“Trust me. It is for the best,” he said, trusting not only his instincts, but sound reasoning.
She didn’t know if marriage to him was for the best, but there was something else she couldn’t ignore. The message George had delivered. It would all be over soon enough. There’d be no reason to remain in the woods, though what reason would there be for her to return home?
“Maybe it is best I return home and see what awaits me,” she said. “If things don’t work out, I can always return here.”
“You’ll not be returning here. You’ll be my wife and we will make a good life together.”
They ate, talk sparse, since he wouldn’t discuss his years away and she certainly didn’t want to relive the time she was mostly invisible to people, even the ones she loved. Then there were those who had avoided her, believing her deformed hand set her in league with the devil.
Arran watched Purity’s bottom lip plump from her gnawing at it with her teeth. He got the urge to run his own teeth across it, plumping it even more before kissing her. He pushed the thought aside. He didn’t need to think about that now.
“Worries plague you. I don’t blame you. You don’t know what you will return home to. But you don’t return home alone. I will be there beside you and let nothing happen to you.”
“You always did keep your word,” Purity said, standing to clear off the table so she could get busy chopping cabbage and onions to simmer and make a soup.
Arran remained sitting at the table. “I asked you once if you’d ever been kissed. Do you remember that?”
Her cheeks blotched red as they had done that day.
“I see that you do remember.”
Why did awkward moments forever sting? And why would he even remember that? She’d been unimportant to him.
“Have you been kissed since then?” he asked, an ache to kiss her overwhelming him.
She wouldn’t lie and what reason did she have not to answer him? She grabbed a cabbage from the basket near the door and placed it on the wood table. “I’ve never been kissed and I’ve never—” She stopped, grabbed the knife next to the cabbage and struggled to slice it in half.
“It’s time you’ve been kissed,” he said.
She flashed angry green eyes on him as she had done that day and her words were the same. “I don’t need your pity, Arran MacKinnon.”
Arran stood and came around the table to take the knife from her hand. “Pity has nothing to do with it.” With one blow of the knife he severed the cabbage in two, then jabbed the tip of the knife into the wood table, leaving it to stand on end. “I want to kiss you.”
Her breath caught. “You want to kiss me?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
His arm went around her waist, not giving her a chance to escape him. “I want to taste your lips.”
She went to speak and his finger faintly touched her lower lip, halting her words, and sending a shudder through her.
“You should want to taste mine since we are to be husband and wife. Do you want to taste my lips, Purity?”
Instinct, desire, curiosity, love. Whatever it was had her nodding in agreement without even thinking about it.
He rested his hand at the back of her head as he brought his lips to hers. “I’m the first and only man your lips will ever know. Is that all right with you?”
She didn’t think or alter her response. She spoke from her heart. “Your lips are the only ones I ever wanted on mine.”
His brow scrunched, deepening the lines between his eyes, as if surprised or perhaps not quite understanding. Not able or wanting to wait any longer, he brought his lips down on hers faintly at first so she could grow familiar with his. When she responded, her lips searching for more, he playfully nipped along her lower lip plumped by her own teeth before enhancing the kiss.
She tasted like no other, warm, welcoming, and dangerous. He could get lost in her forever. Her lips responded eagerly like someone who just learned the beauty of a kiss. Her whole body shivered against him and he wrapped her tighter against him. He let his tongue probe along her closed lips until she opened them and when he slipped his tongue inside her mouth, she didn’t startle—she responded eagerly.
Never had he known such innocent and eager desire from a woman—a woman who would be his wife. The thought aroused him in so many ways and in ways he never expected. Their kiss had touched something deep inside him. He wasn’t sure what it was, since he’d never felt it before, but he was eager to find out.
Arran had good control over his desires and had gained much more through the years, but at the moment he felt that steadfast control slip from his grasp and if he didn’t end their kiss now, he actually worried what might follow.