Page 105 of Long Live the King

“Ye’re welcome.”

“I feel like I used to handle ten times this drama, but I think since we’ve had an easy time it got... I don’t know, shocking.”

“Aye, we are soft.”

“Yeah. I was staring at her empty car, it looked like a struggle, and she is just gone, och nae.”

He chuckled. “I like it when ye say it.”

“It fits, this calls for a proper ‘och nae’.”

I sat up and looked down in his eyes. “She’s been kidnapped. I think it’s time travel. Imagine it, Magnus, she hasnoidea what is happening to her!”

“I keep thinking of ye, when ye were held tae be a wet-nurse, och nae.”

I nodded and kissed the bridge of his nose. Then pressed my forehead to his. “So with time to think, what’s our plan?”

He put his hands on my hips and pulled me closer, down. “We are thinkin’? I am becomin’ unable tae think.”

I kissed him. “I like that after all these years you’re still incorrigible.”

“I like that after all these years ye will still climb on m’lap and whisper Scottish sounding words in m’ears.”

I whispered, “Och aye,” in his ear and he moaned and his hands were rubbing up my shirt, and fondling around my breasts.

I said, “Aren’t we supposed to be coming up with a plan?”

“I hae a plan right here with yer name on it.”

“Och, I feel yer plan, Master Magnus, tis a verra big plan!”

He laughed as he heaved us both up from the couch, my legs around, his hands under my thighs, and walked me into our bedroom and tossed me on our bed.

In a few moments of frenetic activity we took off our shoes and socks, removed our clothes, and then he climbed onto the bed, crawling up my body, kissing my thighs and stomach, playing between my legs, as he trailed a tongue up my chest to my throat. There a nibble and a warm breath in my ears, that familiar scent and heat of my husband, the taste of him on my tongue as we kissed and licked, and the friction of my palms running along his planes and angles, the hardness of his form as I pulled him in and joined him and we rode to the climax of a midafternoon quickie.

It might have been an inopportune time, but oh so necessary sometimes to take a moment to love each other like this. To release our angst and worry. I ran my hand down his arm and kissed the spot on his shoulder above his scar.

His mouth against my neck, he said, “Now I can think.”

“Me too.” I ran my fingers through his hair, and twirled them in his curls. I said, “What do you think we’re going to do?”

“We are goin’ tae mount a rescue of the maiden.”

I nodded. “Do you have any ideas where she might be?”

“Nae, but we hae a couple of places tae begin— there is Asgall’s company in the twentieth century and his kingdom in the thirteenth century. We will need tae gather weapons and then we will go.”

He exhaled. “Lady Mairead told me a terrible tale that has me verra concerned...”

I raised my head. “What was it?”

“M’great aunt, I had never heard her mentioned before. When she was young, a man named Asgall took her. She disappeared and was never seen again.”

My eyes went wide. “Oh no!”

“Aye. This is how he got his hands on a vessel, we assume he has other machines as well.”

“Like a Trailblazer?”

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