Page 14

We've given each other pleasure over the last month, but it's always come with a wince of pain from him.

A craving deep inside him that overrides the knee injury, yet is also tempered by it.

What we used to be before– Before –can be reconstituted, but not reconstructed just yet.

He feels so good, his mouth giving the whole of him to me, and I roll into it.

His hands tighten around my hips, guiding me, holding me steady, making sure I don’t fly apart before he’s ready to catch me.

And I do fly apart.

Because for weeks, I’ve been careful. Gentle. Watching for grimaces, adjusting ice packs, asking, “Are you okay?” a hundred times a day.

Even when we kissed, deep, needy kisses that should’ve led to more, I held back.

What if I hurt him?

What if his knee flared up?

What if I couldn’t handle being the cause of more pain?

What if I was being selfish?

What if... he never gets better?

But right now?

He’s not in pain.

He's not helpless.

He’s in control .

Good Lord, that mouth knows exactly what it's doing.

And I’m flying.

My orgasm hits hard and fast, a full-body surrender.

I cry out, forehead pressed to the headboard, core curling in, the shock of his dark auburn hair on the pillow beneath me adding to my climax.

Body quaking as he keeps going, licking me through every aftershock with maddening devotion, treasuring every explosive drop.

When I finally collapse onto his face, boneless and breathless, I swear the ceiling spins.

"Mmmmph," he says, one hand grabbing my ribs. I lift up and he takes in a deep breath.

"I'm so sorry!"

"Don’t apologize! If I have ta die, that's how I want ta go oot." Embarrassed, nothing but a humming noodle now, I shift my leg over him, his hand going to my breast as it hovers above, his grin so wicked, I can taste it.

Hamish kisses me, voice low. “At least I can still make ye feel good.”

I turn to look at him, heart thudding.

“Hamish. You always make me feel good. Even when you’re flat on your back complaining about soup.”

He grins. “That wasna soup. That was broth. A rich, magical, healing broth.”

I crawl down beside him, pressing a kiss to his jaw. His erection is enormous, looking like a fence post standing above and to the right of the top of his leg brace.

He wraps his arm around me and sighs. “But ye love me anyway.”

“Terrifyingly true.”

I move to straddle him, carefully, and he gives me a look that’s half gratitude, half lust.

“You sure?” I ask. “You tell me if anything hurts.”

“Aye. I will.”

We try me on top, my thigh pressed against the brace, the other knee working to balance just so and get him inside me. I place my right palm on the bed next to his shoulder, but as I re-distribute my weight, his neck goes tense with pain.

His face contorts.

“NOPE,” he says fast. “Too much pressure on ma hip.”

I spread my legs wider, hands on his chest now.

One shift and he groans, and not in the good way.

“Shite, sorry, sorry–ma leg is naught but a pinata gettin' beat just now.”

"Does candy come out when that happens?"

"Ye hungry, pet?" He eyes his erection. "I've got ma personal protein shake fer ye right here."

It's an old joke, and a good joke, but I've had plenty of Hamish McCormick’s DNA in my stomach this last month.

"Try rolling onto your side, on the good side, and we'll see if we can spoon."

He tries, making it two inches or so.

“I am seconds from meetin’ ma maker,” he hisses, eyes wide. “That’s ma knee’s ‘ye break it, ye bought it’ face.”

I collapse next to him in frustrated laughter and roll him back. It's like pushing a redwood. “You have exactly one position left before I start researching tantric sex.”

"It isna doggie style, I ken that."

"No," I say with a sigh.

He lifts a brow. “Reverse cowgirl?” The glee in his voice is audible.

I narrow my eyes. “You planned this.”

“I’m just a humble man, stuck in a brace, tryin’ tae appreciate his fiancée’s bare bonnie arse.”

“You’re a menace.”

“Yer arse is magnificent.”

With a groan, I straddle him again, this time facing away.

The moment he’s inside me, everything shifts.

The angle is perfect. Deep. Hot. My hips move slowly, savoring the friction against my clit, the stretch of him in me after so long, the way his hands grip my waist like I’m made of glass and fire.

He groans.

I moan back, a deep tightening making the vibration so much more.

We find a rhythm—slow, then faster, bodies slapping, breath ragged. I lean forward slightly, grinding, giving every bit of kinetic force right back. I should hold off, hold back, worry about his pain, but those sounds he's making?

I know the difference between Hamish in pain and Hamish about to come.

And he loses it.

His voice is guttural. “Jesus, Amy. Ye feel–so–perfect.”

I can barely speak. The pressure builds, fast and hot and inevitable. I ride him hard, no pretense, no apology.

No holding back, not this time. I can't. And he doesn't need me to.

When I come, it rips through me like a scream, and I don’t stay quiet.

I moan like I’m being exorcised, a month's worth of visceral, sexy, dirty talk coming out of me like a victory cry.

Hamish shouts beneath me, hips jerking up once, and then he’s coming, too, clenching my waist, and I swear he's cursing in Gaelic.

I collapse forward, sweaty and stunned, forehead pressed against his good shin.

"Yer gonna break it off at the root like that," he says in a slightly panicked tone. I sit up a bit and he’s gasping, laughing, swearing.

“Worth it,” he pants. “All of it. The surgery, the brace, the soup.”

“You said it was broth.”

“Whatever. This was better.”

I roll off him, lips swollen, legs jelly, heart full.

And for the first time since he got hurt, I feel like us again.

Connected. Whole.

Home.