her building climax.
Aye, if the lass had only suspected it before, before this
night was through she would definitely know she had fal en
in love with a demanding, never-say-die, very possessive
man.
Chapter Twenty-one
Peg opened her eyes to see the sun just peeking over the
top of the mountain, although its rays weren’t reaching this
far down yet, and she decided it was a good thing she
didn’t want to move because she couldn’t. Partly because
every muscle in her body had given up the ghost two love-
makings ago—she’d lost count of her orgasms—but mostly
because Duncan had her so tightly wrapped in his arms
that it was a wonder she could even breathe.
The man wasn’t scary; he was flat-out terrifying.
Relentlesswas too benign for what he’d been last night,
Peg decided now that her brain wasn’t suffering from
passion overload and she could think. Wel , think at least
semiclearly, because she wasemotional y as wel as
physical y exhausted. No, Duncan had been driven by
something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Intense.
Determined. Frighteningly focused. Real y, real y driven to
prove … something.
For the love of God, she hadn’t known a man could keep
making love after he came, much less that he could come
that many times in one night. She was chafed in more
places than just her legs now, and a little worried her skin
was so super-sensitized from being in a constant state of
arousal that she was going to have another orgasm just
getting dressed.
Assuming she could ever move again.
He nuzzled her shoulder and Peg stiffened, and he
chuckled softly as she nevertheless moaned when his
thumb lazily brushed over her nipple.
“I swear to God,” she softly growled, “you say ‘again’ and
I’m going to hit you over the head with your own sword, and
not with the flat of it, either.”
“I doubt ye can even lift it, lass,” he said with another
chuckle, turning her around in his arms so that now her
naked backside was sticking out of the sleeping bag. He
kissed her forehead. “Did ye sleep wel ?”
She snorted, pressing her cold nose into the crux of his
neck, making him chuckle again as he palmed her exposed
backside and pul ed her up against his wide-awake front
side. “Insatiable,” she muttered under her breath, adding
another word to her growing list of his finer qualities.
“Excuse me?”
She patted his chest, a bit surprised that she could even
lift her hand. “I was just mentioning it was sunrise, so I
guess that means you have an hour to get me home like
you promised.” So I can send the boys to my mother-in-
law’s and collapse into bed and sleep all day,she silently
added.
“This sunrise doesn’t count, Peg,” he said, the humor
having left his voice as he tilted her head back. “We could
see a hundred sunrises from this mountain, but when we
cross the fiord it wil only be the morning after we left.
Monday morning.”
“But that’s real y not possible, Duncan. Real y. I need to
be home when my children wake up or they’l be worried
sick.”
He folded her into his embrace with a heavy sigh. “I told
ye it’s only going to seemlike you’re gone days.” He tucked
a finger between them to nudge her chin up. “My word of
honor, Peg; you’l be away from them for less than twelve
hours.”
He sat up, sitting her up with him, and chuckled
again when Peg scrambled to grab his shirt beside the
dead fire and immediately slipped it on.
He lifted her chin to look at him again, his expression
gone back to serious but his eyes stil showing a hint of
amusement. “I’d have thought we put any shyness ye might
have with me to rest last night, but I can see it’s stil
something we’re going to have to work on.”
He stood up, as naked and immodest as the day he’d
been born, walked to the pool, and dove in. Peg flopped
back on the bedrol and pul ed the sleeping bag up to her
nose with a sigh of relief—fol owed by a smile at the
treetops final y catching the first rays of a magical sunrise.
Oh yeah, based on last night’s experience, nothing could
kil Duncan MacKeage.
“The way I see it, ye have two choices,” Duncan said as he
dripped water from his fingers onto Peg’s forehead,
causing her to pul the sleeping bag up over her face with a
groan. “You can get up and get dressed so we can get on
with the day, or I can crawl back into bed with you and work
on that little shyness problem.”
It wasn’t her cute, wel -perfected scowl she was wearing
when she pushed the sleeping bag down to her chest; it
was an outright threatening glare. “Here’s a third choice:
After you get dressed, you can hike up the mountain and
then a mile down inside it and make sure your …
whatever,” she said with a negligent wave, “is stil there. If it
is, maybe I’l hobble up the mountain and a mile down
inside it, and then cram myself into the last twenty feet of
cave and get it for you.” That said, she pul ed the sleeping
bag back up over her face. “Go away, Duncan. Go catch us
a trout for breakfast or something.”
“I can’t,” he said with a chuckle. “The poor scandalized
buggers al jumped over the smal dam of the pool last night
when they heard ye carrying on like that, and Leviathan is
probably having them for breakfast. What was that?” he
asked when he heard her muttering something.
Duncan knew Peg was wanting an apology this morning,
or at the very least expecting him to inquire as to how she
was feeling. But he hadn’t been lying when he’d told her he
could be a real bastard sometimes, so he figured he might
as wel begin as he intended to go on. Hel , half the reason
he loved her was that Peg was the first woman he’d met
who could handle a lifetime of living with him.
He grabbed the edge of the bag and simply rol ed her out
of it, then picked up the growling woman and stood her on
her feet, pointed her toward the pool, and gave her a nudge
to get her moving. “Five minutes for a refreshing swim, five
to dress, and then we’re headed up the mountain even if
you’re barefooted.”
“What about breakfast?” she grouched as she hobbled to
the pool. “I haven’t had anything since supper last night.”
“I’l have something ready when you’re ready.”
She stopped with her toes in the water and looked over
her shoulder, saw him blatantly watching her, then waded
into the pool without bothering to take off his shirt.
Duncan turned to hide his smile, squatting down to
straighten their bed. Christ, the contrary woman turned him
on. He packed up anything he intended to leave here at the
campsite—which was just about everything—then went
about gathering firewood to save himself from having to do
it in the dark when they got back. Satisfied he’d done his
manly duty of providing heat and shelter for his woman’s
comfort tonight, Duncan dropped a fistful of granola bars
beside his sword, then took the wrapper off one and
moseyed over to a rock near the waterfal . He sat down to
munch away as he watched Peg sitting under the gushing
waterfal , letting it pummel the muscles in her back.
Oh yeah, he could be a real bastard sometimes. “Ye
have two minutes before we’re walking up the mountain.
Can you real y get dressed in that amount of time?”
“Look, I’m a little tender this morning, okay?” she