Defending Destiny (The Warrior Chronicles) (33 page)

The King clicked off without a goodbye. That was fine with Kolin. Tomorrow would be soon enough for goodbyes. The permanent kind.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Magnus didn’t have a clue how to initiate a naked ceremony.

He knew enough about seduction and the fine art of savoring a woman’s body—unfortunately, every time he savored, it was a personal, private matter. It had nothing to do with making stronger the woman he wanted to be his wife. The whole ceremony thing made him sweat. His heart pumped too fast and his breathing was erratic.
Bloody everlasting hell,
even his eyelids were perspiring.

Magnus was willing to bet, something he didn’t ever do, that real witches and real Druids didn’t have that level of performance anxiety.

He’d gotten Daisy to the stone circle.
All good.

He’d done it without having to coerce her.
Even better.

By some miracle he’d gotten them both undressed and in the center of her favorite stone circle after he’d spent twenty-five minutes blowing everything he had into the inflatable mattress they’d procured from New Kilmartin House’s tack room, along with the two-person sleeping bag that was supposed to go on top of it. The air mattress had a leak and the sleeping bag smelled of mothballs.

Magnus was out of breath, out of seductive lines, and out of ideas on how to make the “ceremony” work. It was his first interactive endeavor and it was failing. Merry sure hadn’t prepared him for that. His full-moon love session under the stars was going down in flames. Mini Gus didn’t help either. He just lay there like an unmoving sack of “hey this is your deal man—I’m just here for the encore.”

And then Daisy giggled.

Magnus stopped blowing. He capped the leaky air mattress and sat back on his haunches to see what she’d do next.

She giggled again.

He stood up and left the mattress and the sleeping bag where they lay. Magnus enjoyed the way her bare feet and her bare everything jiggled as she stepped on the stones. Giggles turned into smiles as she moved across the stones, shimmying and shaking. He was mesmerized. She was fun and funny. She was the girl he loved and the woman he didn’t want to spend a day without. She danced for him. Naked. In the moonlight. And he hadn’t had to do a damn thing to make it happen.

“Come on, Gus. Dance with me.” She lifted her arms over her head and swiveled her hips in time to music only she could hear.

Magnus lifted his head to the sky and closed his eyes. Suddenly he heard the music too. Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic” filled his head. Suddenly he was dancing with her, and before he knew it, he was singing. His deep voice sounded good to his ears, now filled with the fairy glamor of time and place. He knew he didn’t sound that good on earth, but he was traveling to the Otherworld now, and there he sounded great.

The embarrassment faded as the enjoyment of watching Daisy dance grew. He could see the creatures of the night dance with her, wild and free. The lightning bugs hovered around the circle and kept them attuned to space and time even though they were attached to neither. They moved with them in perfect grace.

Magnus focused his attention on Daisy, but he couldn’t help what he saw through his periphery—naked people dancing with them, with floral garlands on their heads like crowns of midsummer festing. They were full of joy and fertility and sex incarnate. He blinked and they were gone.

They were quickly replaced by a flock of three sheep that stood and stared at him. One of them cocked its head and bayed at him. Transparent people he could deal with. Very real laughing sheep, not so much.

Magnus stumbled on the stones and stubbed his toe. Suddenly the music was gone too. “Daisy,” he called.

She opened her eyes and looked at him. She stopped dancing but was still smiling, looking impossibly beautiful wrapped in moonlight. “This isn’t working, is it?” she said.

“No, not really. I’d like to think I’m an adventurous man, but you can give me soft grass and privacy over stones and voyeuristic sheep any day.”

She made her way to the edge of the stones, grabbed her clothing, and started putting it on. “I’m so glad you said that.” She paused to look at him. “Let’s go back.”

He didn’t need to hear that twice. He grabbed the air mattress, tossed the sleeping bag to Daisy, and, after skirting the sheep, packed it all into the Rover. Magnus didn’t bother putting on anything other than his boxers. He’d only have to take it off again as soon as they got back. He’d never been so grateful for a less-than-five-mile drive in his life. Daisy held his hand the whole way.

When they made it to the driveway, Magnus threw the Rover into park, got out, and tossed the now mostly deflated air mattress into the metal trash bin. He got back in and winked at Daisy. “Don’t want some other lovesick bloke goin’ through all that.”

Daisy smiled at him and patted the back of his hand. “That’s my Highlander, always looking out for his fellow man.”

“I was think’n about the poor lass who’d get stuck on her back with that thing whistling away under her with every stroke.”

“You know this is a ridiculous conversation, right?”

“I know we’re talk’n about sex and I’m going to see you naked in about ninety seconds. Nothing ridiculous about that.”

Daisy got quiet and moved her hand from his. He turned to look at her. Her head was down and she didn’t meet his eye. He didn’t like that at all, or the fact that she’d managed to get herself fully dressed, including her shoes. He reached out, lifted her chin, and turned her face to him. “What is it, lass? What’s got you look’n like I just stole your puppy?”

She frowned, her voice tentative when she spoke. He didn’t want tentative. He wanted the vixen he’d found in the bathtub. He liked her demanding.

“I liked dancing naked in the moonlight. Not the stones. But I liked the rest of it. I want to stay outside.”

Relief washed through him and little Gus put in his vote with a decisive
hell yeah
. Magnus was more circumspect, but only marginally so. He leaned over and kissed her, a bit rougher and more briefly than he wanted to, but he didn’t want to waste any more time. That and he was too bloody big to try to get it on in a car, even one as big as the Rover.

“You take the sleeping bag. I’ll meet you in the backyard garden. There’s plenty of room there. The grass is even and soft. No one who isn’t trying will be able to see us, and there are no bloody sheep.”

“Where are you going?” Daisy asked.

