She twisted in his arms and shoved her hands between them. “Put me down, Kendall!”
He positioned his cock so that she could feel exactly what he had for her.
“Oh, dear merciful God,” she whispered.
Her body melted against him, but her pelvis pressed hard against him. She lifted slightly in his arms, rubbing herself against him. He moved his hands under her body. His fingers brushed against the wet folds.
“You like that, don’t you, baby?”
Her moan was enough of an answer. “What are you doing to me?”
“Other things.”
“So soft, and ’tis making me feel tingly. Are you feeling the same?”
“Yes, baby. Keep rubbing against me. I want to watch your face when you come.”
“Come where?” Her voice was slurred, dreamy. Her thoughts might be unfocused, but her body moved with a determination, a rhythm that told him she was close. Her body quivered. “But this feels very nice, almost too much. It makes my skin feel hot. I feel like I need something else. I’m melting. I’ve ne’er felt anything like this. I’m losing my willpower. Are you a magician?”
“No, baby, I’m adopted.”
“I’m throbbing inside,” she whispered. “I need something else. Something to make it stop.”
“It’s going to get a lot better before it stops. You need to finish this.”
“Then finish it,” she said.
He arched against her, slowly penetrating a fraction of an inch into her body. Arleigh froze. A soft whimper escaped from her lips, but her mouth found his, and the kiss she gave him almost made him forget what he was doing. He wanted to bury himself in her flesh, ram into her hard, but she was so tight he didn’t want to hurt her. Arleigh’s body smashed against him. Did she really want him, or had her body succumbed to her need to orgasm? He would never take any woman, let alone this one, for his own pleasure. He tried to concentrate, to remember he had control. Was he in control? He suddenly didn’t think so.
“Open up, baby. Relax. I’m not going to hurt you. Should I keep going?” He raised his face and stared into her wide eyes. “Tell me. What do you really want?”
“I don’t know. The feelings have confused me. You said there would be more between us, and you wanted to wait. Why are you tempting me? Why are you making me feel like this?”
“I need to exorcise you, Arleigh. I can’t think of any other way.”
“You don’t want more? You changed your mind?”
“I wanted your heart without reservation and fear, but I’m beginning to think those are things we’ll never have. Maybe if I fuck you, I can forget everything else I wanted. Maybe the lust is enough.”
He snatched at her mouth, and she twisted her face away from him. “’Tis not enough! I want you to believe me.”
He gripped her legs and lowered her to the floor. He backed up, and she stood still, her back still pressed against the door, obviously afraid to move a muscle. The anger boiling within him looked for some kind of release.
“Believe what? This ridiculous story that I’ll die if we fuck? Is this the story you told Stephen for six months? Should I love you from afar until it becomes an obsession? And when someone shoots me in the back, will you grieve for me? Is it easier to love a dead man, Arleigh?”
“I didn’t ask Stephen to love me.”
“Stephen was an idiot. He didn’t have a clear view of what you are, but I’m beginning to understand.” He paused and stared at her hard. “You’re a liar who gets her kicks using men for her own amusement. You’re a cock teaser, Arleigh. Believe me, there’s one in every crowd. Usually I can spot them a mile away, but this time I actually fell for it. My mistake, but I’m learning from the experience. I’m tired of being your whipping boy.”
“You feel this way because of the curse, Ryder.”
“You can walk around in that trampy little see-through number, but when I react to it, it’s the result of a curse? What kind of perverted defense mechanism is that, Arleigh? You’re deluding yourself, kid. Calling it a curse does not give you license to screw with my mind. Do you think it’s okay to string me along if it’s not your fault?”
“There is a curse, Ryder. It has followed me for hundreds of years and across continents. It has left a trail of dead men across Ireland to this colony.”
“So what you’re saying is, touch Arleigh Donovan and die?”
“Aye,” she said softly. “That’s what I’m saying.”
