through the window of my room.” The words were tumbling out. “I woke up and it was on the table beside my bed, where I’d left the milk. Milk attracts snakes, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know.”

“I screamed and screamed. My father was working in another room and came in to see what was wrong. He sent one of the boys to kill it. He was very angry with me. He had warned me about leaving my milk, but I forgot. I forgot. I didn’t mean to do it.”

“I know you didn’t.” Her cheek was suddenly against his breast. She could feel the warmth of his skin through the damp material of his shirt. His fingers tangled in her wet hair as he rocked her. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I didn’t want him to leave me. I was so afraid. He said I was a coward to be so frightened. He said-”

“I don’t want to hear what he said,” Dominic interrupted harshly. “It was all lies spoken by a cruel little bastard who deserved to be drawn and quartered.” His arms tightened around her. “Do you hear me? It doesn’t matter what he said. None of it was true. You would have been stupid not to have been afraid. You’re a very brave woman.”

“Not as brave as Silver.” Her words were muffled in his shirt.

“Yes.” His chin was nuzzling back and forth across the top of her head. “Just as brave. It takes a different kind of courage to face up to what we fear the most. You did that tonight. You went after that snake like a little tiger.”

“I’m not a coward?” she whispered.

“No.” His voice was choked. “God, no.”

Relief was sweeping over her. Dominic said she had no reason to be ashamed. She was not a coward. No matter how many times she had defended herself to her father, she knew now she had never really been sure he wasn’t right. She had desperately needed someone to say these words. The sobs lessened and then faded into tiny hiccoughs. “Thank you.”

“For telling the truth?”

“For making me believe it was the truth.”

He pushed her away from him to look down into her face. “Are you all right now?”

She nodded and then promptly gave another hiccough to belie the affirmation. She gave a husky laugh. “You’re wet. I’m sorry that I seem to have destroyed your splendid lean-to.”

“I’ve been wet before.” His hands cupped her cheeks caressingly. “And you’re not only wet, you’re muddy.”

“I rolled out of the lean-to into the mud.” She hoped he wouldn’t take his hands away, they felt so warm and loving. She wanted to turn her lips to touch his palm. “What do we do now?”

“We get you clean and dry. Lord knows how.” His hands dropped away from her cheeks. Emptiness. Loneliness.

She suddenly chuckled as she turned to see the destruction she had wrought. The lean-to was now only a large heap of sticks.

“You find our situation amusing?” Dominic asked.

“I’m sorry. I was just regretting that I was too busy killing that horrible reptile to see your expression when the lean-to fell around your ears. You must have looked like Samson after he had destroyed the temple.”

“The comparison isn’t quite accurate.” Dominic began to shift the ocotillo into some semblance of an orderly pile. “Though in both cases it was a woman who caused the destruction.”

“Should you be doing that? What if that snake had brothers or sisters?”

“After that crash and screaming, there won’t be a snake within five miles of here.”

“What can I do?”

“Find a way to get dry.” He had finally uncovered the saddlebags from beneath the rubble. “Do you have anything in your saddlebags that might help?”

“I don’t think so. You told me not to bring anything that wasn’t necessary and-” She stopped. “There’s my plaid.”

“Your plaid?”

“My family tartan.” She knelt beside her saddlebag and unfastened the thong. “The MacGregor plaid.”

“And you regarded this tartan as necessary?”

She didn’t look up as she rummaged in the saddlebag. “Surely you must see I couldn’t leave my plaid?”

Dominic watched her kneeling in the rain, muddied, soaked to the skin, her expression solemn. The tenderness he felt was almost unbearable. “Yes, I can see that.”

“Ah, here it is.” She drew out the folded red and black plaid and stood up. “I’ll go see if I can get rid of this mud.”

“And I’ll see if I can rebuild the lean-to. Will you need the lantern?”

She shivered as she had a vision of a multitude of writhing snakes waiting in the darkness. But Dominic had said there would be no snakes, and he needed the lantern more than she did. “No.” She turned away and walked down the incline toward the trees where she had tethered the animals.

The simplest way to remove the mud was to shed her clothes, take down her hair, and stand in the rain, letting the water cleanse her. It was a strangely sensual experience, standing naked in the forest as some primitive ancestress might have done.

