“Nay, lass,” he growled, untangling his hands from hers. “That was nae kiss. This is a kiss.”
And then he wrapped his arms around her, lowered his lips to hers, and fooking claimed her as his.
Six years in hiding. Six years living day-to-day, living only for his daughter. And then…and then this gorgeous woman fell out of the sky and into his lap, and he knew—knew—he’d never be the same.
Because in all the days since that magnificent, terrifying day…in all the hours they’d spent with their heads bent together, working on Wren’s shoe…in all the minutes he spent dreaming and wondering and yearning…
This was it.
She tasted of…
Well, fook, he was no poet.
His tongue teased the seam of her lips, and she opened eagerly, meeting his forays not with shyness, but with curiosity and boldness and these fooking amazing little sounds of need.
Need.
Aye, that was what she tasted of.
Not his need, and not her need, but a need the two of them shared.
There was a reason the word fook was popping into his mental vocabulary quite so often.
She tasted of perfection, and peace, and a future.
A future?
It took a moment for that thought to penetrate his haze of bliss—bliss? Fook, mayhap he was a poet!—and longer still to convince his cock that nay, a future wasn’t what he wanted—
Nay, he did want a future. Yearned for one. Ached for a future with this woman.
But he couldn’t have it.
Anyhow, it took a while, but finally, he wrenched himself away with a gasp.
Heart pounding desperately against his ribcage, he stared down at the woman in his arms.
Her lips were bruised, her eyes heavy-lidded, her breathing as harsh as his. Her arms were twined around his neck—when the fook had that happened?—and her body was pressed against his.
“Aye,” she whispered. “Aye, that was a fine first lesson.”
His hands closed around her waist. “That was…” He cleared his throat. “That was the only lesson ye’ll get from me, lass.”
To his surprise, her lips curled into a smile. He couldn’t force himself to move her away.
“Dinnae be silly, Pherson. Ye’ve taught me about falconry. Ye’ve taught me how to love a wee lassie. Ye’ve taught me about leatherwork and anatomy of birds—I’ve decided to call the study of avian behavior and bodies ornithology, did I tell ye that?—and all sorts of other things.”
She loved Wren? His heart skittered away from that knowledge, not certain what to do with it. But…the other things she said…
Her mind was a maze, and God help him, but he loved listening to her. Loved trying to navigate through her thoughts. Loved being with her.
But he couldn’t tell her that. “Orni-what? Why no’ avian-ology?”
“Dinnae be silly,” she repeated with a grin. “Avis is Latin, and -ology—the study of something—is Latin as well. All scholars ken ye cannae just go about smooshing two Latin phrases together to create a new word. Nay, ye have to deliberately take words from Ancient Greek and Latin and French and mayhap a bit of Arabic or German. Mix them together and then pull something out and declare it to be the word, and defend it to the death.”
“Ah.” His gaze flicked across her face, trying to understand her. “Of course,” he finished weakly.
“My point is…” She tightened her hold on his neck, which pressed her closer. “Ye’ve taught me all sorts of things, and now ye’ve taught me how to kiss. That was magnificent, by the way.”