by A. S. Green
Then she wondered if Cormac would be able to hold it together this time because, as much as she liked the hound, its full appearance would shut things down quick.
Without another word, Cormac caught the bottom edge of her T-shirt in his fingers and waited for her reaction. Meghan raised her arms, then slowly, like he was unwrapping a present, he pulled it up. The cotton tickled over her chest, sending a rush of goose bumps skittering over her breasts. Once it was off, he dropped it on the floor.
His eyes swept over her torso, lingering on her breasts as they rose and fell. Her breath quickened in response.
Cormac made a tortured noise, and he drew his finger along the top edge of her lacy bra. His touch sent such a riot of energy racing over her shoulders and shooting down her arms that she had to grip his biceps just to stay upright.
He reached between them, popped the button on her jeans while keeping his eyes locked on hers. She heard, rather than felt, her zipper go down, and then she was swinging her hips while he pushed her jeans down over her ass.
They fell to her ankles, and she stepped out. Cormac took a step back and let his gaze follow the length of her body, slowly rising again, lingering in the most interesting spots, before returning to her face.
His eyes were dark, nearly black, and she swore she could hear the hound’s contented rumble vibrating through Cormac’s own chest.
“How do I get your clothes off,” she asked, “if they don’t really exist?”
He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he was naked.
“Holy shi—”
Cormac’s hand shot out, wrapping around the back of her neck, and he yanked her against his body. Their mouths met, and his tongue slid in, moving against hers. It was incredible. Better even than before. The taste of him. The hard warmth of him. She was dizzy and hungry, lost in the heat and the muscled grip of him, his smooth skin trembling under her hands as she slid her palms over his ribs.
He groaned into her mouth as his kiss deepened, and he ground his hardest part against her until she was crying out with pleasure.
“Do ye want me, Meghan?”
God, wasn’t it obvious? She rocked her hips, wishing her bra and panties could disappear as easily as his clothes had vanished. Something deep in her core was coiling tighter and tighter, ready to unleash, and she wanted more. She needed more.
His hand dug into her ass, and his other hand palmed her breast, caressing, thumbing the tip, deepening the painful ache inside her.
She tipped her head back, and he kissed down her neck, sucking deep at the spot where it met her shoulder, marking her.
“I asked you a question, mo cuisle.”
“I do. I want you.”
When he ducked his head and closed his mouth over her nipple, it was an out-of-body experience.
“Yes! Fuck, yes.” Her fists gripped his thick hair, holding him to her while his hot mouth moved over her body, exploring, kissing, licking, nipping. She was burning with desire for him, aching and wanting.
His hand caressed her breast, and when he grazed the nipple with his thumbnail, the mixture of pleasure and pain made her body jolt.
Meghan’s hand wrapped around his erection and stroked once. He moaned her name, and his fingers dug into her ass while she worked him, feeling him thicken in her hand until she could spread a drop of moisture over the tip of his cock, teasing him with what they both knew was about to happen. They weren’t going to even make it to the bed.
Cormac guided her gently down onto the floor. She laid back with her knees bent, and when she opened her eyes, she found his focus was on the gusset of her panties, and that his dark eyes had gone molten.
He followed her down, and she gasped when his fingers tickled up the inside of her thigh. He slipped one inside her panties then inside her, and her muscles clamped down around him.
"Nice," he said. “So sweet.”
He removed his hand and kissed over the dip of her waist, the angle of her hip, and then the other. Then he kissed below her belly button and worked himself lower until he was kissing her right there over her damp panties.
“Mack,” she said with a moan.
He pulled her panties down her legs, and his warm breath brushed against her most sensitive part, sending a shudder right through her.
His tongue fluttered and delved deep inside, taking full possession. He groaned and slid his hands under her ass, lifting her off the floor, pulling her against his mouth.
A feral sound emanated from somewhere deep, reminding Meghan what lurked inside of him.
She didn’t care. She was too focused on the pulsing at her temples, in her neck, and at her core. “I'm about to… I'm about to… Cormac!”
"That's it."
“Cormac, I'm going to come."
He paused his activities just long enough to say, “Do it.”
Meghan rode the edge of her impending orgasm, feeling everything pull tight, then hold…hold…vibrating in the moment, before tumbling over the edge. A tidal wave of pure bliss pulled her under, and she let herself get lost in the overwhelming sensations.
When she finally opened her eyes, Cormac was watching the muscular aftershocks of her orgasm contract and relax across her pelvic floor. Only once they subsided did he lower her hips to the floor. Then he rose up and over her like a mountain of muscle, holding his weight in his hands.
Meghan reached between them and stroked his massive cock. His skin was silky. Soft and delicate sliding over hard and savage. The rest of his body was blazing hot and coated in a sheen of perspiration.
She moved her hand up over his length, then down again, sending a tremor over his body.
Cormac squeezed his eyes tight and groaned. “Fuuuuck. Oh, god. The way you touch me. You better stop. Now. Please, stop.”
Meghan took her hand away. Was something wrong?
He answered her question by lowering his body onto hers. Then he stretched her arms over her head and held her wrists to the rug. The tip of his thick shaft nestled itself in her wetness, and his eyes widened. A vein bulged down the center of his forehead, and he pressed up on his hands again.
