“It’s the grandest gift I’ve ever had,” he said as he set the hammers gently aside. “I’ll treasure it.”

The impatient beast that had clawed inside of him was calmed. He came around the table and took her hands gently in his. “I love you, Shannon.”

“I know.” She lifted their joined hands to her cheek. “I know you do.”

“You called me yesterday and told me you loved me. Will you tell me now?”

“I shouldn’t have called that way.” She spoke quickly as nerves began to spark in her fingertips. “I wasn’t thinking clearly, and . . .” He kissed those unsteady fingertips, watching her patiently over them. “I do love you, Murphy, but—”

He only laid his lips on hers, silencing the rest. “Ever since I heard you tell me, the first time, I’ve been aching for you. Will you come upstairs with me, Shannon?”

“Yes.” She leaned closer, trapping their joined hands between. “I’ll come upstairs with you.” She smiled, swept up in the romance of it even as she was swept up in his arms.

The light was lovely, trailing through the windows, scattering over the stairs as he carried her up, flowing pale across the bed when he laid her on it.

It was so easy to sink into that light, into the gentle strength of his arms as they wrapped around her, into the warm promise of his mouth.

It occurred to her that this was the first time they’d loved each other with a roof overhead and a bed beneath them. She might have missed the stars and the smell of grass if it hadn’t been for the sweetness he offered her in its place.

He’d brought flowers into the room. Imagining her here, he’d wanted there to be flowers. He caught the fragile scent of them as he dipped his head to trail his lips down her throat.

There were candles, for later, to replace the starlight. There were soft linen sheets, a substitute for woolen blankets and grass. He spread her hair over his pillow, knowing her scent would cling there.

She smiled as he began to undress her. She’d bought a few other things in Dublin and knew, when he’d uncovered the first hint of rose silk, she’d chosen well.

With quiet concentration, he peeled aside jacket, blouse, slacks, then drew a fingertip across the ivory lace that flirted between her br**sts.

“Why do such things weaken a man?” he wondered.

Her smile spread. “I saw it in the window, then I saw you. Touching me.”

His gaze lifted to hers. Very slowly he skimmed his fingertip down, over the curve of her breast, under it, then up again to graze her nipple. “Like this?”

“Yes.” Her eyes fluttered closed. “Just like this.”

Experimentally he followed the silk down to were it ended in an edge of that same lace just below the waist. Beneath that was a tiny swatch of matching silk. He laid his hand over the triangle and watched her arch.

When he replaced his hand with his mouth, she writhed.

To please himself, he explored every inch of the silks before moving on to the flesh beneath. He knew she was lost to reason when he’d finished. Even as she bucked beneath him, clawed, he held on to his own. He wanted one last gift.

“Tell me now, Shannon.” The breath was searing his lungs, and his fists were bone white. “Tell me now that you love me, when you’re burning for me, when you’re desperate for me to come inside you, to fill you. To ride you.”

She was gasping for air, frantic for him to drive her over that last thin edge. “I love you.” Tears sprang to her eyes as emotion mixed, equal to need. “I love you, Murphy.”

He thrust into her, making them both groan. Each plunge was a demand and a glory. “Tell me again.” His voice was fierce as they both teetered on the brink. “Tell me again.”

“I love you.” Almost weeping, she buried her face in his throat and let him shatter her.

Later, after he’d lighted the candles, he pulled her down the hall to the bath where they played like children in water too hot in a tub too full.

Instead of dinner, they gorged on Brianna’s cake, washed it down with beer in a combination Shannon knew should be disgusting. It tasted like ambrosia.

While she was licking her fingers, she caught the gleam in his eye. In a heartbeat they were lunging for each other, and made love like mindless animals on the kitchen floor.

She might have slept there, exhausted, but he pulled her to her feet. No steadier than drunks, they staggered out, down the hall. Then he pulled her into the parlor, and they had each other again on the rug.

When she managed to sit up, her hair was tangled, her eyes glazed, and her body aching. “How many rooms are there in this house?”

He laughed and nipped her shoulder. “You’re going to find out.”

“Murphy, we’ll kill each other.” When his hand snaked up the ladder of her ribs to cup her breast, she let out a shuddering sigh. “I’m willing to risk it if you are.”

“That’s a lass.”

There were fifteen, Shannon thought when she collapsed onto the tangled sheets somewhere near dawn. Fifteen rooms in the sprawling stone farmhouse, and it wasn’t through lack of wanting that they hadn’t managed to christen all of them. Somewhere along the line their bodies had simply betrayed them. They’d tumbled back into bed with no thought of anything but sleep.

As she drifted toward it, under the weight of Murphy’s arm, she reminded herself they would have to talk seriously and talk soon. She had to explain things to him. Make him see why the future was so much more complex then the present.

Even as she tried to formulate the words in her mind, she drifted deeper.

And she saw the man, her warrior, her lover, on the white horse. There was the glint of armor, the swirl of his cape in the wind.

But this time, he wasn’t riding toward her across the fields. He was riding away.

Chapter Twenty-One

Murphy figured it was love that made a man so energetic after an hour’s sleep. He dealt with the milking, the feeding of stock, the pasturing, all with a song on his lips and a spring in his step that had the young Feeney boy grinning at him.

As usual, there were a dozen chores to see to before breakfast. Grateful it was his neighbor’s turn to haul the milk away, Murphy gathered up the morning’s eggs, eyed one of the older ladies who would need to do her turn in the pot shortly, and headed back toward the house.

He was having a change of heart about his earlier idea of letting Shannon sleep while he grabbed a quick cup of tea and a biscuit, then set out to turn his turf.