A Kind of Magic (22 page)

She drew him willingly down on top of her. She couldn’t have let him go if her life depended on it.

The heat of their joined bodies brought more than warmth. It was pure fire. She tugged him out of his clothes. Her own became rumpled and disarrayed. He freed her breasts and nuzzled them, licked and nipped at them until she moaned with pleasure.

Rowan pushed up her skirts and she wrapped her bare legs around his muscular thighs. Her breasts crushed against his chest, the rigid points of her nipples in electric contact with Rowan’s hard, hot body. She reveled in the feel of the soft fur of his chest hair against her sensitized skin.

Rowan spoke, panted out words between fiery kisses, but Maddie was too wild with need to understand a thing he said. She made noises herself, deep expressions of pleasure and wanting, but there was nothing rational about the sounds. She rolled her hips against his, felt the hardness of his erection against her belly, told him how much she wanted him with her movements and small, begging cries.

Maddie knew an instant of devastation when he pulled away from her but he didn’t leave her. He rose above where she lay. She looked up at him in needy wonder. Rowan took her face between his hands, spoke in a lust-roughened whisper. Maddie had no need for words, she recognized the concern that matched the fire in his eyes. His need was as strong as her own but he was asking permission. In that moment she loved him more than she loved life itself. She reached up, touched his cheek, nodded.

“Aye, Rowan. I want you. You’re all I want.”

He recognized only his name in her words, but her tone and the soft smile that lit her face told him all he truly needed to know. She was his, freely. It was time for the two of them to become one. Rowan straddled her, stroked the soft insides of her thighs for a moment, fitted himself to her. He thrust into her, claiming the depths of her heated softness.

Maddie cried out when Rowan entered her. Then cried out again as his hips began to pump and grind against her. The sounds were made up of equal parts delight and surprise. The surprise was at the heat that raced through her, at the sleek, smooth, perfect way his hardness fit so perfectly into the pulsing center of her, at the mixture of satisfaction and raw hunger that drove her to rise up to meet each hard thrust. She found utter delight in the same things that surprised her. She had never felt any pleasure like this before.

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It was a pleasure that kept getting wilder, better, with each passing moment. In fact, time meant nothing. There were no such things as moments or minutes or any other increment of time as the heat built between Rowan and her. There was nothing but the consuming fire they made together. Their hands roved over each other’s bodies, trailing flames. Their mouths found each others’, sharing short, hot kisses. The taste of sweat and need was salty on their tongues as they searched out many more places where they kissed and suckled and licked. Maddie soon lost all ability for thought. All she could do was respond to his touch with a wildness she’d never known before.

Each time he ground his hips against hers, Maddie’s responses were more needy and eager—she was out of control, living completely on the heady sensory input. Her breath came in short, hard gasps as her fingers dug urgently into his shoulders. She tried her best to pull him closer, to somehow become even more engulfed in the shared conflagration. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he buried himself over and over inside her. She held on for dear life. What they were doing was the pure essence of being, this firestorm was the reason for life. She soared, taken over by the primal need.

She flew away from herself as the pleasure screamed through her. At the same time, every nerve ending strained through the fire, building to a final, blinding, frantic solar flare of sensation that set her shuddering with ecstatic release.

For a moment she thought she’d died.

And was perfectly happy to have done so.

Then she felt the comforting weight of Rowan’s body as he collapsed on top of her and she was happy that she wasn’t dead. She was happy to be with him, to have made love with him, to cradle him in her welcoming embrace and whisper her joy and thanks and love as his arms came around her. He lifted his head long enough to give her the most brilliant smile she’d ever seen on the fine, handsome features of the usually grim laird of the Murray clan. Then he kissed her on the forehead and collapsed again.

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Maddie put her hand on Rowan’s bare flank and said suggestively, “I don’t suppose we could do that again? I mean, it was my first time and I have a lot of experimenting to do and things I need to learn and I want to find out if it’s always that intense or if it was just because it was the first time.” She gave him a hopeful smile as she ran her fingers boldly up and down his thigh. “I don’t know when the White Lady’s due back but…” Her words trailed off at the oddly puzzled look on Rowan’s face as he propped himself up on his elbow. “What?”

