paused, his face tense, his breathing heavy. ‘Ainsley?’
‘Yes. Oh, yes.’ She dug her fingers into his shoulder, remembering just in time Felicity’s caution. ‘But, Innes, be careful.’
‘Of course. I promise. Always.’ It pained her that he believed there was a need, then he tilted her farther, his hands cupping her bottom, and she forgot about it. She wrapped her legs around him, anxious, feeling anxious, not nervous, but like a runner, wanting to run, wanting to be off, wanting.
And then she was. Not running but better. He thrust inside her, and she met him, held him, thrust back. He thrust again, and she met him again. Not a race. But like a race. Inside her, tensing again, pooling, holding him tight. His chest was slick with sweat. The firelight danced over the planes of his chest. His eyes, midnight-dark eyes, were on her, watching her. She did not look away. She looked down at their bodies. At the dark, hard peaks of her nipples, at the shudder of her breasts as he thrust, and the entity that they were beneath his kilt, joined, flesh melding into flesh, heat and sweat. And then it happened, different but the same, a climax pulsing, and she heard him cry out, and pull away from her, chest heaving, as his climax took him, too.
* * *
Afterwards, she wanted to laugh with the sheer delight of it. Fun and pleasure, Felicity had said, and she had been right. ‘Astonishing,’ she said to Innes, and he laughed. ‘I had no idea,’ she said, and he laughed again, only it was a different kind of laugh. There was pride in it, and something proprietary. She would have minded that, under any other circumstances. Tonight, on what Madame Hera would no doubt call a voyage of discovery, Ainsley found that there was something rather exciting about a man in a kilt who looked as if he would like to mark every bit of her body as his own. She wanted to do the same to him herself.
She kissed him, tangling her tongue with his, pressing her breasts into the still-damp skin of his chest, relishing the frisson that the contact made, the roughness of his hair on the sensitive skin of her nipples. She straddled him in the firelight, as he had straddled her, and felt the stirrings of his member against her. Deciding that this time she wanted to see for herself, she undid the ornate buckle of his belt. The kilt fell open. She watched, fascinated, as he thickened and hardened before her eyes. She wanted to touch him, but this was quite new territory for her. Even the wanting was new.
Innes was leaning up on his elbows. She could see the ripple of his belly muscles as he breathed. His eyes on her. Waiting for her. ‘Tell me what you want,’ she said, an echo of what he had said, wanting to know, sure that what he wanted so too would she.
‘Touch me.’ She reached for him, running a tentative finger down the sleek length of him. He shuddered. She did it again. A finger, from the thick base of him, to the tip.
Innes’s chest rose and fell. ‘More,’ he said.
She could guess what he wanted now, but she would not. ‘Tell me,’ she said.
He knew she was playing. She could see he liked it. ‘Stroke me,’ he said.
She did, feathering her fingers up and down the length of him. ‘Like that?’
‘No. You know what I want.’
She leaned forward again, brushing her breasts against his chest. Her nipples ached. ‘Then tell me, Innes,’ she said, nipping his earlobe. ‘Tell me exactly what you want.’
‘Put your hands around me, Ainsley.’
She was shocked, not by what he asked, but by the effect it had on her. She sat up, sliding against him so that the soft folds of her sex touched his body, enjoying the separate frisson of pleasure this sent through her. Then she did what he asked. She wrapped her hand around his girth, and stroked. ‘Like that?’
He groaned.
She did it again. ‘Like that, Innes?’
‘Yes. Oh, Ainsley, yes.’
‘Not like this,’ she said, squeezing him lightly.
He swore.
‘Or like this?’ She slid herself against him. Her skin on his, her hand, her sex. Different textures. Same heat. She stroked. ‘Do you mean like this, Innes?’ she persisted.
‘You are a witch.’
‘A white witch, or a black witch?’ she asked, her fingers tightening and releasing, tightening and releasing.
He put his hands around her waist and lifted her, pulling her swiftly back down on top of him, entering her in one long, hard thrust. ‘A very, very bad witch,’ he said, pulling her down towards him and kissing her hard.
His kisses matched his thrusts. She matched his kisses first, and then dragged her mouth away to push back, to force him to match his thrusts to hers as she rode him, harder, faster and harder again, until they were both shouting, crying out. Hearing him, the change of note, feeling him, the thickening, feeling herself topple over the edge, she heaved herself free of him just in time to lie panting by his side on the quilt, by the fireside, utterly abandoned, utterly wanton, utterly satisfied.
‘So did you enjoy your wild Highlander?’ Innes asked her a few moments later.
‘I did not know it was expected that a lady should compliment a laird on his performance.’
‘Contrary to what you seem to think, we men like to know that we’ve pleased.’
Ainsley chuckled. ‘You definitely pleased, as you very well know.’
‘I’m glad you think so,’ Innes said with a teasing smile, ‘for I most certainly agree. In fact, it was so delightful I think we might even try it again in a wee while.’
* * *
‘I’m extremely sorry to intrude, but I could wait no longer, and your housekeeper told me she would not be the one to interrupt you, so—so here I am.’
Innes, clad only in his hastily donned plaid, sketched Felicity a bow. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’
Felicity handed the breakfast tray to Ainsley, flushing. ‘Never fear, I will not keep her long. I came only to bid you good morning and goodbye.’ As the door closed behind him, she turned towards Ainsley. ‘Not quite true, of course. I came to make sure you made it through the night unscathed. Did you?’
Ainsley, who had scrambled into the nightgown she had not worn last night, now pushed back the covers, blushing wildly, picking up her woollen wrapper from where it had fallen on the floor. ‘You can see I did.’
Felicity put her hands on her hips. ‘Well? Come on, I guessed after what you told me yesterday that it was your first time together.’
‘You were right. Again. It was both fun and pleasurable. And that’s all you’re getting,’ Ainsley said, sticking her nose in the air and trying to look smug. ‘Is that coffee? Would you like some?’
‘Yes, it is and no, I won’t, thank you. That scary housekeeper of yours produced breakfast for everyone who was left up at the Great Hall hours ago. Eoin said it’s true, her mother really was a witch.’
‘Do you mean you were there all night?’
