by Clare Austin
What would it be like to make love to her right here, the firelight playing on her skin? He tried to imagine them giving themselves up to passion, here on this mystical night, becoming part of the cosmos…embers blown on the wind.
A warm, dizzy, and otherworldly sense captured his imagination as he held her lithe body close and drank in the substance of her. His tongue tasted salt on her lips. It flashed in his mind that she often tasted a little like the sea.
Perhaps she was born of the waves.
“Want to take this indoors?” she asked when his lips traveled to her neck to nibble a morsel of skin there.
Decisions were the last thing he wanted to make right now. “I think we’re alone, except for the cows.”
“Until the pubs close,” she warned.
“Are you telling me we need to hurry?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” She rose up, straddling his hips. Her hands played over his chest, the fine cotton of his shirt slick and tactile against his skin.
The world spun in a core of heat, a pain of pleasure he could only relieve by filling her. He didn’t want to wait. Urgency trumped thought; all he wanted was to spread her open and delve deep into her. The risk of discovery by solstice celebrants, though titillating, was probably not in the best interest of their relationship.
“What did you have in mind?” Muireann asked.
“This,” he said as his hand slipped up under the skirt of her dress, played at the edge of her panties until his fingers found her prize. She was warm, moist, and silken.
She shuddered and moved against the pressure of his touch.
“I like the combo of sexy dress and cowgirl boots,” Tynan whispered.
“Don’t all the women in America wear cowgirl boots?”
“Not in Boston.” He brushed her lips with a kiss. “And I’m not an expert on the subject, but I don’t think they make love by bonfire on grassy cliff edges either.”
“They don’t know what they’re missing.”
The sound of laughter carried on the night air. Muireann rolled to Tynan’s side and straightened her dress. “I think our time just ran out.”
Muireann’s arms had chill bumps and she wasn’t sure it was from the loss of the sun’s glow in the west. Tynan’s hand held hers as they walked away from the Solstice celebration toward her cottage.
Every few hundred feet he would stop, turn her to him, and kiss her. “I can’t help myself,” he confessed. “You taste wonderful.”
At this pace, it took more than a few minutes to traverse the fields between the cliffs and Muireann’s cottage. When, at last, they reached her garden gate, the air was thick with the scent of wild flowers and herbs wet by evening’s gentle mist. Muireann wondered if the potted jasmine really did have an aphrodisiac effect. Surely it couldn’t simply be Tynan’s kisses that banished all sense of decorum.
“Here we are,” he said, slipped the key from its hiding place and opened the locked door.
This was probably completely insane. The man was a virtual stranger. She didn’t do this sort of thing. It might not be immoral, but had to be unwise.
But as desire fought with trepidation, Muireann had no doubt which would be the victor.
Chapter Fifteen
Muireann expected to look across the room and see her mortal self calmly observing the scene, a tableau she had played out in her dreams over the last many years. She couldn’t be standing here in Tynan’s arms consenting to this intimacy.
His lips searched her face, kissed her closed eyelids, and traveled down to the sensitive spot behind her jaw as he nudged her dress up over her hips and caressed her backside. She would become a puddle of melted bones and flesh at his feet if he continued to heat her up this way.
Tynan’s warm fingers explored the lace edge of her panties while his eyes raked her body.
Muireann tried to keep her fingers from trembling as she released the buttons of his shirt and stroked the smooth skin of his chest. She put her lips to his breastbone and breathed in his scent.
Tynan shrugged out of the sleeves and tossed the garment onto the back of the sofa.
His fingers played over the zipper at the back of her dress, fumbled with it until she grinned up at him, and shook her head.
“Wait.” Muireann reached behind herself steadying his fingers on the tab at her neck. With each zipper tooth released from its mate, her pulse rate accelerated. She waited for him to take the next step.
She held her breath and hoped she wouldn’t turn blue before he proceeded. He must have sensed her acquiescence, because his hands journeyed up under the folds of her skirt and nudged it over her head in one movement.
Muireann exhaled.
Tynan looked at her and slowly shook his head.
She raised an eyebrow and asked, “What?”
“I’m speechless.”
No easy task, tying the tongue of an Irishman. Muireann knew it was an accolade rarely bestowed.
Tynan placed a hand behind her neck. He coaxed her to him, his eyes dark as a storm-shrouded night sky, and kissed her.
Muireann wondered how such a polite kiss could render her helpless. No tongue, no saliva, just a clean, soft, breathy meeting of lips. It buckled her knees.
She must have actually started to weave on her feet, because his arms came tight around her and pressed her into him. “I want to kiss every inch of you,” he whispered just before he grazed her ear with a flick of his tongue.
That did it. The glow in her belly danced and demanded until it ignited a bonfire that screamed to be quenched. There was no denying the need obliterating reason and restraint. Who was it who promised to take this step by step? Don’t ask stupid questions and you won’t have to answer them in the morning.
His kisses were on the move across her neck and headed south. Muireann commanded her legs to move, march, stride in any direction, preferably toward her bedroom. The useless appendages refused to comply.
