“I’ll hold you to that,” she said, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and hugging him back.
The threat made him chuckle, but he drew back to peer at her, his expression growing serious before he said, “Ye’ll no’ have to, lass. ’Twill be me pleasure to treat ye as ye always should ha’e been treated.”
“And how is that?” Beth asked with curiosity as he started toward the door.
“Like a queen,” he answered promptly. Pausing for her to open the door, he added, “Or better yet, as the goddess ye are.”
“Goddess, eh?” she asked with amusement as he carried her out of the room she was coming to hate.
“Aye,” he assured her as he started down the hall. “Ye’re everything to me, lass. All I could have ever wanted, and all I’ll ever need.”
“I guess that’s why we’re life mates,” Beth said, wondering how the nanos knew such things.
“Ye’re more than me life mate, Beth.” Pausing suddenly, Scotty met her gaze and said seriously, “I love ye, Elizabeth Sheppard Argenis. I love ye, and everything about ye, and I’ll thank God and the nanos and the universe itself every day o’ me life fer gifting me with ye fer a mate.”
“Oh,” Beth breathed, blinking back the tears suddenly crowding her eyes. But then she said, “I love you too, Scotty.”
“Ye do no’ have to say that if it’s no’ true, lass,” he said gently. “I hope someday it will be true, but I ken I’ve been an ass, and—”
“You have been an ass,” Beth interrupted. “You’ve been stubborn, and bossy, and just plain stupid at times.”
“Aye, I have,” he admitted wryly.
“And if you hadn’t been, we’d have reached this point long ago,” she pointed out.
“True,” he agreed solemnly.
“But you’re also smart, and you have a wicked sense of humor, and you’re strong and dependable and patient, and I can’t imagine my life without you in it,” she continued. Then she raised a hand, caressed his cheek and added, “And I don’t want to. I do love you, Cullen MacDonald.”
“Thank God fer that,” Scotty breathed and bent to press a gentle kiss to her lips. At least, it started gentle, a heartbreakingly sweet caress that seemed almost a vow on its own. Beth felt that kiss to the bottom of her soul, and tears immediately pricked her eyes as her heart melted. But she wasn’t Odilia. Beth was Scotty’s life mate, and the sweet and gentle soon led to heat and passion. She wasn’t even sure when it changed—perhaps when she sighed against his lips—but suddenly Scotty was urging her lips apart to allow him in.
Beth opened to him at once, her hands clutching at his shoulders as his tongue thrust forward to stake a claim. Her own tongue met his, welcoming and eager, and her body shifted restlessly in his arms, her back trying to arch as desire rushed through her.
Groaning, Scotty released her legs and let her dangle flush against him. He then pressed her against the wall and caught the backs of her thighs, urging her legs up.
Beth immediately wrapped them around him, and then moaned into his mouth as he shifted and ground against her. Pinning her there against the wall with his hips, Scotty removed one hand from her legs so that he could find and squeeze one breast through the loose T-shirt she wore.
A long, low groan immediately slid from Beth’s lips and she arched into the caress, her kiss becoming almost frantic. But when her legs tightened around his hips, and she shifted against the hardness pressing against her, Scotty broke their kiss on a curse and leaned his forehead against hers.
After taking a moment to catch his breath, he asked, “Lass, how hungry are ye?”
“Very, very hungry,” Beth said breathlessly, and when he slumped against her, added, “For you.”
“Thank God,” he growled, and reached to the side.
Beth noted the door next to them with surprise as he turned the knob and thrust it open. She then gasped as he caught her against him and carried her into the room. Her gaze slid around the blue room as he paused to kick the door closed, and then she met his gaze. “Your room?”
“Our room,” he corrected her as he walked to the bed, with her wrapped around him and clinging like a monkey. “Ye said ye were sick o’ yer room, so we’ll stay here. For now,” he added, pausing next to the bed. He released the hold he had on her legs so that they dropped and she was flush against him again, and then set her gently on her feet.
“And then?” she asked, tilting her head to eye him with interest. She had just moved here to Canada, but he was the head of the UK hunters and would have to live there.
“And then, after we marry, we’ll live wherever ye want,” he said solemnly. “Here in Toronto, or that little town ye mentioned where Dree lives. Wherever ye want,” he repeated.
“You’d give up your position as head of the UK hunters for me?” she asked with surprise.
“I’d give up everything fer ye, lass,” he said solemnly. “Ye’re me life mate, me love, and me whole world now.”
Beth stared at him wide-eyed, touched beyond words.
Shifting under her gaze, he glanced toward the door and frowned. “Mayhap I should fetch ye some blood or—”
Beth covered his mouth with one hand and shook her head. “I don’t want blood. All I want in this moment is you.”
“Thank God,” he growled, and was on her at once, his arms catching her up and bearing her down onto the bed beside them.
Beth went willingly with a laugh that was cut off when his mouth covered hers. But she could still hear that “thank God” in her head as his hands began to rove over her, and silently echoed it herself. Her life had been a long hard road at times, but it had brought her to this place and this man, and she thanked God for every trial that had led her here. If this was the prize, then it had been worth every moment.
An Excerpt from Surrender to the Highlander
Read on for a sneak peek at the next book
in Lynsay Sands’s Highlander series
SURRENDER TO THE HIGHLANDER
Coming February 2018!
Surrender to the Highlander
The sound of a terrible explosion woke Edith. Blinking her eyes open, she glanced frantically around the room, and then jerked her gaze to her right as the sound came again. She gaped at the man slumped in the seat next to the bed. He was the source of the sound. Not an explosion at all, but a loud snuffling snort as the fellow snored in his sleep. Dear God, she’d never heard such a horrendous racket.