I’m having fun chasing her. Hunting her.
I didn’t know I needed to be silly and playful, or how I lacked it. To make snowmen and laugh over the dinner table with her. To exercise long unused skills in tracking and tracking someone down.
I had no idea how much I required her in my life, how intensely I missed her, but now she’s here…
Increasingly, I’m certain I can’t let her go.
She turns to check where I am and shrieks when she finds I’m behind her.“No!” But the look on her face and the laughter from her as she stumbles into deeper snow says,Yes.
My heart thuds as she slows and is within reach, the sound of her panting in my ears. I scan ahead for the best place to catch her.
A snow drift that I know has a yielding bank of heather bushes.
I grab Mia around the waist and tumble her into the soft landing, and she lets out an oof immediately followed by a delighted giggle that fades as I roll her underneath me.
Her blue eyes blink up at me, wide and trusting, a smile lighting her face and snow freckling her cheeks.
“You dare run from me?” I growl. “Now you’re mine.”
7
MIA
I squirm but his body weight, so heavy, holds me down.
“I’ve got you,” he says, and it’s half comfort, half claim. He’s hardly even out of breath after our chase.
My chest is heaving but instead of feeling bad-panicky, it’s good. Exciting and vital.
This is it. Not how I imagined losing my virginity, or giving my first blow job, or whatever James is going to do, but it’s perfect. Perhaps he’ll shove his big cock—he’s a big man all over so I’m certain his cock will be a beast—down my throat. My clit pulses.
But where I expect him to reach for his belt, he doesn’t. He covers me with his body, shielding me from the weather and the cold. With his hips, he pins me into the snow, pushing us both down until we’re in our own personal mini-igloo.
“Mm. You’re so good. Such a good bonnie lass.” He strips off his gloves, tossing them to the side.
I must look surprised, because he smiles slyly. “Kiss chase, remember?”
I reach to bring him to me, to kiss his lips, but he firmly takes my hands and holds them above my head. Then with a grip that’s fierce but only just over the line into painful, he cups my chin.
Between his body on mine, my trapped wrists and his fingers digging into my face, I’m unable to move.
He covers my cheeks with the lightest kisses. Snow crystal kisses. It’s gentle and tender, in stark contrast to how he’s keeping me captive.
“You’re so strong and brave, and you put up an admirable fight. But now you can relax and let me do everything. I’m going to take such good care of you, my sweet lass.”
I’m entranced by his words in that Scottish accent, so rough and smooth all at once. The snow is still falling but the thick layer of white all around us gives the expanse of nothing a secure feel. Like we’re on a post-apocalyptic planet, and it’s only us in the whole world and now it’s just a barren safe place with this magical castle filled with everything we need.
And him. James is all I need. I close my eyes and give in. I’m his. I’m caught and I like that he overpowered me.
“I have to taste you,” he mutters against my throat. “Kiss you.”
He rears up and strips off his jacket. I’m honestly opening my mouth to protest that one, hewaskissing me, and two, has he noticed that it’s still snowing, when he hushes me.
Like I’m his pet, he makes shushing noises as he slides his jacket underneath my hips—I lift them for him when he taps the side of my butt because I’ve apparently lost my own will now he’s in control—and I accept his hushing me and don’t ask the questions rolling around my mouth.What are you doing, James? Maybe try not to get frostbite?
Then he’s tugging my leggings down with impatient hands, knickers and all, and I make a squeak of protest as a frigid snowflake touches my previously warm skin.
He ignores me, trapping my feet together and pushing them up. My knees fall apart, and I should definitely feel ashamed of being so undressed outside. But though my cheeks do heat, I don’t care. He doesn’t even bother looking for my permission before he falls onto my naked skin, covering nearly all of my now-exposed thighs and pelvis with his broad wool-clad shoulders.
