by Carolan Ivey
She wanted him. Right now. On the sheepskin rug, clichéd as it was.
He took one of her hands and moved it to the bulge in his jeans. “I’ve had this since the first moment you wrapped your legs around me on the bike,” he said against her mouth.
She curved her fingers around him and felt moisture gather between her own legs. Oh no, Old Woman, I will have this all to myself.
She took a step back to gain access to his jeans buttons, but took a swift breath when her leg threatened to cramp yet again.
Her stomach tightened, knowing now what the Hag meant when she said she’d be watching. She’d be watching for Beith to weaken, to give her an opening to get to Kel.
Kel closed his eyes and with an effort, regained control of himself. “I think we’d better assess the damage,” he said, his voice hoarse.
“I’m going to damage you if you stop,” she muttered, shivering now that he had stepped away, robbing her of his body heat.
He lifted her chin and appeared to be reassessing her pupils. “Fixed and dilated,” he pronounced, making her laugh again despite the combination of aches and unsatisfied desire warring for space in her body.
“Only because you’re killing me,” she whined.
“Your clothes are going to have to come off. But not until I warm this place up a bit.”
She had a retort, but she forgot it at the echo of an old woman’s laughter drifting up the spiral staircase. She shivered again and wrapped her arms around herself, moving gingerly to sit in one of the cane chairs near the iron grate. Kel knelt there, lighting some blocks of dried peat. Within minutes, an aroma somewhere between burning leaves and smoldering coal accompanied heat radiating from the fireplace. Against her will, her eyelids drooped. After all, it had been nearly forty-eight hours since she’d left Cleveland.
She shook her head. If I sleep, the Hag wins.
She opened her eyes and found Kel gone.
She lurched out of the chair, turning in place to look for him. She’d only closed her eyes for a second!
Behind a wide wood-and-wrought-iron door that stood partially ajar, she heard water running, cabinets opening and closing. She grasped the back of the chair and sagged in relief. A moment later he appeared, his own muddy shirt already off, feet bare. His Irish skin was by no means tan, but it was all sun-kissed, solid muscle.
“Let’s get you taken care of,” he said quietly, making to scoop her up again. Beith made an impatient sound.
He raised his hands in a peace gesture, and she walked into the bath without his help.
More rustic stone, which cleverly disguised all the accoutrements of a modern bathroom, greeted her eyes. A playground-sized tub, full of water, steamed gently under a stone arch, its brass rim just visible above the rough granite sides.
He sat her on the edge of the tub, cushioned by a fluffy folded towel, and began peeling her clothes off, layer by layer.
Since her accident, there was no part of her body that hadn’t been seen by myriad clinical specialists, but none of those people had been a half-naked hardbody like Kel.
Bare from the waist up, she followed his soft, murmured commands to move all the joints in her upper body and lift her arms so he could run his hands over her ribs. At every tender spot, he apologized and kissed it.
Her nipples beaded and she fought the urge to squirm against the desire pooling in her groin, knowing nothing was going to happen until he was satisfied she was nothing more than bruised.
His hands went to the front of her jeans, and her skin went cold. She closed her eyes and lifted herself a little off her seat so he could slide the fabric down her legs.
She turned her face to one side, feeling raw and exposed under the bathroom’s too-bright lights. The silence stretched. She crossed her arms over her breasts and sighed, feeling defeated.
“Jesus, woman, how did this happen?”
She swallowed and cleared her throat, refusing to look at his face, which she was sure must be twisted in horror.
“Riding my mountain bike in the Hocking Hills in southern Ohio. The trail was steeper than I expected and I couldn’t brake before it crossed a park road. I got T-boned. By a motorcycle. He was speeding. But then again, so was I.” She laughed at her own weak attempt at a joke.
“Holy shite, and you got on the back of mine? Look at me.”
She couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. He touched her face and turned it toward him where he knelt before her on the cold floor.
