Silent, he studied his calf beneath the blanket, then said, “Och, they’re naught but scratches.” He gestured to his upper arm. “I’d not even realized this one was there ’til the battle was well over.”
“And you let me think . . . James Graham!” She smacked him on the chest. “How dare you? I thought you were dying.”
“Only with love for you, hen.” He grabbed at her again, trying to pull her back to him.
“Dammit, James,” she said, fighting not to laugh. “Don’t do that again. You’ll hurt yourself worse than you already are.”
“Och, they’re nothing. Truly.” He pulled his shirt off to show her a thin bandage wound around his biceps. “I was on my horse racing back to you before I realized the sting of it.” Magda admired the slide of fabric on his skin, and the sight again of his naked body. He was leaner, yet the weeks of marching through the mountains had hammered his muscles into even more prominence.
She made to get off the bed. “Magda.” His voice was suddenly earnest. “I need you here with me.” He took her hand to stroke it lightly in his and stared at her in silence for a moment. “I need to see your bonny face instead of these dreadful images filling my mind of late.”
"I’m here—” she began, when he grabbed her hip and put an arm underneath her legs. “Aye,” he growled, “I need you, Magda.” Her arisaid fell from her shoulders, and he bent down to nip at her breast underneath the wool of her dress. “And you’ll not move from this place.” James nibbled and kissed his way up her chest to nuzzle at her neck. “Until I say so.”
Desire thickened his voice, and Magda felt the hot rush of her body’s response. All the fear and anxiety and loneliness of the last weeks were submerged by her desire for this man.
Hungry for him, she grabbed and pulled his face to hers. He moaned in response, a primal sound deep in his throat that reverberated through her. She couldn’t get close enough to him, felt suffocated by her thick layers of clothing. James ran his hand down her throat and the creamy expanse of her breastbone. Her skin pebbled and her nipples tightened in response to the feel of his hands, warm and rough on the cool smoothness of her skin.
She wore a simple tartan dress, with a tight bodice and low, square neck. He dipped his fingers down inside her gown to graze her nipple, and she gasped with the pleasure of it. The urgency to have him subsumed Magda, and she quickly rose to her knees and swung a leg over to straddle him.
Magda felt the hard ridge of him and ground her body into his. Kissing her deeply, he rubbed his hands up her back and eased his fingers into the ropes of hair gathered at the nape of her neck, loosening and freeing it. Magda shuddered as she felt the thick weight of it fall onto her back, and bit at his mouth with the joy of it.
James slipped his hand down into her dress again and, cupping her breast, released it from the tight bodice. The cool air on her skin was quickly replaced by his mouth, hot and sucking on her. Magda was lost for a moment, then heard the crisp tear of fabric and the popping of buttons as she realized she’d been bared from the waist up.
James hiked the skirts of her dress up and tore the blankets from between them, his movements heated, almost violent, in their intensity.
He slowed and, inhaling deeply, pulled back to hold Magda’s gaze with his own. “I love you more than life,” he said, and tenderly inched himself into her. The simple feel of him, filling her, made her eyes tear. She had to look away then, dropping her head back and closing her eyes, nearly unable to endure such pleasure.
James thrust deeply to the last inch and Magda felt heat tear through her. Breath came in gasps as her body remembered to pull air into its lungs. Her head buzzed as, someplace distant, she felt James pumping fast into her for his own release.
Not more than a quarter hour passed, yet Magda felt like she’d slept for hours, dozing, spent, leaning against his body, her forehead damp against his neck.
“Are you with me, hen?” he whispered.
“Oh yes.” An unintended giggle bubbled up as the relief and realization that James was returned safe finally became real to her.
“Truly, you’d make a man forget his own name.” He kissed her over and over, quick pecks along her face and neck, and Magda giggled in earnest. Her whole body was sensitive, her blood still thrumming just below the surface of her skin.
“But I think we’d best make haste for dinner.” He tucked her hair behind her ears. “I have visions of the Cameron bursting in here to see what’s detained us.”
She rose reluctantly, and a rush of air replaced James’s body, cold on her moist skin.
He flicked back the blanket to reveal bare legs and the wide strip of cloth wrapped around his right calf. James swung his legs over the side of the bed, and a fresh spot of blood appeared, fanning out bright and angry against the white of his bandage.
Magda gasped. “You need to stay in bed.”
“Only with you atop me.”
“Seriously, James.” She studied her torn dress, and not sure what else to do, wadded it into a ball to deal with later. She opened a trunk at the foot of the bed and retrieved the only other dress in her possession. She’d been able to successfully avoid dresses in the more extravagant fabrics, and despite the judgmental once-overs of women like Mairi, the warm tartan wool was quickly becoming her favorite.
She clutched the dress to her breast, somehow more capable of argument when she wasn’t completely naked. “You really shouldn’t be up and around on that leg.”
“Och,” he muttered. He stood and shifted his weight from foot to foot, testing his wound. “Not when I hear Tom Sydserf’s come to call.”
Magda gaped at him, aghast at the nonchalance with which he treated his injury.
James looked at her and smiled. “Don’t fash yourself on my account, hen.” He hobbled to Magda. “I’ve had enough potions and salves to last me a lifetime of battles. You’re the only medicine I need.”
“Alright.” She swatted him with her dress, trying to appear impatient. “Enough sweet talk.”
