Only he must have seen her coming, dammit, because he caught her in mid-pounce with a grunt of laughter and spun them both around so she was right back beneath him—except now she was just as naked as he was.
He sobered, going still above her. “Say you love me again,” he said thickly.
“Not until you say it again.”
He sighed hard enough to move her hair. “How about we say it together?”
“How about we try that condom on for size, and then we’ll say it together when you’re inside me?” She touched his cheek, then slowly brushed the tip of her finger back and forth over his lips, stopping to dip it inside to make it wet before sliding it over his lips again. “I want to feel the words moving through me like a warm breath of air.”
His arms on either side of her quivered with restraint as he lowered his face to hers. “God, I love you,” he muttered against her mouth.
She wrapped her arms around him to toy with the fine hairs at the nape of his neck as she kissed him, pulling his tongue inside her with a soft sigh of contentment.
He leaned to one side, and she felt him fumbling around the pillows, even as he continued kissing her. Assuming that he was going after the condom, she reached up and found the packet and slid it into his searching hand.
She pulled her mouth away. “I want to see you put it on,” she said raggedly, running her foot up his leg and shivering at the feel of his muscles growing tauter.
“Next time,” he growled, rolling onto his hip beside her. “Don’t you dare move,” he ground out when she reached toward him. “I promise, next time, the light stays on, and I’ll even let you put it on me.”
“But I want to do it this time,” she said in a pouting tone to torment him further.
“There won’t be a this time if I let your hands anywhere near me,” he finished in a strangled hiss, jackknifing away when she lightly brushed her finger over his scrotum. “Are you trying to kill me?”
Since she could no longer stifle her laughter, she ended it with a dramatically loud sigh. Oh yeah, she could fight dirty with the best of them. “No, I believe I’m trying to hurry you along. You really need to work on that, Trace.” She tugged on his shoulder, urging him back on top of her. “Because I’m so hot. And wet. And so eager to feel you moving hard and fast inside me.” When she realized he was still fumbling with the condom, she shrugged. “I guess I’ll just have to start without you,” she whispered, reaching down between her legs.
“Go ahead, keep talking like that,” he growled, pulling her hands up to pin them over her head as he finally lifted himself over her, “and we really will be spending the night just holding each other.”
She could feel the tension humming through him as he let her go to brace himself above her, his knees gently spreading her thighs as he slowly lowered his hips.
“Guide me into you,” he thickly petitioned. “Rub me through that hot and eager wetness you were just talking about, and take me inside you, Fiona.”
Lost in the cadence of his tender commands, her breaths now coming in short bursts, she reached down between them as he lifted just enough to give her room. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but the condom felt exactly like it looked, like nothing more than a sheer second skin. “It’s as if you’re wearing nothing,” she said, having to raise her voice over his moan when she folded her fingers around him.
“Not quite nothing,” he said roughly, his entire body trembling now. “Want me, Fiona. Show me how much. Open yourself and guide me inside.”
His words fanned over her like the warm updrafts that used to slip under her wings, gently lifting her so high she had thought she could touch the sun. His wanting her to want him made her feel like a hawk again, soaring powerful and free on the fresh new wind of change welling up inside her.
She opened for him, urging him forward with soft mewling sounds and raising her hips to meet him halfway. “Omigod,” she crooned as he slowly entered her, “whatever you do, don’t stop. Omigod, yes!” She clutched his arms, throwing her head back to arch into him. “Promise me you won’t stop.”
“Not for a lifetime,” he said through gritted teeth.
And when he pulled back and she cried out in protest, he thrust into her deeply, turning her cry to one of sweet, pure pleasure. He set his arms on either side of her head, his fingers splaying through her curls as he moved strongly against her.
She couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, could barely breathe, rocked by a host of unfamiliar sensations. She curved her arms under his and gripped the backs of his shoulders, digging her fingers into his warm, solid muscles to steady the drumbeat pounding through her.