“You trusted me. I’m humbled.”
Tears blurred her eyes, and she waved a hand. “Well, I figured I had to get back on the horse sometime, so to speak.” She dashed away one tear that escaped down her cheek, caught sight of her mangled leg and quickly looked away.
“I know this is my leg, but I haven’t quite gotten used to looking at it yet.” She tried for a lightness she didn’t feel.
“It’s not that bad.”
She smiled at the hint of laughter in his voice, then caught her breath as he smoothed his hot hands over the roadmap of scars on her thigh. She glanced down to find him looking at them with nothing but wonder on his face.
“I’d kill to have a look at your x-rays.” He ran his fingers along the longest scar, a thin pink line which disappeared under her underwear and curved into her buttock.
She released a long breath, one she realized she had been holding for over a year. Ever since her alleged boyfriend had taken one look at her battered body in the hospital bed, the scar on her face, and had turned on his heel and left.
“I have miniaturized copies in my wallet.” She tilted her head in amusement at the way Kel’s eyes lit up. “It’s for when I set off airport security alarms. It proves I’m not a terrorist.”
“Where’s your wallet?” he asked eagerly.
For the next several minutes, still perched on the side of the tub with a towel wrapped around her body, she took Kel on a tour of her reconstructed femur and pelvis. What kind of man got excited about a picture of bones held together with plates and screws?
Only a special one, she thought. Or a weird one.
“Ah, so that’s why you did that pliét move in the dolmen.” He turned the picture sideways to study her mended hip socket.
“That’s right. If I bend over like a normal person, the joint might pop out.” She was surprised at how matter-of-fact her own voice sounded. It had to be the way he was sitting cross-legged on the rug at her feet, the hot skin of one shoulder casually rubbing up against the puckered skin on her thigh. She felt her shrunken heart grow a little bigger as admiration—and maybe even a little affection—crept in.
“I have bigger copies of these at home,” she said as she slipped the pictures back into her wallet and dropped it in the open carry-on bag on the floor. She extracted a clip and quickly twisted her hair up on top of her head.
Then she surprised herself by adding, “You’ll have to come visit and I’ll show them to you.”
He turned his head and looked up at her. For a long second, the off-hand invitation hung in the air between them. Almost long enough for her to think she shouldn’t have issued it.
The corner of Kel’s eyes crinkled.
“Want to see mine?”
“Your what?”
“My scars. Here, look.” He rose to his feet, turned his back on her and dropped his pants.
For the next several minutes Kel enjoyed her shrieks of laughter as he pointed out every ding, dent and scar on his well-used body from head to toe, including what he claimed was a bullet hole in his bum.
This woman, he concluded, hadn’t had near enough laughter in her life. At least not for the past year. His decision to sneak her out from under Declan’s nose had been the right one.
His decision to drop his pants in front of her was also the right one. Even though he had surprised himself almost as much as Beith when he’d done it. If he’d gazed into her soft eyes, filled with something akin to gratitude, for one more second, he might have started feeling for her what h
e’d never felt with any woman before.
So he’d broken the tension by doing the first thing that came to mind. Compare war wounds. While she had many scars but only one story, each mark on his body had its own tale. The more tales he told, the brighter the sparkle in her eyes, a sparkle that looked like it belonged there. Like it had been lost for a long time, but had finally found its way home.
She showed no hint of embarrassment as she leaned close and squinted at the round scar on his right butt cheek.
“There’s no way that’s a bullet hole,” she declared.
“’Tis,” he replied, pretending offense that she’d doubt him.
“I bet it’s from a piece of rock salt.”
“On my mam’s life, it was a shotgun pellet. If you don’t believe me, ask Fionna.”
“Oh, Fionna was there for this one, as well?” Beith raised an eyebrow.
“She’s the one who put it there.”
Beith laughed. “Now that I don’t doubt.”
