The following morning, Bella woke to a gentle nudge on her hip. She smiled, stretched out the kinks in her muscles from all the archery she’d done the day before and then blinked open her eyes to find a hideous ogre of a woman standing beside the bed. Face covered in soot or something else equally appalling, the woman was tall enough that she might be able to reach the rafters. She was as tall as Niall, as broad even, with breasts the size of Bella’s head. Her hair was wrapped up in a rag covered in the same dirt that was on her face.

“Good morn, my lady,” she said in high-pitched voice, yet oddly deep, if that was even possible given the sounds should negate each other. ’Twas disturbing.

Bella looked away, feeling entirely uncomfortable. She’d never seen this woman before.

“Can I help get ye into a bath?” the ogre woman asked, wiggling her fingers at Bella in a way that seemed almost…lecherous.

“Nay, I’m quite all right.” Bella scooted to the other side of the bed, suddenly worried the behemoth might just lift her up and toss her into a cold tub like her old nursemaids used to do when she’d refused long enough that the water had lost its warmth.

“Come on, dearie.” The older woman started to climb onto the bed, and Bella screeched when she grabbed hold of her ankle beneath the blankets giving her a tug.

What in the bloody hell? The woman had the strength of a warrior.

“Do ye not recognize me?” With a tug, Bella was pulled all the way across the bed, legs spread wide and her night rail riding up to her hips, with the woman looming over her.

For a split second, Bella was utterly horrified, and then she saw him—the beautiful emerald of his eyes, and the laughing smile beneath the muck.

“Ye rascal!” She swatted Niall, burst out laughing and grabbed hold of the large breasts he was bouncing near her face. Rolled up linens she was guessing. How had she not seen him before? “What are ye doing?”

“Isna it obvious, lass? I once asked if ye’d make me be your lady, and ye said aye. Now here I am playing the part. And from the look on your face, ye fell for it for a short time.”

Bella laughed so hard her belly hurt. Then she leaned up and pressed her lips to his. “I’ve never kissed a lady until now.”

“Och, lass. If I get a kiss from ye, I’ll be your lady any day.” Niall tumbled her back down to the bed, yanking the stuffing from his dress and pulling it over his head to reveal he wore nothing beneath.

Bella stilled. Never before had he come to bed with her fully nude. In fact, he’d always worn a shirt, and she’d respected his wishes to do so. But there he was now, kneeling between her legs, his hard body on display.

Rippling abdominal muscles led down to a shaft thick with desire that jutted from curls a shade darker than the flaxen hair atop his head. Bella leaned up on her elbow, flattened her palm to his middle and circled her thumb around his navel. She felt the hardness of his body, the corded muscles that bunched and flexed with his movements. Aye, she’d touched him in the dark when they’d lain together, and always he’d worn his shirt. Seeing him fully undressed was something altogether different. The blood whistling through her veins started to hum, and the places that tingled when he touched her burst to life. She pressed her other hand to his stomach and slid them both up to his chest, pausing over his nipples and feeling them harden beneath her palms. His breath hitched, and though she stared at his skin, she could feel the heat of his gaze on the top of her head. They were both silent, intense.

Had he meant to take off his shirt when he took off the gown? To fully show himself? Did he realize how much that would mean to her?

Bella met his gaze, licked her lips and said, “I love ye.” That wasn’t what she’d meant to say. Not at all, but the words had slipped out before she could say anything else. Scrambling to her knees and facing him so they both knelt in the middle of the mattress, she kept touching him.

Niall stared hard at her, as though her words were still percolating in his mind and he was trying to make sense of them.

“I love ye,” she said again, sliding her fingers over to his left collarbone and down the knotted scarring from where his arm had been taken just below the shoulder. The pain he must have endured made her heart ache.

Niall hissed a breath at her touch but didn’t move away. Didn’t ask her to stop.

“Does it hurt?” she whispered, yanking her fingers back, afraid she’d caused him pain.

“Nay.” His voice was tight, and he gently pressed her searching fingers back. “I’ve never had anyone…”

Bella leaned forward and kissed his shoulder, kissed his scars.

“Ye’re the first to see me. To touch me, beside the healer,” he said. “Ye’re not… It doesna scare ye?”

