“Fer God’s sake, woman, dunnae start laughing when ye’re exposing a man’s nether parts,” he stated, pulling the remaining half-dozen pins from her long hair.
He didn’t sound horribly offended, but then he had no reason to be insecure about his nether parts. They were magnificent, if she said so herself. “I was thinking about what Pogue told Mags,” she explained, curling her fingers around his half-erect cock.
“Mm-hm. I’m nae a self-important Skye terrier.” Taking her by the shoulders he twisted, putting her breathlessly onto her back on his soft bed. “And I dunnae have need of a chair.”
With a laugh she reached up to shove his trousers down past his hips, and he kicked out of them. He’d already undone the trio of buttons between her shoulders, and when he yanked down the front of her gold and brown muslin gown to lick her left breast, she couldonly gasp and tangle her fingers into his dark, lanky hair.
She loved this, when he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her, when she had every ounce of his attention and his passion. That was one of the most striking changes to his character—he’d been angry and quick to take offense before, but about everything. Now the man presently drawing her dress past her hips as she wriggled to aid him had a calmness to his center, a focus that made him a deadly opponent and an exceptional partner.
Flinging her gown behind him, he sank down on the bed and lowered his head between her thighs. As his fingers and tongue teased at her most intimate place, Rebecca twisted her hands into the bedcovers and moaned. However this had happened, however the two of them had managed to overcome years of imagined animosity—a heated dislike that she had begun to realize had more to do with loss and disappointment than actual hatred—she wouldn’t have traded these moments.
As she’d told him, the past couldn’t be reconciled, and so she didn’t attempt to do so. Perhaps her life now wasn’t so much a new chapter as it was a new book. Volume the Second in the life of Rebecca Sanderson-MacCreath. Bad, terrible things had marked the end of the first book, but the second one, barring something unforeseen from the villain, looked to proceed much more happily. And she hoped it would be a very long book, full of boring passages about long walks and warm evenings and laughter.
And this, of course. Spasming in ecstasy, she arched her back and tried not to crush his head between her thighs. “Stop teasing me, Callum,” she ordered, when she regained the ability to speak again.
He lifted his head, looking up along her body at her. “Are ye in a hurry, then?” he murmured, a delicious grin on his lean face. As he lifted an eyebrow, his fingers slipped inside her again.
Oh, she tried never to compare, but Ian had never done… that to her. Rebecca pounded a fist against the mattress as his wicked, wicked tongue dipped into her once more. “Callum,” she ground out, unable to stifle a very unladylike squeal of shaky laughter. “Now!”
His chuckle warm against her thighs, he lifted up, wrapping his hands around her ankles and pulling her down the bed toward him. Arranging her legs around his hips, he went down onto all fours, hands on either side of her shoulders. “I could nae refuse ye, Rebecca,” he murmured.
When he slid inside her, she shut her eyes, reveling in the filling sensation, the weight of him across her hips. Opening her eyes again, she swept her hands along the hard, taut muscles of his shoulders and back. He was beautiful, a man accustomed to hard work and with the body to show for it. Fit and lean and large, he dominated every room he entered just by walking in. And since he’d returned, he’d had eyes for no one but her. She’d seen him walk right past lasses with whom he’d dallied as a nineteen- and twenty-year-old and not even blink. Ten years had changed them both, but he bore time’s marks both inside and out.
The headboard thumped against the wall with every deep thrust he made inside her, her back arched to take him in more fully. She pulled his face down and kissed him, every inch of her alive and aroused and excited by him.
He changed his pace, practically lifting her from the bed as he stroked into her faster and faster, then slowed again. The shivering light inside her stretched and drewtighter until she shattered, moaning helplessly as she clung to him.
As she finished he sped his pace again, rocking deeply into her until with a low, groaning growl he came, spilling his seed inside her. Panting, Rebecca loosed her legs, tilting her chin up as he kissed beneath her ear and worked his way around to her mouth.
“Ye undo me, lass,” he said, rolling onto his back and pulling her over on top of him.
She rested her head on his chest, feeling the fast beat of his heart beneath her cheek. Her own heart matched it, the two of them in perfect harmony—for the moment, at least. He’d acquiesced to her request that they see to Dunncraigh legally, but she could see his impatience in every motion he made, every word he spoke.
“I saw the plans on your desk,” she commented, goose bumps lifting on her arms as he twined her long hair around his fingers. “The warehouse and what looked like a distillery.”
“Aye. It seems I’ve a talent for brewing that I nae had for drinking,” he returned.
“You’re beginning an empire of your own,” she pressed, still not certain why that annoyed her, except that men seemed to have the maddening ability to completely separate business from domesticity, and she was damned tired of being treated as part of one but not the other. Especially by a man who’d seen her as a partner when they’d both been children together. “You’ll have two empires, if everything works out as you plan.”
“Only until the bug turns eighteen, if ye reckon that’s old enough. I’ve nae decided precisely, but it’s what I put down for now. I’m nae partial to ill luck, but it happens. I wanted to sign someaught.”
Frowning, she lifted her head to look at his face. “What are you talking about?”
“Kentucky Hills belongs to me, nae to the Geiry inheritance. Do ye reckon that eighteen is too young to give it over to Mags? Mayhap one-and-twenty would be wiser.” He shifted a little, putting his free hand beneath his head. “And I dunnae care who might be courting her or promising to wed her, I’m making damned certain that it stays with her. I’ll nae see the lass marrying for any other reason but that she loves the lad.” He sighed. “I admired yer da’, but he put ye in a mess when he didnae allow ye to keep Sanderson’s once ye were wed.”
She continued staring at him, at his relaxed expression and the growing amusement in his two-colored eyes. “You’re giving Kentucky Hills Distillery—both distilleries, your warehouses, everything—to Margaret?”
“Aye. I have been listening to ye, Becca. I cannae change yer inheritance, but I can see to it that Mags doesnae lose what she owns. Ever. I’m willing to manage it unless—until—she wants to take it over.”
“What… What if you have children of your own?”
“Ifwe,” he returned, emphasizing the word, “have children together, the first lad will have Geiry. The rest can have a share of Kentucky Hills, unless I conjure another brilliant business idea in the meantime.”
She couldn’t have stopped her smile if her life depended on it. “‘The rest,’” she repeated. “How many children are we having? Not that I’ve accepted your proposal.”
“I reckon four,” he said, stretching deliciously beneath her. “Including Mags.”
Oh, my.“I was married for nine years and managed to have only one, you know,” she commented.
