“What?”
“I’m offering to be your wife in every sense, Diarmid.”
He started to reach for her then drew back. “I ken ye hated lying with your husband.”
She tilted her chin in such a Fiona-like move that his yearning heart performed another somersault. “Perhaps I wouldn’t hate it with you.”
“And perhaps ye will.”
“Marina says it can be good. With the right man.”
“It can.” He wondered why he tried to argue her out of doing what he wanted more than he wanted his next breath. Except he knew why. He only had to recall the strain that tightened her delicate features when she spoke about Ian Grant. “But after what you’ve been through, it’s likely there’s damage.”
“You’re saying I’m incapable of a woman’s responses?”
“I’m saying that violence and pain leave scars, even if invisible ones. In time…”
One hand sliced the air in denial. “No, not in time. I can’t bear to be your charity case any longer. I want to be your wife, your equal. I want a true marriage.”
“So do I,” he said quietly. “But it’s insulting to come here without wanting me and expect me to jump to your command.”
He could have wept when he saw her incomprehension. “But you want me.”
“Aye.” No point denying it. “It’s no’ enough.”
“Perhaps you can make me want you.” She verged nearer. “I know you won’t hurt me, and trust will surely help us.”
“It will.”
She was close enough now to reach for him. “Diarmid, I’m tired of being broken and alone.” Her voice throbbed with conviction. “I want you to show me what I’m missing.”
He didn’t take the proffered hand. “Fiona, ye dinna have to do this.”
“Yes, I do,” she said stubbornly.
He sighed. Somehow they’d moved from something that was impossible to something that might just happen. “You ask a lot of me. What if I let ye down?”
“You won’t.” She swallowed. “Let’s start with something small. Will you teach me how to kiss?”
“Kiss?”
She’d kissed him at the bothy. That night, too, she’d offered herself. The similarities to tonight hadn’t escaped him.
He’d dismissed her clumsiness then as a result of fear and desperation and unwillingness. But maybe…
“You’ve never been kissed?”
“You kissed me today at our wedding.”
“Aye.” The experience had threatened to send him up in smoke. “What about before that?”
“My late husband didn’t waste time on anything but the essentials.” She lowered her hand and shifted from one foot to the other. “I kissed you at the crofter’s cottage. Perhaps you’ve forgotten.”
A derisive huff of laughter escaped him. “Dinna be a fool, lassie. Of course I remember. Ye don’t know how close I came to losing control that night. I was in agony.”
He expected his admission to daunt her, but to his surprise, she looked gratified instead. “Are you in agony now?”
“Aye.” The answer was a groan.