“Will you be sleeping naked again?”

The sweet and bonnie bane of Iain’s MacLean heart posed the question the moment he closed the bedchamber door behind them. The hopeful note in her voice sent fire racing through his veins. His damned tarse twitched, likewise eager.

“What do you think?” What would you prefer? He kept the second question to himself.

“Will you not tell me?” She looked at him, setting him like granite with a gaze.

And not surprisingly for she’d discarded the arisaid with remarkable speed. More damning still, the top rims of her coral-tinted nipples peeked at him from the edging of her new gown’s low-cut bodice.

She surely knew.

And she didn’t seem to mind.

“You ask much, lass.” He stood captive, his loins growing heavier with each beat of his heart. The whole of him rendered hers, brought to his knees by two crescent-shaped slivers of sweetly puckered flesh.

“If I say the words…” He raised a hand, shook his head.

“You said them before.” She took a few steps, the movement sending a hint of perfume to seduce him. “Why not now?”

“Just give me a moment.” He wanted a lifetime.

“You have an odd look on your face.”

“That doesnae surprise me.”

Something had changed.

He wasn’t sure what it was, beyond the obvious. Raging lust. But his feelings for her were now unleashed. A swift-racing current no longer contained.

She came closer. “Sir?”

“Aye?” His heart slammed, his need almost painful. “But call me by my name.”

“Iain.”

And there it was again.

The slight tremble threading her voice, the hitch in her breath. An unseen line crossed, its barrier gone.

“What, lass?” He didn’t move, not wanting to break the spell. “Tell me your mind.”

“I did.” The hope in her voice was stronger this time, so potent it shimmered around her. “But I’ll ask again. Do you mean to-”

“Sleep naked?”

She nodded.

His heart split. “Och, lassie…”

Their gazes locking, he crossed the rushes to where she stood beside the bed. “You ken the answer for I have told you. I always sleep naked.”

“I am glad,” she said, delighting him.

Only one worry remained…

If the fates were unkind, this could be their last night together.

The one chance they’d have to know the kind of soul-melding contentment they could have enjoyed if his life path had been different.

The morrow would decide.

So he summoned all the seduction skills he’d once possessed, and lifted her hand to his lips, brushed a featherlight kiss across her knuckles.

“So, sweeting…” He straightened. “You have your answer. Perhaps you should sleep so as well?”

“You are bold.”

Iain smiled. “So some say.”

“A rogue.” She looked him up and down, a smile playing across her own lips. “Ravisher of women.”

“That, too.” He stepped closer and cupped her face. “Why else would I suggest you sleep unclothed?”

“Why, indeed?”

“You tell me, sweetness.” His heart thundered.

He couldn’t recall a more responsive bed-mate. Her desire blossomed in so much more than her words. He also saw it in the quickening of her breath, her softly parted lips, and in the increased rise and fall of her magnificent breasts.

“Sleeping wholly bare…” She brought her hands to her bodice, let her fingers play with the lacings. “I might enjoy that.”

“I will make sure that you do.” He would. The gods knew he wanted her, and meant to have her.

Now, while there was time.

“See you, this is what I meant when I told you I feared myself.” She glanced at the bed, then back to him. “It is madness, so unlike me. Yet I want to lie unclothed this night. And I wish to be that way with you.”

“Lass.” Iain again captured one of her hands, this time dropping a kiss into the cup of her palm. “It is no’ madness,” he told her, releasing her hand to trace the curve of her cheek with his fingertips. “Precious and rare, aye.

“It is also…” He let the words tail off, searched for the right ones.

A way to explain their connection and why it was so right for her to want to lie skin to skin with him. The strange ties that bound them so irrevocably to each other.

He scarce understood himself.

She touched his jaw, lighting her fingers across his beard. “It is what, lord?”

“I am nae lord, only Iain.” Frustration made his chest tighten, his heart thud against his ribs. “Your Master of the Highlands, I’ll accept.” He managed a smile, a crooked one. “And you, sweeting, you are-” He broke off again, paced a few strides and then whirled back to face her. “You are…we are-

“Odin’s bone!” He tipped back his head, stared up at the raftered ceiling. He could be such a buffoon. He was not good with words.

Behind him, Madeline laughed. “That bad?”

“What?”

“I am Odin’s bone?”

“Gods, nae.” He started to turn away, just long enough to regain his composure, but she came forward, circled her fingers around his arm.

She looked up at him, her gaze just as firm. “Tell me, please. What am I?”

“I dinnae want to frighten you.”

“You could never do that.” She smiled. “You also forget I am a Drummond.”

“Daring lasses, eh?”

Her chin came up. “It is true. Never doubt it.”

“I would no’ dare.”

But warning bells rang all through him. He knew the reason. He couldn’t bear to lose her.

And so…

“You are my bane,” he said, speaking quickly before his better sense could stop him from making such a silly-sounding pronouncement.

“‘Tis a clan legend,” he rushed on, trying to get past the explanation before her eyes widened any further. “The Bane of the MacLeans. A blessing or a curse, depending on how it strikes.”

Confusion clouded her eyes. “I am your bane?”

“Aye, I am sure of it,” he told her true.

“Why bane?”

