Despite herself, Lily couldn’t help but slip into their flirtatious repartee. “No, merely … misplaced. ”

Ewen grinned outright and the effect on Lily was like that of standing in front of a blazing hearth on a gloomy day.

“Well, lass, shall we have a look then?”

She was taken aback by his sudden effusiveness, but before she had a chance to respond the laird was up on his feet, looking behind curtains, under tables, and behind chairs.

“Really, Ewen, I appreciate this, but I think if Finn were in here he would’ve heard me and greeted me by now. ”

“Don’t doubt how much of a fancy your wee mutt has taken to me, Lil ’ ”. The rakish glint in his eyes was disarmingly out of character for the usually stoic warrior and, against her better judgment, Lily found herself relaxing.

Ewen and Lily suddenly froze at precisely the same moment, their eyes meeting as both became aware of the sound of a light thumping coming from beneath Ewen ’s desk.

The dog had been at his feet under the desk the wholetime.

“Aye, you see now, lass. Your Finn may have an Irish name, but he ’s a braw Scotsman who kens his laird. ”

“Mmhmm.” Lily turned to leave. “ Come on, traitor, let ’s get out of here and let the laird get back to his critically important business. ”

“Stop. I mean… Lil ’…will you not bide a wee moment with me?”

Lily was now completely disarmed by Ewen ’s erratic, almost tender, behavior. She heard her heart say the word before her head knew what she was about. The word that, at that moment, had became invested with so much more weight that its three letters implied. That answered so many more questions than merely the one he’d just asked.

“Yes. ”

Ewen nodded slowly, his gaze never leaving hers, and it was as if they were both assenting to something that hadbecome much larger than themselves. Lily felt her spirit soar at the rightness of it all. And the recklessness. It felt unlike her, unlike the Lily who had always done the right things, the responsible things. Who had denied herself a life as an artist in favor of stock options and a mortgage. Who had dated responsible men. Never the dangerous ones. And Ewen was nothing if not dangerous. Yet with the realization that she loved him came a sense of joyous completion.

“I know how you can return home, Lil ’ ”.

She heard him speak the words but she had to replay them over in her mind before she could make sense of them. It was the last thing she had expected. She damned herself bitterly. She felt like a foolish girl who had been caught doodling Mrs. Lily Cameron on her schoolbooks.

The air rushed out of Lily’s lungs and she wondered for a moment if her body had forgotten how to inhale. How dare he, yet again …

Ewen chuckled, and Lily felt the tears sting her eyes at his dismissal.

“Nay, nay, lass, don’t fret so. ” Ewen rushed to her side, embracing her without thinking, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for the two of them to do. “I see the thunderheads on that bonny face of yours. I was saying, the witch Gormshuil showed me your way home ”. He pulled away and, keeping one arm cinched tightly around her, tilted her chin up so that her reddened eyes could meet his. “But right now, Lil’, all I truly know is that I want you, need you, here with me. ”

Smiling through her tears Lily nodded once, giving Ewen the only assent he needed. Still gingerly cupping her chin, the laird brought his mouth down to hers so slowly Lily felt her heart break and mend again a thousand times.

Finally his lips brushed hers, whispering over her mouth as tenderly as if it were his breath itself. He gently deepened the kiss, and Lily’s body responded like a blossom unfurling in the sun. The measured cadence of his breathing was the only indication of the great control Ewen exerted over his body, now taut with desire. S he opened her mouth to him and pressed her body against his with an urgency that swept them both away from any thought of place or time, save for one exclusively their own.

Their hands roved each other’s bodies, fingers touching and exploring as if their senses had been long deprived of form and texture, hands holding fast to the solidity of the other as a drowning man would the shore. Ewen ’s hand found her breast, chafing it into a rigid peak beneath the coarse linen of her dress.

The intensity of her re sponse brought tears to Lily’s eyes. She had long denied herself the pleasures of her body and had forgotten just how much she needed to be held. And Ewen was doing so much more than just holding her. His touch was skillful, as if he lived to serve her body alone, anticipated its every want, mastered its every need. He was awakening in her a violent current of desire that coursed with a depth and power that she didn ’t know she possessed.

The newfound pure and joyful lust of her body brought with it a newer and even headier sensation. She wanted him. But with that wanting came a glimpse of something even larger and more frightening than the intensity of desire alone. Lily began to grasp just how deeply she had fallen in love with him.

