She heard the anguish in his voice at the thought of the children leaving. Just the children, or would he regret her going, too? If she told him how she wanted to take the children—and him—to Ireland, what would he say? He had made it clear he liked the haven he had found here. Even though she had no idea what he was running from, she had seen how he valued the friendships and roots he had here.
“Cailin, are you? Are you planning to take them back to Ireland?”
She discovered that keeping her hand from settling on his knee was as impossible as not yearning for him to take her into his arms. She saw, in the light from the parlor lamp near the window behind her, the shadow of loss in his eyes, and wondered again whose leaving had left this pain upon his heart. “I’m thinking about it.”
Snarling an obscenity, he stood.
“Just thinking,” she said, rising. “Who knows when I’ll ever be able to afford passage?”
“All you need is enough to pay your way back to New York City.”
“I don’t want to go there unless I’m about to embark on a ship from the harbor. There’s nothing for us there.”
“Yes, there is. You want passage for you and the children to Ireland. Your mother-in-law would gladly give it to you.”
Cailin looked up at his taut face. “Are you out of your mind? She wants nothing to do with us.”
“That’s true, so she’d see the cost of shipping you back across the Atlantic as a small price to pay for never seeing or hearing from you again.” He folded his arms over his chest and gazed toward the river. “You probably could get even more if you reminded her how bad it would be if it became known that she’d sent her own grandchildren away from New York on an orphan train. Then you could live very comfortably in Ireland.”
“Is that what you think I should do?”
He leaned forward to put his hands on the railing. “Yes.”
“You want us to leave now?”
“Whether you leave now or later, you plan to leave.”
She raised her hands to put them on his shoulders again, then drew them back before she touched him. “Samuel, I don’t know what I plan to do. Not any longer.”
“Let me contact my friend in New York.”
Sliding between him and the railing, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “I don’t want to resort to blackmail.”
“It could be amusing,” he murmured as his arm curved around her waist.
“That’s not how I want you to amuse me.”
“No?”
She framed his face with her hands and said, “Samuel, I don’t want to talk about leaving or Mrs. Rafferty or anything else tonight.”
“What do you want?”
“To spend the night with you.”
He chuckled, but she heard the craving barely hidden beneath his humor. “Are all Irishwomen like you? Playing coy, then going after what they want and not mincing words?”
“I don’t know. I just know what I want.” Stroking his cheeks where a day’s growth of whiskers tickled her fingertips, she said, “And what you want.”
“Are you so sure of that?” He pressed his lips to her neck.
“Yes. I’ve been lying to you—and to myself—for too long. I want to be completely honest tonight … with you.”
She closed her eyes as he sprinkled kisses across her face before capturing her mouth. With a moan, she answered his hunger with her own. Sliding her hand beneath his shirt, she delighted in the smooth skin over his muscles. She moaned against his mouth as his finger etched a heated path across her breast. She wanted him to hold her, to be part of her, to give all of her being to the ecstasy she could find with him.
When he stood and reached for the door, he held his other hand out to her.
She put hers in it, then paused. “Your meeting!”
“Forget my meeting.”
“Forget it? But you came back because you needed something, and it must have been something very important.”
“I did need something, but it had nothing to do with the meeting. When I saw the longing in your eyes as I was leaving, I’d hoped you would come to your senses.” He chuckled. “As you have.”
“You came back for that? Were you so certain?”
“I was so hopeful.” He drew her inside. Closing the door, he said, “Tonight and every night.”
“Don’t ask more of me than tonight,” she said.
“I won’t promise that.”
“I don’t know if I have more to give.”
“Then I’ll take tonight, but tomorrow, I’ll ask for another night with you.”
She tried to copy his single arched brow. When he laughed, she did as well, overjoyed at how easy it was to jest with him.
“Maybe you won’t want another night with me,” she said as she put her hand on his again as they moved along the hallway. The children calling good night to each other added to her joy. For a moment, this moment, she could not imagine any other place they belonged.
“I don’t think you need to trouble your head with that thought.” He opened the door to his room.
She stared in amazement at the splendid room that seemed more out of place than any of the others in the farmhouse. Beneath her feet, the thick carpet had an abstract pattern of red and blue and green, but her gaze was riveted on the bed set in its middle. Four tall posts of dark wood supported an uncovered canopy that was carved in an intricate pattern of spirals. Starlight reflected on the ivory satin coverlet and the black marble tops of the tables set on either side of the bed. He lit a lantern to burn softly on the closer one.
“One bedroom tonight,” he whispered as he drew her into the room. “One bedroom and one bed.”
He captured her lips, daring her to surrender to her own uncontrollable need. As he pinned her against his firm body, her fingers inched up his back, holding herself to him, wanting to be a part of his fantasies as he was part of hers. A fantasy that, tonight, could be made real.
Gasping into his mouth, she shivered as his tongue delved deep past her lips to inflame her with its fiery touch.
“Tell me this is what you want, a stór,” he murmured as he loosened her hair to fall in a ruddy storm around them.