Ryder yanked on his boxers, grimacing as he once again stuffed his frustrated dick back into his pants. He paced around the bedroom, casting furious glances toward the ceiling.
“Sweetheart, you are seriously messed up. Who did this to you? You might be more dangerous than I thought.” He dropped down onto the bed. “I can’t take much more of this. What is it you want from me?”
“I can’t have what I want. ’Twould be better for both of us if you left Trinity.”
“You’ve forgotten again who owns this island. If anyone leaves, it’s going to be you.”
“But I’ve nowhere else to go.”
“You’ve far more options than I have. Go to your boyfriend’s. He still has the hots for you, not that I blame him. Go back to him, Arleigh. He can put up with your bullshit, and it will save me a lot of aggravation. Financially I’ll be free and clear. The girls can come home, and we can all get on with our lives.”
Arleigh finally moved from the door. She came toward him, a wraith spun on the shadows of the room, so small and helpless. She did not look like a woman who could break his willpower, but she seemed determined to try. She moved closer to him, and the smell of her cream drove him crazy.
“But I don’t want to go to Cameron. You told me you’d fight for me.”
“So you want me to leave, but I’m still supposed to fight for you? What would I get out of that scenario, Arleigh?”
“Me.”
Ryder laughed and went to the door. “According to this curse of yours, I die. Sounds very tempting, but I planned to live past thirty. Talk’s over, honey.”
He started to open the door, and she rammed her body against it, slamming it closed.
“Why are you being so stubborn? Why are we always fighting and hating one another? I don’t want to hate you. You might make it stop if you give in.”
“I don’t give in, princess. You’re going to have to do a little giving, too.”
He opened the door. Arleigh watched him with disbelief, her mouth open. He took her hand and guided her over the threshold.
“Good night, Arleigh. Sleep well.”
“Not bloody likely,” she snarled.
When he closed the door, her palms slapped against the wood. “Stop slamming doors in my face, Kendall!”
He leaned against the door and blew out his breath in a heavy sigh. He rubbed his hand against the throbbing in his groin.
“Christ, I can’t take much more of this.”
* * * *
When Ryder woke up from what might have been an unconscious state, she was out in the keeping room, banging and slamming. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, immediately sorry. An invisible sledgehammer nailed him in the head and knocked the breath out of his body. He thought he would hurl right on the floor. He drank too much, and the whiskey good old Stephen had brewed would kill him. He thought that if he had some time, he might take another look through Stephen’s books and see if he could find the recipe. Maybe even improve on it.
He needed another argument like a hole in the head, but he had no choice, because hunger grumbled through his body and the queasy sensation in his gut demanded food. Once he walked into the other room, she’d jump all over him because she hadn’t gotten her own way. He didn’t know what she wanted, but she hadn’t been happy when he closed the door.
She didn’t see the all the plot holes in her little story. Her tale of curses and the Leanan sidhe must have worked on some of the boys she had known, boys who found her adolescent beauty nearly i
rresistible. It had probably even worked on some men. But it obviously hadn’t worked on Flynn, and now her little mind spun loopholes to explain why Flynn still lived. Flynn was immortal? Fuck that. Someone had really done a number on her. Ryder couldn’t figure out where he fit in. In her little fantasy, sex with Arleigh Donovan was a death sentence, yet she had offered herself to him, and every signal she sent his direction proved she wanted him.
He couldn’t think. The whiskey fumes played havoc with his mind. He almost believed her. He shook his head and took a deep breath, trying to get some oxygen through his system. What he really needed was a blood transfusion.
He pulled open the door, and at the sound, she whirled around. She gave him a surly look. The little princess pouted, and she wouldn’t do it quietly. He couldn’t get that lucky. Arleigh rampaged around the room, muttering and mumbling, clanking every metallic utensil she could find. At each bang and clatter, his head throbbed. Ryder leaned into the doorjamb and rubbed his hand across his eyes.