"God, Meghan.” His voice sounded tortured.
“I want this.” She wrapped a leg around his hip bringing his cock right there. Right where she wanted him. “I’ve needed this. Please, Cormac.”
“I can feel your heat, Meghan. So damn hot. Are ye sure you’re not half hell hound?”
“Would that make it better?’
“I can’t imagine how. Every bit of me needs to thrust.”
“Do it.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “It won’t be gentle.”
“I didn’t ask you to be.”
His dark eyes went practically black, and she could see the hound lunging, pulling at his chain. “Meghan.”
“Do it.”
He let out a growl and, grabbing her leg, flipped her to her belly. In the next move he yanked up on her hips so she was on her knees, head to the carpet.
“Cormac!” she cried out.
He was on his knees between her legs. His fingers dug into her hips as he pulled them back to meet his, and his heavy balls slapped against the tops of her thighs.
She sucked in a sharp breath as her body stretched over his thick cock, then they both cried out at their joining. The pressure, it was too much. It was too much and still not enough. It was sublime, and she wanted more. So much more.
A groan escaped her lips as he slowly pulled out until only the tip remained. She whimpered at the loss of him, and then, with a grunt, he plunged back in with such force that she cried out again and pressed her ass back to meet him.
He reached around and between her legs, working her clit as he slammed into her over and over and over again. The sound of their bodies slapping together turned her on all the more, and the pressure inside her was intense.
Was sex ever like this before? Her mind was too gone to remember. She was trembling, building up to another orgasm as Cormac filled her.
“You’re mine,” he said, though she wasn’t sure if she was meant to hear it.
In response, her walls tightened…tightened…tightened around him, until—finally—the tension broke, and her orgasm ripped through her like lightning, leaving her shuddering and convulsing around his cock.
“Oh, fuck,” he groaned. “Oh, Meghan.”
God, she was coming again, and it would not stop. Wave after wave of such intense pleasure it bordered on pain.
He pulled her tight against him one last time, as he emptied himself into her, letting loose with a long animalistic growl.
Chapter Twenty
MEGHAN
Meghan woke to the sun sending diamond patterns across Cormac’s bedroom. He still lay beside her, now on the bed. She turned her head and found him flat on his back, bare chested with the soft sheet pulled down to his waist, revealing a tantalizing arrow of dark hair.
He held one palm flat against his chest. His full lips were parted. God, he was beautiful.
Everything about him was beautiful, even the scarier parts. She’d never known anyone like him, obviously, and if everything she thought she’d known about herself was wrong, that in reality she was a halfling of unknown nature, abilities, and life expectancy…well, thank God she had someone like Cormac MacConall to show her the way.
He wouldn’t pull any punches. He’d be honest. Even if the truth hurt. And, frankly, after all she’d been through, that was a welcome change.
When her stomach growled, she eased herself out of bed, grabbed her nightshirt from her suitcase and pulled it on. She let her eyes focus on the rest of the room. The sunlight brought out the soft luster of the dark wood and intricate moldings.
She’d curled herself so closely to Cormac all night, she hadn’t appreciated the massive size of the bed. In fact, everything seemed huge; even the mahogany wardrobe was as tall as it was wide, and it was wide.
There were two doors on either side of the wardrobe. The one, she knew, led to the hall. The other, she hoped, led to a bathroom. That hope was realized. Cormac didn’t stir through any of her morning routine, but she crept on tiptoe out of the room—stopping only briefly to glance once more at the photos.
She clenched her jaw. The MacConalls had once been a big loving family. Now Cormac kept himself in a self-imposed exile from his house, renting random rooms, working alone, traveling solo, hunting…. The travesty of it made her sinuses burn.
It made sense for someone like her to be alone, but someone like Cormac…someone beautiful and brave, someone whose life work was to keep his people safe, should never be alone. It seemed unnatural, and it nearly broke her heart.
She retraced their steps from the night before, following the short hallway to the curving staircase.
She hadn’t been able to see the downstairs rooms the night before because the house had been dark. Now she expected to see all the furniture thick with dust, or perhaps covered in sheets. Neither was true.
Instead, everything looked well-kept, and she wondered if Cormac had maintained a housekeeper in his absence.
At the bottom of the stairs and to her left was a large sitting room with an enormous red leather couch with hundreds of silver rivets—more mid-century than its Victorian surroundings. The couch faced away from the entrance to the room. As she wandered closer to it, she could see the coffee table strewn with newer looking issues of The New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, and Rolling Stone. Weirder still was the big-screen TV.
Maybe Cormac had kept a live-in housekeeper all this time? It seemed implausible, but then she got a whiff of bacon coming from down the hallway that led to the back of the house.
Her stomach growled, and just as she turned to go in search of food, a large hand wrapped tight across her mouth.
Meghan’s body tensed, and the blood in her arms tingled with cold.
A man’s body was behind her. Someone had broken into the house, and that someone jerked her roughly—both with the hand at her mouth, and now with an arm wrapped around her belly.
