“It’s good,” he decided.
She breathed a sigh of relief.
A slow smile spread over his face. “Oh, love. You were worried.”
He sat up and caught her face in his hands, smoothing back her hair.
“Please,” she whispered again, and they fell back on the bed, limbs entangled.
She leaned over him and kissed him tenderly, lips barely touching him at first. His breathing grew heavy and labored. She ran her hands over his smooth, muscled back. He caressed her breasts, lifting her shirt off, over her head. With gentle hands, he explored her body, heating her, exciting her with his touch. He trailed featherlight sensations over her abdomen and between her legs. She couldn’t see his expression clearly, but she felt the rhythm of his heartbeat, the heat in his breath.
She felt no fear. How could she? She was with Malcolm. She helped strip him of his suit, his work clothes, until he was naked and on top of the coverlet with her. She rolled over on top of that familiar chest, feeling deliciously happy, blessedly free, and he caressed her back, barely touching her.
Oh, she had never felt such desire. It didn’t take an expert to see that maybe she’d been traumatized by her life, years ago, and maybe she’d been in denial about it. But now, no. All of that was swept away, and she was with only Malcolm in her head. No worries. No fears.
“Make love to me,” she whispered.
“Kristy...” He caught her lips in a deep, soulful kiss, his strong hands bracketed on either side of her head. His tongue ran along the seam of her lips, stroking against hers.
The heat was building in her. She lifted her hips and rubbed against his erection. Groaning, he found her nub by touch and stroked her, softly caressing.
She moved on top of him, her lower back shifting and undulating. A soft rush of breath came from her.
He began to softly croon to her, using the full of his Scots’ accent. No holding back. “Kristy, my sweet.”
“I love when you call me that. Please never stop.”
“I won’t, Kristy.”
She leaned forward, pressing her breasts to his chest, her nipples taut, and her forehead to his.
* * *
A CURTAIN OF HAIR, sweet-smelling hair, fanned Malcolm’s shoulders. Tearing open the condom packet with one hand and his teeth, he quickly rolled it on. With a soft flutter of a moan, she didn’t wait; she took him inside her. At first, he didn’t move. He wanted to—God he wanted to. With one hand he was grabbing a fist of loose coverlet and gritting his teeth, but with his other hand, he kept up the soft stroking with his thumb.
She was just surrounding him. Maybe she was reclaiming a part of herself, through him. Heaven knew he had been coming alive through her all week long. Ever since the day he’d met her, actually.
He wanted her. She brightened his life by being in it. He wanted her however she gave herself to him. With whatever she had to give.
* * *
KRISTIN WAS ALMOST THERE. He was whispering in her ear, sweet nothings, touched with that Scottish burr. Her mind was softly, but quite thoroughly, being blown.
She needed this. She needed him. He understood her, and he didn’t overpower her or patronize her. Even now, he let her lead.
“Malcolm.” She turned her head and kissed him deeply. He shifted, moving his hand from between them and settling her hips down squarely to his, rocking her into him, in just the right place, with just the right touch. Instead of rubbing his hand, she was rubbing the length of his erection, inside her.
Stars exploded, and she cried out. On and on. It was the sweetest thing. Just...sweetness. Like a reclaiming of her soul.
He held her close to him, against his strong chest, entangled in his strong legs, the smattering of hair tickling her in the most pleasant sense. She squirmed in his arms, going in for a kiss, laughing slightly and running her tongue over that small chip in his tooth. The slight imperfection that kept him from being too perfect and that drew her to him.
Because he was wrong—she wasn’t perfect. But it was nice that he thought so, even knowing exactly why she was not.
He’s the only one who knows my fears.
She lay in Malcolm’s arms, idly stroking his chest, thinking about what she’d just realized.
Ah, well, it didn’t matter. Her body felt alive again, and that was what she was enjoying most.
* * *
WHERE HAD KRISTIN GONE?
The next morning the key ring for her white car was still hanging on the hook in the entry, so Malcolm knew she hadn’t left the property.
He searched the castle from top to bottom. Inside her guest room everything looked tidy, and the bed was made. He stopped and touched her pillows and sheets. Earlier, the two of them had been tangled up in them together for hours. Maybe he should have waited until she’d woken up before he’d left. He just couldn’t wait; he’d wanted to get as early a start on the day—and on their project together—as possible.
On impulse, he’d checked for the slip of paper on which he’d left a note for her, just in case it had fallen, but, no, he couldn’t find it. She must have seen it. He trusted her and couldn’t imagine what had happened.
He checked his watch again: nine-thirty. And yet, she hadn’t met him at nine as they’d agreed on.
Malcolm shoved his feet into his boots, grabbed a raincoat and headed for the door to the garden. His last resort was to check the footpath that went along the edge of the glen. Because, well, security-minded person that he was, what if something had happened to her? The property was still fairly unfamiliar to Kristin, and it was windy, cold and raining outside. The boots that she’d been borrowing from Rhiannon were missing from the rack, so walking outdoors was his best guess as to where Kristin had headed.
