Scoundrel’s Redemption (Highlander’s Pact #3)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

W hen lightning flashed, and thunder rumbled, Greer jolted awake, unsure where she was. When the lightning flashed again and illuminated Teagan’s face, she realized she was tucked against his side, warm beneath the blankets.

She had no recollection of falling asleep or of him bringing her to bed.

Inhaling his scent, she curled her fingers against the heat of his broad chest and admired his masculine features. Admired the man he was all the way around. It was hard to believe how far they had come in so little time. How free she felt. Not just that, but fully present. Here. Not in a painful past or the in-between she’d existed in since, but right here.

What were the odds Teagan had been there that fateful day? That he was, in fact, the warrior-hero she’d built her fictional heroes around? The kindness and compassion he’d shown Margery had meant so very much to her. In its own way, his actions had given her cause to go on. To not give up on humanity altogether.

She rolled on her side and watched him slumber. Though tempted to touch him, to run her fingers along his strong jawline, she didn’t want to wake him. For he, too, had faced much this eve. A past that haunted him. Moments that had stayed with him.

Yet it seemed he was awake, anyway, when he turned his head her way and opened his eyes. He didn’t say anything but simply stared at her, his look so raw and loving her chest tightened.

It was love.

She had no idea how she knew, only that she did. It felt imprinted on her heart. Part of her soul.

She wanted more, though.

All of him.

She wanted to be his wife in every sense of the word.

Seeming to sense it, or simply wanting it himself, he propped himself up on an elbow, held her gaze a moment longer, then brushed his lips over hers. Once, twice, before he kissed her more deeply.

He tasted of man and ale as his tongue wrapped with hers, and his kisses grew hungry. Eager. All-consuming. As if he couldn’t get enough of her. Heat flared beneath her skin when he cupped her cheek and kissed her deeper still. So deeply and so thoroughly, she grew desperate.

Impatient.

At some point, he’d gotten her out of her boots and dress, but she was still in her chemise. He, in turn, still wore his blasted breeches.

“Teagan,” she groaned, aching for him. “Please.”

The juncture between her legs throbbed and ached, making her all that much more impatient. Evidently understanding, or equally impatient, he rolled her beneath him, his kisses ravenous now. Fire consumed her as they tore at each other’s clothes.

There was no slow build this time but a raging inferno of lust. Of hands and fingers, lips and tongues, of slick skin and heavy breathing. He yanked her chemise up, freed himself from his breeches, and settled between her thighs.

Thunder crashed, and rain pounded as his mouth found hers again, their kisses out of control. Urgent and frantic. Needful and desperate. She spread her legs wider and thrust her hips, eager for him to fill her, to assuage the brutal yet exquisite ache pulsing in her core.

“Och, lass,” he whispered in a strangled voice, finally giving her what she needed.

He wrapped his fingers with hers by her head and pressed into her.

Rather than filling her with one quick thrust, he, bit by bit, gave her time to adjust to his girth. Their gazes held, the moment transcendent. As though they crossed some great divide and found each other on another plane. Her every nerve-ending came alive. Her sheer awareness of him making her his. Of being deeper and deeper inside her until he was fully seated.

She trembled with emotion, sensation, and awareness. With feelings she never thought possible. Love and desire. Lust and intoxicating pleasure. Teagan’s shoulders and arms flexed with his barely constrained need. With how he fought to hold back and not frighten her. To be gentle when the raging desire between them made holding back a struggle.

“Please,” she whimpered, pleading with her eyes. She gripped his back. Wrapped a leg around him.

Pushed to his brink, he released a strangled groan and moved, thrusting slowly at first, then harder. Deeper. Lost in the feel of it, him , she moaned with pleasure, marveling at how good this felt.

How good it could be.

Should be.

Gone in the moment, immersed in the way his body felt against her, in her, she wrapped her other leg around him. Taking her cue, just as eager, he moved faster, rolling his hips as he thrust. Driving her higher and higher.

Quaking with the force of it, the exquisite liquid-hot pleasure blossoming inside, she dug her nails into his back and met his thrusts. Again and again, over and over, until she hit a crescendo that knocked the wind right out of her.