He shrugged. “Bane is what the legend is called by the bards.” He placed his hands on her shoulders, kneaded them.

“MacLean males are said to have but one true mate,” he began, willing her to believe him.

“One true love?” Her voice held wonder.

“So it is said. We all have a woman bound to us from time immemorial according to clan belief. Nae other love can compare, and a MacLean man will search relentlessly, never finding peace or contentment, until he is joined with this woman, his bane.”

“And you believe this?”

“I do now.”

“Are you saying what I think?” She stared at him, her eyes luminous in the candle shine. “You believe I am your bane? That I am this woman to you?”

“I dinnae jest, sweeting.” Iain heaved a sigh, drained from his speech and feeling a mite ridiculous.

Half-afraid she might yet laugh.

Or think him daft.

She was a strong and intelligent woman. She might scoff at old Celtic myths and lore.

But she’d voiced a direct question and deserved his answer.

“Aye, lass, you are the bane of my heart. I have known it, known you, for months now.” He told her true. “I met you inside my heart, knew of your existence the first moment I sensed your presence.

“That was at the beginning of my journey.” He lowered his head, kissed her softly. “The night I sailed from Doon.”

“Oh, my.” She gasped, her red-gold brows winging upward. “You sensed me?”

The warning bells came back, and louder.

Iain ignored them.

“I felt you, sweet. Deep, deep inside me,” he admitted, watching her carefully, wondering at her lack of surprise.

“‘Tis the way of the legend. When the time is right, the MacLean male becomes aware of his bane. He will sense her, the sennachies claim.” He kissed her again. “He’ll know she is out there, somewhere in the great vastness of the world, and so he waits for her.”

“Ahhh…” She tilted her head, her braids gleaming in the candlelight. “He doesn’t search for her?”

“He will if he can. For sure, if that is so, he’ll scour the width and breadth of the land, and tirelessly, until he finds her. That he will do,” he said, knowing that for her, he’d have even crossed the greatest sea.

“But?”

“Sometimes circumstances prevent him.”

“And you were one who had to wait?” She blinked, her eyes bright.

“Aye, I could no’ seek my fate at will as others before me. Nor did I believe in the legend.” He glanced aside, released a long breath.

“I dinnae think I accepted any bit of the tales until that day in Glasgow Cathedral,” he owned. “Then I knew, could no longer deny it. I felt you inside the moment I swung down from my horse before the cathedral steps.”

He traced a finger down her cheek, and that wee touch blasted heat all through him. Just standing close to her lit fires inside him, even made his soul soar.

He wanted her badly, and soon.

“You knew I was in there?” She peered at him, her face alight with something he couldn’t define, something beautiful.

“So I did. But, as I told you, a part of me knew even before then,” he said, marveling at the silken warmth of her skin, how smooth and precious it felt beneath his touch.

How right and dear.

So very much his.

“A bard might say my heart was aware, drawn to you as if by a magical silvered thread.” He shrugged. “All I know is that I sensed you at Glasgow. Had we no’ met as we did, I would’ve still spotted you, recognizing you.”

“How?”

“Because, sweet, I had been feeling you so strongly inside me,” he explained, toying with a loose curl just above her ear. “I knew you as a fine golden warmth that would come unbidden to spool all through me, chasing away my shadows.”

And setting my loins to stone.

“I have felt you in a similar way,” she said, surprising him.

“You did?”

“Too many times to count,” she admitted, and reached for his hand, lacing her fingers with his. “I will tell you true as you unburdened yourself to me. Since birth, I have the ability to sometimes hear the thoughts of others. To feel their joy or heartbreak, any strong emotion running through them.”

She paused, drew a breath. “Most often, such impressions are fleeting as an eye-blink. And never at will.”

“And with me?” Iain could hardly speak. “That was different?”

“It was.” She lifted up on her toes, kissing him this time. “Always, I could feel you.”

“What did you think of that?”

“I ached to know you,” she said, her eyes shining. “I wanted to be one with you.”

Something leapt inside Iain.

Her words let him forget his cares, made him want to sink into the solace she brought him. Earthier, more heated needs, fueled desires he hadn’t known he possessed. And he was supposed to be the seducer. The one in charge and control, beguiling her.

“I would feel you this night.” She let her free hand glide across his shoulder, down his arm.

“Feel me?” He knew what she meant – it stood all over her.

The hard throbbing at his groin also knew.

“Do you ken what you’re saying?”

“Of course.” She held his gaze. “I would share this night with you. Savor it fully.”

“This fully?” Iain skimmed his fingers across the lush, upper swells of her breasts.

“More fully.” She touched his face, traced the hard line of his jaw.

“You were made for passion.” Iain grasped her hips, pulled her close. “I want you,” he said, his voice rough.. “But I will no’ press you into something you might regret on the morrow.”

“It is because of the morrow that I want this.” She pulled away from him to turn back the bedcovering.

“I wish to open my heart and body to this force between us.” She paused, plumping the pillows. “It is rare and powerful and true. But the fates could conspire against us, the morrow leaving one of us with cause to grieve.”

Grasping her shoulders, Iain turned her. “You wish to lie with me?”

“I do.” She stood tall, proud. “I have never desired anything more.”