***
CORMAC TOOK HER TWICEmore during the night.
The second time was slower.He had learned her by then and used the knowledge without mercy, and Una was louder than the first, which he had not thought possible.He had to kiss her hard to stifle her cries, his mouth swallowing the sounds she made while he moved inside her, and when he felt his own release coming he buried his face in her shoulder and groaned into her skin to muffle it.
The third time was in the small hours, half-asleep and reaching for each other at the same moment, and it was fierce, quick, passionate and they lay afterward in the dark laughing quietly at themselves.
Cormac loved that Una was lusty and unashamed in his bed.He loved that she matched him, met him, gave as good as she got.He had not known how much he had wanted that until he had it.
When he woke properly it was early, the fire burned low, and Una was sleeping across his chest, her head tucked under his chin and one hand curled against him.
He held her tighter, looked at the ceiling for a while, and grinned.
***
UNA WOKE TO SUNLIGHTthrough the window and the warm solid weight of Cormac wrapped around her back.
She lay still for a moment, taking stock.
Every muscle in her body ached.Her inner thighs were tender.There were other places she felt the ache the moment she shifted.
She also, urgently, needed to empty her bladder.
Una attempted to slide out of bed quietly.Instead she groaned and winced loudly.
"Good morning, wife," Cormac said behind her, warm and entirely too alert for a man who had been awake half the night.
"Dinnae speak to me," she said."I am sore and I need to visit the garderobe."
Cormac was up immediately and reached for his plaid.
"What are ye doing?"she asked.
"I'll carry ye there."
"Ye will do no such thing, Cormac Stewart!Carrying me about is precisely how I ended up sore."She slapped his hands away.
Cormac grinned but stepped back with his hands raised in surrender.
Una slowly stood, pulled on her shift, and shuffled out the door and down the short passage to her destination.She was back within a few minutes.She crossed to the washstand, poured water from the pitcher into the basin, washed quickly, and brushed her teeth.Then she returned to bed and sat carefully on the edge.Cormac was not in the room.
Several minutes later he returned.His hair was damp and he looked refreshed, as though he had visited the washrooms below stairs.
He gazed at her with a heated glance and opened his mouth.
"Not a word," she said, pointing at him.
"I said nothing."
"Ye were about to."
"I was going to ask if ye were all right," he replied.
"I am sore and it is entirely yer fault!"she snapped.
"Aye, I'm sorry, love," he said gravely."But if ye remember, I warned ye to stop after the second time."
"Ye should have been sterner with yer warning!"