“Easy, sweetheart,” he whispered against her ear. He kissed her forehead, then trailed his lips down her cheek. “Fly away with me, Fiona,” he whispered. He reached under her backside and lifted her into his thrusts, then slid his hand to press his thumb against her sensitive bud. “Soar into the sky with me, little hawk.”
“I—I don’t know what’s happening!”
“Yes, you do. You’ve done it a thousand times. Open your wings and let the whirlwind lift you away. Soar, Fiona, and take me with you.”
The urgency of his invitation enticed her to the edge, his powerful surges creating that whirlwind he spoke of. She felt her muscles gathering with tension begging for release, and she clung to him desperately. His thumb moved slickly against her with each of his thrusts, causing her instinctively to slide her legs up the length of his, spreading herself for him as she tossed her head back in response to his deepening thrusts.
And then she stopped breathing altogether as his relentless rhythm tugged her right up to the rim of the precipice and she grew afraid again.
“Jump, little hawk,” he whispered, the warmth of his mouth sending her careening over the edge.
She cried out, tumbling through the whirlwind.
“Open your wings, Fiona,” she heard as if from a distance. “Soar into the air!”
She touched the sun, its molten heat shooting through her in fiery waves of blinding ecstasy. She cried out in wonder, holding Trace to make sure he stayed with her as she rose and fell on the whirlwind he’d created, and convulsed around him.
Her cries suddenly turned to violent sobs. Burying her face in his neck, she wailed like a babe taking its first breath. She didn’t know why she was crying, much less why she couldn’t stop, the true wonder of it being that she really didn’t care.
His strong and tender hands smoothed her hair off her face, his lips sipping her tears as he murmured words of love, calling her his beautiful little hawk.
“H-how did you kn-know?” she rasped between sucking breaths.
He very thoughtfully, though a tad late, lifted some of his weight off her so she could breathe as he raggedly responded. “I guessed that you were happiest when you were a hawk soaring free, and thought that if you could remember what it felt like, you’d let yourself go to feel it again.” He kissed her flushed cheek. “Only with me this time.”
“And did you … soar with me?”
“Oh yeah,” he said thickly. “Higher than I ever have before.”
She shuddered with a lingering sob and gently but firmly pushed him off her. He flopped onto his back with a heavy sigh and then muttered something under his breath.
“Excuse me?” she said, trying not to sound as shaky as she felt, wiping her cheeks with the palms of her hands. She couldn’t believe she’d actually bawled like a baby during sex, much less in front of Trace. But really, she hadn’t known sex could be so maddening and scary and exciting and so … wonderful.
And she sure as hell had never expected that she would ever ask if they could do it again.
“You were supposed to say ‘I love you’ when I was inside you,” he said loudly.
She rolled toward him, resting her chin on her arm over his heaving chest. “I’m sorry, I guess I forgot.” She gave him a pat. “Maybe I’ll remember next time. Want me to get you another condom so
we can try again? Or is one good for the entire night?”
His chest stopped heaving beneath her. “Are you serious?” He snorted and started breathing heavily again. “Hell, I don’t even know where the damned thing is.” He waved his free arm and then let it drop back to the bed. “It’s either inside you or blown halfway across the Gulf of Maine.”
She gasped, lifting her head to gape at him. “Are you serious?” He gave a startled grunt when she pushed off him to sit up. “I could be getting pregnant this very minute! What in hell good are condoms if they come off?”
“They’re only ninety-something percent reliable as birth control.”
“Then what’s one hundred percent reliable?” she snapped.
He had her flat on her back before she could even gasp. “Abstinence,” he growled, though she could hear the laughter in his voice. He settled between her thighs, spreading her open to him. “You going to let the possibility of making a baby clip your wings? Because I think I should remind you that neither one of us is getting any younger. And kids need parents who have enough energy to stay one step ahead of them, not some doddering old fools they can outrun as well as outfox.”
