Chapter 5
Mya walked barefoot under trees green with spring, their tender new leaves all unfurling toward the sky.
The scent of coming rain curled around her, soft on the breeze, though the sun shone overhead, light spilling down through the branches to dapple the carpet of bluebells on the forest floor.
In the murky green distance, a stag grazed among the silvery trunks.
It stood bright against the green backdrop, its white fur almost shining in the sunlight shining directly on it.
Flowers brushed her, skin tickling against her feet. Mya took a breath, filling her chest with the sweet, elusive smell of them. It felt familiar, like something she had done before. The stag lifted his head, and their eyes locked.
Clouds that had not been overhead a moment before burst, and rain poured down, pattering through the leaves and soaking her to the bone. The stag bounded away.
She stood in the rain, watching it go, part of her wanting to chase after it.
Then suddenly, there were arms around her.
A cloak lifted over her head to shield her from the rain.
Laughing, she ran for the shelter of the house up ahead, and in a moment they were tumbling through the door, both of them dripping all over the floor.
Mya turned to thank her rescuer, and found Lord McGregor, dressed not in the smart trousers and suit coat he had worn during both of their encounters, but in a kilt belted tight around his waist, his dark hair loosed from its tie and wet with rain.
Water ran down the bare expanse of his chest, outlining the ripple of muscle.
Mya traced the drops with her eyes, resisting the urge to lean in and lick them from his skin.
When she lifted her gaze, he was watching her with knowing dark eyes and a smile on his face that made heat curl lazily under her skin.
He reached out, and the palm of his hand curved against her cheek, hot against her rain-chilled skin.
This time, when he leaned down to kiss her, she didn’t turn and run.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning up on her toes to press her lips to him in return, body melting against his chest. The hand that was not on her face curled around her hip, and then he was sliding both of his hands under her thighs, lifting her as though she weighed nothing, carrying her through to the room where she slept.
There was a rug there in front of the fireplace that she did not remember having been there before.
He laid her down on the soft fur, and Mya ran her hands along the curves of his shoulders and down over his biceps, feeling the muscles there ripple under his skin as he undressed her.
The clothes fell away as though they were as eager to leave her bare beneath him as she was to feel his skin against her own.
The world shifted, and they were both naked, the firelight skimming over their skin and dancing in Kayden’s dark eyes. He leaned down and pressed his mouth to her throat, scattering kisses along the curve of it.
“Damn, Mya.” Another brush of lips against skin. “You are so beautiful.”
Mya’s fingers curled in his hair as he worked his way down, pausing to lavish attention on her breasts, teasing her nipples with his tongue until she was panting, her back arched and her free hand clutching at the fur beneath her.
“Tell me you desire me,” he said.
“I desire you,” Mya answered, an echo she couldn’t recall the source of. “I have wanted you since the moment we met.”
His hand slid up her thigh, and she let her legs fall open under the push of it, her body aching for him.
“I want you, Kayden. Please. I want you.”
He smiled. She felt the curve of it, pressed to the space between her breasts, and then he was moving down once more. Mya writhed under him, hips hitching upward. He pressed a hand against her belly to hold her still.
“Is this what you want, Mya?” he asked her, biting down gently on her hipbones, not yet leaning forward to taste her.
They had done this before. She was certain now. He had asked her that question, his hands against her and his mouth on her skin. But she could not follow the thread of memory; all her attention was focused on him. On his touch. On the teasing lilt of his words.
“Yes,” she answered. “Yes.”
He chuckled, low in his throat, and bent down to give her what she had asked for.
At the first flick of his tongue against her, Mya abandoned all restraint, moaning and rocking into his mouth, gasping his name.
The hand tangled in his hair tightened. She felt the hum of Kayden moaning into her when she writhed, crying out with the pleasure of it, and he quickened his pace, alternating between teasing her entrance and flicking his tongue relentlessly over her clit.
It was only a matter of moments before she was shuddering and coming beneath him, pleasure shocking outward through her veins and filling her up with light. He gentled her through it, fingers stroking her hip.
When she opened her eyes, he was leaning over her, weight propped up on one elbow and his hips rocking against hers, sending new sparks through already sensitized nerves.
Mya rocked up to meet him, and then he was sliding in, filling her so perfectly, and they were moving together, the rhythm of their bodies at once familiar and new.
Mya breathed in the scent of him and wrapped an arm around his neck, drawing him down into a long, slow kiss.
His cock stroked over that perfect place inside her, and her thighs spasmed around him as she lifted her knees higher, opening herself to him.
Her head tossed against the fur, hair spilling around her.
He reached one hand down to find her clit, rocking his thumb against it with the same rhythm his hips moved to.
Mya bit back a cry, earning her a low, husky laugh.
Pleasure coiled low in her belly again, wrapping her senses in its net.
Her toes curled as she rode the wave higher, seeking the crash.
Her vision blurred, and all she could think to do was keep moving, keep holding on.
She reached for the ecstasy that waited, lingering on the edge of the fall.
And then, suddenly, it was there. Heat washed from her head to the tips of her toes, her thighs squeezing hard around his hips, and a hoarse cry of his name escaped her lips.
Kayden groaned, buried his face in her neck, and bucked frantically up into her, holding on to her a little too hard as he rushed toward his own orgasm.
He thrust hard one final time, groaning his pleasure, his head thrown back.
She stroked his cheek, his shoulder, his back, and whispered words that she forgot even as they left her lips.
They lay together, then, panting, listening to the crackling of the fire in the hearth. Kayden’s hand stroked through her hair. Her eyes lifted and met his.
“I love you,” she said, and he laughed.
“And I you, Mya. My lovely one. Always and utterly.”
The words were still ringing in her ears when she woke.
She lay there panting, strangely disappointed that it had only been a dream. Her racing heart felt naked without him. And she had no idea why.