She was almost sorry to have to step back under the tree. She brought her damp hair over her shoulder and wrung it out as best she could. She wrapped the large red and black plaid around her, draping it over her head and then folding it at her breasts. She drew on her brown leather boots and found the ensemble reasonably modest. The plaid was large enough to meet the tops of her knee-high boots and, as long as she kept a firm hold on the material at her breast, it was like being enveloped in a blanket. The thick wool was soft, cozy, and blessedly dry.

The rain had lessened to a fine mist by the time Elspeth walked back up the hill to where Dominic was reconstructing the lean-to. She was pleasantly surprised to find the task completed and Dominic building a small fire within the lean-to. “You’ve been very quick.”

“I had a goad. I don’t like being wet.” The kindling finally caught but the fire immediately went out. Dominic muttered a disgusted curse. “It’s no use. The wood is damp. Everything is damp. The blankets are dry because they were buried beneath the wood when the roof collapsed but…” He trailed off as he looked up and saw her. The red and black of the plaid tartan was a vivid patch of color in the lantern light, beautifully framing her face, lending color to her cheeks. Her eyes were a shimmering deep emerald and she looked as exotic as a brilliantly plumed parrot. “I like your family tartan.” He cleared his throat and lowered his eyes to begin working on the fire again. “Come under here before you get soaked through again.”

It was another ten minutes before a small if smoky blaze was started. Though the heat was not needed for warmth, it still felt wonderful to ward off the dampness that clung to their clothing, hair, and skin.

“That should do it,” Dominic said as he reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a length of cotton cloth with which to wipe his face and neck.

“You’re very wet. You’d best change.”

“In a minute.” He sat down near the fire and held out his hands to the flames. He closed his eyes as the heat began to soak into him, an expression of sensual pleasure tautening his features. “I must be half cat. Lord, I hate to be wet.”

Her gaze was on his face and she trembled. He had the same expression she had seen when he looked down at her in the big bed at Killara.

“I remember once when I was a kid out on a trail drive, a big storm blew up and we had to ride herd for three solid days in a steady downpour. I got so tired of mud and boots that squished and-” He broke off as he looked directly at Elspeth. He inhaled sharply. “Oh, no, don’t do this to me. Not now, Elspeth.”

“I’m not doing anything,” she whispered. On the contrary, something was being done to her, for her bones were surely melting and she was dizzy and disoriented. “I’m just listening to you.”

“You’re doing something all right.” His gaze clung to her face. “And you’ve got to stop it. I can’t do this by myself; you have to help me.”

“Help you do what?” Her tone was soft, edged with dreams. The beauty of his lips held her spellbound. She wanted to reach out and touch his lower lip, trace it to the corners where the smile began. She couldn’t remember ever wanting to touch anyone before. Perhaps years ago, when she was a child, before her father had taught her that touching others was to be discouraged and suppressed.

“Elspeth…” He reached out impulsively to touch her, and then stopped. His hand fell to his side and clenched into a fist. “Don’t do this to me. I’m trying like hell to keep my promise.” His light eyes were glittering. “I’m trying, dammit.”

It was the time for them to be together. She knew it in some mystical fashion that sprang from within her like a seedling searching for the sun. But to make it happen she must be bold, she must have the bravery Dominic claimed she possessed. “I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately.” She lowered her eyes to the fire. “I believe I would like to have a child. After all, the life of a scholar can sometimes be lonely, and I doubt if I shall ever marry again. Perhaps this will be my last chance to-”

He stiffened as if struck by a bullet. “What the hell are you saying to me?”

The soft color stole into her cheeks. “I think I’m making myself reasonably clear.”

“Oh, you’re clear enough, but there’s nothing reasonable about it, neither in your words nor in your thinking.” He was suddenly kneeling beside her. He was pale, a muscle jerking in his cheek, and his gaze held hers with an emotion close to anger. “For God’s sake, be honest with me, you don’t want my child. Shall I tell you what you want? You want me. You want me touching you, moving in you. You want me to unwrap you from that MacGregor tartan you’re so proud of and lay you down and move over you. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” She lifted her head and looked at him. “I do want everything you’ve mentioned, but I would also like your child.”

“Why?” he asked blankly. “Why me?”

“I told you, I don’t think I will have the opportunity-” She stopped. She would not lie to him. She drew a deep breath and said simply. “I love you. I believe I always will, Dominic Delaney.”

“My God,” Dominic said softly.