She stopped breathing, wishing the light were on so she could see his expression. “You truly want to have children?”
“That would depend on how many we’re talking about. Two? Four? A dozen?”
She did notice that the amusement had left his voice. “I was thinking … eight.”
He was off her and standing in the middle of the room before she even heard the bed creak. “Goddamn it, you can’t tell a man something like that after he’s fallen in love with you!” She sensed him step toward the bed. “Why in hell are you always doing everything upside down and backward?”
She rolled onto her side and propped her head on her hand. “I do things properly; it’s the rest of the world that does everything upside down and backward.” Oh yeah, this fighting-dirty thing was really quite exciting. She loudly patted the bed. “Come back, Trace, and let’s see if we can’t make just one child first and worry about the other … seven later.”
“Not unless you agree to marry me.”
“My word of honor, if I get pregnant, I will marry you before the baby is born.”
She heard him sigh loudly. “You are such a recalcitrant woman,” he muttered. “I’m beginning to wonder if you were even born in the eleventh century.” She sensed him moving closer and confirmed her guess when he spoke from the foot of the bed. “Will you at least agree to wear my engagement ring?”
She flopped onto her back, sighing even louder than he had as she folded her hands beneath her head. “I’m wondering if you were born in the twenty-first century,” she muttered. “I will agree to consider wearing one.”
“I was born in the twentieth century,” he said just as she felt the bed dip. He lowered his weight down the length of her and ran his fingers through her hair to hold her facing him. “And a man feeling possessive about his woman is a timeless affliction. Especially if he loves her so much that he can’t live without her. Besides,” he said, giving her a quick kiss, although it was long enough for her to realize he was smiling, “I figure if we’re at least engaged, Kenzie will only beat the hell out of me instead of outright kill me.”
Fiona spread her legs until he was intimately nestled against her again and stretched her arms over her head to push her breasts into his chest. “Do you think I haven’t noticed your little habit of getting what you want by letting others make the final decision?” she whispered, smiling when she felt him stiffen. She unfolded her hands and gently pressed them to his cheeks. “Thank you, Trace, for dropping your own defenses to let me into your heart. I will love and cherish you for the rest of our natural lives and beyond, and give you my heart to hold safe on our journey together.”
He said nothing, not moving, barely breathing, although she felt his cheeks lift in a smile. “Yeah, me, too,” he said thickly, slipping deeply inside her as he caught her gasp of surprise in his mouth.
Chapter Twenty-four
“Are you going to just lie there all morning staring at me,” Trace asked without moving, probably because he couldn’t, “or are you going to get up and cook me breakfast?” He opened one eye to see Fiona lying on her side, her head propped on her hand, smiling at him. “I don’t know if you happened to notice, but I didn’t get any supper last night. And with what calories I burned at work yesterday added to what I burned last night, it’s a wonder I even have the energy to talk.”
Though he did find the energy to roll onto his side, prop his head in his hand, and smile back at her. Lord, but if she had been beautiful before, this morning she was positively radiant, her wild mess of curls fanning over her like a waterfall of sunshine, her cheeks a warm dusty pink, and her sleep-laden eyes as intoxicating as whiskey.
“I haven’t decided yet,” she said huskily.
For the life of him, Trace couldn’t figure out what she was talking about—that is, until he heard a hollow rumbling sound coming from his stomach. He flopped onto his back. “I hope you know the only reason boyfriends ask their girlfriends to move in with them is so they’ll get home-cooked meals.”
“Aye, I suspected as much.” She shrugged her shoulder, causing her hair to move just enough to expose one beautifully pink, well-loved nipple. “But since my boyfriend never actually asked me to move in with him, I can only assume he must not need someone to prepare him home-cooked meals.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder, fully exposing both of her breasts as she leaned toward him. “In fact, it’s been my understanding that boyfriends in this century often serve their girlfriends breakfast in bed. And they help do the dishes and take out the trash and actually place their dirty clothes in the hamper.”