They were lying side by side on the little bed, facing each other. The heather-and-moss-stuffed mattress beneath them was soft and comfortable. She’d been having a wonderful time alternating between dozing off and studying Rowan Murray’s long, rangy, mostly naked body. Rowan had been involved in an equally lazy examination of hers. She ached in some places she wasn’t used to but found those aches to be pleasant reminders of what Rowan and she had done not so long before. The silence between them had gone on for a long time but it had been a comfortable one. At least Maddie had thought it was.

“What?” she asked again.

He answered. In fact, he gave her a far longer answer than was usual for the taciturn laird. She listened carefully but didn’t understand a word that he said.

Without any further consultation, they both sat up and readjusted their clothing.

One thing Maddie noticed as she tied her chemise over her chest was that the necklace was missing. She touched her throat. Her hand was still on her throat as she turned to Rowan.

“The necklace is gone.”

He put his fingers over hers and said something. The words sounded like a guttural yet somehow lilting growl to her ears.

She wasn’t wearing the lethal necklace. She wasn’t dead. She couldn’t understand a word Rowan said.

It made no sense. Didn’t these people understand that she
needed
rational order in her universe?

The world had gone insane again. Every time she thought she was finding a bit of sense to hang onto in this time and place, the world tilted on its axis and tossed her off the side. She couldn’t take much more of this.

A shiver of fear went through Maddie.

Rowan saw the look of confusion in Maddie’s eyes, confusion that was close to panic. He instinctively understood the fear that was overtaking her. He swiftly put his 129

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hands on her shoulders and said as reassuringly as he could, “Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.”

Or had it been the other way? He didn’t know. He only knew that she’d used some such words to convince herself of the reality of all she’d been through. He wanted to remind her of them, to comfort and calm her. For the most important thing in his life right now was seeing to Maddie’s happiness. Rowan wanted to shelter her from all pain and danger.

He stroked her cheek. “Don’t look so frightened, beloved. We’ll deal with it.”

Of course she couldn’t understand him. With the fair folk’s chains off her and lying harmless on the floor, she had lost a gift for understanding the Gaelic language that came with wearing the necklace.

“The fair folk are wickedly whimsical in their gift giving but we’ll find a way around them,” he assured her, though his talking just seemed to make her more upset.

So he said no more. Instead he took her by the hand and led her to the bench by the hearth. The scent rising from the little iron pot that bubbled and steamed over the fire was both sharp and soothing. Though his stomach rumbled, Rowan suspected that this brew the White Lady had left to simmer in her absence was not intended for dinner.

“I think there’s a spell at work here,” he told his uncomprehending wife. He pointed at the pot. “For once I don’t mind the woman’s interference. I think the herbs boiling there are meant to loosen tongues. For I’ve talked more in the last hours than I normally do in a year.”

Whether it was a spell or simply having been overwhelmed with the need to communicate his feelings at last, Rowan didn’t know. He’d almost rather believe in the spell because he hated to think that he’d let love for Maddie make him weak in any way.

He settled Maddie on the seat and put his arm around her waist. Her fingers knotted together nervously in her lap while Rowan fought the urge to hold her, to rock her like a babe in his arms and promise to keep all harm at bay. He wanted to shelter her but a solution to this new problem would be better. Besides, fixing things was probably more to Maddie’s liking. She would not like to be coddled, he told himself.

She was too strong for such nonsense. So he sat beside her, stared into the fire and kept the words that wanted to spill out tightly held inside for now.

Maddie was glad of the silence. It was comforting not to hear Rowan’s voice speaking in a language she couldn’t understand. She needed time to calm down, to adjust to this new situation. Rowan’s presence beside her, as calm and solid and quiet as a piece of Scottish granite, helped. She didn’t have to give in to the urge to cling to him to draw comfort from him. His arm around her waist was comforting. So was the warm contact of their hips and thighs as they squeezed together on the narrow bench.

