Weighted tension. Unbelievable pleasure. An awareness of stretching, filling, spiraling heat. The moment he had spoken of lasted a lifetime measured in seconds.
And suddenly he was completely inside her.
It was Sadie who moved then, lifting her hips to accept him, digging her nails into his shoulders, and reaching up to capture his mouth again. She swallowed his moan that came the moment he began to move, rocking them both in a rhythm that shot repeating currents of fire throughout her.
The pleasure doubled. Tripled. With a cry of pure joy, Sadie turned her mouth onto his shoulder, feeling his straining muscles against her teeth as she tightened around him.
Morgan stopped and reared up and threw his head back with a shout.
Her eyes widened when, she saw the stone at his neck suddenly flare to life as if struck by lightning, blinding her to everything but feeling. And what she felt now was Morgan, so very deep inside her, pulsing against the throbbing of her womb.
With a groan like that of a wounded bear, Morgan dropped his full weight to his elbows, brushing back her hair and kissing her tenderly on the nose. His heart pounded against hers. His breathing was labored. And she became aware of every steaming inch of him that touched her naked skin.
The storm returned to her consciousness. The rain continued, but the thunder was moving away now, the flashes dulling to mere hints of light. But it was enough for her to see clearly the gleam of triumph dancing in Morgan’s eyes.
Chapter Thirteen
He had one hell of an apology to make.
No better than a rutting animal, he had just taken his woman in the woods, in the middle of a damned storm. What should have been the most pleasant experience of Mercedes’
life had most likely been her greatest disaster.
She was frighteningly still but for the faint trembling he could feel coursing through her body beneath him. The apology would have to wait. He needed to get her warm, get her up and dressed and hustled back to their camp in a hurry.
As carefully as he could, Morgan lifted himself off Mercedes and rose to his knees. She immediately scrambled away, crossing her hands over her chest, frantically searching for someplace to hide.
Morgan was stricken by the sight. Much more was needed than a damned apology. He would gladly give up his sword arm for this not to have happened.
He groped on the ground until he found his shirt, shook it out, and attempted to put it on Mercedes.
She flinched, rose to her knees, and almost scrambled away before he could catch her.
He wrapped one arm around her waist and hugged her to his chest, feeling her shiver.
He closed his eyes and silently prayed for forgiveness, and then he whispered those same petitions to her.
“I’m sorry, lass, for what I’ve done. But you’ve got to let me get you dressed. You’re going to catch cold.”
“I can dress myself.”
Her voice was faint. Distant. And without emotion. Morgan grew alarmed. Her shivering had turned violent now, her whole body as cold as snow.
“You can rail at me tomorrow,gràineag,” he said, returning to his chore of dressing her.
“You even have my permission to use my sword, if you still have the strength to lift it,”
he added, hoping like hell she did have the strength, that she wouldn’t catch pneumonia.
She was amazingly strong now and fought him, trying to squirm out of his hold. But it wasn’t until he wrapped his hands around her back that Morgan fully understood why Mercedes was so frantic to escape him. She immediately twisted away and kicked out with her feet.
It was those damned scars she was trying to hide from him. Mercedes was horrified that he might see them and be disgusted.
He immediately moved away from her. “Easy, Mercedes. I’ll let you dress. Here,” he said, gathering up her soaked pants and shirt. “Here’s your clothes. They’re wet, but I’ll have you back in front of a warm fire in minutes. Just get dressed.”
Morgan then stood, shaking out his own pants and stepping into them. He shuddered as the wet cloth grated against his skin. He put on his boots and set his sword over his shoulder before he shook out his shirt and held it up to Mercedes once again.
“Here. It’s wet, too, but it’s wool. It will add some warmth to your own clothes.”
She was only half dressed. She had thrown her shirt on with haste and had buttoned it crooked. Her pants were pulled up, and she was now fighting with the zipper. Her trembling hands were making the chore nearly impossible.
Morgan lost what patience he’d been trying to hold on to. He wrapped his shirt over her shoulders and swept her into his arms.
Her first reaction was to squeak.
Her second was to take a poorly aimed swing at his head.
“You’re going to kill us both,” she grumbled. “I’m too heavy.”
He couldn’t stifle a laugh. “Ah,gràineag. When the day comes that I can’t carry you, I’ll be three years in my grave.” He hefted her slightly, settling her comfortably. “Now, be quiet and save your strength,” he added, giving her a quick kiss on her dirty forehead.
“Because tomorrow, Mercedes, we are having a much-needed talk about the rules of this match.”
He was planning a lecture, most likely.
Sadie lay in the warmth of Morgan’s embrace and stared up at the ceiling of her tent, most of which Morgan MacKeage was filling.
It was quite nice, she decided, to wake up and find herself snuggled securely against a sleeping bear.
It was also a bit disconcerting.
The guy was completely naked.
It seemed she’d fallen in love with an exhibitionist. She’d probably seen Morgan naked more often than dressed.
She was just the opposite, wanting to keep herself covered up to the chin.
Hence the upcoming lecture.
She expected Morgan was planning to scold her for acting so insanely modest, even to the point of foolishness. She knew he had been worried last night that she’d been wet and cold.
So she’d shut up, let him carry her back to camp—that had been an experience in itself—
and then she had washed, dressed in layers of dry clothes, and crawled into bed. She had even remained silent when Morgan had crawled into the tent and settled beside her.
Now she was staring at the dawn-lighted ceiling, wondering how she was going to extricate herself from both his embrace and the mess she’d made of their flaming affair.
But first there was the matter of her body sock. It was lost in the forest someplace, muddy and wet, along with her bra. She had other bras with her, but that was her only camisole, and she wanted it back.
Holding her breath, Sadie carefully lifted Morgan’s arm off her waist and gently set it beside her. With painstaking care, she pulled the zipper on her sleeping bag down, cringing at every metallic click it made. She moved first one leg and then the other one free of the bag and silently rolled to her knees and backed her way to the door.
She stopped, though, caught by what she was seeing. The man was lying on his stomach, completely naked. His entire body was tanned, sprinkled with a downy coat of sun-bleached hair. There was a wicked-looking scar just above his right buttock, crossing his waist in a six-inch raised welt of light-colored skin. And another one on his right shoulder, not as long but obviously just as old.
His feet were dirty, thick-skinned with calluses. He apparently didn’t wear boots any more often than he wore clothes. And at his side, almost as tall as he was, lay his sword.
Sadie stifled a snort. Why wasn’t she surprised he slept with the thing?
She continued her study.
His hand rested relaxed on the spot where she’d been lying. It was a large hand, strong-looking, blunt. His huge body took up most of the tent, his feet touching the door and his head all but touching the end. He had to be nearly six and a half feet tall.