“Is all the noise necessary? I have a slight headache.”
Arleigh rolled her eyes. “I’m surprised to see you alive.”
“I managed to survive the night, despite our near collision. I’m glad one of us thought straight. Wouldn’t want to become the victim of a curse. How would that look on my gravestone?”
Arleigh swung around, tapping the skillet against her leg. “I don’t have a problem providing something to write on your stone.”
So predictable. She had her skirts all in a bunch. He had offended the little Leanan sidhe’s sense of omnipotence. Hard to have power over a man if you couldn’t control him. He could have stopped, but he loved that fiery look in her eye. He would take it anyway he could get it.
“Last night you told me to ‘give in.’ What the hell was that about? I offered you the sexual experience of your life, and you totally blew me out of the water.”
“The sexual experience of my life? Try lifetimes, Kendall, and in thousands of years, no man has taken me against a door. You could have been a little more romantic. What kind of man are you?”
“Obviously not your type,” he said. “Hell, if you need flowers and candlelight—”
“I do not plan to lose my virginity plastered against the door with one thrust from a drunken man.”
He started to back up into the bedroom, and sure enough, she followed him. So predictable.
“You promised me more, Kendall, and you’re going to give it to me. You said you’d fight for me.”
“I don’t fight for things I can’t win. And what would be the point? Touch Arleigh Donovan and die. You said it yourself.”
“Maybe you’re the one that will make it stop,” she murmured.
Ryder shook his head. The woman barely made sense at times. She paused inside the door. He glanced at her, and found her watching him. He searched the floor for his clothes, her gaze following the movement of his arms, running across his bare legs, over his chest, and pausing for the slightest moment on the shadowy area of his boxers. His cock twitched without his permission. She played with a strand of hair, twisting it around her finger.
That’s what she wants to do to you. Wrap you around her finger until you have no thoughts of your own, no will of your own. Quit watching her, damn it. Get dressed and get the hell of out of this cottage.
She made him nervous. She seemed to have a lot on her mind, and he couldn’t squeeze a thought through the pain. He knelt on the floor, looking for his lost boot, and her fingers grazed across his back.
“So you’re not a champion?” she asked softly. “You came to be a hero, remember?”
Ryder laughed and didn’t like the sound of it. He sounded rattled, caught off guard. He should have been used to it around her, but for some reason, it kept surprising him.
“That was before I met you.” He found his boot and stood up, putting his hands on his hips. “I didn’t know I would be fighting a losing battle.”
She came very close to him, and when she spread her palm across his chest, he sucked a long breath into his lungs. Her fingers began to toy with the hair that curled there. He told himself to move her hand, but he couldn’t raise his own arm.
“Knock it off, Arleigh,” he said. Something was wrong with his voice. The harsh tone he aimed for sounded less than firm. “Don’t start this again.”
She herded him, moving him inch by inch. He felt the edge of the bed nudge the back of his legs.
“I need you to fight for me.”
“Why? I heard you last night. You said you can’t resist him. Why don’t you go to Flynn now and get it over with? You can live unhappily ever after.”
Her hand slid along his chest, across his stomach, and touched the waistband of his boxers, her fingers caressing him. Parts of his body obviously did not suffer the aftermath of a massive hangover. He was grateful there was any feeling in his body at all, but the timing was very inopportune. Firm is what he needed here.
“I wasn’t talking about Cameron,” she said. “If you hadn’t been so drunk, you would have known I was talking about you.”
Ryder tried to laugh. “Me? It sure didn’t sound—”
She ran her hands down his arms and linked her fingers through his. “I shouldn’t want you, Ryder. It’s too dangerous for both of us. But for some reason, I can’t resist you. Being near you makes me ache. It would be so much safer if you left, but part of me can’t let you go. Have you wrapped me in a spell? Are you under a curse of your own?”
“No,” he said softly. “No curse. I’m not even a real Kendall.”