His fingers clenched the thin cotton of her nightshirt. “Who are ye? And don’t ye dare lie.”
Meghan couldn’t exactly answer so she made a noise of protest and struggled in his grasp.
“Do ye mean to steal from the house, pádraig? Cut down the cú sídhe in their sleep?”
Meghan tried to remember how she’d escaped from Riley. She hadn’t really thought about it at the time, it just happened. Cormac called it “tilting.” Maybe she needed to lean into it. She tried to bend forward, but the intruder yanked her body back to his.
She slammed her foot down on his with all of her weight and she bit the meaty edge of his hand. It did nothing.
He gave her body another shake. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t snap your neck.”
“Because she’s my mate,” Cormac said, his voice suddenly filling the room, and he did not sound pleased.
Instantly the arms around her fell away. Meghan staggered a few steps, caught her balance against the back of the couch, and whirled.
The intruder was tall, dark, and broad shouldered, much like Cormac, except his eyes were a piercing ice blue. His dark beard was edged with impeccable precision, and his nose was thick at the bridge like it had been broken and more than once. He wore dark Levi’s and a Henley. Beyond that, he looked like he was seeing a ghost.
“Fuck me,” he whispered. And Meghan had a smug thought that the intruder was absolutely right. He was going to be fucked by the time Cormac was done with him.
“By Danu, what the hell is going on?” asked a third man who came shuffling down the stairs and into the room. He had a shaggy mop of dark auburn hair, and a trim beard. He had the same gray eyes as Cormac, but he was thinner, and there was a slight yellow tinge to his skin. Meghan’s fingertips curled against the leather couch at this sudden turn of events.
“Declan,” said the man who’d grabbed her. “Take your pills ye look like shit.”
“Bite me,” he said as he cleaned his glasses with his unbuttoned shirttail. “It’s only seven o’clock. I’ve got time.” He slipped his glasses onto his face and reared back when he focused on Meghan. “Oh, fuck.”
Then he turned his head to the side and spotted Cormac standing with his arms crossed in obvious displeasure. “Oh, fuck!” he said again, though this time louder.
“Meghan,” Cormac said as he reached for her.
Cautiously, she side-stepped until she was close enough for him to take her hand and draw her into his side.
“This is Declan,” he said pointing to the one in the glasses, “and Aiden,” he said with even more annoyance as he indicated the man who’d grabbed her. “My brothers.”
Brothers?
“Aiden?” Declan asked. “Am I trippin’ again, or is that…?”
“When did ye get here?” Aiden asked, ignoring his brother’s question. “A little notice might have been nice.”
“Last night,” Cormac said. “It was late. And spontaneous.”
“Holy shit,” Declan murmured, apparently deciding for himself that he wasn’t “trippin’.”
“This is Meghan Walsh,” Cormac said, formally. “My anamchara.”
Both brothers reared back while Meghan swallowed nervously at how easily Cormac said the word.
Then she went back to her earlier thought. Um…brothers? Cormac told her his family had been wiped out. He told her he had no one, that he was alone. It had been the one thing they had in common, and he’d lied?
Worse, how could he leave something as precious as his family, and for fifty fucking years? She would give anything to have what he had, and he threw it away? Fuck, he wouldn’t even be here now if she and Branna hadn’t insisted he return.
“She’s a pádraig,” Aiden said, stating the obvious.
“Halfling,” Cormac corrected.
“Brothers?” Meghan asked, finally giving voice to her question.
“Aye,” Cormac said, without looking at her. He was s
till in an eye-lock showdown with Aiden.
“Your brothers are alive?!” Now she was yelling, and all three of them jerked to look at her with expressions of confusion.
“Meghan, cool it,” Cormac muttered.
And that’s when she totally lost it. “You are such an idiot!”
She put both palms flat against his chest and shoved with all her strength. He didn’t move—he didn’t even a flinch—and that irritated her even more.
“Arggggh!” she cried out in exasperation and raced upstairs to…well, she didn’t know what she was going to do, but she wasn’t going to do it with an audience.
Jesus, when it came to men, she really could pick ‘em, couldn’t she. She’d had moochers, losers, and douchebags. But big, dumb and stupid was in a league all its own.
Chapter Twenty-One
CORMAC
Cormac’s bedroom door slammed so hard the pictures on the walls downstairs jumped on their nails. All three brothers looked up at the ceiling.
“Trouble in paradise?” Declan asked with a smirk.
“She’ll get over it,” Cormac said. “I’ll explain.”
“You’re home?” Aiden asked, leveling a skeptical gaze back on Cormac. “For how long?”
“I don’t know yet. We had a slight…issue yesterday. We needed a place to lie low.”
“Oh, well then,” Aiden said, and he did nothing to suppress the sarcasm in his voice. “If ye needed something from us, then by all means, brother.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Cormac asked.
“It’s only that we haven’t heard from ye in fifty years.” Aiden said, his body language getting tight. “And then ye waltz in here with a pádraig—”
“Halfling,” Cormac said.
“Whatever. Mum and Da would be rolling over in their graves.”
“Ye don’t even know Meghan,” Cormac said.
“What’s to know?” Declan asked.