Gradually, she felt the tension easing a bit. She even let her head rest on his shoulder and dozed off for a while. She told herself that everything must be going to be all right if she could fall asleep knowing that she couldn’t communicate with the wild 130

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Highlanders she was forced to live among. How wild and scary could the situation be if she could sleep through it?

After what seemed like a long time, Rowan said, “You’re feeling better I think.” Her response was to sit up straight and stiff and look at him wildly. She said something in her own tongue. From the accusing tone, he thought she’d just told him that she wasn’t ready for conversation just yet. Perhaps she’d discovered that silence was not a bad thing. Rowan couldn’t help but chuckle. “I know how you feel, lass, but we might as well begin solving this problem.”

First he reluctantly pried himself away from Maddie’s side and searched the floor of the small house until he found the fairy necklace. He was prepared for a jolt of pain when he scooped it up but found that the magic in it seemed to be dormant when not fastened about Maddie’s soft throat. He silently damned the fair folk who’d made the necklace as he stuffed it into a pouch, though he supposed they had done him a favor by bringing Maddie into his life.

He looked back at her after he’d put the necklace out of sight and told himself that her presence was indeed a blessing. Oh a mixed one, as most blessings tended to be. He remembered how she’d been as they’d made love, wild and free and a glory to touch.

He saw her now, leaning forward, watching him intently, her flame-colored hair framing her anxious face with her hands clasped nervously in her lap.

“You’re nothing but trouble, Maddie Murray,” he told her. “But I love you.”

Maddie considered covering her ears when Rowan spoke because she just didn’t want to deal with this new problem. Then he stepped in front of her and smiling encouragingly, rubbed his stomach and spoke. “
Acras
?”

He’d spoken the one-word question slowly and distinctly. Maddie continued to watch, somewhere between puzzled, annoyed and frightened as Rowan pointed at the pot, at his mouth, and rubbed his stomach again.

“
Acras
?” he asked again. And again.

Eventually she repeated the word. It sounded odd in her mouth but she laughed after she said it. Light was beginning to dawn. Maddie jumped to her feet.

“Rowan Murray you are married to an idiot!” she declared. “You’re brilliant and I love you! Here I’ve been sitting here wrapped up in feeling sorry for myself and frightened by all this magical claptrap when there’s a perfectly logical solution to the whole thing. So what if we can’t magically understand each other anymore. Magic-schmagic, I can learn the local language.” She rubbed her stomach. “
Acras
means hunger, right? Or hungry or some variation of the concept.”

Seeing that all Maddie’s babbling boiled down to her understanding what he’d been getting at, Rowan threw back his head and laughed. Then he grabbed her by the waist and swung her around the tiny house.

They laughed together and kissed and then she said, “Hungry,” in his language firmly enough so that he’d know she wasn’t parroting his words but that she wanted her dinner.

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“Aye,” he agreed, and began looking around, for he doubted what was in the pot was edible. “
Aran
,” he told her when he found a loaf of bread wrapped in a cloth on a shelf.

“
Aran
,” Maddie repeated. “Bread,” she said in her own language.

“Bread,” he said as it occurred to him that they could teach each other.

A smile lit her face and affection lit her eyes. The sight of her sent a flush of warmth through him and Rowan felt another sort of hunger stir in his blood. He put the bread back on the shelf and took a step toward her. She tossed her head and gave a low laugh as silvery bright as a swift-running mountain burn, yet deep as the wild ocean. The throaty sound held a newborn sensual awareness that set fire to his blood.

Maddie didn’t quite know what had gotten into her. Maybe it was the way Rowan looked at her that made her feel so boldly sexual. She felt as though her body had taken on an erotic life of its own. No, it wasn’t just her body, her whole being felt new, awakened. She felt—female. She was beginning to accept that all the physical cravings she’d always told herself were no more than hormonal imbalances were an intimate, important part of her being. All it took was Rowan looking at her like the way he was at the moment and she forgot to feel awkward and unlovable.