She drew back. “A stór?”
“It means darling, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.” Her breathless voice faded beneath the pounding of her heart as his hand moved along her breast. With his fingers’ inviting caress, he lured her into his arms and into rapture.
“Then let me call you that tonight.” He gave her a roguish smile as he took off his glasses and put them on the table beside the bed. His eyes were an even more brilliant shade of green without them. “Or for however long.”
“For however long.” She was willing to promise anything as long as he continued enthralling her with his eager touch. It created a tempest through her, fired by every heated breath.
His fingers sought the buttons closing her dress, but he did not undo them. He whispered her name against her lips, and she knew he was offering this last chance to stop from further entangling her life with his. She wondered if any other man could be so tender and yet so enticing. She wanted more than to entangle her life with his. She longed to entangle herself with him.
Her hand stole along his chest to find the first button on his vest. She said nothing as she loosened it. As silently, she released the next and the next, until the front of his vest fell back.
When he bent to taste her lips, she held up her hands with a soft smile. He frowned, perplexed, then grinned as she began to loosen the buttons on his shirt. When her fingertips swept along a chest bared by his gaping shirt, his mouth covered hers.
She quivered when the powerful surge of uncontrollable craving washed over her as her fingers swept across his chest. The firm muscles beneath his skin reacted to her touch, inviting her to discover more. When he shrugged off his loosened clothing, she admired his strong body above his well-worn denims, which outlined every masculine angle. She wanted to uncover an
d explore every bit of him.
“Let me see all of you, a stór,” he whispered against her throat as his lips left sparkles of delight on her skin.
“Yes,” she murmured as she reached for her gown’s buttons.
He drew her hand away and turned it palm upward. His mouth’s feverish caress on it dissolved her within a fragrant flame. She wanted his mouth on every inch of her. Raising his head, he held her gaze with his emerald one. She became the pulse of his heartbeat, which she could sense with every breath. They were no longer separate, but not yet one. She ached for the consummation of the rapture promised by his smile.
Swiftly, he unbuttoned her gown and let it fall to the floor, forgotten. A soft cry of astonishment burst from her when he whirled her away from the wall and pushed her not ungently onto the bed. He leaned over her, smiling with devilish desire.
She was sure he would speak and waited for his teasing words. Instead he whispered, “Hush, a stór. I don’t want to share you with anyone tonight, not even the children.”
“Just you and me tonight.”
“And maybe tomorrow night.”
She laughed, but her voice softened to a mew when his hand settled on her knee and crept upward in a slow, undulating path. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and drew him down onto her. Even as his fingers stroked the sensitive skin along her inner thigh, his lips sampled the curves above her chemise’s low neckline. It was a dual assault on her senses.
He pulled the strap of her chemise along her arm, lowering it down along her breast. His gaze held hers as his eyes crinkled. She waited for his next jest. When he lifted her right hand and drew her first finger into his mouth, his tongue wet its length. Her breath shuddered through her when he guided her finger to wander his cheek. He held up his own hand.
She pulled his finger into her mouth, letting her tongue learn every rough texture she had only sampled when they made ice cream. When she withdrew it and raised it toward his face, he laughed and caught her finger. He ran it along his finger, dampening his own skin, then swept his finger along her breast, the heat of his touch evaporating the moisture. She shivered as he lifted his hand again. Before she could grasp it, he bent to place his mouth against her breast.
Her pleasure burst from her in a low, throaty gasp. His tongue slid in a meandering journey to its very peak. When he drew it into his mouth, her hands curved down his back to his lean hips, wanting to draw him into this incredible joy within her.
His mouth continued down as he drew her shift lower. Sliding his hands beneath her bottom, he pulled off her shift and tossed it aside. His eyes glistened with the powerful passions she had seen the first time their gazes locked, and he stripped away her stockings, tossing them over the bottom of the bed. Lightly his fingers drifted along her thigh, leaving a dazzling blaze in its wake.
Desperate to explore him before she was utterly consumed by his enchanting touch, she rose to kneel on the bed and, with a laugh, shoved him onto his back. He clasped his hands behind her neck and pulled her down over him. With her breasts against his chest, she fought to breathe. Then his mouth slanted across hers, and she did not care if she ever breathed again. All she could think of was his skin on hers.
Her leg brushed his denims and she lifted her mouth from his. “One of us is improperly dressed,” she whispered against his ear before her tongue curled around its whorls.
“And what are you going to do about it?”
“This.” Her fingers settled on the button at the top of his denims.
A shiver raced along him, and she smiled. Looking down into his eyes, she relished his reaction as she loosened the top button, then the next. Her questing fingers stroked him, sending renewed waves quaking through him, each one caressing her.
Suddenly, with a groan, he pushed her over onto her back. He yanked off his denims and threw them on the floor before pressing her into the soft mattress. His lips demanded exactly what she longed to give him. The length of his body against hers was intoxicating. When he bent to trace his tongue down her abdomen, she gripped his shoulders. His fingers stroked upward along her thighs to seek the source of the fire burning within her. A soft cry of delight burst from her but vanished when his mouth claimed hers.
