Free Faerie Fate by Silver James

without
looking who’d made that sound. She held her breath waiting for him to speak,
hoping he would, afraid he wouldn’t.
    “Ah, cailín,” he
cried. “If yee’d but let me love yee...” His anguished voice trailed off.
    Becca wanted nothing
more than to jump up and run to him, throw her arms around him, and kiss him
until the hurt went away. She’d never felt this way about any man before, and
it bewildered her. Still, she longed to comfort him.
    “Please,” she
whispered, “don’t let me blow it this time.” Louder, she simply said his name,
trying to put all of her feelings into the one word.
    “If I touch you now,
cailín, I’ll never leave.” He groaned. “My honor—” His voice thickened with
emotion, and he couldn’t finish.
    “Then go, Ciaran. Go
quickly so you can return to me that much sooner.”
    Before Becca could
voice her next thought, Ciaran scooped her out of the tub and kissed her. His
heart pounded an urgent rhythm against her breast as his mouth devoured hers.
    She responded,
cupping his cheeks in her hands. He carried her to the bed still ravaging her
lips with his. She squirmed against him, her hands working inside his shirt,
seeking bare skin.
    Ciaran laid her on
the coverlet then broke away. He stood swaying with the effort it took to
release her. “Ah, cailín.” Those two words whispered across her naked skin, a
caress as warm and seductive as a lover’s touch. His eyes memorized her body.
    Becca closed her
eyes, waiting for what she was sure would come. She opened them when she heard
the door close quietly. Her body didn’t feel like her own. She was hot, achy,
and her middle was tied in knots. Her breasts ached for the feel of his hands,
and her lips felt cold without the touch of his.
    “Wow,” she sighed.
“Nobody should be able to kiss like that.”
    Chilled and stark
naked, she wrapped up in what she thought was a dark plaid blanket tossed
carelessly across the foot of the bed. Woven of rusty red and gray wool, with
touches of yellow and lavender, it smelled of Ciaran—wild, woodsy, clean—like
the outdoors, but with an underlying musky scent, too, one that was all man.
That scent twisted her insides all over again.
    The blanket was
warm, as if Ciaran had just thrown it aside. Becca found an intricate brooch
pinned to one corner. This was Ciaran’s mantle—more than a cloak, less than a
blanket—a very practical combination of the two. She buried her nose in it and
inhaled, wanting to keep Ciaran’s scent with her always.
    Shouts from outside
and down below in the great hall propelled her to her feet. The men were
leaving. Ciaran was leaving.
    Becca wrapped the
mantle around her like a toga. She ran from the room but stopped on the top
step of the stairs, unaware her guard had stopped behind her. Men milled about
the great hall, Niall and a few others shouting orders. Ciaran stood in the
midst of it all, a wild warrior tall and strong.
    Becca couldn’t
breathe. He wasn’t just handsome. He was beautiful in the way the Rocky
Mountains were with their rugged majesty, the way a desert sunset was all
crimson fire, blazing across a blue sky, so brilliant one had to squint. Her
eyes filled with rainbows as she blinked away tears.
    Ciaran looked up and
stopped breathing. Like some ethereal fae , Becca stood at the top of the
stairs wrapped in his mantle. Her hair framed her face and bare shoulders in a
golden nimbus. The subtle reds and grays of his plaid suited her. His chest
swelled as he remembered to breathe. The sight of her standing on the stairs
wearing nothing but his colors was one he would gladly take to his grave. He
touched his heart with his fingertips then made a fist. Extending his clenched
hand toward her, he opened his fist, hoping she’d understand.
    Becca recognized
what Ciaran’s gesture meant. She stretched out her hand and envisioned it
gently wrapping around his. She drew back her fist, laid it above her heart and
then spread out her hand.