The Healer's Gift (13 page)

But tonight was for loving and finding peace…after passion.

He paused at the threshold of his inner chamber, dominated by the massive bed made by his great grandfather. “Are ye certain, Coira, that this is what ye want?”

The glimmer of firelight—or was it tears?—in her eyes gave him the answer before she spoke. She let go of his hand and slid soft fingers up his arm. “I am.”

Logen kissed her, then scooped her up and placed her gently on the side of the bed. He continued his assault on her senses, dropping kisses from her lips to her throat, then kneeling before her to remove her boots. Coira leaned back on her elbows and moaned as he slipped his hands up one leg, then the other, to roll down her stockings. He held the arches of her feet in his hands and kissed each toe, each instep, and each ankle. Then he pushed her skirts up and kissed his way to the inside of her knees. There he paused, savoring the heat of her flesh, the womanly scent of her body.

The need in him spiked like a fever. He stood and stripped out of his clothes before tugging Coira to her feet and removing hers. She watched him, heavy-lidded, while his hands roamed over her ties, loosening and slipping aside the fabric that hid her from his view. When the last garment fell into a puddle at their feet, she lifted her arms around his neck and stepped into him fully, body to body. Her soft breasts pressed against the hard planes of his chest, and the juncture of her thighs against his straining flesh.

He took her mouth then, with the same fervor he would use to take her body when he’d made her ready. He grasped her under her full buttocks and lifted her. As if by instinct, she wrapped her legs around him, nestling his shaft along her bottom. He couldn’t help it. He groaned against her mouth. “I need ye, Coira. Ye ken that.”

“I do. I need ye, too.”

In a flash, he laid her on the bed and joined her there, kneeling over her to suckle first one peaked nipple, then the other. Coira writhed beneath him as he trailed his hand from the fullness of her breast down her belly to the apex of her thighs. As his fingers touched all her sensitive places, she danced beneath him, her body straining for more of his touch—for release. When it came, she gasped and arched into his hand, moaning his name again and again. “Logen...”

“Dinna fash, lass, I willna stop now.” He lowered himself carefully onto her, kissing her, plundering her mouth with his tongue as his manhood found her slick entrance. He thrust slowly, carefully, to find her barrier intact and waiting for him to breech it. “This will hurt but for a moment,” he warned her, then pushed through.

“Ach!” Her cry punctuated her sudden tension. He waited for her to relax as the pain of his possession subsided, then began rocking them in the ancient rhythm. She enfolded him like no other lover ever had. As if he’d ever harbored any doubt, her body proved to him she was where he belonged. His heart expanded in his chest with such joy, he lost control and exploded into her, pulsing with release and relief and love.

Chapter 9

Coira didn’t mind the pain. The brief, sharp break of Logen’s possession was nothing to other pains she’d borne and survived. Any pain was worth the pleasure of having this man with her, inside her, body and soul. His possession marked the true end of the old Coira and the beginning of the new woman she would become—confident in herself and in this man whom she had chosen, and who had chosen her.

She welcomed the weight of Logen’s body on hers. His hands, caressing her face as he kissed her and gripping her shoulders as his need demanded, made her feel safe, cared for, needed. The feelings consuming him were as new and confusing to him as they were to her, and as delightful.

Her blood sang in her veins. The sensations along her nerves ebbed and flowed like the waves of a full-moon tide, mounting higher and higher until they crashed over themselves, and dissolved into bright spray before receding, as she was about to do—again.

Coira felt the tension in Logen’s back muscles as his passion mounted and he neared his release. She gave herself over to it, allowing his emotions to combine and swell with hers until they exploded together. As he collapsed over her, she wrapped him in her arms and held him until their hearts stopped racing and their breathing slowed.

“I love ye, Coira.” Logen’s words brought Coira out of her daze. “I will marry ye, if ye’ll have me.” He raised up on his arms, his body still connected with hers, and captured her gaze. “I’ll speak to the priest in the morning about posting the banns, if ye are willing.”

Was she? The wife of the laird held an important place in the clan. She had responsibilities for its people to equal his own. Could she bear them with honor? Would she be accepted?

