Page 55 of The Warrior
And Moira was not making it any easier for him. She was hot and wet and squirming beneath him.
Slowly, slowly, he pulled out almost all the way. When he slid back inside her, the rush of pleasure almost blinded him. He held her face between his hands and stared into her midnight-blue eyes as he moved in and out with excruciating slowness.
“Is this good?” he asked, though he could tell that it was.
“Aye,” she said and gasped as he thrust deep into her again. “And for you?”
He almost laughed. “Nothing has ever felt this good.”
As he increased his pace, she made those high-pitched sounds that drove him wild. She raised her hips to meet him as he thrust into her faster and harder. He could hold back no longer. He had wanted her forever. Through the blood pounding in his ears, he heard Moira cry his name as her body clenched around him.
At long last, Moira was his again. He let go, exploding inside her.
Duncan wanted her again.
He had been deprived of Moira for so long that he was like a starving animal. When he ran his finger up the silky skin of her inner thigh to ask the question, her breath hitched. Then she rolled on top of him, giving him precisely the answer he wanted.
Miraculously, Moira seemed almost as hungry for him as he was for her. They made love all afternoon until they were too sore and weak to do it again.
But afterward, while she dozed in his arms, Rhona’s words echoed round and round in Duncan’s head.
Did the little princess let ye pleasure her in bed like she used to? That’s all she thinks you’re good for…?Moira forgot ye like that, and she’ll do it again.
Duncan had thought if she gave her body fully to him, she would give him her heart as well. But he’d had her love once, if briefly, and he knew the difference.
He looked about his tiny bedchamber, barely large enough for his bed. How long would Moira want to sneak out of the castle to seek pleasure with him here? Their clan needed allies, and Connor would surely pressure her to make a new marriage to benefit the clan. And Connor had a way of getting what he wanted. Eventually, Moira would agree to wed one of the men Connor invited to visit, a chieftain who could give her all the things she was accustomed to.
Duncan had not sung the last verse of the song to her, the sad one. But he heard it in his head now.
I go down to the sea, and I mourn and weep
For satisfied, she’ll never be
So I write a song to her, just a few short lines
And suffer death a thousand times
Duncan was not sure he could survive being parted from her a second time. He was willing to suffer the thousand deaths to be with her now.
But damn it, that was not enough. As he lay watching the only woman he would ever love sleep on his chest, Duncan made up his mind. He was not giving her up. This time, he would find a way to give Moira all the things she needed.
This time, he would find a way to keep her.
* * *
When Moira opened her eyes, she found Duncan standing beside the bed fully dressed and smelling of the outdoors. In his hand, he held a cup with a clump of heather in it. He kissed her forehead and leaned across the bed to set the heather on the windowsill.
“I didn’t know the heather was blooming already.” She sat up and put her nose in it to breathe in the scent.
“Ye just need to know where to look,” Duncan said and sat on the edge of the bed.
Moira felt her defenses crumbling. After making love to her until she was senseless, Duncan was showing her this gentle side of him that squeezed her heart. When he was like this, she could almost trust him. Almost.
Moira felt a twinge of guilt for not telling him about Ragnall. She knew that the longer she waited to tell him that Ragnall was his son, the harder it would be.
But despite his passionate lovemaking and kind gestures, a part of her still did not believe he deserved to know. She had not forgotten that Duncan had left her or all that she had suffered because of it—the years of living in fear and having her body used by a man she loathed. And how she’d had to fight in a thousand subtle ways against Sean’s influence over her son. She had won the battle for her son’s soul, and she had done it all on her own.
Duncan took a strand of her hair between his finger and thumb and twirled it. “You’re even more lovely than ye used to be.”
