"Not over yours. I couldn't have."
"Couldn't?"
"No. It would be impossible for me to show a preference for his company because I prefer your company above all others." Perhaps she should not have told him, but part of her needed to let him know how important to her he had become.
Something shifted in his gaze. If she didn't know better, she would think it was relief. "That is good to know."
"Is it?"
"It shouldn't be."
She didn't ask why. She could guess and she didn't want to think about how impossible a future between them would be. "I may be wanton with you, but I am not a wanton. I do not feel for any other man what I feel for you."
"And Talorc?"
"I will ask him not to send me home, but I cannot marry him now. I do not think he will mind." As a werewolf, he would have even less desire to marry Emily than Lachlan did, for no fire of desire burned between the two of them.
"Because I have touched you?"
"Yes," she whispered, not adding that she wanted no other man's caresses. She had revealed enough.
"You are worried he will consider you soiled by my touch?"
"No."
"You do not want him to touch you the same way."
He saw too much, but she refused to answer.
"I have barely begun to touch you, Emily. There is so much more pleasure to be had between us without the breaking of your maidenhead. More intimacy than you can imagine."
Sometimes he was so crude and yet it did not offend her, merely embarrassed her because she could not hope to match his honesty in this matter. Not yet anyway. "I was naked with you," she reminded him. How much more intimate could it get?
"Learning to swim." Without warning he swept her up into his arms. "And now it is time I taught you something else."
He carried her to a chair beside the fire and sat down.
"Here?" she asked, shocked he had not taken her someplace more private.
The great hall was empty, but it might not stay that way.
"If I take you back to your room, I will bury myself inside you and damn the consequences," he admitted in a guttural voice that revealed a depth of feeling his stance and conversation had not hinted at.
"And you cannot do that."
"No."
She knew it to be the case. She even understood why, but it hurt. Terribly. Because werewolf or not, she loved the proud and strong but compassionate laird. It did not matter if the feeling made sense; it was there and she knew to the depths of her soul that from this point forward, it always would be. He possessed her heart, but all he wanted was her body.
She would give that to him, freely and without condition, for the sake of the long, lonely years ahead. She would at least have this.
She put her hands on either side of his face and kissed him, then spoke against his lips. "Make me forget."
"Forget what?"
"Everything."
And he did.
From the moment his mouth touched hers, Emily ceased to think of anything but Lachlan. She sat on his lap, but they did not actively touch anywhere else except their lips. His moved against hers with sensual expertise, but he could have sat there completely still, only pressing his mouth to hers, and she would still be drowning in the need he evoked in her.
Just to touch him was to crave everything he would give her.
Chapter 16
Molding her lips to his, she imitated his movements and inhaled the scent of his utter masculinity. This man might be part wolf, but he was all male, everything she could ever imagine wanting. Her recently discovered love blossomed and consumed her heart until it was a burning but beautiful ache in her chest.
She opened her mouth for his tongue, but he pulled his head back with a curse. "We have to stop."
"Why?" she asked in a dazed voice she barely recognized as her own. She did not want to stop. They had barely begun.
"I thought I could touch you… pleasure you, but my control is too shaky right now."
"I don't understand."
"The confrontation with my brother left emotion I need to burn away, but if I burn it the way I want to, I will break the promise I made to you."
"I don't care if you do," she admitted, her voice almost pleading.
He shuddered. "I would care," he said harshly.
She sat up, as far away from him as she could get while still sitting on his hard thighs. There was another hardness there, too, one that moved under his plaid, and she knew he was not stretching the truth when he said his control was precarious. But that did not make her feel better about his rejection.
"Because you would feel committed to me and you don't want to?" she asked painfully.
"Yes. You are a virgin."
"And if I offer you my virginity?"
"You offer it because I have enticed you to feel things you are not used to, because it is a full moon, because I am close to my… too close to you. I should not have started this tonight, but you make me lose my head."
"So you think we are both out of control?"
"Yes."
"But I do not have excess emotion I need to rid my body of." Unless they were talking about love and they weren't. "If I offer myself, I know what I am doing."
"You don't. There are things about tonight you do not understand. Things you don't know."
"And these things mean I do not know my own mind?"
"Yes."
"Why does it matter so much?"
"I will not break my word to you. I will not take advantage of my beast."
Now that she knew what she did, she understood he wasn't using beast as a euphemism for lust. He meant the wolf inside of him, she was sure of it, but she did not comprehend how his being a werewolf had anything to do with her offering herself. It did not matter though. Not really.
She wouldn't beg. She didn't need to understand his reasoning to realize that if he wanted her anything like she desired him, he would have accepted her offer. With alacrity. It might hurt to admit the truth, but it was obvious that while the feeling might be mutual, it wasn't mutually intense. But then how much of her desire was bound up in the love she felt for him? He liked touching her, but he did not love her.
There would be no comparison between the need generated by the two.
Blinking back tears and swallowing her hurt, she traced the blue pattern that circled his bicep. This was his Chrechte marking, or at least one of them. The other was on his back. She realized now the simplistic beast on his back was probably supposed to represent a wolf, but the tattoo band on his arm was different. None of the other warriors had it.
"Is this to mark you as clan chief?" she asked, wanting to distract herself from thoughts of love.
He gave a strange kind of shiver and gently pushed her hand away. "Yes."
"It's beautiful," she said as the blue markings blurred before her dampening eyes. He would not even allow her to touch him in this innocent way.
"God willing, my son will have the same marking one day."
She blinked furiously. "Your son?"
"I must have sons."
"And daughters?"
"I would welcome daughters, too."
Just not by her… because even if it were possible, however unlikely, there was still the risk their children would be born human rather than shape-changers. "Why haven't you married?"
"I was barely past my voice change when I took over leading the clan. Many pressed me to marry then, but I did not want to. I was too wild and there was too much to do to learn how to be a good clan chief. Now, it is a matter of taking the time to select a wife. My position consumes every waking hour."
"Not right now. Not this morning when you were teaching me to swim."
"You make me forget my duties."
Having gained control of her tears, she could meet his dark gaze without flinching. "Is that a good or a bad thing?"