"Aye, just like that." He paused and subjected her to a searching inspection. "Are ye ready for more?"
"More?" she echoed on a breath.
"Aye, lassie, we've only just started."
Already she felt like she became a new person. What on earth would the world look like when he’d finished with her? "Will I like it?"
Another twitch of those lips. Another kiss. Longer, deeper this time. "I hope so. I'm sorry I hurt ye."
Mhairi experimented with a squirm and was delighted to see his eyes go glassy with pleasure. She was even more delighted when another volley of those sizzling responses rushed through her. "It wasnae too bad."
She could see he didn't believe her. "Is that so?"
"Is that why you're trembling?"
She ran her hand along one broad shoulder and down an arm bunched with muscle. She loved to touch him. It was like petting a lion. He shook his head and adjusted himself inside her, sparking another burst of fireworks.
"Och, no, lassie. I'm trembling because I want ye so much that I’m itching to ravish you, but it's your first time and I dinnae want to frighten ye."
"I'm no’ frightened," she said and realized with a surprise that it was true. "Take your pleasure, Mackinnon."
"Och, I love ye, Mhairi." He dipped his head and kissed her again. The contact began in tenderness, but soon flared into incandescent heat. She arched up for more and this time he moved, sliding back in a slow withdrawal that filled her vision with exploding stars.
"Oh!" She exhaled in amazement, then with more certainty, "Oh!" as he thrust inside her again. She braced for more pain, but her body fitted snug around him as if they were born to be together.
"Hold onto me, Mhairi," he said in a raw voice. Eager hands gripped his shoulders and she closed her eyes, yielding to the profound union.
This time when he shifted forward, she knew what to expect, but still her heart cramped with the awareness that they were one. Every muscle in her body spasmed with wicked excitement.
She gave him a wordless mutter of encouragement and tightened her knees around his narrow hips. When he entered her again, the angle was different and he set off a fresh cascade of dazzling sensation.
"Callum!" she cried out in astonished wonder.
He rose on those brawny arms and looked down into her face. "Good?"
"Grand!" She shuddered in rising response as he pulled back. "Magnificent."
His laugh still held a note of strain, and the sinews under her hands were drawn taut as bowstrings. But she couldn't mistake the satisfaction lighting his expression. "I told ye it gets better."
His movements became faster, harder. Callum seemed to penetrate right to the center of her body each time he joined with her. With every slide, that restless feeling familiar from his intimate kisses became more powerful, until she was gasping and sobbing and scraping her nails across his back. His breath sawed over the wild pounding of her blood.
"Let it happen, lassie," he whispered, as he ran his teeth down her neck. She shivered with more of that heavenly response and flew a little closer to the sun.
Then he surged up over her, going deeper than ever. With a shaking hand, he pressed hard on that miraculous place between her legs. Mhairi broke through into a new universe of brilliant, blinding sensation.
Rivers of blazing heat rushed through her, and pleasure such as she'd never known. She cried out his name as she convulsed in his arms, then she felt him go still under her hands.
His hips jerked forward, and he groaned long and rasping against her shoulder. Through her shaking, shuddering, transcendent response, she felt the hot rush of a man's seed inside her for the first time.
With a broken sigh that conveyed absolute surrender, she curled her arms around his back and her legs around his buttocks and let Callum flood her with his potent essence.
Chapter 24
Callum woke to darkness. The shutters were closed over the windows to keep out the summer night. He stretched out on his back, naked amidst rumpled sheets. Sprawled across him lay a slender, disheveled female, warm and soft, and tangled in a tumble of silky hair. He tightened his hold on his wife and smiled with boundless, if weary joy up at the canopy of the bed. The bed where not long ago he’d enjoyed the most profound experience of his life.
Mhairi gave a sleepy murmur and curled closer. When her hand slipped across his chest in a tender caress, poignant emotion had his heart performing acrobatics. He loved her so damned much. What they'd shared tonight had changed him forever.
Closing his