“Come here,” he said quietly.
She let him draw her closer. He took her hands gently into his. His thumbs pressed into her palms, working away the ache she had not admitted even to herself. The relief was immediate, almost dizzying.
“Oh,” she murmured before she could stop herself.
His mouth curved faintly. “That bad?”
“I had nae noticed,” she confessed, her eyes fluttering closed. “Until now.”
He said nothing, only continued. His strong fingers were coaxing warmth back into joints that had lifted, carried, soothed, and steadied all day long. She felt herself soften under his touch, tension unspooling thread by thread. When he released her hands, she barely had time to miss them before he shifted, kneeling to guide her feet into his lap.
“Baird—” she began.
“Trust me,” he murmured.
She did.
His hands were warm as they cradled her heel, his thumbs pressing into the arch of her foot with practiced care. Davina inhaled sharply. The sensation was startling in its intimacy.
“That feels… unfairly pleasant,” she said, breathless.
He glanced up at her. “Good.”
He worked slowly and methodically, as though the act itself were a promise. When he moved from her foot to her calf, the room seemed to grow warmer. Her skin tingled where he touched her, awareness pooling low and insistent.
“Ye should stop,” she said weakly, though she made no move to pull away.
He did not stop. Instead, his hands slid higher, his thumbs tracing along the curve of her calf, then higher still, where her skin was more sensitive, where her breath hitched despite her best efforts to remain composed.
Davina opened her eyes and found him watching her with a hunger he did not bother to hide.
“Baird,” she whispered, her voice barely steady.
He leaned closer, one hand resting on her thigh now, warm and possessive without being rough. “I want ye,” he said simply.
The honesty of it sent a shiver through her.
“Are nae ye tired?” she asked softly, searching his face.
“I will never be too tired,” he murmured, “tae satisfy me wife.”
She laughed under her breath in delight and leaned into him. “That sounds dangerously like a promise.”
“It is,” he replied, and kissed her.
There was nothing hurried in what followed. He drew her closer, as the room narrowed to the steady press of his hands and the quiet cadence of their breaths. The fear, the strain and the unrelenting care of the day fell away as though laid gently aside.
She felt cherished, not claimed; desired, not taken. When he guided her back against the bed, it was with reverence, as though every touch were an answer to all she had given.
She allowed him to relinquish her off all her clothes, and then to kiss a trail of warmth down her body. His hands were on her, feeling her breasts, caressing her nipples, toying with her need.His knee gently spread her thighs, as he adjusted himself on top of her.
She was not the least bit tired now. Instead, she was enflamed by his desire mirroring her own. Her hips thrusted up toward him, offering herself to him, allowing him to claim her. Their tongues danced together, while his fingers gently circled around her pebbled nipple. The sensation was wild and warm, and she was already so close to that explosion she knew so well.
He slid into her in one slow motion, filling her to the brim. She moaned against his lips, feeling those familiar flutters of pleasure. He kept claiming her in steady pulses that hastened with each thrust. He sank inside of her, deer and deeper each time, grinding against her sensitive bud.
He knew exactly what he was doing, that wicked man, and he knew that she wanted all of him.
It didn’t take her long to explode, to tremble underneath him, as his manhood sank inside her channel, remaining there. Her lips parted, and she gasped loudly, as a million little pinpricks rushed down her back, only to come back up, dispersing somewhere at the nape of her neck.