One moment she chased pleasure, a cresting wave, the next, she rocketed right over the edge. His roar met her cry of release, and he pressed deep, filling her with his hot seed. She locked up, then shook all over, her body pulsing, near vibrating.

They stayed that way for a time, holding onto each other, immersed in the moment before he peppered kisses on her neck, jawline, then lips. Eventually, his gaze found hers again.

She wasn’t sure what happened when their eyes locked during such an intimate moment, only that it felt like coming home. Like she’d found where she was supposed to be. Who she was supposed to be with.

“Is this love?” she whispered, swept up in more emotions than she could make sense of. Vaguely aware of a tear slipping down her cheek.

“Aye.” He brushed his lips against hers. “I would say so.”

He kissed her again and again, murmuring against her lips that he’d never felt this way before. That this had to be love. That she meant everything to him.

She lost track of how many murmured endearments he whispered in her ear as the night wore on, and they lost themselves in one another. Sometimes they made love slowly, other times more intensely. Sometimes so passionately she wept, other times so playfully she laughed.

By the time they drifted off, she knew what she felt was most certainly love. They stood at the threshold of a wonderful new life. Everything was going to be different now.

“Och, but look at ye,” Ada mused when she gave Greer a hug hello the next morning. They had arrived around the time she and Teagan finally found their way downstairs. Her friend’s knowing gaze went from Teagan to Greer. “Ye’re a whole new lass, ye are.”

“I am.” She smiled at Teagan because she couldn’t help herself. “A whole new lass, to be sure.”

“We missed ye, Mistress Greer.” Besse flung her arms around Greer’s waist. “Though ’twas great fun with Edmund the Defender.”

“Ye mean Edmund the Protector,” Duncan corrected, embracing her as well. “For he snuck us away from the evil sorcerer. ”

“Then defended us,” Greer pointed out.

“More like Edmund the Scoundrel,” Ada muttered under her breath. There was no missing the pinkening of her cheeks when she eyed the Englishman, though. Nor the small smile she shot his way when she thought no one was looking.

Rather than linger at the tavern, introductions were made, and everyone set out straight away.

“’Tis a beautiful day for riding,” Teagan whispered in her ear. “A beautiful day to take ye home.”

It was, too.

In fact, it was as beautiful out as that fretful day years ago.

“And ’twill stay beautiful this time,” Margery would say. “’Twill stay beautiful always.”

The sky did stay blue. To top it all off, a vibrant colored sunset blazed on the horizon when they finally crested the hill, and she saw MacLauchlin Castle for the first time. Though Teagan had spoken at length about it, his words didn’t do it justice.

Cozied between verdant pines with a sparkling ocean backdrop, it felt like home.

She looked over her shoulder at him. “’Tis truly lovely, husband.”

“Aye.” His gaze lingered on her face. “As are ye, wife.”

By the time they made it over the drawbridge and into the courtyard, a host of people waited, but she only had eyes for one.

“Dear God, is that her?” she murmured, taking in the beautiful young girl looking from her to her parents. Greer blinked back tears. “Is that Julianna?”

The last time she’d seen her, she was a little girl, crying that she didn’t want to leave her sister and father. As soon as Teagan helped her down, she headed Julianna’s way, only for her sister to meet her halfway in an embrace.

“How I missed you, little sister.” She held on tight, cupping the back of Julianna’s head. “More than you can possibly imagine.”

“I missed you, too,” Julianna replied, sniffling .

Moments later, their parents wrapped their arms around them, as well, and held on just as tight. In all the wild tales she’d spun to keep going over the years, she had never imagined coming together with her family again like this. Holding them in her arms, knowing they were safe.

“I’m so glad you all returned safely,” Julianna said when the embrace ended. She wiped away tears and looked at their father. “I thought you were dead.” She sniffled some more. “I thought…”

“No, dear daughter.” Father embraced her again. “Not dead but very much alive.”

“A story we are eager to hear,” Keenan said, introducing himself and his wife, Fionna.

A story, as it happened, that commenced with an even happier ending than any foresaw.