“Malcolm,” Paul called to him from the breakfast room. He gave Malcolm the “come-here” sign.
Malcolm strode across the carpeting still wearing his boots, laces flapping. “Yes?”
Paul handed a pen and a notebook to him. “Kristin left her notes here at breakfast. If you’re going out to Rhiannon’s studio, you’ll save me a trip to bring them to her.”
“You’ve seen Kristin this morning?”
“She was down early, and the two of them left together. From the sounds of it, I believe they’re conspiring together about something.”
Malcolm’s heart slowed. He really was relieved. This just went to show him how important Kristin was becoming to him. And now, evidently, she was important to Rhiannon, too.
Smiling to himself, Malcolm took his time gathering his laptop and the report for Born in Vermont. Then he filled three travel coffee mugs, laced up his boots, and headed across the yard to the two-story outbuilding that held Rhiannon’s art studio.
A gust of wind drenched him with near-icy sleet. So much for the unseasonably warm weather they’d been having. Inside the outbuilding, cold without heat, he hung up the raincoat and dumped the boots in the foyer, then jogged up the stairs.
He heard the music before he saw them. A raucous Highland reel.
He stood in the doorway and just grinned, watching something he’d never thought he would see.
Kristin and Rhiannon, dancing together. Rhiannon was even laughing about it, enjoying herself. Strangely, it looked as if Rhiannon was teaching Kristin how to do the jigs. What was especially remarkable was that Rhiannon, as far as he knew, had never attended a family wedding before.
Malcolm broke out in a bigger grin. The day could only get better.
* * *
“IT WAS SUPPOSED to be a surprise,” Rhiannon was saying to Malcolm. “We’d only planned to practice for a few minutes, but we got carried away and forgot about the time. I’m really sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Malcolm said to his sister, laughing, passing her a mug of coffee.
There was now one person on earth who knew the truth about her. And rather than blame her, or feel averse to her, Malcolm had understood. It was strange, but...she’d woken up, and she’d still felt free.
Her body still hot from learning the reel, Kristin walked over to the table near the door and gathered her purse, with her copy of the report she’d packed for Born in Vermont. She needed this proposal to be approved, now for a new, more personal reason than she’d had before: she wanted Malcolm to be able to travel to her, and to have a reason to spend time with her in her town, as well.
Kristin took the last mug of coffee Malcolm had brought and glanced at him over the top of the mug. Not for the last time that morning, their gazes tangled and then held.
His face was newly shaven, his hair damp. He wore old, comfortable-looking jeans, and they looked...really great on him.
She tucked her chin in to her collar, speechless for a moment. Malcolm’s eyes were so blue, like the sky over Scotland on a rare, sunny day.
From across the room, he winked at her. He hadn’t stopped smiling at her since he’d first walked in.
Now he strolled over and handed her the notebook she’d left in the breakfast room. His hand caught in hers, and their fingers interlaced. “Are you well today?” he asked in a low voice.
“Umm-hmm.” She nodded, feeling breathless. The last she’d seen of him, he’d been asleep in her arms, his warm chest and steady breathing a comfort beneath her body.
“Thank you for last night,” she said, suddenly feeling shy. She glanced over at Rhiannon, but Malcolm’s sister had returned to her laptop stand, shutting down the computer she’d been using to show Kristin internet videos that demonstrated the overhead patterns of the dances. To Kristin’s eyes, it had looked very similar to American square dancing.
Kristin glanced back at Malcolm, and he held her gaze. “Kristy, love, it was my pleasure.” He said “pleasure” with a soft rolling r, like playsurr.
It meant the world to her that he still seemed to respect...and desire her, even more after last night. She’d been thinking about it in the shower this morning. Maybe her difficult time in New York had been a form of post-traumatic stress—in a small way, like a soldier returning from a battlefield. The only man she’d so much as hugged since then had been Malcolm.
Maybe this was not a bad thing, though. He’d been just the right person for her.
She actually felt healed in a sense, which was a great sensation. She hadn’t wanted the night with him to end. And afterward, she’d slept so easily.
It made her trust him all that much more.
He reached out and moved a lock of hair out of her eyes. A small, intimate gesture, and Kristin didn’t feel the slightest urge to flinch. On the contrary, it flushed her with desire. She caught Malcolm’s hand and held it in hers.
“Are you ready, love?” he murmured in that low deep voice. “I want to get started.”
“I do, too.” She swung her hand in his and then stepped closer to him, between his legs. He drew his free hand lightly across her waist.
This is the sweetness of falling for someone who is good for me.
“Hey, you two,” Rhiannon said from across the room. “Don’t you have work to do today?”
“Sorry,” Kristin said, dropping Malcolm’s hand, feeling the flush cross her face.
Malcolm chuckled from deep in his throat. “Enough with the PDA,” he agreed.
“Yeah,” Kristin said. “I hate it when people do that, too.”
“What’s PDA?” Rhiannon asked.
“Public display of affection,” Kristin answered. Rhiannon was so isolated here.
“What do you think of the studio?” Malcolm asked Kristin.
She had already spent an hour gawking at it. “This place is amazing.”