“On soap operas. But if you watch them long enough, you’ll see that all that romantic stuff only lasts about a month. After that, the boyfriends revert to no-good lazy slackers, and the girlfriends start nagging and whining, and the relationship goes to hell in a handbasket.” He rolled toward her and pulled her hair back over her breasts, because he honestly didn’t think he had the strength to make love to her again—at least not until he got some food down to his rumbling belly. “But we can avoid all that ugly slacking and nagging if we divide up the chores into you doing the cooking and cleaning and me working really, really hard to earn our living.”
It didn’t help his libido any that she stuck out her well-loved lower lip in a cute little pout or that she went and flipped her hair back over her shoulder again just before she laid her delicate—and very talented—hand over his suddenly pounding heart. “So, you’re never going to serve me breakfast in bed?” Her finger started drawing lazy circles through his chest hair. “I was so hoping to see what it’s like to have a man hand-feed me strawberries that are dripping in chocolate and whipped cream, and feel what it’s like to have him sip champagne off every inch of my skin.”
He had her flat on her back and was looming over her before she got half a laugh out. “That does it. I’m locking out the Soap Opera, WE, Oxygen, and Lifetime channels, along with that Discovery and science junk. That leaves you only Martha Stewart and Animal Planet.”
She clutched his arms, and he felt her thumb brush over his right bicep as she started to respond, but her eyes suddenly narrowed on her hand. “How come you have a hawk on your arm?” she asked in surprise.
“Sorry, sweetheart, but that’s a good old-fashioned American bald eagle. I got it when I first went into the military.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she purred, this time poking his bicep, “but that’s a good old-fashioned red-tailed hawk.”
Trace rolled off her and sat up, twisting his arm to look down at his tattoo, only to blink in surprise. Damn, it sure as hell looked like a hawk.
She sat up beside him, running her finger over it. “How did you know?” she whispered, her gaze meeting his. “It’s obvious you had this done long before we met. What made you choose a hawk?” She sud
denly smiled, pressing her palm over his tattoo. “It was your destiny speaking to you, before you could even know your heart would belong to me.”
No, it was Mac the Menace. Trace had thought it strange last night when Mac had patted his arm, but now he realized why. Apparently, the wizard had enough spare magic kicking around to change an eagle to a hawk. Only when Trace saw Fiona’s beautiful gold-rich eyes were filled with such certainty, he didn’t have the heart to burst her bubble. “Yeah, I guess it was destiny.”
“Ye have five seconds to open this door, Huntsman, before I kick it down!” Kenzie’s voice suddenly boomed just as Trace was in mid-pounce.
Only he found himself pouncing on nothing, as Fiona was halfway across the room before he could untangle himself from the blanket she’d tossed over him.
“Your feet so much as hit that floor,” she growled from the doorway as she slipped into her bathrobe, “and I swear, everything you eat for the next month will come from a goat.” She pointed at him. “I don’t need you fighting my battles for me.”
Trace relaxed back on the bed, folding his hands behind his head. “Or we could tactically retreat down to our hidey-hole by using the secret door behind the bureau,” he suggested as she tightened the belt on her robe.
“Huntsman!” Kenzie shouted, making every window in the house rattle.
“Stay put,” she snapped, disappearing down the hall.
Trace was off the bed and hopping into a pair of jeans before she reached the kitchen. But he stopped and grabbed a shirt off the closet floor, figuring the less naked he was, the less angry Kenzie would be—assuming the highlander didn’t outright explode when he saw his sister wearing nothing more than a bathrobe and a wild mess of love-tangled hair.
Trace silently crept down the hall but turned into the living room, being careful of where the floor creaked, and stood just out of sight in the kitchen doorway.
“Son of a bitch!” Kenzie shouted. “I will kill the bastard!”
Trace heard what sounded like someone being pushed up against the open door, and he stepped out into the kitchen, but when he saw Kenzie righting himself, he quickly stepped back into the living room with a grin.
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