If he’d been less than her fantasies recalled, she would have had a reason to resist him. If he’d gone at the process with less finesse, rushed, sweated a little, grabbed and fumbled, she could possibly deny his ability to romance himself under her skin as well as her clothes.
A last, primitive instinct told her she would pay with her heart for this folly.
Feck my heart. Though not in her nature to admit he was right, she did want him as much as he wanted her.
“Uh, you’re going to have to stop this,” she gasped between attempts to breathe and think. Multitasking had never been so difficult.
Tynan halted mid-kiss. “Huh?”
“I mean…long enough for us to get somewhere more...horizontal.”
“Right,” he said as though the reality of where they stood hit him full on. Without hesitation, he led her to her room and closed the door behind them.
Muireann felt the burn of his gaze travel down from her eyes to settle on the peak of her breast. Her heart threatened to crash through her chest with each beat. She pulled her hand free of his and reached both arms around his neck.
“I’ve a confession,” she whispered, brushing her lips soft against his shoulder.
Ty exhaled with a slight shiver. “Now’s the time.”
“I’ve been thinking about this since…well, the night you gave me a lift home from the pub.”
“And?”
“I don’t want you to think I do this with every tourist who offers me a lift.”
“Are you saying I’m special?”
“I’d like to find out.”
Tynan kissed her neck where it met her collarbone. “So, tell me, will you still respect me in the morning?”
Muireann smiled and waited to answer just long enough to see a flash of worry cross his face. “Of course not.” She ran her hand down the column of his back and under his belt.
His buttocks tightened.
“Boxers?”
“Silk,” he whispered and let his lips caress her nape with a feather-light touch. “Italian
.”
“Another suggestion from your friend Miguel?”
“My little sister,” he mumbled between nibbles of the tender skin below one of her ears.
“Smart girl.”
“Brill.” He tasted the little dip where her shoulder met her neck. “When I first saw you…on the beach…I thought you were a figment of my jet-lagged imagination.” Ty backed her to the edge of the bed. “This is much better than anything I could have imagined.”
Thoughts skipped wildly through her head. Had she worn fresh panties this morning? Should she offer him a drink? What about condoms? Too late. His tongue was tracing a warm track between her breasts.
Ty knelt and laid moist kisses on her belly just above her panty line, encouraging a warm release from deep inside her. Muireann put her hands on his shoulders to steady herself. The edge of her bed nudged her and her knees gave way.
Before she could have second thoughts, he removed her boots, pulled off her socks, and massaged each foot. “You disappoint me,” he said as he examined her toes.
Muireann laughed. “Sorry, luv, not all selkies have webbed toes.”
“You make up for your lack by having the longest, most lovely legs,” he said as he drew a line with his index finger from the concave curve of her belly, down the inside of her thigh to the back of her knee and up again to her hip. “I want them wrapped around me.”
Muireann instinctively squeezed her pelvic muscles and pressed against Tynan’s hand. If she’d had the ability to think coherently moments earlier, the part of her brain that controlled inhibitions was now severely impaired.
“Get out of your clothes,” she said with less poise than she hoped to muster.
Ty obliged with alacrity. “Naked as a newborn here,” he stated and put his fingertips under the elastic band of her knickers. “You won’t need these for a bit.”
He pulled the ephemeral scrap of lace and elastic down her legs and dropped them on the floor. “What’s this for?” Ty reached for the bottle of Baileys and a glass she had left on her night table.
“Forgot to put it back in the cupboard.”
He poured a small amount of the caramel-colored liqueur in the glass. “Hmm, makes my imagination go wild.” Ty took a sip and then kissed her.
The residue on his lips and tongue made her want to delve deep into his mouth and lick the pungent sweetness from him. When she did, a sensation of molten energy streamed through her veins and tingled from the tips of her extremities to her core. In the warm, moist center of her, an undertow of emotions and basic physical needs coalesced.
He tipped the remaining contents of the glass and poured a thin line of sweet nectar starting with the valley between her breasts and ending below her naval. She let out a little breath of pleasure at the realization of what he planned next.
Muireann tried to hold on to reason. She didn’t like to be out of control—vulnerable. It had not kept her from fulfillment in the past, but she never needed to lose herself in the process. He would never know. The men she had known had been far too involved with their own pleasure to notice that she held that reserve. And it was easier to walk away when the time came.
But any restraint she owned headed south with her brain in a knapsack when he began licking the Baileys from her skin. Muireann’s hands found their way into his hair and pressed him closer as he suckled a burning trail down her body. When he reached the end of the path, an involuntary moan escaped her throat and she arched against the pressure of his lips on her lower belly.
In one last effort to take charge, she rolled him onto his back and held him tight against her with one leg snaked over his hip. Tynan’s eyes, brilliant blue in the light of day, were dark as night on the sea when the moon was new.
“You intoxicate me,” he said and tangled his fingers into her hair.
Muireann reached for the decanter and sipped slowly out of the bottle, holding a small amount in her mouth. She bent to him, dribbling the creamy spirit from her lips onto his body.
As she licked him clean, tasted him, salty and sweet, she couldn’t get enough to satisfy her hunger for him.