They grinned at each other, and once again Kel had the sensation of everything in his life clicking into place. He wasn’t sure what to make of that feeling. He wasn’t a man who was big on comfort. He liked things fast and loose. On the edge.
Still, things had never moved this fast with any woman. Sure, and he could go out and find someone to warm his bed for a night. And had. But that had been years ago and he’d quickly grown tired it. These days, he enjoyed the chase. The game. Choosing a woman and dancing the dance of seduction. For a few weeks. A few days, at the very least.
But Beith, she’d taken to the game more quickly than he would have hoped.
Trouble was, he wasn’t sure he wanted to play it this time. And that worried him.
He cleared his throat. “The water’s going to get cold.”
Beith covered her mouth and made a coughing sound that sounded suspiciously like “rocksalt”.
“That’s it.”
She giggled madly as he swooped in, scooped her up and made as if he was going to simply drop her into the water.
“Okay okay okay! It’s a bullet hole! I give!”
“Good choice,” he grumbled, stepping into the steaming tub and lowering both her and himself into the water.
She let out a sigh of pure enjoyment as she settled in and leaned forward to give him room, scooping hot water in her hands and sluicing it over her shoulders. The tub was plenty big enough for them both to sit in it without touching.
At the sight of a few tendrils of hair curling at the tender nape of her neck, something in his throat seized up and the urge to keep her laughing died. He busied himself with a wash cloth, lathering it up and reaching out to gently wash away the travel grime and road mud from her body.
She stilled at the first contact, but then relaxed as he rubbed the nubby cloth across her back. His fingers brushed smooth skin and glided over the ridges just under it. Her ribs. He made a mental note to feed her again after their bath was finished.
“You know,” she said hazily, “twenty-four hours ago I was in a flying tin can, trapped in a window seat by two football players on my left. Drinking warm diet Coke and wishing they hadn’t stuck me in front of a screaming infant.”
“Mmm.”
“Planning ahead on how I was going to get back home with my sketches intact.”
“And now you’re naked in a tub being felt up by a strange man.”
“Strange just about covers it,” she said wryly, and from behind he could see by the curve of her cheek the exact instant her smile faded. The muscles in her neck stiffened. “Like what happened at the dolmen this afternoon.”
Kel’s hand stilled. Fionna’s warning echoed in his head, and it was on the tip of his tongue to tell Beith what his friend had dreamed about the Hag.
“Ours wouldn’t be the first strange experience out on the Burren,” he said instead. “Whatever it was, even if it was the Hag herself, it can’t get to us in here.”
Her shoulders lifted an inch toward her shoulders. “I don’t know about that,” she said slowly. “I…I think I saw it again just outside the castle.”
She doesn’t think. She knows.
Kel dropped the cloth into the water, took her tense shoulders and eased her back against his chest. He folded his arms around her and felt a fine tremor under her skin.
“There’s iron on the doors,” he said, as much to reassure himself as her. “They say the other crowd won’t cross it.”
She was quiet a long moment.
She doesn’t believe me.
With each breath, her skin moved fractionally against his, friction eased by the warm water. His cock responded, but he found himself loathe to set her away from him.
Before, out on the Burren, the Hag’s magic had overwhelmed them. Some part of him wanted to know if what had happened between them out there was all the Hag—or something more.
He let his erection press against the small of her back. And waited.
A soft, shuddering sigh escaped her mouth. He closed his eyes and hoped like hell it meant what he thought it did. She shifted a little, arching her back against the pressure. He couldn’t contain his low groan.
He felt her muscles relax, and she turned her head and lifted an eyebrow.
“So…is that a shillelagh in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”
Kel rolled his eyes. “That was probably the worst line I’ve ever heard.”
She shrugged and levered away from him.
“I’ve always wanted to use that word in a sentence,” she teased, smiling despite the fatigue shadowing her eyes.
