Chapter Fifteen #3
He didn’t make her wait. When she reached for his face, he offered it to her, let her pull him in for a kiss as he finally divested himself of the rest of his clothing.
Her only regret about how rapidly he dove for her was that she didn’t get a chance to look at him properly. But there would be time for that later; she promised it to herself.
For now, she relished in the feel of him as he leaned in close to her again, pressing himself against her entrance. And then he was moving inside her, a long, consuming slide that went on and on until she was full of pressure and longing and—God help her—love.
She gasped when he was fully seated within her, her nerves alight with the feel of him—the prickle of hair on his chest against her smoothness, the hardness of his muscles against her softness. And the pressure of him, deep in a place where she had never been touched.
“My Katrina,” he breathed, his thumb stroking over her cheekbone.
And then he started to move.
Each stroke was even more breathtaking than the last. She didn’t quite understand how it was possible for her ardor to surge to such heights so soon after her crisis, but she didn’t have much space to think about it, not when every one of her senses was so consumed by him. By Blake, her Blake—at least for now.
She planned to steal every bit of him that she could. She would hoard whatever of him that she could get.
“Och,” she gasped, unsure how to comprehend her own pleasure, unable to contend with how good he felt. “I-how–”
His cocksure grin, displayed over something other than his prowess in battle, was something to behold, though it did not help her find her words one bit.
“Ah, my sweet healer,” he crooned, his words hitching slightly with each forceful punch of his hips. “Ye dinnae need to say anything.” He stole her lips in a long kiss. “But ye had best say my name when ye release for me. Ye had best ken who it is that makes ye feel like this. The only one.”
“Bl—” she began, but he stopped her with another one of those probing kisses.
“Nae yet,” he said. “That is, unless ye are too consumed with me to wait.”
She gasped again, this time at the blatant challenge in his mocking words.
“And ye think ye are so impressive that I cannae resist ye?” The effect of her retort was rather undermined by how hard she had to struggle to get it out between the gasping breaths.
Still, his voice wasn’t much steadier as he responded, “We will see.”
They moved as one, their bodies learning the rhythm of this new dance, their breaths gasping as one. Katrina’s pleasure spiraled higher and higher, then peaked so rapidly that it almost took her by surprise.
“Come on now, lass,” he crooned. “Give it to me, aye?”
He looked at her like she was the whole of the world, and just then, he was everything she needed or wanted, too.
Following his command was as easy as breathing.
“Blake,” she sobbed, her fingers biting into his shoulder. “Oh, Blake. Blake.”
“Fuck, lass,” he groaned into her neck, his mouth hot and wet against her pulse. “Katrina. My wee healer. My lass.”
His possessive words cracked something open inside her.
She cried out when that bright light flashed in her again, every one of her muscles going tight.
Blake threw back his head, looking almost as though he was in agony.
He roared his pleasure as his climax took him, and, God, she understood it then—he was so beautiful like this.
She clung to him as they shuddered in the aftermath, then kept her arms tight around his neck as he withdrew and rolled them so that his bulk didn’t crush her. She appreciated the consideration, though she didn’t think she would have minded, as long as it was his weight pressing upon her.
For a long time, she sat there, just breathing in the warm, masculine scent of him, her hand stroking idly up and down his back.
“I want to remember everything about this moment,” she murmured, then tilted her head back to look at him when a slight stiffness came into his body.
He grimaced, his own grip tightening on her as he thought through his response.
“I cannae believe that I will ever forget any part of it,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut briefly.
“Of ye—of how perfect ye are. But I fear…” He swallowed, and Katrina waited, sensing how much he needed her patience.
“I fear it will fade. Because I never would have thought that I could forget my wee sister’s face, or my brother’s. But…”
He paused for so long that she thought he might not speak again. He tucked her head against his chest and spoke his last words into her hair.
“I can remember the blood more clearly than their faces. And I’m afraid…”
This time, he didn’t finish, but she understood his terror that this moment, too, would be erased in a wash of blood. She didn’t offer any promises; she couldn’t make them, not with war coming. And she was afraid, too.
But war wasn’t here in the hut with them.
And she refused to make room for fear, either.
She held him close for as long as she could, long after night fell, clinging until sleep overtook them both.