Chapter Sixteen

 

 

 

It felt as though Niall’s words hit Mairin between her ribs. She sucked in a breath, but her lungs felt too tight.

“I…I dinnae understand.”

He cared about her? Her stomach did an odd flip. But then something he’d said earlier rang through her mind over the rush of her own blood.

He felt it was his responsibility to keep those he cared for safe—those in his family.

Was that how he saw her? As another one of his sisters that needed protecting?

She stiffened, taking a step back from him. Her body had betrayed her yet again. The flutter in her stomach, the knot in her throat, the wild pounding of her heart—each a response to the thought that Niall felt something other than brotherly affection for her. Why would her body make her long for something it could not have? And should not want.

“I already have two overprotective older brothers, Niall,” she said, her voice coming out brittle. “I dinnae need a third.”

He moved forward, closing the distance she’d created between them when she’d stepped back. “I thought I had already made it clear that I don’t think of you as a sister. And I damn well don’t want to be a brother to you.”

Her skin suddenly felt hot all over despite the cool, damp air in the cave.

“After the kiss we shared back at that inn, how could you think I feel brotherly toward you?” he murmured, stepping closer still.

Now only a sliver of space separated them. She had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. His gaze was fierce and unwavering. It burned with a clear, vibrant blue fire.

“Then…then ye are saying that…ye desire me?”

One of his russet eyebrows lifted. “Aye. Isn’t that obvious?”

Mairin silently cursed herself for a fool. How could she have lived through so much in her twenty years, gained far too complete an understanding of the evils and hardships in this world, yet know not a damn thing about physical longing, nor the workings of the heart?

Heat crept up her neck and into her face. She could only pray that the dim gray light coming from the mouth of the cave was too weak to reveal her embarrassment.

“How would I ken?” she asked, defensiveness edging her voice. “The last four years of my life have been spent in a warriors’ training camp with mostly married men who think of me as their wee sister. The six years before that, I was held in isolation as a prisoner, surrounded by men who tormented me nigh every day.”

“Mairin—”

Before Niall could say more, she barrelled on. “And all the years before that, I was the daughter and sister of a Laird. Neither my father nor my brother Reid—or Logan, for that matter—would ever let a lad get close to me, no’ even to give me a wee flower or take me on a turn around the Maypole.”

“Mairin, forgive me. I didn’t mean to make you feel inadequate or foolish. It is only…” He raked a hand through his reddish-brown hair and scrubbed it over the back of his neck. “It is only that everyone at the camp knew that I held you in a…special regard.”

Her eyes widened. “They did? How?”

Niall’s features softened ever so slightly. “You didn’t notice the way I’ve watched you all these years? The way I have tried in a thousand small ways to make you comfortable, to ease your burdens?”

Oh God, she truly was a fool. “Nay. Well, aye, but I didnae ken what any of that meant. I thought…I though ye believed I was incapable of dismounting on my own, or carrying buckets of water, or keeping up with the others in training.”

He shook his head vehemently. “I never meant to give you that impression. I knew from the moment I saw you that you were the strongest person I would ever know.”

How could she have so badly misunderstood?

Aye, she was ignorant to the ways of men and completely naïve when it came to any form of affection outside of familial love. For a long while after Logan had rescued her from captivity, she believed she would never feel aught other than fear toward anyone again.

But slowly, as she’d come to trust in her freedom and the others at the camp, shades of emotion began to stir and come alive inside her once more, delicate as the first flowers of spring. She admired Lillian’s clever yet gentle demeanor. She felt a daughterly affection for Angus that she hadn’t experienced since her own father had died when she’d been little. She could even share an occasional ribbing jest with Ansel or Kirk.

Yet things had always been different with Niall. She’d stayed away from him far longer than she had with the others, fearing he would prove to be like her captors, who were the only other Englishmen she’d ever known.

Over time, as she’d come to see him for what he was—an even-keeled and honorable man—the fear had gradually dissipated. But she’d replaced it with a prickly aloofness toward him, for she interpreted his special attentions as a sign of disrespect.

And it seemed she’d been the only one who’d been so blind.

“The others—they all kenned? They all understood that ye…”

“Aye,” Niall said gently. “Even Logan noticed, and he’s only visited the camp a handful of times since he returned to Craigmoor with Helena.” Niall’s soft lips tightened ever so slightly. “He told me before we left on this mission not to even dream of acting upon my feelings. He was right to remind me of my place.”

