“Aye, my braw laddie, I’ve got plans for four bonny wee bairns, two boys and two girls.”
His laugh rang with delight. He loved it when she imitated his accent. “Och, there’s no time to be lost, then.”
Mischief sparked in the flashing black eyes that had intrigued him from the first. “No reason to delay at all.”
He kissed her with all the love overflowing in his heart. She was a thousand miles from the wife he’d ever imagined himself taking, yet she was the absolutely perfect choice.
He started to stroke her, touching breasts and thighs and belly and sex, but neither he nor Marina was in a mood to linger.
“Fergus, I need you now. Please,” she said in a husky voice, cradling his hips between her knees and raking her nails down his back. The sting only stoked his need.
He tightened his loins and thrust. With a long sigh, she stretched up to take him deeper.
“I love you, Marina,” he groaned, raising his head.
Her eyes, heavy with arousal, burned into his. “And I love you, Mackinnon. I love you, Laird of Achnasheen.” Then with an aching tenderness that made his heart cramp, she said, “I love you, Fergus.”
“My darling…”
“Let’s try for a child. We don’t need to be afraid anymore.” When she squeezed around him, the blast of heat almost incinerated him. “I want everything life and love can give us.”
Her grip on his shoulders tightened, and he realized that while he might claim her, she claimed him just as adamantly. Why not? This woman was his equal, the balance to his soul.
“I give you everything I am.” The words were a vow, as his soul expanded to contain all the joy he felt.
She lifted her hips in encouragement. “And I give you everything I am.”
Fergus could hold back no longer. With deep, purposeful strokes, he plunged into her. She moaned her pleasure and rose to meet him.
He heard Marina cry out as she reached her peak, then hot darkness crashed down over him. For the first time, he lost himself inside the woman he loved and found a radiant welcome that would sustain him all his life. With a broken groan, he slumped over her, spent and knowing that he’d found his destiny.
* * *
Fergus stirred, sensing that Marina was no longer beside him in the bed. After that first swift, miraculous joining, they’d made love again, lingering to share tenderness and passion, before they’d both tumbled into sleep.
The room was dark. The candles had burned down to nothing, and the fire needed stoking. As autumn closed in, the nights grew colder. He looked forward to holding his bride close and snug in his arms all through winter. What a life stretched ahead of them.
Marina stood at the window in her white nightdress.
Drowsily, he pushed up against the pillows. “Is all well, my bonny love?”
She turned toward him, a graceful twist of her slender body and a drift of midnight hair. “All’s well, amore.”
He rolled out of bed, hooking up his kilt from a chair and wrapping it around his nakedness. “What’s got your attention out there?”
“I was thinking how beautiful your glen is, and how lucky I was to find this place—and you,” she said in a dreamy voice.
Och, she was the lassie for him.
He added some wood to the fire, before he padded up behind her and slid his arms around her waist. When she leaned back to rest her head on his shoulder in perfect trust, his heart performed another besotted somersault.
He dropped a kiss on her crown and tightened his embrace, while he stared out over his domain. This side of the tower faced the loch. The weather had cleared, and in the sky, the stars shone like fire.
“How lucky I am, you mean, mo chridhe,” he murmured. “I always wanted to have ye up here with me, you know. Say we’ll marry as soon as we can call the banns.”
“I’d marry you right now, if I could.”
“Aye, well, you might have just got your wish, lassie.” He smiled into her rumpled hair. “Have ye heard about the old Highland tradition of handfasting?”