Page 54 of Duncan

“Why wouldn’t they? They may need them someday for protection.” Nicole took the crock from his hands and carried it over to the cabinet. “Do you have a niche in here that’s large enough to hold them?”

The healer came over and opened the doors, and rearranged several items in order to empty one of the largest compartments. The crock fit inside it perfectly.

“That will keep them from running loose for now.” She watched him close and secure the cabinet. “There, isn’t that better than killing them?”

Duncan’s expression darkened. “I’d end anything and anyone that tries harm you.”

For a moment she thought he was joking with her, but no, the look in his eyes was genuinely lethal. “You’re supposed to help people.”

“’Twas a monster brought these imps in here to kill you,” he told her, putting his arms around her and tucking her head under his chin. “The next time they may do worse. I shallnae sleep again now for fear of another attack on you.”

Nicole pressed her cheek against his shoulder, allowing herself to enjoy being held for a moment. She couldn’t make love with him again; it would be too cruel to share that wild pleasure when she had resolved to leave him and return to the future. It hurt to imagine sailing off and leaving him behind. He would always be alone.

Duncan’s hands moved slowly up and down her back, urging her even closer. “You tempt me, my lady, more than any woman I’ve met.”

She would step back now, and break the physical contact that had become the biggest danger to her, and yet her legs wouldn’t budge. “This is a very bad idea. We both know that. Push me away. Get out of here before it’s too late.”

He didn’t seem to hear her as he tipped up her chin and looked at her lips. “Only once more, I vow. This once.”

He bent his head before she could turn hers, and then their mouths touched. Nicole had already been kissed by him, so it wasn’t a new experience—only it was. He kissed her lightly and gently at first, tentative and perhaps caught up in the same thrall of emotions. Had anything ever been as good as that slow, soft brushing of lips, the heat and pressure of his making hers tingle? Why did his breath seem like the only air she needed ever to breathe from now on? Why was she growing so limp in his arms? This was madness, pure and simple, and yet she could not move, could not deny him.

Duncan lifted her off her feet without breaking the kiss, setting her on the edge of his exam table and then moving his hands up along her sides until his hands curved under her breasts.

Yes, yes, please, touch me. I ache for you. As long as she didn’t say it out loud she could wish as much as she wanted, and everything she would ever want was him.

“Tell me go,” he muttered, breaking off the kiss to nip the lobe of her ear. “Bid me cease, so I dinnae hurt you again when I leave.”

“I can’t.” Was she being such an idiot? Most definitely she was, and what was worse, she didn’t care. “I need you.”

Somehow he was pushing her onto her back and climbing on top of her, which made the situation go from dangerous right up to the brink of complete madness. He stood between her knees now, and the hard ridge of his erection pressed against the softness of her sex. She also seemed to be gushing with wetness down there, which told her what her body had decided it wanted.

“Do you need me inside you?” Duncan murmured as he nuzzled the side of her neck. “For ’tis my desire.”

She leaned close, putting her lips next to his ear. “Take off my panties.” She then reached around him for the laces of his trews.

Duncan first stripped off the skirt he had pushed up around her waist, and unlaced the front of the leine she wore. She was glad she hadn’t accepted Lark’s offer to make some bras for her, because while her breasts weren’t very big or prominent, they were now exposed to his gaze. She loved the way he looked at her, and the gentle way he put his hands on her, stroking the mounds and gently pinching her peaks.

“You’re so lovely,” he said, almost absently, as if he were speaking to himself instead of her.

“Come closer,” she said, and when he did she pushed his trews down, which freed the long, thick column of his penis. Clasping him in her fingers made her shiver, as his girth seemed almost intimidating. She couldn’t wait for him to come inside her. “Will you go slow for me this time?”

“Aye.” He pressed his brow to hers as he watched her caress him. “You’ll tell me if you wish me stop.”

The hard throbbing cock in her hands told her how much he wanted to fuck her. That he would ignore it for her sake made her eyes sting.

“It’s the other way around for me,” she said as she shifted forward on the table and clamped her thighs around him. “I wish you’d never stop.”

Duncan tucked an arm around her as he fisted his cock, and brought the bulging head to the slick seam of her pussy. The sensations that came as he notched himself there and then pressed in slowly made Nicole’s breath rush out of her. He was spreading and filling her so beautifully, so perfectly, exactly as she’d wanted.

“Never, ever stop,” Nicole told him before she kissed him.

The slick push of his tongue in her mouth and his cock in her pussy nearly shoved her over the edge, but she held back as he pushed in that last inch. Buried inside her, he dropped his head and kissed her shoulder, and dragged his teeth across her skin. As she climaxed helplessly a flood of images came with the delight, whisking her off to a waking dream.

Chapter Fourteen

Abright, silvery stream in a gorgeous forest glinted in impossibly green sunlight, dazzling and yet calming to Nicole’s eyes. From the water rose a male-shaped pillar of the same that solidified into a tall, beautifully built man with dark hair and eyes who looked like Duncan and Shaw. His strong body seemed wrapped in millions of tiny droplets of rain that danced over his skin. A moment after the man walked out of the stream and onto the mossy bank, an ash tree began to shake, and then the bark on its trunk split open vertically, the edges glittering with green and brown lights. A woman who could have been her twin sister stepped out of the opening, her wand-slim pale body wreathed in hundreds of thin vines blooming with golden ivy leaves. She went to the man from the stream, stepping into his open arms as if his embrace was a private paradise.

“Mar,” the woman said, as if she knew no other word but his name.