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He frowned, clamped down hard on the sinful thoughts flitting through his dirty brain. “What are you trying to—”
“Look. At. Me. All of me,” she repeated.
And as she spoke, it happened. A ripple of air like heat from the desert floor, and a prickly sensation that seemed to jump between them skin to skin. His eyes burned, but he wouldn’t blink in case he missed something.
A shiver of change passed over her body. Where before had been a creamy expanse of golden skin, unmarred and unbroken, now stood out a swirl of color, blue black, a twining of symbols curling over her left shoulder. Down her arm to her elbow.
His gran-da’s voice spoke to him from some long-ago memory. Mage marks. Symbols of magic and power.
“How did…”
You get them? You hide them from me?
Even though he left both questions unspoken, she seemed to sense what he asked. A sly smile crept over her features. “I received the first markings after my third year with Scathach. The fith-fath disguises them, a bit of household magic easily conjured and easily sustained. I barely even need to think about concealing them anymore.”
He should be disgusted. Repulsed at the outrageous scarring. No woman with any hint of breeding would allow such self-mutilation. And yet wasn’t this just more evidence—as if he needed it—that Morgan wasn’t entirely human? Or at least not like any human he’d ever known. She was Other. A species with its own rules, its own traditions—and now that he was forced to confront it—a freedom he envied.
Without thinking, he took a finger. Traced the swooping tattoos from their origin at the base of her neck. Followed their path across her shoulder. Her arm.
Morgan remained absolutely still, though her flesh pebbled under his light touch, her nipples pearling into hard buds, her stomach tightening. Her eyes locked on his, a wary expectancy darkening her wolf-bright irises.
She’d never seemed more foreign to him. A creature of legend and ancient mythology. How had he ever thought he could capture the heart of a being like this? A whirlwind of light and fire who carried the blood of another world within her veins? He’d been fooling himself. Immersing himself in a fantasy where he could give her what she wanted. Where he could be what she needed.
But that was insanity. Might as well try to catch a lightning bolt in his hands or cage a mountain lion in hopes of taming it to the leash.
Her expression went grave. “So say it and be done.”
Another test. But this one made the foul mouth and take-no-prisoners attitude she’d used earlier to check his reaction seem like child’s play. Like threading a field of caltrops, what he did or said here would affect all that came after.
He cupped one breast, his thumb rubbing the sensitive aureole, her hiss of pleasure making his own temperature rise. “Actions speak louder than words.”
He lowered his head, his tongue following the same path his finger had moments earlier. Her flesh tasted salty, smelled with a heady mix of her normal woodbine and meadowsweet overlaid with the musky scent of sex.
His hands skimmed her body
. Her breasts. He took it slow, knowing his patient thoroughness frustrated her need to have him inside her now. She arched against him, willing him to end the long, teasing strokes, the graze of his teeth and lips. But he held back, even though he felt his own restraint growing thin. This might be as close as he ever came to bottling the wild ferocity of a Highland storm; he’d string out the pleasure as long as he could.
“Cam,” she urged, her voice breathy and rushed with passion. “Please, Cam. Finish it.”
“I need to be sure you know exactly what I think. No mistakes.”
He laughed as she lifted her head, shot him a withering glare. “I’ll tell you what I think,” she began. Cut off by a slow, drugged kiss that caused both of them to forget everything but the pleasure they shared for the space of minutes.
Capturing her hands in his, he positioned them around the dowels of the headboard. Showed her how he wanted her to hold on to them before drawing himself up onto his knees between her legs.
With a steamy look that set his blood roaring straight to his center, Morgan gripped the headboard. Lay back letting him look his fill. And where before there had been a hesitancy, now she seemed to revel in the effect. Her head thrown back, her lips parted slightly in a take-me invitation that had his whole body alight and scraping the edge of explosion.
The tattoo’s pattern, the gleam of moist skin, the red-gold hair loose about her head like a crown. Hers was the sleek, muscled body of an Amazon, the voluptuous temptation of some prehistoric earth-goddess.
He dipped his head to hers, tasting, then devouring. She opened to him, showing with her tongue and teeth that she was more than ready for anything he wanted to do to her. His fingers found her woman’s place, a gentle pressure enough to bring a moan to her lips. He breathed it in along with the whimpers of near ecstasy, loved the way she asked for more, her whole body alive beneath his hands and then his mouth. She cried out, her body quivering beneath him as he lapped at her slick heat.
She released the headboard, squirming free of his assault. Lifting his head, he took her mouth again. Let her taste her own essence on his tongue.
She answered with temptation of her own as she ran her fingers over his member, just that slight touch enough to make his pulse leap into his throat.
He groaned, his body poised and throbbing at the brink of abyss. “Have I said enough? Or do you need more persuading?” His voice came out sounding almost normal, despite the live-wire quiver beginning in his belly. Sizzling like liquid fire through his veins.
“Always better to be sure,” she answered, the smoky sultriness of her voice as she guided him inside her, pushing him to the point where rational thought ended and pure animal lust took over.