“Naturally, I wouldn’t want you to feel obligated, but if it would please you to… You said all women were similar. I would try to-”

“Shut up!” The hoarse words were wrenched from him. “Lord, love, please shut up.”

“I can’t.” She looked at him, her green eyes shimmering with tears. “It’s too important to me. You didn’t seem to find me distasteful before and I would try my best to please you. I learn quickly. Even a hetaera must begin at the beginning, and from the murals on the walls of the temples, it appears some of them weren’t attractive either. One of the ladies had quite a monstrous hooked nose and-”

His fingers touched her lips. “Shhh, you’re tearing me apart. I can’t take any more of this. I don’t know how I’ve held on to my sanity for as long as I have.”

She swallowed. “Then you will… do it.”

“I’m very much afraid I will,” he said regretfully. His fingers moved to caress her cheekbone. “For a while I thought I was going to turn into a gentleman after all. I guess I should have known I’d never make it.” He pushed the plaid from her head and let it fall to her shoulders. “Your hair is still damp.” He buried his hands in her long tresses, slowly letting the locks flow between his fingers. “Cool,” he said thickly, “and slick.”

She found she was holding her breath. The slight tugging was setting off tiny sparks in her scalp. “You like it?”

“I like all of you,” he murmured. “Oh, Azuquita, where are you now that I need you?”

“What?”

“Never mind, it’s too late anyway.” One hand left her hair to cover her hand clutching the plaid at her breast. He carefully unclasped her fingers and slowly pushed aside the edges of the tartan to reveal the nakedness beneath the wool. He froze, looking at her, the pulse in his throat hammering. “Oh, yes, much too late.”

She closed her eyes, her cheeks ablaze with color. Shyness. Excitement. And a passionate desire for reassurance. “Why?” she whispered. “Why are you doing this? It isn’t pity?”

“Pity? How little you understand.” He carefully pushed the tartan from her shoulders and it fell to the ground behind her.

“Then why?”

He bent his head and laid his lips on the pulse pounding in the hollow of her throat. “Any number of reasons.”

“Give me one.”

“You don’t have a monstrous hooked nose.” He pushed her back on the tartan and shifted back to take off her boots.

“Oh.” She tried to think of something else to say, but she was finding it increasingly difficult to form either words or thoughts in a mind overflowing with the physical imagery of Dominic. The sight of bronze skin, translucent gray-blue eyes, and a smile brimming with tenderness was causing her to gaze up at him in wonder. Then he kissed her, and thought disappeared entirely. When he lifted his head and would have moved away from her, she reached up to stop him. “No,” she whispered. “Stay.”

“I’ll be back.” He sat back on his heels and his fingers went to the buttons of his shirt, his gaze on Elspeth lying naked before him, her hair spread like a glowing tawny escutcheon on the red plaid of the tartan. If he lived to be a hundred, he knew he would remember this moment and the gifts she was offering him. Beauty, love, and courage-precious gifts, every one. He stripped off his shirt, peeling the wet material from his skin and tossing it aside.

Her shyness was gone, she realized with surprise. She was experiencing desire, anticipation, uncertainty, but no shyness. There was something so inexplicably tender in his manner that prohibited any feeling of discomfort. Would he think her bold? But surely the women he was accustomed to weren’t shy either and he… She lost her train of thought as her gaze wandered lovingly over him. How beautiful he was. The soft dark thatch of hair on his chest was irresistibly inviting, and she sat up on one elbow to reach out her hand to touch it. He glanced up from unfastening his belt to look at her.

She felt the color sting her cheeks, not so bold after all. “This feels different from the hair on your head. Rougher.” Her fingers tangled in the springy thatch. “You don’t mind my doing this?”

“I like you to touch me.” He took her hand and placed her palm flat against his chest. He held her gaze as he slowly rubbed her hand up and down over his flesh, letting her feel the textures of him, the smooth, warm skin over supple muscles, the faint prickle of wiry hair, the hard pounding of his heart vibrating through his body and into her own through the sensitive flesh of her palm.

She was suddenly trembling, her heart beating as erratically as Dominic’s. Her hand slipped down over his torso, tracing the line of dark hair to where it disappeared into the waistband of his trousers.

He shuddered. She could feel the muscles of his stomach bunch and tauten beneath her hand. “I like it too much. You’d better stop. I can’t hurry this time.”

“Why not?”

