Page 57 of The Shape of Silence

The kiss remained there only a moment, warm and deliberate against her skin, but he felt the effect of it pass through her immediately in the way her arms dropped forward, almost languidly, the neatly folded breacan yet in her grasp and yet all but forgotten. Still, he did not rush her. He remained close enough to feel the warmth of her body while allowing her the space to turn away if she wished.

God help her, she did not.

Slowly, carefully, Morggán turned her toward him.

She tipped her head back to look at him then, blue eyes wide and searching beneath the soft light of the midafternoon sun through the open door. Standing so close, he became acutely aware again of the difference in their size, of how easily one of his hands might span her waist while the other still rested lightly against her neck. Yet nothing in her expression suggested fear. Uncertainty perhaps. Wonder certainly. But she remained where she was, watching him with that same steady openness she brought to nearly everything.

Holding her gaze, he took the plaid from her hands and dropped it on the bed behind her.

Then he brushed his fingers along the curve of her jaw and lowered his mouth to hers.

***

His intent, when she understood it, was shocking enough, but when his lips touched hers, the shock of it moved through her so completely she forgot for several seconds to do anything except feel. His hand came lightly against the side of her neck, roughened palm warm on her flesh beneath her hair, and the kiss itself was unhurried despite the unmistakable hunger held carefully in check behind it. Avery had imagined kissing before, in the vague awkward way of someone who had spent years alone with nothing but a memory of something known to exist but without any experience of it—but the reality bore almost no resemblance to those thoughts. There was nothing abstract about the weight of his mouth against hers or the rough scrape of his thumb near her jaw or the heat that spread low and strange through her body each time his lips moved slowly against her own.

Oh, my God, was all Avery could think.

What startled her most was how naturally she answered him once the first stunned moment passed. Her hand rose to his chest, fingers curling lightly against the rough wool and the hard muscle beneath it, and when his mouth deepened against hers she felt another helpless, joyful sound rise in her throat. Embarrassment flashed hot through her immediately afterward, but Morggán gave no sign of amusement or triumph. He kissed her with the same grave attentiveness he seemed to bring to everything he did, as though this too mattered enough to deserve patience. The hand against her neck remained steady rather than demanding, his thumb shifting once beneath her jaw in a small movement that sent another wave of heat through her so unexpectedly that her knees nearly weakened beneath her.

She felt the sweep of his tongue against her lips and instinctively, she opened for him. Her heart gave a resounding jolt when he touched his tongue to hers, tasting her. His tongue tangled with hers, a glorious advance and retreat, and she responded in a way her dreams had never been able to imagine.

The intimacy of it was so sudden and shocking that for one dizzy instant she thought she might stop breathing altogether.

She clung to him, fingers tightening against the wool at his chest, the solidness of him having become the only steady thing in the room. A soft sound escaped her into his mouth, helpless and full of astonished pleasure, and Morggán answered it with a low roughened breath of his own. The hand at her neck slid farther into her hair, holding her against him with a possessiveness that stunned and gladdened her. She felt desired in a way that left no room for uncertainty, and the realization itself seemed to melt something long frozen inside her.

Sound—some noise that was not her own pulse pounding in her ears—intruded then, voices speaking outside and drawing closer. Avery scarcely noticed them at first, the world having narrowed so completely to the warmth of his mouth and the strength of him that the sound of men approaching seemed distant and unreal until one voice rose clearly enough to carry toward the house.

“Laird!”

Though Morggán did not jerk away with any fear of discovery, his lips left hers at last, and the loss of them struck Avery with startling force. Cool air touched the damp warmth he had left behind, and she found herself drawing a quiet breath as though trying to recover something. Nervously she tugged at the sides of her shirt, pulling the fabric down though it had settled properly when she lowered her arms as Morggán pulled back. She searched his face almost anxiously, wanting to know what remained there now that the kiss had ended.

Daylight reached only part of his face from where they stood beside the bed, leaving the harsher lines of him in shadow while catching faintly along the gray of his eyes. He didn’t look particularly satisfied, she decided. If anything, he looked hungry still. His gaze remained fixed on her mouth for the briefest instant before lifting again to her eyes, and something in that look—something intent and possibly carefully held in check—made warmth spread through her all over again. She became aware once more of the sheer size of him standing only inches away, of the breadth of his shoulders and the quiet steadiness with which he watched her, as though waiting to see whether she regretted what had just passed between them.

In answer to that imagined question, the faintest smile threatened at the corners of Avery’s mouth before Morggán finally stepped back as the voices outside drew nearer. Even when he turned toward the door, she continued staring at him, understanding with painful clarity how long it had been since another person had touched her with gentleness that was not incidental or practical or born only of necessity. Years of survival had reduced touch to usefulness: a bowl passed from hand to hand, a shoulder brushed in confined spaces, rough contact while carrying wood or tending work. Nothing in her life since arriving in this forest had prepared her for tenderness freely given.

And absurdly, tangled somewhere in the back of her mind beneath the shock and wonder of the moment, came the memory of that other life and the enormous glowing screen inside the crowded theater in 1995, that last week with her parents. The last kiss she had known—not her own—had belonged to a Scottish legend and the gentle woman he loved, larger than life beneath orchestral music and flickering lights. At eleven years old she had watched it with the fierce certainty that one day she too would grow up and be loved like that, with that same absolute devotion that made the rest of the world seem smaller around it. It had never occurred to her that romance and love were impossible, but rather as viewed through the mind of a child—any child—who often mistook longing for destiny, believing it inevitable.

Standing here now in the narrow dimness of a shack deep in a Scottish forest with Morggán’s warmth still lingering against her mouth, Avery thought with sudden bewilderment that nothing she had seen on any screen had prepared her for the reality of being kissed by a man who looked at her a moment ago as though stepping away had cost him something.

***

A sharp knock sounded against the rough wooden frame beside the open doorway before Tormod ducked beneath the lintel, his broad shoulders nearly brushing either side of the narrow entrance. Donnchadh was close behind him. Both men carried the damp smell of horses and wet forest air with them, though neither got more than a few steps inside before the atmosphere in the hut shifted perceptibly beneath their arrival—or perhaps, not altered so much as revealed.

Tormod’s eyes moved first to Morggán while the taste of Avery still lingered maddeningly in his mouth, but then slid almost immediately toward Avery where she still stood beside the bed with her mouth slightly swollen from kissing and her hair no longer lying quite as neatly as it had earlier. Morggán saw the instant of recognition in the older warrior’s face—not surprise exactly, nor disapproval, but the swift understanding of a man long accustomed to noticing things others overlooked. Donnchadh’s glance followed a heartbeat later, younger but no less disciplined in concealing curiosity, though he had enough sense to lower his gaze almost at once.

Morggán became abruptly conscious of how Avery must appear to them. Not disheveled enough to invite insult or assumption from honorable men, but changed nevertheless. Softer somehow, still flushed. Her eyes were fixed too steadily upon him.

Tormod looked back to Morggán with an expression so carefully neutral it nearly confirmed the suspicion outright, that he had some idea what had just happened.

He faced Avery again, and gave a half-bow. “Lass, my apologies to ye, for the lad’s abhorrent behavior. Rest assured, it will nae go unpunished.”

Morggán, his regard returned to Avery, was compelled to jerk his head ever-so-slightly in Tormod’s direction, since her gaze still sat on him.

She blinked and met Tormod’s dark gaze. “Thank you.”

Mayhap believing that was all he would receive from her, all that was due, the captain turned back to Morggán. “Wynn and the lads have returned from meeting Lucas Thain.”

That sharpened him. “Where is he?”