A gasp parted her lips, and he fixed his attention on her mouth, the smile gone from his face. James slowly rose to her, his gaze devouring the length of her body. He ever so gradually closed the distance between them, as if their joining were a fixed thing, inevitable, like gravity pulling two bodies together as one.
He took her shoulders in his hands and laid her back. His eyes were hooded as he hovered over her, the set of his jaw and the coiled muscles of his shoulders speaking to some dark urge, primal and predatory. Magda thought he’d take her then, half on the bed, their feet still resting on the ground.
His hands went to her breasts and cupped them tentatively. With a growl in the back of his throat, he leaned in to flick his tongue over a nipple.
Her breath became shallow, and at the sound of her light sighs, James nibbled at her, then sucked Magda hard into his mouth, abrading her tender skin between lips and teeth. He moved his attention to her other breast, kneading it in his hand, then ducked in to taste her, rolling her nipple on his tongue.
Magda threaded her fingers through his soft brown hair, pulling him more tightly to her, whimpering with her growing need. “Oh, James,” she gasped, and realized she’d chanted his name over and over.
“Please, James.”
He rolled to the bed, sweeping her up on her knees to straddle him. Magda eased back along his body until she found him, and rubbed slick against his hardness.
James stared at her, his black eyes intense, sharp with the force of his hunger. He rubbed his thumbs along her thighs, and the gesture flashed back to the moment Magda first passed through the portrait, when she’d landed astride him just that way.
A devilish smile lit his eyes, and she was overcome by a powerful feeling of love, and rightness, and completion.
“Please, James,” she whispered again.
“Aye.” His voice was ragged as he clutched her hips in his hands. “You’re mine. I’ll make you mine.” Never taking his eyes from hers, James gave her a slight lift. “For now.” He drove hard into her. “For always.”
Magda gasped with the shock of him, at the newness of him full and large inside her.
He wrapped his arms at her back and pulled her toward him, silencing her moans with his mouth. James thrust his tongue hungrily as he began to move inside her, slowly at first, his cock slicked with her want.
Magda came almost immediately, collapsing onto his chest and clamping her teeth down onto the hard flesh between his shoulder and neck.
James flipped Magda onto her back, one hand pinning both of hers over her head, while the other slowly teased her breast. “You’re not finished yet, lass,” he warned, his voice a sultry growl.
She wrapped her legs around his back in answer, writhing her hips to grind even closer. She rubbed against the base of him and already felt the gathering in her belly again, her muscles tightening like a cord strung tight through her center.
Magda tensed beneath him, digging her heels into his back. “Aye, that’s it,” he said, voice hoarse. James held himself deep in her, and Magda felt him pulse inside her as he held himself back. “Let go of yourself,” he rasped. James nibbled along her ears and neck and shoulders, giving gentle thrusts as he breathed, “I’ll make you mine again and again and again.”
He intensified, driving into her harder, and faster, and Magda felt the world slip away, and the edges of her vision faded to black, blood pounding just beneath the surface of her skin. She arched into him with the force of her orgasm, and James crushed his mouth to hers, letting himself finally find release.
They lay there for some time, their breathing and heartbeats gradually slowing. Magda shivered as the sweat cooled quickly in the chill night air. James reached down and swept his tartan off the floor and flicked the heavy wool over them, pulling her more tightly to his side for warmth.
“I’ve decided to stay,” she said, breaking the silence.
James leaned in to nuzzle at her neck. “You’d best stay, hen,” he said as he gave a gentle, playful smack to her bottom.
Magda giggled and snuggled closer, nestling one leg between his as he lay on his back.
James beamed. “This is what I wanted, aye?” He traced the lines of her face in the dying candlelight. “An easy smile on your lovely face.”
Automatically, she began to deny the compliment, and he placed his finger over her mouth. “Hush, hen. If I’ve a notion to call you the bonniest in all Scotland, then I shall.” He studied her, his black eyes solemn in the darkness. “And you are, Magda. The bonniest I’ve seen. You came to me like a torch in the darkness, and I’ve not been the same man since.”
Feeling the blush creep into her cheeks, she smiled and nipped his finger between her teeth.
“Ah, a wee fox, is it?” James pulled his finger from her mouth and traced her lower lip with his thumb. He leaned in to kiss her slowly.
“And this spill of satin, russet like leaves in autumn,” he said, raking his fingers through her hair. “I should have paid heed. Not a hen, but a fox, I see.” He grabbed her bottom and nipped at her neck, his husky laugh echoing low off the stone walls.
Magda giggled again, and sat up slightly to lean on her elbow, head in hand. Her face grew serious as she thought about what he’d said. A ready smile is the last phrase she’d have used to describe herself, and yet something had happened to her since meeting James.
Through the years, she’d adopted a reserved exterior, taking refuge in formalities and solitude. But James hadn’t been fooled. He’d cajoled and teased with a nonchalant charm that masked his own true nature, thoughtful and noble, until he’d shattered her world. She was, she thought with a quiet smile, rendered quite literally naked, and was surprised by the comfort she’d discovered in her own skin. Magda felt loose and expansive, discovering that easy laugh he claimed to cherish.
Magda studied the man lying naked by her side, and the knowledge that he watched her do so sent a flash of heat licking up between her legs. She slowly pushed down the plaid he’d used to cover them and traced her fingers over James’s stomach, the ridges of his belly like hard islands of muscle. She drew her fingers lower still, to the line of hair below his navel.