Magnus gave her another quick kiss before ushering her out the door. “Get a move on, woman. The moon’s not going to wait forever. I’ll just grab a few quick things and I’ll meet you there. Now go.”

Finally, he thought, he was going to get to do something he’d wanted to do since they arrived. He called out to her as he shut the car door. “Feel free to start without me.”

She blew him a kiss.

That image alone had him running through the house collecting what he needed on feet as swift and silent as the black panther he was currently channeling. Like all giant predator cats, he couldn’t wait to devour his prey.

After he covered her with
double cream, thicker than heavy whipping cream and twice as decadent.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Daisy laid out the sleeping bag in the center of the statuary garden. It was well concealed unless you were looking for it. Daisy wasn’t concerned about visitors. Lauren and Merry had left much earlier for Merry’s loft above the museum, the crew had moved out days ago, and Gerry was spending the night in Glasgow. That just left Merlin unaccounted for, and odds were he was with some young thing or two. He usually didn’t show up until well past breakfast.

So they were alone. Or, more to the point, she was. Daisy stood, got undressed, and folded her clothes in a neat pile. Magnus seemed to be taking his sweet time. He said start without him. Did he mean it?

Yes, he probably did. She was beginning to realize his sensuality ran bone deep.

Daisy lifted her face to the sky. “Thanks for this,” she said, feeling grateful to her core that she’d found her way back to Magnus and to the person she wanted to be.

The moonlight illuminated the garden perfectly. There was nothing she couldn’t see clearly, yet everything had a golden glow that made it richer, more alluring, than it was in the bright light of day. In the day, the garden was beautiful. Daisy wanted to be naked in the sun here as well, feeling its warmth penetrating her skin. But the night was seductive.

She raised her arms then slowly lowered them, rubbing as she wrapped her arms around herself. She ran her hands down her neck, over her chest, cupping and lifting her breasts, feeling their weight. She began to sway.

She closed her eyes and continued rubbing down her body, running her fingertips around her waist, easing her palms down her hips, judging their thickness. She’d gained fullness there since she arrived. Moving her hand down her belly, noticing that was fuller too, she ran one hand over her pelvis, cupping herself, finding the dampness there.

She heard Magnus groan. She hadn’t heard him approach, but he could do that, be silent when he wished. Daisy opened her eyes as she continued to stroke herself. He was gloriously naked and ready for her.

“You did say I should start without you.” Her voice sounded thick and far off, even to her ears.

He didn’t smile. He looked at her like he wanted to consume her. “Spread your legs.”

She did.

“Wider.”

She spread them wider.

Magnus took a step closer and she noticed for the first time the jar he had in his hand. He opened it, smiling the most self-satisfied smile she’d seen on anyone. She began to move her hand away. She wanted to touch him, but he reached out with the speed of a striking viper and stopped her. His hand cupped around hers holding her there, making her feel her liquid heat. “Don’t stop. Not yet.”

He moved her hand in a steady stroking motion until she was so slick and so aroused she’d have fallen if he hadn’t been holding her upright. He slowly moved his hand away. “I want to watch you pleasure yourself. I want to see your face while you come.”

His voice caressed her as surely as he made her caress herself. He reached into the jar and pulled out one finger covered in white.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He touched one nipple, then the other with his finger. It was cold and wet and caused her nipples to contract deliciously. She felt the reaction deep into her core. Suddenly she needed her fingers there. Deep. First one, than two. Slick with her heat where her breasts were cold. She moved them in and out slowly, then all the way up to her burning bud, so hard, then back again, faster, deeper, harder.

She felt his tongue on her nipple, hot where cold had been. By the time he whispered against her skin she’d forgotten her question. “Something I’ve wanted to do since we got here. I’m covering you with double cream.”

He bent to take her mouth, tasting sweet and thick. He kissed her like he needed her air to survive, he pinched one nipple, still slick with cream as his hand covered hers and he eased one of his fingers in to join hers. He rocked his hand against hers as their fingers continued their rhythm, deeper and deeper. The sensations became almost unbearable when he squeezed her nipple harder.

Her inner walls began to pull at their fingers. Magnus deepened his kiss, stealing the air from her lungs as her world burst apart. She shook uncontrollably and clenched him hard. She’d never come like that before, bathed in moonlight, wrapped around herself and her lover.

She pulled her mouth away and gasped for air, feeling herself floating upwards as her legs gave out. Magnus held her with his palm wrapped around hers until her inner walls relaxed once more. Slowly he eased his finger and hers out. He bent and retrieved the jar he’d managed to set down. He brought her fingers wet with her essence to the jar. The cream was cold and silky. Lifting her fingers to his mouth, he sucked them clean. A shiver racked her body. She leaned against him and felt his erection on her relaxed belly. He held her with one arm at the small of her back as he tipped the jar. It seemed to take forever for the thick double cream to flow from the jar down her chest and belly to her mound.

His eyes watched its progress, then they found hers. His nostrils flared. He said, “That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

There was so much awe on his face, she believed him.

The cream was melting now, bringing her back to awareness. She wanted to feel more of it. She took the jar from Magnus, dipped her fingers inside, and scooped out as much of the rich cream as she could. Dropping the jar, Daisy reached for him, covering his thickness with it. He groaned low in his throat, a desperate sound full of need.

She slipped to her knees and he didn’t try to stop her; he spread his legs to give her greater access. She found the jar again and rubbed all that remained of the
thick cream on his testicles. His penis bobbed in response, and that was enough.

She held him from behind as she took the length of him in her mouth. The slightly sweet oil of the cream mingled with the saltiness of him and Daisy couldn’t get enough. She sucked him clean, licked her way around the head, down the back, up the seam of his testes, then gingerly she took that into her mouth too, rolling him on her tongue.