The Warrior by Margaret Mallory Page B

that he
     had to crawl across the straw on his hands and knees to the hole where the ladder
     was. Peering through it, he saw Moira sitting on the floor with her head on her knees.
     Her shoulders were shaking.
    She did not look up as he climbed down. When he sat beside her and put his arms around
     her, she leaned into him. Duncan’s heart beat too fast, and his chest felt too tight
     to breathe. She was just in her shift.
    “Shh. You’re all right now,” he said as she wept her heart out. Words rarely helped
     anything, but he gave it a try. “If it’s Niall you’re worried about, he’s tough. It
     takes more than a wound like that to kill a MacDonald.”
    There was nothing he could say about her dead husband except good riddance.
    He kissed the top of her head. Memories of kissing her creamy skin flooded his mind
     as he breathed in the smell of her hair. His hand shook as he ran his fingers through
     the shining black locks. He should not take advantage of her being distressed to touch
     her, but he could not help himself.
    When she buried her face against his chest, the heat of her breath through his shirt
     set his skin on fire. He never thought to hold her again, and he told himself to be
     content with this. But having her in his arms only made him long to touch her in all
     the ways he had during that long-ago summer. He wanted to kiss every inch of her skin
     and make her his a thousand times over.
    When she leaned her head back and looked at him with her deep violet eyes, he cupped
     her cheek with his palm and marveled at its softness. The black soot lashes framing
     her eyes were wet. He caught a tear with his finger before it fell.
    The bruises on her face pained him, and he wanted to kiss every hurt away. He pressed
     his lips lightly to her forehead, and the soft sound of her sigh was like an answer
     to every prayer he’d made for the last seven years. Time held still as he leaned down
     closer and closer to her mouth. He hesitated just above her red rose lips to give
     her a chance to say no.
    Kissing her would be a mistake. It would only make him miss her worse afterward.
    His heart clenched as his lips touched hers. They were as sweet as in his memories.
     Since she was sad and wanted his comfort, he made himself keep the kiss soft. But
     his heart was bleeding for her, as it always had. He would let her cut it to shreds
     again.
    When he broke the kiss, he stared into her lovely eyes and wondered what she was thinking.
     Probably that Duncan MacDonald was the most foolish of the many fools who had loved
     her.
    But then she slid her hands up his chest, clasped them at the back of his neck, and
     pulled him down into another kiss. Her mouth softened against his, and he died a little
     more inside. He cupped the back of her neck and deepened the kiss.
    For a long time, he was lost in a mindless, never-ending kiss. But when she groaned
     into his mouth and pressed her breasts against his chest, lust too-long denied surged
     through him like a roaring river. And that river of desire swept away all the barriers
     he had built through all the years away from her.
    To have this woman, he would die a thousand deaths, face any enemy, fight the very
     devil himself. He could never have enough of her.
    Duncan drank in her sighs and whimpers as he kissed her mouth, her arched black eyebrow,
     her perfect nose, her determined chin. Very, very softly, he brushed his lips over
     her injured jaw.
    “Moira,” he said her name over and over. He ran his tongue over her, tasting her skin,
     as he moved down the side of her throat. Then he leaned her back onto the floor and
     buried his face between her breasts.
    Please, God, let me have her again just this once . He had waited so long and missed her so much. Even as he pleaded with God for one
     more time, he knew once would never be enough.
    Moira should be his. She should belong to him, now and forever.
    Her hands were under his shirt, on his skin. Aye, aye, aye