“There really wasn’t any time to add the conversation to the top of our to-do list,” I sass him a little. I’m feeling warm and sore, glowing a bit under all this undivided attention. “You went right to step one.”
After disposing of the cloth, he slides into bed with me, running a long sweep of his hand over my waist and hip. “Cheeky minx, ye must be feeling better. Getting all gallus on me.” He doesn’t sound entirely displeased by it.
We lie there together, struck by the rare luxury of the moment. Michael’s phone isn’t ringing. There’s not a line of people waiting for his attention. He’s here, with me, one hand sliding softly up and down my back.
“Michael?”
“Hmm?”
“Can I see it again?”
Bursting into uproarious laughter, he tilts my chin up. “Are ye speaking of the piercing, then?”
My face flames red as I nod. He moves back enough to pull his sweatpants down, wrapping his long fingers around his shaft, which is already hardening a bit, an action I note with some alarm. It’s not like I haven’t seen a dick before, I have wifi, thank you very much and Maisie insisted we watch a couple of truly terrible porn flicks one night.
Out in the wild, so to speak? This is my first and it’s bigger even than the porn guy’s was. The silver glint of the piercing on the head of Michael’s cock is wildly exotic.
“Did it hurt a lot? When you got it done?” I touch the metal very gently with one finger, like it might bite me if I get too close.
"Aye," he says honestly. "It stung like a bitch.” A dark, vulpine smile stretches across his stupidly handsome face. “Though it was certainly worth it.”
I am suddenly and unreasonably jealous of the other woman who got to appreciate my husband's piercing, even though I know that makes no sense.
It doesn't matter,the possessive part of me whispers.It's all mine now.
With a groan, Michael pushes his semi-hard shaft back into his sweat pants. “Sleep with me a moment, aye?”
Those faint lines of exhaustion around his eyes and mouth are sharper, and I nod. “Of course. Let me just put something on.”
He sits up long enough to take off his t-shirt. “Arms up.” The warm cotton slides across my skin, smelling sharp; pine and a faint bite of citrus, with something smoky underneath like gunpowder. It’s a smell I remember from my very first days helping Mom at the mansion, where I’d sneakily put Michael’s pillowcase to my nose to breathe his scent into my lungs.
Leaning on his elbow, he pulls the shirt down, taking some extra time to make sure it’s smooth over my breasts, the pervert. “Tell me, butterfly. Why have ye never been with a man before now?” He doesn’t sound displeased about it, merely curious.
Should I tell him the truth? That though I never entertained any real hope that we would end up together, I waited? That there was never another man who could make me forget him?
“I was always busy,” I deflect. “School, and work. There’s not been enough time or no one who really…”
“No one who was worth your time?” he finishes. “That I believe. Men like that eejit Maisie tried to set ye up with? A waste, that was.” His thumb strokes my chin before he leans in for a kiss. “I’ll be your first and your last.”
Oh, he’s got the devil’s grin right now.
“And there’ssomuch to show ye in between the two.”
Pulling me back against his chest, Michael’s hand slips under the shirt to rest against my stomach and I feel his chest rise and fall behind me, slowing into sleep.
I carefully trace my fingers along his arm slung over me, the thick swell of his bicep, his veiny forearm and long, elegant fingers.I guess youcantell the size of a man's dick from his hands, I think wryly.
There's a beautifully detailed tattoo across his forearm, a spray of Scottish thistle, the blooms in vivid purple. From this angle, I can see the snarling snout of a wolf's head that ends on his shoulder. It's the tattoo I’d seen all those years ago, as I cringed, dripping wet from the koi pond, the one that had peeked over the collar of his shirt. I recognize it now; the wolf, fangs bared and dripping menace, it’s part of the crest of the MacTavish coat of arms. It feels so intimate, finally knowing what that tattoo is, what it means, now that he’s peeled off his shirt and bared himself- at least a little - to me.
My center is sore, and I can feel some bites and bruises on my skin now that I’d not noticed when he gave them to me. Insteadof sleeping, I count each one of them with a pleased little grin and stay very still, guarding my husband’s sleep.
***
Gallus - Scottish slang for sassy or impertinent.
Chapter Nineteen
Michael…