The huge tub let her turn around with ease, and once she was facing him she picked up the cloth to return the favor of a bath. He watched her breasts float in the water, and his mouth went dry. She passed the cloth over his skin, cleaning mud off his arms, face, and chest, leaning forward to playfully flip his hair aside and scrub at his ears and the back of his neck.
Eventually the hot water seemed to sap her energy, and he reached for her and laid her against his chest again. This time she melted into him, her too-thin body almost disappearing when he put his arms around her.
Something fierce reared up in his soul, a wholly unfamiliar emotion so strong he closed his eyes against it.
Kellan O’Neill loved women. No doubt about that. But until this moment he had never felt so certain that if anything threatened to harm this particular woman, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill in order to protect her.
Careful, boyo, warned a voice in the back of his head. You only laid eyes on the woman a few hours ago. This is supposed to be a casual summer fling, remember?
He watched his own hands move over her skin, as if they had minds of their own. He let them do what they would. She writhed slowly, graceful in the water, raising her arms over her head and running her fingers into his hair as he traced slippery circles over her breasts. He avoided her nipples, torturing her until she groaned and arched her back so that the aching tips finally brushed his fingers.
He kissed the tender, sensitive skin on the side of her neck, just under her ear. She smelled of soap, and of the wind that had whipped through her hair all day on the Harley. He closed his eyes and drank in the scent, and let his hands wander down over her soft belly and between her legs.
She opened her mouth on a soft, breathy “oh” and let her thighs drift apart in the water. He slipped his fingers under her panties, parted her swollen, sensitive flesh and let his fingers stroke in and out of her cleft, one thumb zeroing in on her clit.
She gasped and arched, and he opened his eyes to the incredibly erotic sight of her own hands on her breasts, teasing her own nipples, while his darker hands worked the flesh between her legs. His cock grew harder and he pressed one hand against her belly to tighten contact with her back.
Her hips bucked once against his hand, and her vagina pulsed around his fingers.
“Yes,” he whispered in her ear.
Her head thrashed restlessly from side to side.
<
br /> “No,” she groaned.
Shuddering, she turned and lay with her breasts pressed against his chest, sucking his lower lip into her mouth while her hand closed around his hard cock. He feasted on her mouth for a few moments, then let his head fall back against the tub rim. Her lips trailed down his neck as she stroked him.
She closed her lips over his flat nipple and flicked the nub with the tip of her tongue, then gently set her teeth on it. His breath hissed as he ran his hands into her hair, removing the clip and letting the sunlight-colored strands fall into his hands. He held her there, lifting his chest out of the water to give her better access. His hips began a slow, involuntary pumping against her hand.
Through slitted eyelids he enjoyed the primal scene—the two of them surrounded by ancient stone, her head moving over his chest, hand disappearing below the water to alternately stroke his cock and cup his balls.
Sweet Jesus, she’s beautiful.
She grasped his shoulders and pulled her buoyant body through the water over him, sliding along his skin until her face loomed over his and her slightly parted legs allowed her swollen flesh to settle over his cock.
It leapt against her satin-covered opening in response, and with a groan she slid up and down, up and down along its length.
Desperately needing something to distract him from the agonizing need to come right then and here, he lifted his chin and caught her lips with his.
Their tongues dueled as Kel grasped her hips and pulled her tighter against him, bringing her clit in white-hot contact with the head of his cock. An involuntary keening sound rose from her throat and she rocked urgently against it.
He slipped his hands under the waistband of her panties and helped her slip them off. Opening her legs a little wider, she sought and found the head of his cock with her opening. She threw her head back and bit her lip as she took just the first inch of him into her body.
He filled her ear with urgent words in Irish as he slid his hands over the wet skin on her buttocks and pulled her down farther.
A warning bell went off in the back of his head.
“Wait, darlin’, I have to put on a—”
But it was too late. With a second to spare, he let go of her delicious rump and lifted her away, ignoring her cry of protest, and pressed his fingers against a spot under his balls.