Her breath came in ragged gasps as she tried to get closer and closer still to Ewen, wrapping her leg around his, rubbing herself along the entirety of his body, all coiled muscle, every inch of him stiff with his need for her. Just as Lily began to feel almost angry that she couldn ’t be any closer, the laird lifted her effortlessly and carried her before the hearth. With a flick of his wrist, his tartan billowed out and fluttered to the ground to protect them from the hard, cold stone of the floor.

In one fluid motion, he lifted her dress up and over her head as he laid her gently down. Pulling off his own coarse tunic, he lay next to her, and Lily gasped at the beauty of him, fully erect, with the rippling muscles of a warrior gilt in the dancing firelight.

Ewen caught her assessing gaze and the intensity of the moment found some release as he chuckled knowingly, for he recognized her hunger for him writ clear on Lily’s face. He silenced her astonished grumble of protest with a hungry kiss then abruptly pulled away.

“Lil’ ” Ewen’s voice was choked with emotion. “My Lil. ’…” He slowly traced out her long, pale curls into a halo around her head. “You’re as brilliant as the sun and bonnier than the flower you were named for. ”

He swung his leg over her and pinned her hands lightly beneath his. “And I’ll have you now. ”

Lily wasn’t sure if he was being playful or serious and she didn ’t care. She savored the feeling of living truly, heeding her most heartfelt of desires, with mind, heart, and body in accord. She realized that all she wanted—all she had ever wanted—was this moment. This single moment that, looking back, everything in her life seemed to lead to. Suddenly everything about her confused, lost, and lonely existence made sense as necessary steps to this coming together. That indeed the universe had even conspired to bring her together with this one man.

She felt as if she were parched earth and Ewen the rain. She wanted not just to have him, but to absorb him with her very being. And, as the wishes of her heart, thoughts of her mind, and longing of her body became one, everything fell away and all that was left was the aching need of the flesh.

Lily felt the sudden and insistent craving to taste his mouth and clawed at his back to bring him to her. All gentleness fled as she nipped on his lips and tongue, the need to savor every part of him consuming her. She wrapped her legs about his waist seeking out his hardness, and he rubbed easily against the slickness between her legs. Rather than quenching her desire, the feel of him so close to her just kindled it to a fever pitch and she moaned with her need for him.

Ewen had never experienced such unchecked desire and growled in response, tearing his mouth away from hers to take her breast, suckling her between teeth and tongue. Lily thought her heart would burst to have one more moment without him inside of her.

Taking his head between her hands, she pulled his face up and pierced him with her gaze. “Then take me, ” she snarled, the intensity of her want giving edge to her voice. The laird obliged.

In a single movement their mouths and bodies collided and Ewen drove into her like a wave crashing on the beach, moving with inexorable force and intent, yet soft too, as the water sweeps over the sand in the crash and whisper of the tides’ ebb and flow.

Lily thought she would shatter into a thousand pieces as all control was lost to her. No longer conscious of the separateness of their bodies, they moved with a singular impulse, one moment all slow tenderness, the next fiercely carnal.

Her heart pounded, blood thrumming just beneath the surface of her skin. Lily’s body felt insubstantial, as if she would drift away were it not for the man over her, inside her. She wrapped her arms tightly around him, clutching him to her until she felt the give of his skin under her nails, and heard his responding moan deep in his throat. Want of him consumed her, and she took Ewen ever deeper until they climaxed in effortless unison.

She knew at that moment that she had been changed forever. Belonged to Ewen forever.

It was Ewen who roused first. He chafed the cool, pebbled skin of Lily’s arm, kissed one eyelid then the other, and rose to dress.

“You won’t get very far without this.” Smiling, Lily gestured to the tartan that lay tangled between her legs.

“I thought you were still resting, lass. ”

“No, I’m just this side of comatose, but how could I sleep after that?”

A satisfied—and quite proprietary—look spread across the laird’s features. “Then come with me. I ’ve something to say to the men and I ’d have you by my side.”

Something about the possessiveness of his tone made Lily smile so broadly she felt like a foolish schoolgirl until she saw Ewen’s features break into an equally adoring grin.

“Are you saying that we have to get up? ” Stroking her hands along his kneeling legs, Lily reached up for the laird and pulled him back down to her.

“Och, woman, you ’ll be the death of me. ” Ewen pinned her legs with his, and bent to taste Lily ’s neck. He whispered in her ear, “But I’ll die a happy man.”