He took her hand from his stomach and smiled down at her with an expression she had never seen before on his face. A glowing tenderness, almost a sweetness, that set oddly on his usually cynical features. “I told you once I wasn’t a welcher. Last time you gave me more than I gave you. I was so damn drunk, all I could think about was how much I needed you. I should have been gentler. I should have taken more time.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the palm. His lips were warm, teasing her flesh. “I was rough as hell. It’s a wonder you don’t hate me.”

“I don’t remember you being rough.” She remembered nothing but heat and possession and Dominic within her body. “It seemed entirely… adequate.”

He flinched. “Adequate. What a puling word.” A sudden flicker of humor touched his lips. “I guess I’ll just have to work on changing your opinion. Stay right where you are, love.” He moved out of the lean-to and rapidly discarded the rest of his clothing. Then he was kneeling beside her, his face alight with the same smile that had shaken her before. His bronze flesh was burnished by the firelight and his voice was velvet soft as he gathered her close. “Now, let me see what I can do about banishing that word from your mind. Part your legs, love.” His fingers ran down her body, delicate and loving as a sculptor creating a work of art. Everywhere he touched was blessed with fire-her breasts, her throat, her belly. His hands nudged her legs apart and he moved between them, stroking the nest of curls surrounding her womanhood, his fingers splaying out to tangle and play. “You’re different here too. Not rough, just different.” His head bent and he slowly rubbed his cheek back and forth on her belly. The faint abrasion of the stubble on his chin was wildly exciting. “Soft and yet strong…” His teeth nipped gently at that softness, and then his tongue followed to soothe and tease. She could feel his warm breath on her flesh, then his moist tongue moving lazily. The muscles of her belly tautened in response.

“No, not yet.” His hand moved up to rub gently at the rigid muscles, trying to relax them. “It will be better for you if you don’t get excited too soon. Relax, love.”

Relax? How was she expected to relax when every muscle was vibrating at an excruciating pitch of anticipation? “Don’t be daft,” she said tartly. “What a truly stupid thing to say.”

Her sudden shift from docility disconcerted him for a moment, and he went still, his cheek on her stomach, his expression hidden from her. Then his shoulders began to shake. He raised his head to look at her, his face alight with laughter. “I’ll try to refrain from any further idiocy.” He shook his head, his eyes still glowing with laughter and tenderness. “I don’t know why I expected you to respond as any other woman would. You’ve never done anything else in the ordinary way.”

This was how he should look, Elspeth thought suddenly. This was how he would have looked if the gentleness and humor had not been stolen from him by those grim years of hiding and pursuit. She wanted to give him back those years of laughter with a desire that sprang as much from protectiveness as from passion. Her hand reached out and moved over his crisp thick curls, tenderly pushing an unruly lock back from his forehead. “I didn’t mean to discourage you.”

“Oh, you didn’t.” His fingers were between her thighs, searching. She gave a low cry as the search ended. Her fingers clenched helplessly in his hair as he began to press, rotate, flick. His gaze was warm with pleasure as he watched her face. “You couldn’t discourage me. Not in the next thousand years. Do you like this?”

“Yes.” She could scarcely speak through the haze of pleasure. She was trembling, shivering. What was he doing to her?

“Good.” Two fingers plunged suddenly and she opened her lips in a silent scream as the breath left her body. Her head thrashed back and forth on the tartan as he began a rhythm that sent her into convulsions of pleasure and hunger.

“Dominic!”

“Shhh…” His face above her was flushed and sensual. “I know. Just let me do this for a little while. It will make the rest better for you.” He wanted to pleasure her with an intensity that surprised him. He had always tried to give his ladies satisfaction; it made his own enjoyment stronger. But this was different. He felt that Elspeth’s every response was linked in some mysterious fashion with his own. Every tingle of pleasure he gave her was his pleasure. He bent impulsively and kissed her lips with a softness that wove a honeycomb of golden sweetness about them both. “But I don’t think I can wait much longer,” he said hoarsely as he lifted his head. “May I come in and show you more, Elspeth?”

Her smile was radiant as she nodded. “Please.”

He slid within her very slowly, letting her become accustomed to him. Fullness. That wonderful primitive joining. He began to move, alternating short strokes with long ones; depth with shallowness, swiftness with leisurely slowness.