“I paid her to say that,” Rhiannon joked.
In Kristin’s opinion, Rhiannon’s studio was awe-inspiring—a large, airy space facing south with windows that opened up the length of one wall. The other three walls were covered with a mixture of murals and framed artwork. Even the floor was painted—parts of it to resemble a forest floor, other parts a pond and another section with a wide green field. Kristin and Malcolm currently stood in the field. Rhiannon knelt on a lily pad in the pond.
With the gentle, calming music Rhiannon now had playing in the background, Kristin would have to call this a haven of healing every bit as soothing as the beeswax and botanicals-scented storage closet that Kristin used to retreat to at Aura.
“Rhiannon, do you want to join us for lunch later?” Malcolm asked.
“Sure,” Rhiannon said. “Where are you working today?”
“In the castle dining room,” Malcolm answered.
Interesting. The dining room wasn’t exactly private—there were no doors, and anybody could wander in and out to grab a cup of tea from the sideboard at any time.
As if reading her expression, Malcolm murmured to her, “We can’t get distracted by each other today. There’s a lot at stake for us with this report, Kristy.”
He was right. When it came to...whatever it was that was happening between them, she and Malcolm had everything to gain for it to work.
And everything to lose if it didn’t.
* * *
EIGHT HOURS LATER, Malcolm sat at the large, bare dining table, stretching his arms overhead. Papers were spread out over the table between him and Kristin, plus a portable printer. Malcolm had a spreadsheet set up on his computer—actually, several spreadsheets. He’d been in a nonstop, laptop-typing frenzy. He knew his uncle’s tastes, and they tended toward numbers and graphs. Malcolm had grabbed everything he could find relating to data.
He’d spent all day creating spreadsheets and reports and filling in projected numbers for the Born in Vermont proposal. The document Kristin had brought to his uncle hadn’t included forecasts—it contained mostly ingredients’ lists, supplier costs and manufacturing costs. Malcolm was doing his best to fill in the blanks for expected sales and profits, coming up with something that would be useful in convincing his uncle.
Kristin was doing her part, too. Nobody could say they weren’t giving it their all. They were moving through Laura’s slim, bound original report, going product by product, deciding what should be included in an initial phase, and what should not.
Kristin was using an old laptop of his and was tapping in her own data that she’d uploaded from home on the Cloud.
He scrolled to the bottom of his screen and looked at his current set of summary totals.
The numbers, unfortunately, were bleeding red. Malcolm was coming up short on all counts, no matter what angle he tried changing.
Kristin took a sheet of paper from the printer. She frowned, too. Even she knew that, so far, it wasn’t looking all that great.
“What are we missing?” she asked. “These numbers aren’t showing a reason for your uncle to invest in this product line.”
He forced a smile at her. No way was he giving her any reason to give up hope. It also didn’t help him that it took everything he had to concentrate on what he was doing. “We’ll just have to keep trying.”
“You’re invested in this as much as I am,” she noted.
“Sure. Why not?”
“No reason.” She had a goofy smile on her face. Again, she held his gaze. Her lips parted, and she leaned back in her chair.
He closed his eyes and scrubbed his hand over his face. He wanted so damn badly to make love to her again. For half the day he’d been aroused. And she was...well...
Her nipples were hard under her t
hin shirt. Her eyelids were hooded.
But instead of the answers he needed coming to him, his gaze kept drifting back to her. Then when he looked at her, he would find her doing the same to him. Kristin would blush and turn back to the pages. The pattern would be repeated.
For the hundredth time that day, he closed his eyes. “I am so far gone,” he said aloud.
“Malcolm?”
He hadn’t meant to say that. For one thing, it made no sense for him. He worked at Sage. His allegiance was to his family.
But, if Aura were kept open, even in a smaller capacity, then he would have reason to visit Kristin in America.
The thought slammed him like a ton of bricks.
He glanced up at her again. She was gazing thoughtfully at him, too.
He needed to make this work, for both parties.
“We’re really a team,” she asked him, “aren’t we?”
He smiled at her, just as Rhiannon breezed inside. “How is the Lord of the Spreadsheet doing?”
Kristin snickered.
“Paul said to move you two along,” Rhiannon said cheerily. “He wants to set the table for formal dinner. All five of us tonight.”
Malcolm glanced at Rhiannon. “We’re actually kind of busy.”
“No,” Rhiannon insisted. “You need to bring Kristin to eat with Mum and Dad, Malcolm.”
He glanced at Kristin. He had not invited her to sit with his parents since, well...the first day she’d come to the castle and they’d had tea. And a lot had happened since then.
“Are you up for that?” he asked Kristin.
“Well...” she said. “It probably would be a good thing, seeing as it looks like I’ll be a guest at the wedding they’re hosting.”
She was right, of course. And it was just another reason to put Malcolm on edge. He loved his parents, but at this stage of his life, he probably only shared meals with them a handful of times per year. And never with a woman accompanying him. But most important, he didn’t want this to be just another source of stress that could send Kristin flying away from him.
The Sweetest Hours (Harlequin Superromance) Page 23