“What?” Confusion tangled her wits, but at the mention of her brother, fresh annoyance rose like a fanned flame inside her. What right did he have, telling others what they could and couldn’t think, feel, and do when it came to Mairin? It was yet another instance of someone who cared for her not trusting her to live her own life, make her own decisions.

“Why was he right?” she demanded.

A shadow settled over Niall’s eyes then. “Because I am English. I can never change that. You have every reason to want naught to do with me. I know you cannot return my feelings.”

“I…I dinnae ken what I feel.”

Niall cared for her—and not in the way an overprotective brother would. Everyone apparently knew but her, so blinded had she been by fear and pride. Now that she did know, she tried to unknot her thoughts and feelings, which were a swirl of bewilderment and turmoil inside her head.

Niall’s nearness, the size and heat of his body, only made it that much harder to gather her scattered wits. He stood before her, steady and solid as a mountain, his blue eyes cutting through all her defenses.

“No one has ever cared for me in that way before,” she found herself blurting. “Back at Eilean Donan Castle, a few of the lads pulled my hair a time or two. Cook said that’s what silly bairns did when they were sweet on a lass. But this is different, of course, for ye arenae a bairn, and we are... I never thought—that is, I had never let myself imagine that ye…or that I might feel…”

“Mairin.” His voice, low and soft, was like a balm on her frayed nerves.

Slowly, he lifted a hand and reached out, catching a lock of her hair. He whirled it around his finger, gazing intently at the way the strands caught the weak light. Then with a faint grin, he gave the lock a gentle tug, as if he were one of those wee lads who didn’t know how else to show that he fancied her.

When he met her gaze, though, the smile slipped and his eyes tightened once more. “I know this is a lot to take in. But don’t worry. I told Logan he needn’t be concerned. I do not expect aught from you. I know you don’t feel for me what I feel for you.”

Mairin’s chest squeezed nigh painfully. But what did she feel for Niall? How could he know when she didn’t know herself?

He knew she was afraid of the dark. He knew what she’d endured when she’d been held captive. He knew every shadowed corner of her life, yet he accepted her, cared for her, believed in her. At that thought, her heart swelled against her ribs. Was that affection?

And what of the way her stomach pinched when he was near? The way warmth coursed over her skin? The pull she felt even now to set aside her pride and reach out for him. Was that desire?

“I dinnae ken what I feel,” she repeated, frustration squeezing her throat. “But it isnae naught.”

Niall froze, his hand still enfolded around the strand of her hair.

“Ye said ye care for me, desire me,” she said, feeling her face heat. “How do ye ken?”

Niall’s brows shot up before he managed to smooth his features once more. “I suppose it started with admiration. I didn’t know all you’d endured when you first arrived at the training camp, but I could tell you must have been strong and brave to survive it. When you started training with Helena, and later with the others, I witnessed a fire kindling in you. A light came into your eyes, a hunger that awed me. And then…”

He swallowed hard, a muscle ticking in his angular jaw.

“And then I noticed the way your hair would come out of its plait around your face when we were sparring. You’d blow at it, or brush it away with your forearm so that you didn’t have to loosen your grip on your sword. And I thought about being the one to smooth it back for you.”

He lifted the strand he still held and slowly tucked it behind her ear, his fingers brushing the sensitive skin there.

“I noticed the way your lips pursed whenever you aimed an arrow at the target, and I longed to touch them, kiss them, feel them on my skin.”

Mairin’s breath left her in a hard exhale.

“I noticed the way you held your chin so high, your shoulders and neck so rigidly,” he continued, his voice a low caress, “and I wanted to pull you to me, give you a safe place to lay your head and let the tension drain away for a time. And…”

“And?”

“And I noticed how good it felt when my hands were around your waist. How mad the curve of your hips drives me. How badly I want to lay you bare and feast upon every damn inch of you.”

Mairin could barely think over the pounding of hot blood in her veins. “That is desire, then?” she whispered.

 “That is how I desire you, aye. Are you…are you asking if you desire me as well?”

“A-aye.”

His eyes were a tempest of brilliant blue. They were nearly feral in their intensity.

“Did you enjoy our kiss at the inn?”

The memory of his hot, velvety tongue stroking hers sent a flood of need through her.

“Aye.”

“And when I rolled you onto your back and pressed against you?”

“Aye,” she breathed again.

“Do you want more of that?”

Her knees began to tremble. “Oh, aye.”

“Then let me give you more. Let me show you the pleasure that can be had from desire.”

“Aye.”

Even before the last of the word was out, his lips found hers.