Her hand dipped inside his one last defense and curled around his hard cock. He practically jumped out his skin.
“You feel very real to me,” she said quietly. Her hand ran along the length of him, and she smiled. “I know what happens when we’re near each other. You get hard and swollen, filled with need and want. I understand how frustrated you get. I get frustrated, too.”
“You do?”
Perfect. Just perfect. He couldn’t hold onto his anger once she touched him. His voice sounded husky, still intoxicated, and he cleared his throat, ready to defend himself, to make up some story, but he couldn’t come up with a single thought. His brain had taken a leave of absence and had left his body in total control.
“You were very angry with me last night,” she said, “because you think I’ve lied to you.”
“You have.”
She put her finger over his mouth. “I haven’t. There is so much you don’t know about me. But I don’t want to talk now, Ryder. When we talk, we fight, and I don’t want to fight. I have other things on my mind.”
She squeezed her hand around his dick, and he shuddered.
“Have you had this all night?” she asked.
“I’ve had it for days,” he growled. “It’s a perpetual ache that eats at me like you do, a nagging consequence of being in your presence. Don’t worry about me. I’ll survive.”
“I’m afraid you won’t. That’s what frightens me.”
She edged closer, although there wasn’t an inch between them. Her shirt rubbed against his bare chest, and he realized how thin the material was when the slight friction made her nipples hard. They pressed into his skin. He wanted to wrap his lips around them and suckle her.
“It’s so dangerous,” she murmured, “but this indecision is going to kill us.”
“Are you offering yourself to me again?”
“Aye,” she whispered. “Are you accepting?”
She was playing a very dangerous game with him. He didn’t know if she toyed with him for amusement, was innocently unaware of consequences, or plain stupid, but it was time to find out.
He shoved her onto the bed. She gazed up at him, innocent, trusting. Did she have any idea what she was doing?
“What happens when I don’t die, Arleigh? What will you do with me then?”
“I’m hoping you don’t. I’m risking your life and my sanity, but I can barely stand being near you.”
/>
She stretched out her arms, and he lowered his body on top of hers. Her hand was caught between them and had dipped inside his boxers again, her fingers caressing him, stroking him, making him swell harder. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to lose this battle.
“There’s something inside of me that needs you,” Arleigh said. “I know you feel it, too.”
“I feel it. But what are you doing here? Is this for real?”
“Aye. It’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“Are you going to change your mind? Demand a change of venue? Cry or faint? Scream bloody murder? Lecture me on poetry?”
“Why would I do any of those things?”
“Because inside of you is a temptress, Arleigh, and I think she enjoys seeing me in torment.”
“It’s a part of who I am. I can’t change it. The Leanan sidhe spirit is inside of me.”
“I want to be inside of you. You’ve got me in your hand, Arleigh. Can you feel what I want?”
She nodded, and her hand tightened around him.
“Tell me what you feel,” he said.
A blush stole across her creamy skin, and he wrapped his hands around her face, forcing her to look at him.
“Tell me.”
“It feels silky, soft, smooth. Firm, hard, swollen with pressure. It feels hungry. I can take the hunger away. All you have to do is take my body.”
“That’s not what I meant. Do you know what I feel, Arleigh?”
“No,” she whispered.
“I feel power. I feel control. With one small movement,” he pushed himself against her, nestling between her thighs, “with one push, I could own you. I stopped before, but I may not stop again. Do you know how dangerous that is? Do you feel how much power you’ve given me right now? Do you understand what could happen here?”
Her breath caught in her chest. She shook her head, a tiny shake he felt in his hands. He hated himself for being such a prick.
“Your mind games may have worked on some kids in Ireland. Hell, they might even have worked on some superstitious men here, including my brother, but I’m a different breed, Arleigh. I don’t believe in curses, and I sure as hell don’t believe that if I fuck you I’m going to die.”
Carlton, Amber - Trinity Magic (Siren Publishing Romance) Page 20
