To hedge his chances, he followed with a desperate “Please.”
But even before he’d remembered his manners, she’d complied, bathing the head of his cock in wet, blissful heat. Pleasure engulfed him, and he moaned in helpless surrender.
“I love you.”
The words just slipped out. He couldn’t hold them back anymore.
He immediately cursed himself. Of all the idiot moments to say that for the first time. Now she’d stop for certain. She’d pull away with joyful tears in her eyes, and they’d have to sit up and discuss their feelings. Maybe even cuddle.
But she didn’t stop. She just looked up at him, smiled a little around his cock, then took him deeper still.
He groaned again. “God, I love you so much.”
She started out tentative. Understandable, this being her first time. But she didn’t exactly require a great deal of skill. He was aching with need, and she was enthusiastic, if not experienced. Short of biting him, there was little she could have done that would not have felt good.
She was more than good. She was amazing.
He found himself rolling his pelvis, striving to push deeper every time her sweet, lush mouth sank down on him. He began to fear losing control and pushing her too far.
“Take me in you,” he urged. “I need to feel you. Fill you.”
Again, he didn’t have to ask twice. She eagerly rose up and gathered her skirts to her waist, straddling him with caution. Logan reached between them to position himself, parting her folds with the head of his cock. She was wet. So wet. The knowledge that she’d found that oral attention just as arousing as he had . . . ?
He gave a strangled groan.
She sank down on him, and he slipped easily halfway. With a gentle rise and fall of her hips, she took him deeper by agonizing half--inch fractions. It was paradise and torture all at once.
At first, she was careful not to take him all the way, mindful of his wounded thigh. But after a few minutes, she braced her hands on his shoulders and set a rhythm that he could tell had less to do with his injuries and more to do with her own mounting need.
Good. He stared up at her, powerless to look away from the gentle bounce of her breasts and the evident pleasure on her face. She was the most arousing thing he’d ever seen.
Suddenly, her eyes flew open. Her gaze met his, pleading. “Logan, I . . . Logan.”
He knew what she needed. Pushing his hand through the cloud of her skirts and petticoats, he reached down to where their bodies joined. Without breaking eye contact, he pressed his thumb to the swollen bud at the crest of her sex.
“That’s it, mo chridhe. Let it happen. Come for me.”
Her brow furrowed, and she bit her lip. She held his gaze for just a few more strokes before her eyes squeezed shut.
She came hard, convulsing around him and shaking with pleasure. Her climax commanded his. With a guttural cry, he surrendered to it, losing himself in sensation.
In the aftermath, he wanted to pull her down to him. Stay inside her and let her fall asleep against his pounding heartbeat. But she’d remembered his injuries and her nursing duties now, and she wasn’t having any of that. She moved aside, nestling into the crook of his arms.
Well. That was fine, too.
“There’s just one thing I still don’t understand,” she murmured. “Where on earth are those letters?”
Chapter Twenty-six
In an instant, Maddie felt Logan’s body tense. His heart kicked into a faster rhythm.
“It’s not what you think,” he said.
“I hadn’t formed any thoughts.”
“I had those letters. I did. I received them all, read them all again and again.”
“I know you did.”
“And then after the last one, where you left me for dead . . .” He cursed under his breath. “I got so angry, I burned them all in the fire one night. All but one.”
“So when you pulled one of those letters out of your pocket and read it to me . . .”
“I was reciting from memory. I knew them by heart. No matter how I tried to forget you, I never could get you out of my heart.”
She hugged him gently. “Logan. That is the stupidest, sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“What can I say. I’m . . .”
“Squish. Pure squish.”
“I was going to say I’m in love with you, but I suppose it isna much different.”
He caught her hand in his, and their fingers laced together in a tight knot atop his chest.
“First rule of love: dinna panic.”
“What’s the second rule? I think we’d better skip to that.”
She lifted her head and gave him a wicked smile. “No thrashing about.”
Maddie had just craned her neck to give him a deep, passionate kiss, when a knock sounded at the door.
“Mrs. MacKenzie? Are you there?”
Logan kissed the top of her head. “I like hearing her call you that.”
“So do I.” Maddie propped her chin on his chest and smiled up at him. “I suppose I should go answer.”
“Dinna bother.” Logan lifted his voice. “Come in.”