His chest was moving in and out with the harshness of his breathing as he struggled to maintain control. “Elspeth, I’ve missed you so.” His teeth were clenched, his words almost guttural. “The tightness… I feel as if you’re grabbing me every time I-” He stopped and looked down at her, his light eyes glittering and wild in the firelight. “Do you know what you’re doing to me?”

She was beginning to learn and that knowledge filled her with pagan anticipation. She suddenly made an undulating movement with her lower body. He gasped, and a shudder ran through him. She could do it, too, she suddenly realized with delight. She could give him this wonder he was giving her. She experimented again, clenching around him.

He closed his eyes, the pulse leaping in his throat. “Lord, Elspeth, don’t do that. You’re making me lose control.”

But her delight was too heady, her sense of power too new. She ran her hand over the tangle of hair on his chest as she began a rhythm of her own.

His breath was coming in rough gasps as he opened his eyes. “All right, love,” he said thickly. “If you want it this way, heaven knows, it’s what I want too.”

He plunged deep, piercing her, filling her, each thrust lightning fast, lightning hot, searing her. His palms cupped her bottom, squeezing the cheeks with every bold invasion, lifting her to each thrust, forcing her to take more of him. She tried to offer him that response she had so recently learned, but she was being overwhelmed, deluged in just the taking of him. She was half-sobbing in a fever of heating pleasure. Her nails bit into his arms, released, and then bit in again. The world was expanding, a silver box with a ruby center, a red MacGregor tartan, Dominic’s eyes looking down at her with laughter and hot delight. Beauty merged with passion, as she was merging with Dominic.

His fingers moved skillfully as he thrust, and she felt something building that she vaguely remembered from that other time.

“Elspeth-” Dominic’s face was tautened with strain. His fingers moved more urgently. “I can’t hold on.”

Hold on to what? she wondered dimly. Then she knew as the tension that had been building released in a wonder of rapture that shook her to the depths of her soul. She heard Dominic’s low cry above her as that same rapture claimed him.

“Thank God,” Dominic breathed. “I was afraid for a moment I’d leave you behind.” He leaned down and kissed her again. Sweetness, gratitude, warmth were all there, wrapping her in a cocoon to shelter her from any chill that might follow the storm. “I don’t want ever to leave you behind, Elspeth.”

There was no danger of her ever letting him leave her, Elspeth thought. Not now. If he left her, she would follow him. If he grew tired of her as a lover, she would find a way to make herself necessary to him in another way. He had told her tonight that she was strong. Well, she would use that strength to make him belong to her in all the ways a man could belong to a woman. “I pleased you?”

“Oh, yes.” His hand gently stroked her hair back from her face. “You’re a joy and a surprise. Not one of those hetaeras you’re always talking about could have been better, Elspeth MacGregor.”

“Elspeth Delaney,” she corrected him. She smiled up at him. “And I thank you for the fine words. I’ll try to improve with practice.” He had not said he loved her but he had said she had given him pleasure. It would have to do for now. “Shall we continue?”

He threw back his head and laughed. “Not now, I think it best if we rest for a while.” He lifted off her and to the side before bringing her into his arms. His lips brushed her temple as he settled her head on his shoulder. “We have time.”

She settled her cheek on his shoulder, running the tips of her fingers down the muscles of his chest in a loving caress. Drowsiness was already tugging at her as she murmured, “I hope your wound did not get hurt. You were very… vigorous.”

He chuckled and bent down to kiss each of her lids with a touch as light as the breath of a butterfly. “You didn’t hurt me,” he teasingly mimicked her Scottish brogue. “And I’d far rather be considered vigorous than adequate.”

The corners of her lips turned up, and she went to sleep… smiling.

Dominic’s arms tightened around her with yearning tenderness. He shouldn’t have done this. He shouldn’t have taken what she offered, but he couldn’t have stopped himself. The discovery of what she meant to him had shattered his control and torn aside the veil he had used to mask the truth. And now that he had taken her, he knew that he was not going to let her go again. The love she offered was even more precious than the irresistible draw of her body.

Perhaps he could make it right. He couldn’t promise her permanency or even stability, but if he tried to make her happy in the moments they had… No, he had to do more than that. He had to find a way to protect her if anything happened to him. He had to keep her secure, and security meant money.

The Kantalan treasure.

He stared unseeingly into the darkness, turning over in his mind the possibilities the legendary treasure offered. Not for Killara, but for the woman in his arms. The woman he loved.