“Ach, lass, I see the doubt in yer eyes. Ye’ll be a fine lady for the clan. The best. Trust me on this. I can feel it. And I’ll have nay other but ye.”

“Then aye. I’ll be yer lady, and the clan’s. I love ye, too, Logen. I have since I first set eyes on ye. It matters naught to me whether ye be laird or fisherman. Ye are the man I need.”

She rejoiced to feel his joy as strongly as her own.

“For all the tides to come,” he murmured into her ear as he began to move within her, again.

****

Coira and Logen married in the sea, not on the beach, but knee deep in the shallows. The people of the clan arrayed in a semi-circle around them, some on the sand facing them and the placid ocean behind them, some in the water nearby. The priest thought they were daft, but went along with it. Theirs was a seafaring clan, after all, and Coira thought it fitting they be joined in the ocean that linked them to the rest of their world. The ocean that washed away the last of the recalled horror from their lives and brought them, renewed, together to make a new life. Logen enthusiastically agreed. In those same shallows where others had meant him to find his death, he found his life instead. Everything that had plagued them was turned on its head and made good.

The emotions from the people surrounding them were a balm to Coira—happiness, pride, hope for the future. A few stray bits of jealousy from the marriage-minded lasses. Those only added spice to the sweet mix of feelings surrounding them. Logen would be amused to hear of them when she told him, later, after they were bedded and married for good and all. Not that she hadn’t felt married since he’d bedded her the first time, but today made it official. And not that he would be tempted away from her. He wasn’t that kind of man. But his ego would take delight in the news and in the knowledge that by sharing what she’d sensed, she demonstrated her strong confidence in him.

The strongest emotions she felt, besides her own, were Logen’s jubilance and love for her. She basked in them as she basked in the warmth of the sun. The chill water sloshing around her knees did nothing to cool the ardor she felt for the man whose gaze refused to release hers. Even when they knelt in the water before the priest for the final blessing, the heat of Logen’s hand wrapped around hers warmed her through and through.

When they stood after completing the kirk ceremony, Darach came forward with a length of MacDugall plaid and bound their hands together in the old way. The priest didn’t mind, and even said a blessing over their hands. Coira thought her heart would burst with joy.

Then Logen raised their hands over their heads in a gesture of triumph and jubilation as they turned to face MacDugall, the land, the keep, and the clan. They’d survived. They would thrive. They were one.

****

Coira as his love was beyond comparison, but Coira as his wife was beyond measure, almost more than Logen’s heart could bear. He was so full of happiness and peace he thought he could die of it, but he had too much to live for.

His wife awaited him in their bed. She smiled at him as if she knew what he was thinking. Perhaps not, but she knew what he felt, and that was enough. She would never feel unloved or unwanted again for as long as he lived.

He stretched out beside her and gathered her into his arms. Now that they had been joined in the kirk and in the old ways, they made love leisurely, confident their love would last. They could take all the time they wanted to learn each other’s bodies. In the days and nights since their wedding in the sea, they had done little else. Or if they had, Logen could not recall it. Only their time together etched firmly into his memory. All the rest receded, gone into a distant haze.

Logen craved Coira’s scent, the silky slip of her skin beneath his fingertips, the taste of her mouth. He kissed her and caressed her hip, smoothing his hand across her belly. “

“Ach, lass, ye are the greatest gift I’ve e’er been given.”

“Then ye are glad?”

“Can ye no’ feel it.”

“Aye, but I want to hear ye say it. Words matter.”

“I am glad, love. I’ve never been happier than ye made me the day ye married me. I can only hope ye are as pleased as I am.”

“How could I be anything else? Ye have given me yer love, a home, and a future together. ’Tis hard to believe the Healer’s gift led to all this.”

“I’d like to think that all has turned out exactly as she wished. For ye to find the love meant for ye alone. For ye to be happy.”

“I have, Logen. I am because of ye. Perhaps someday, we’ll get the chance to thank her.”

A word about the author...

Willa Blair lives in San Antonio with her wonderful husband and a calico cat who curls up on her desk while she writes her adventures in the wilds of the sixteenth-century highlands of Scotland.

Her heroes are strong and brave. Her heroines are smart and beautiful, and possess talents she wishes were hers. Together, they right wrongs and fall in love.

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this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.