He drew her beneath him and, as his tongue slid along her lips, he melded them together. Each stroke created a rhythm deep inside her, a rhythm that was of him, yet was of her and the need they could never deny again. Moving to it, becoming a part of it, becoming a part of him, she tasted his straining breath swirling through her. The exquisite sensations soared, taking her with him into an ecstasy made all the sweeter when he gasped her name as he shuddered against her in consummate rapture.
Cailin opened her eyes to a scintillating smile. As her lethargic fingers traced Samuel’s lips, he kissed them lightly. Stretching her arm across him, she rested her cheek against the welcoming pillow of his chest. Beneath her ear, his heart beat as rapidly as hers. Even now, they were together, fused within the crucible of their passions until they could be completely separate no longer. She could not imagine any happiness greater than this.
“You are quiet, a stór,” he said.
“I don’t want to say anything to put an end to this joy.”
“The night has only begun.” He chuckled as his arm curved around her, holding her close. “And you are mine for this whole night.”
“As you are mine.”
He rolled her back into the pillows and gave her a roguish smile. “A most appealing idea when you are a most appealing sight.”
Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, she said, “I was wrong.”
“Wrong?” His brow tilted, and she laughed.
“I told you poetry wouldn’t move me.”
“And now it does?”
She nodded.
When he sat and swung his legs over the bed, she watched in amazement as he stood. He walked toward a shelf set beside a door she suspected led to a closet.
Sitting up, she admired his well-sculptured body, each angle accented by starlight. She wondered if he had been as rugged before he came to work on the farm. While she watched the flow of his muscles with every movement, she quivered, yearning to have them against her again.
He came back to the bed and sat beside her. Putting his arm around her, he handed her a book covered with reddish leather. Gold letters were tooled into the spine and across the cover.
“Open it,” he said.
“Where?”
“Anywhere.”
She did, then looked at him. “What’s this?”
“A very good choice. Listen.” He read:
“Thus can my love excuse the slow offense
Of my dull bearer, when from thee I speed;
From where thou art why should I hast me thence?
Till I return, of posting is no need.
Oh, what excuse will my poor beast then find,
When swift extremity can seem but slow?
Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind;
In winged speed no motion shall I know:
Then can no horse with my desire keep pace;
Therefore desire, of perfect love being made,
Shall neigh no dull flesh in his fiery race;
But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade;
Since from thee going he went willful slow,
Toward thee I’ll run, and give him leave to go.”
She ran her fingers along the words. “That’s lovely. What is it?”
“A sonnet. One of Shakespeare’s, to be exact.”
“I’ve heard of Shakespeare, but I thought he wrote plays.”
“And a few sonnets.” He pointed to each word as he read the first line again. “If you want, I’ll help you learn to read.”
“This?”
He smiled. “Eventually.”
“I’d like to be able to read to my children before they go to bed.”
He tossed the book onto a table and swept her back into the pillows. “But n
ot tonight, a stór. Tonight all your stories are for me.”
“For you or with you?”
His answer was an enthralling kiss, and she gave herself to the passion once more. She knew one night would not be enough.
Fourteen
Would she faint? Would she stumble over her words? Would she even remember any words at all? Would someone notice how, under her apron, there was a patch of a completely different color because she had cut out a piece to fix a section along the side that had torn when Samuel had undressed her last night?
While the children scampered from the wagon and ran up the street toward Emma’s house, where Sean and his sisters were waiting for them, Cailin rubbed her icy hands and stared at the Grange Hall. Its whitewash glistened in the bright afternoon sunlight.
Broader fingers covered hers, and Samuel said as he helped her down, “It’ll be all right. You’ve met most of these ladies, and you know the people in Haven are good-hearted. They’re only looking for what help you’re willing to give.”
She hoped no one could hear her frantic heartbeat, but it seemed loud enough to reach into the Grange Hall. Her head was light, and she knew she should breathe more slowly and deeply. Was it the idea of speaking to these women, or was it because Samuel’s hands remained on her waist?
Last night had been a wondrous joy, but she was unsure what would happen now. Everything had seemed so simple when she came west on the train. She would get her children, find a way to take care of them until she could earn the money to take them home to Athair, and then try to remake her life. Then she had opened her eyes to see Samuel, and her world had gone topsy-turvy all over again.
“It’ll be all right, Cailin,” he said, drawing her eyes back to his sympathetic smile.
“I-I-I-I hope so.”
He put his hands on either side of her face and tilted it up so she could not look anywhere other than into his eyes. “It will be all right, Cailin. You don’t think I’d have brought you into Haven if I thought it wouldn’t be all right, do you?”
“Sometimes I think I don’t know you very well.”
“Yes, you do.” He gave her a crooked smile. “You just are trying to convince yourself you don’t.”
After the Storm Page 19