Tynan groaned, pressed her close, and slid his fingers into her moist center.
Hot streams of sensation burst inside her and she arched hard against his hand. She fought a battle with chaos as strong as the undertow of receding tide.
“Kiss me,” he said. It was a demand as well as a plea, and he covered her mouth before she could think to deny him. All reserve abolished, she opened to him and a silken tide pulled him into her depths.
Drowning. He was drowning. This time it was with a sense of bliss. He let her take him where the waters were deep, warm, and inescapable. She wrapped him in her long limbs and moved in the rhythm of waves, soft and hard. Each tidal surge would reach a peak and crash upon her with a shudder, but before the power could recede he would feel her rise again on a swell more powerful than the one before.
Muireann transformed. Was she woman or sylph? Mortal or mystery? With each accelerated breath, he plunged farther into her realm—a raging storm where he knew he would be safe or die content.
Tynan held her hard against him. Immersed, he felt tremors pulsate through his body in a maelstrom where light cleaved dark and sky merged with sea. She begged with her body for him to follow her to the precipice.
Jolts of heat poured through him, she cried out and they leapt off the edge together.
He thought he heard the sea. The ebb and rush matched the echo of his pulse as it slowed in harmony with Muireann’s ragged breaths. She was tangled around him, her limbs damp and glistening, as she was the day he first saw her emerge from the foam. Her eyes were closed and her face mirrored his sense of peace.
“Muireann,” he whispered. “Mo chroi.” My heart. Had he allowed himself those words of endearment? Somehow it felt natural. It wasn’t hard to say, because he meant it. Ty kissed her forehead.
“Go way outta that,” she mumbled. “I can’t move.”
“You don’t need to.” He repositioned slightly so he could see her face more clearly. “How did you get so beautiful?”
Muireann chuckled. “Born that way.”
“Ah, now, and she’s humble as well.” He drew a line down her jaw with his index finger and his lips followed with feather light nibbles.
“You asked.” She ran her hand up his back, massaging as she went until she reached his neck and tangled her fingers in the hair at his nape. A primal sigh escaped his throat.
“I refuse to tell you how nice this was,” she said.
It would have worried him but for the slow smile that curved her lips. “Oh, and why not?”
Her laugh was wicked and low. “Because I hope it was obvious.”
Yes, he had to admit to himself, it had been clear. They were a grand match. At least here, in bed, at a physical level.
She nudged to free herself from under him. Tynan rolled to his side and tucked her into himself spoon fashion. “I have a little something to confess,” he whispered.
Muireann looked over her shoulder and gave him a half smile. “Too late.”
He snugged her closer. “I like to cuddle.” It sounded unmanly, even to himself, but it was the truth. He had never understood his male friends who couldn’t wait to flee the room or the country as soon as possible. Tynan’s mind and body needed a solid hold on something after losing himself so totally.
The problem was finding a woman with whom he had anything cogent to relate to after the rush of passion had passed.
Muireann was different. Tynan thought he could hold her in his arms like this for hours and chat about anything—music, stories of Ireland, the weather—the spectacular as well as the mundane. Granted, when the children came along…whoa big fella. What was that thought you just let slip? Have you forgotten the plan?
This should scare him. It should scare any man. After all, shouldn’t he want to keep his freedom as long as possible? Perhaps it felt safe, because he could truly imagine himself givi
ng up his bachelor life for this alternative.
Best not mention the scuffle of little feet or Muireann will be the one fleeing the country.
She wriggled from his arms. “I’ve gotta pee.”
“That’s not very romantic,” he chided.
“No, but it’s honest.” She sat up on the side of the bed and leaned back to kiss him on his lips. “They always leave this part out in the films.”
Ty watched the enticing wiggle of her backside as she walked away. Muireann was one of those rare women who had no shyness about her body and it showed. She tossed her hair back and strode to the bathroom like a queen to a coronation.
Any man knew this was no time to make decisions or proclamations, but Ty was at least ninety-nine percent certain he was falling in love. Okay, he’d just had his brain washed of any intelligent decision-making ability. Best not to make a fool of himself and tell her of the current ravings of his post-orgasmic mind.
Ty heard the shower plumbing shiver to life. He stood, stretched his muscles awake, and headed toward the bathroom.
She jumped at a touch on her shoulder. “Jaysus, you just took ten years off my life,” she said, her hand going to her heart.
Tynan had slipped into the shower beside her. “I thought you wouldn’t mind sharing the hot water.”
In the tight quarters, he pressed against her back and ran slick, soapy hands over her shoulders. Muireann’s knees went liquid. She turned to face him. “Works for me,” she said and kissed his mouth, skimmed her lips over his cheek, and trailed watery nibbles down his chest. Before she reached the triangle of dark hair below his navel, he stopped her.
“This is only going to get harder…uh, no pun intended…if you go any farther south.”
Muireann had no interest in his warning. Besides, she couldn’t imagine things getting any harder. She reached the shower control and dialed the water off. “I think we’re clean enough.” She grabbed a towel and started to rub him dry. Tynan did the same for her, and then gently sponged droplets of water from her cheeks.
