Mackenzie Family Christmas: The Perfect Gift

bare inside, as she'd suspected, warm and still damp from his bath.

She skimmed her hands down his torso, his heartbeat quickening. His tight abdomen met her touch, his waist narrowing to his hips and the thickness of his cock.

'Don't.' Cameron raised his head, gold gleaming from between half-closed eyelids. He seized her wrist, fingers shaking as he kept himself from gripping too hard. 'Don't, unless you want me to . . .'

'She's safe,' Ainsley whispered. 'I want to rejoice.'

Cameron smoothed her hair, his touch strengthening as he cradled her head in his hand. 'Then we will,' he said, voice rasping.

He dragged her to him, his next kiss anything but tender. Cameron opened her mouth, pressing her back. Ainsley tasted the need in him, the desire to hold on.

Her husband lifted her into his arms and laid her across the bed, coming down on top of her. A mad light gleamed in his eyes.

'Too confounded many buttons,' he growled before he ripped her nightgown open from neck to waist.

Ainsley delved inside his dressing gown, wanting his skin touching hers. She loved the weight of his body on hers, comforting, protecting. Never hurting her. Cameron never would.

Cameron shed his dressing gown in impatient jerks and furrowed her hair with his hand. Pulling her head back, he kissed her--hard--and at the same time entered her.

His hands on her body were strong, kisses on her lips, her flesh, as strong. He loved her with firm, sure strokes, Ainsley opening to him, body rising to his.

Cameron loved her in silence tonight, speaking only with his body, his kisses, nips, touches. He stirred fire deep inside her to wash out the pain, the fear, the worry of everything to come.

He loved her until they were both crying out, peaking together, then falling again to the valley of peace, warmth, quietude. Cameron kissed her with the slow kisses of afterglow, their bodies sweating in the warm room.

'I love you, little mouse,' Cameron said softly.

Then he gave her the sweetest gift he had to give--he curled up around her, pulled the covers over them, and went easily to sleep with her.

*** *** *** Ian entered the sitting room of the suite he shared with Beth, looking forward to his warm bed and his wife in his arms. This last week with its chaos of preparations, the house swarming, and more and more people arriving had kept him unnerved. Ian had gown better at dealing with people around him, but that didn't mean he liked it.

Poor Gavina going missing tonight had given him something practical to do, a problem to solve. Ian was much better at that. Finding Achilles, her favorite dog, had seemed the obvious thing to do.

Cameron had looked intensely relieved when she was found, and in this instance, Ian found empathy. If one of his children had disappeared, Ian would have been frantic. Any thought of harm to Jamie or Belle made him physically ill. Ian had spent the last hour up in the nursery, watching his little boy and girl, until Nanny Westlock and Daniel, carrying in Gavina, had chased him out.

No matter. Ian would see the babies tomorrow. If the weather was fine, he'd take them out riding.

Jamie was already a good rider, and Belle was learning quickly.

His thoughts dissolved when he beheld Beth sitting on the carved old-fashioned sofa, a book in her lap. The blue satin gown she'd worn for dinner was now rumpled and dust-stained, but it hugged her waist and bared an enticing glimpse of bosom. The bustle made her sit on the edge of the sofa, her satin skirts nearly hidden by the large book.

Ian recognized one of his texts on Ming bowls. He remembered the broken bowl and felt a pang of loss. It had been beautiful, and he'd only been able to hold it a few short moments.

But the bowl was nowhere near as beautiful as his wife, who looked up at him with sensual blue eyes, and said, 'Oh. I didn't see you come in.'

Which made no sense to Ian. Of course she hadn't seen him--she'd been looking at the book. She might have heard him come in; seen him, no.

'I will take the babies riding tomorrow,' Ian said, sitting down close to her. Her scent, familiar to him now, and so dear, began easing him, and his thoughts cleared. 'Come with us.' A ride to the folly high on the hill, winter sunshine, his wife and children snuggling at his side . . .

'I'd love to.' Beth's face softened. 'But I can't, you know. There is so much to do, more guests arriving, the menus to be sorted. Since Chef has left for France, Cook is having hysterics by the hour.

She's terrified she won't be able to manage, even with the extra help we've hired.' Beth rubbed her temples. 'It is becoming quite an ordeal.'

Ian sensed her unhappiness, but he relaxed, because he knew exactly how to make her feel better. That was another thing he could do that didn't involve crowds, or understanding how to answer people correctly, or looking into their eyes.

He started to lift the book from Beth's lap, kissing her cheek at the same time. Beth grabbed the book and pulled it back.

'Wait. I wanted to show you.' She pointed to a picture, a colored illustration, protected by a leaf of thin paper. 'What do you think of this one? It's very like the one I broke, isn't it? Same sort of vines and dragons, but in green and gray, instead of blue. The book says it's owned by a gentleman in France. I could write him.'

Ian glanced at the picture, taking in every nuance of the bowl in two seconds flat. How could she think it was like the one the Russian had? Clearly it was not, or Ian would have purchased this bowl in the first place.

But he'd learned, to his amazement, that most people couldn't tell one Ming bowl from the other. The fanatics who shared his passion could, and they were the few human beings with whom Ian could speak at length and understand in return--at least, as long as they remained on the topic of Ming pottery. Hart had explained that a person either had the gift or did not, and Ian needed to show compassion toward those who didn't.

'No,' Ian said, trying to soften the word. It sounded harsh all the same, falling flat against the thick velvet drapes at the windows. 'It's not the same.'

'But look.' Beth traced the line of vine with her finger. 'Surely the pattern is identical. I checked it against the book in which you found the first one . . .'

Ian lifted the tome away again, and this time, Beth let him. 'It isn't blue,' he said.

'Well, I know it isn't exactly the same, but . . .'

Ian closed the book and carried it to a table, taking a moment to line up its edges exactly with those of the wood. Once he was satisfied that the symmetry was perfect, he returned to the ugly sofa and sank down next to Beth. He sat shoulder to shoulder with her, hip to hip.

'I started collecting the bowls a year and four months after I came home from the asylum,' he said.

Beth looked at him to listen, her gaze catching his. Her eyes were such a lovely color, blue with flecks of gold, like sunshine on a pond. Ian got lost in looking at her eyes a moment, forgetting what he'd been saying.

'You began collecting a year or so after you came home . . .' Beth prompted.

Ian's mind picked up the thought and returned to that gear. 'I went into an antiques shop with Isabella, in Paris.'

Ian stopped again, remembering how terrified he'd been to leave Mac's hired townhouse, how soothing Isabella's presence had been when she'd persuaded him to accompany her. His sister-in-law had known how to speak into Ian's panicked silences, how to calm him with a smile, how to ask his opinion and then give it for him, so that strangers wouldn't think him odder than he was.

He remembered that his brothers had been puzzled and angry that Ian had let Isabella lay a hand on his arm or give him a quick kiss on the cheek, when he refused to let the rest of his family touch him.

Ian had thought his brothers fools about that. If they couldn't understand the difference between three overbearing Scotsmen who smelled of smoke and whiskey, and a lovely young woman scented with of attar of roses, he couldn't help them.

'Ian?'

Ian had lost track again. He looked into Beth's face--the woman who'd saved him from himself and who loved him in spite of his many, many shortcomings--and the words went out of Ian's head. Nothing he'd been saying could be as important.

'Isabella likes to shop, yes,' Beth said, watching him expectantly. 'And she took you into an antiques shop.