I was still licking the hunks of chocolate lava cake off my fingers from our dessert when Magnus, sitting on one of the kitchen stools, took my hand and pulled me closer between his legs.

It was still a little awkward to kiss him. There weren’t a lot of places on his body that weren’t painfully injured. I couldn’t touch him without causing him to wince.

“Are you feeling better?” I pressed closer, keeping my hands on his thighs, off his back.

“Och aye.” He ran his hands up the back of my thighs to my panties. He pulled my hips closer.

“Would you like your massage?”

In answer he led me to our room, our bed.

I helped him peel his shirt off his back, not easy with so many bandages. Then I dropped his kilt to the ground and took a deep breath to steady myself.

I missed him. I wanted him. It had been way too long.

As he crawled to the middle of our bed, I pulled my shirt off, unfastened my bra, and slid it down my arms.

He dropped face down on the bed, but turned in time to see me shimmy my shorts and panties down. His eyes went wide.

A smile spread across his mouth. “You are disrobed mo reul-iuil, tis markedly different from yesterday’s massage.”

I poured a dollop of oil into the palm of my hand, grinned, and climbed astride his lower back. I massaged across the top of his wide shoulders. The whip marks there weren’t as deep. I pressed down the side of his arms. Up and down, pressing and pulling. Wherever I could touch where the skin wasn’t marred. He moaned happily as I burrowed my fingers into a tightly bound muscle and spasmed when I accidentally grazed an especially angry looking wound. “I’m sorry.”

“Nae matter, Kaitlyn. Tis painful, but I feel clear for the first time in days, turadh.”

I pressed my hands along his left tricep. “Remind me what that means?”

He groaned with pleasure. “Turadh, the clouds have broken.”

“Oh. God, I love it when you say things like that — in Gaelic, right?” I pressed my palms to his triceps and wiggled my hips on his back.

He growled and rose up, bucking.

I squealed as I slid off his slippery back to the bed.

“Tha thu breagha.” He pinned my wrists and climbed on my body. “Is ann leatsa abhios mo chridhe gubrath.”

“Oh my god, Magnus, that is fucking hot.”

“Mo reul-iuil…” He shoved hard and fast up into me, desperate and intense, holding my arms above my head, his mouth pressed to my neck. My moans started low but grew as he rocked and pushed against me. His body had been sitting idle and broken, but now strong and powerful. His forehead butted against my cheek; his breath filled my ear. “You art mo reul-iuil.”

“Oh — oh — oh my god,” I arched against him with a moan as waves rolled through me. He held on, riding, his voice a groan. It rumbled up from his chest as he finished and collapsed on my body.

We both lay still. Panting. Slowly catching our breaths. Kissing the spots of skin closest to our mouths. I wriggled my wrists free from his grip and clasped around his hands. I kissed and nibbled his neck.

Then he kissed me, slow. His tongue flicked around my teeth, teasing my lips.

We stared into each other’s eyes.

“I missed you so much.”

“Och aye.” He kissed my lips, the tip of my nose, my chin. “I can tell ye have been wanting me, ye are talking to God.” He chuckled, kissed my neck, and rolled off me to his side.

I curled up beside him. His strong hand on my hip.

I loved him more than I ever believed possible, but the last thing he said just before he fell asleep was, “I would bide here forever if I could.”

I knew in my heart that loving him wasn’t enough to convince him to stay.