sank into me, slow but sure. Carefully he braced himself, keeping most of his weight off me. I ran my palms over his biceps, which quivered at my touch.
"I won't break," I whispered, wanting to feel that weight as much as I wanted to feel his heat and his hardness within.
He gave me what I wanted, what I needed, pushing into me, pulling out, slowly coming to rest against me until I didn't know where one of us ended and the other began.
Try as I might, I couldn't see him - not a flicker of movement, not a glint of a reflection in his eyes. Because of that, it seemed as if I were dreaming, as if he were a fantasy, a phantom, the mist.
I did things I never would have done in the light, reaching between us and cupping him, stroking and kneading until he said my name like a prayer or maybe a curse. I sucked on his tongue, scraped my teeth across the throbbing vein in his neck, and then grabbed his hips and pulled him even deeper.
I was in control, and I reveled in it, that power almost as arousing as he was.
He kissed my eyebrow, then leaned his cheek against my hair and whispered, "I canna wait any longer." With nothing more than a catch in his breath, I felt him stiffen, pulse, come.
The rhythmic movements brought an answering response in me. I'd said I wouldn't break, but I hadn't counted on shattering. The best I'd hoped for was being able to get through this without fear.
I cried out, and he continued to move, drawing the tension tighter, making it last seemingly forever.
I ended up wrapped in his arms, the quilt over us both as he murmured words I didn't understand while I drifted away.
We awoke a few hours later and made love again; then I left him sleeping and went to check on Oprah. With the storm past, she had crept from beneath the couch and now snored lustily on top of it.
When I returned to my room, I pulled on a nightgown. Even though we'd touched each other in so many ways, I suddenly felt shy. Foolish, but I couldn't help it. I didn't want to wake up naked in his arms and have him stare at me as if he couldn't recall my name.
Did I really think that would happen? No. But better safe than sorry.
I crawled into bed, keeping to one side and leaving him on the other, fighting the urge to touch him, hold him, or have him hold me. I didn't need to become attached. Even if he remembered my name when the sun shone, he was still leaving in a few days.
So I lay there staring at the ceiling, and I couldn't fall asleep. Until Malachi turned and drew me against him, pressing his face into my hair.
At first I stiffened, waiting for the poke of his erection. Not that I wouldn't mind another round, unless he was so out of it he didn't know who that round was with.
However, his body was warm, soft, or as soft as a body that hard could be. He murmured, "Claire," against my neck, then "a chroi."
"Malachi?" I said softly, but from the steady, deep rise and fall of his chest he was asleep. Snuggling into his embrace, I followed him there.
I awoke to bright sunlight across the bed. Mal's eyes were open. He smiled and touched my cheek.
"What does a chroi mean?"
His smile froze; he snatched his hand back. "Where did you hear that?"
"You murmured it in your sleep, after you said my name. Is it Gaelic?"
"Yes."
He didn't elaborate. I started to wonder if a chroi meant "pig face."
"Mal?"
His eyes met mine. "It means... 'beautiful one.'"
I laughed. "I'm not beautiful."
"Who told you that?" He sat up, and the covers pooled at his waist.
I found myself distracted by the contrast of his copper skin with the white sheets, not to mention the ripples across his abdomen as he moved. He was the a chroi. Much more so than I could ever be.
"Claire?" I lifted my gaze to his face. "Who dared to say you weren't beautiful?"
He seemed awfully angry about it, as if he'd march right out and punch this person in the nose. Remembering his treatment of Josh, he might.
"I only have to look in the mirror to know the truth. On a good day - a really good day - I'm passably pretty." I held up my hand to