Bella met his gaze, shook her head and pressed her lips to his. “Nay, my love.”

“I have this ache in my chest.” He twirled a lock of her hair around his finger and tickled her cheek with it. “I didna know what it was until ye said the words. I love ye, too, Bella. Deeply. Ye’re all I think about. I worry over ye night and day. Not just about your safety, but about your happiness. Whether or not I deserve ye.”

“I wouldna, couldna have any other man, Niall. Ye’re all I’ve wanted since I was a lass.”

“So ye’d say I ruined ye for all other men.”

Bella giggled. “Aye, most definitely.”

“’Tis the same for me. Every woman I’ve ever known, I compared to ye. When Walter came back to Dupplin months ago telling me he’d asked for your hand and ye’d turned him down, claiming ye were in love with another, I was enraged with jealousy. Every woman I saw with hair like a golden halo was ye, and every man she was with was the man ye’d fallen for. Who was that man?”

Bella bit her lip and scooted a little closer. “’Twas ye, Niall. When I came into my da’s study and saw the back of Walter, I thought it was ye. Then he told me ye were engaged to another, and I thought my world would crumble. I declared then and there that I would never marry, and for a few months, my parents let me believe they were on my side.”

Niall chuckled. “Are ye not glad they changed their mind?”

“Extremely.”

Niall ran the backs of his fingers over her shoulder, sliding the fabric down to expose her flesh. He pressed his lips to her skin, sending shivers running through her.

“I love your skin.” He flicked his tongue over the line of her collarbone. “The way ye smell, the way ye taste. How soft ye are compared to me.”

Bella lifted the hem of her night rail, raised it over her head and tossed it to the floor so she, too, was naked.

“I want to feel my skin on yours.” Aye, she’d lifted his shirt to feel his stomach rub against hers when they’d made love before, but chest to chest—nothing in between—that would be different. Limbs entwined with nothing between them, that would be completely new.

She scooted closer on her knees, feeling the hardness of his shaft press hotly to her belly, her knees knocking his, her breasts rubbing against the crisp sprinkle of hair on his chest. A shiver rushed through her at the contact, and Niall, too, shivered.

“Every day since I spied ye in the bailey getting your ears chewed off by a princess, I’ve given thanks that ye agreed to be mine.” Bella twined her fingers with his and raised his hand to her lips, flicking her tongue over the tip of his pointer finger.

When Niall met her gaze, his eyes had darkened into twin pools of green. His jaw ticked mercilessly, and when she sucked his finger into her mouth, he let out a low growl, tackling her to the bed. He pinned her legs beneath his powerful ones, his hand holding both of hers above her head. He loomed over her, his raw, passionate masculinity sending another shiver coursing through her.

Bella’s entire body vibrated with anticipation.

“Ye dinna know what game ye play at, love.” Niall gently bit the side of her chin before sliding his tongue down her neck and finding a nipple, and mercilessly tormenting her.

“Oh,” she gasped, “but I know exactly.”

She raised her legs up around his middle, tilting her hips at an angle that allowed his throbbing shaft to slide along her folds and the head tease her center. One more twitch from her, and he’d be close to slipping inside.

Niall chuckled. “So I see.”

She shuddered, gasping as he took her invitation and surged forward all the way to the hilt. Would she ever get used to the feel of him filling her? Claiming her? Zounds, but he was massive, hard and powerful. Once inside her, he pulled back out, teasing her as he remained on the brink, capturing her mouth for a demanding kiss.

Bella writhed beneath him, trying to pull him back inside by pressing her feet to the backs of his thighs, but he held steady, taunting her with the nearness of him, the pleasure that built within her.

“Niall, please,” she begged. “I want ye. I want…all of ye.”

Niall’s forehead fell to hers, and he groaned, sinking back inside her. She squeezed her hands in his large one, moving her body with the force of his thrusts. She melted for him, begged for more as the pressure built within her, that delicious spine-tingling pleasure that layered one shudder on top of another, until her entire being broke apart.

Bella cried out, intense white heat exploding inside her. Niall increased his thrusts, pounding deep, until he, too, cried out his pleasure and shuddered, his hand that held her still shaking.

He pressed his forehead to hers, kissed her gently on the lips, and murmured, “Ye are my everything.”