He tucked it behind her ear. “I love ye, Nerissa O’ Devir,” he murmured softly. “Ye’re the best thing that’s ever come into me life. ’Til the day I die, I’ll be thankin’ the good Lord and every saint in heaven for sendin’ ye to me.”
“I love you too, Ruaidri.” His arousal filled her hand, hot and heavy and hard. “Thank you for abducting me.”
He laughed and used his body weight to dislodge her before she could bring him to climax, rolling her over onto her back. The covers tented above them, letting in drafts of cold air, and he quickly yanked the blankets up to try and hold the heat in.
Outside, the cold, autumn wind howled and a tree branch scraped against the window pane. Warmth, security, coziness, and the arms of her husband…there was no place Nerissa would rather be, no place on earth that even her wildest dreams could ever have taken her, and she realized that despite the fact she was in a strange bed in a strange country three thousand miles from home, she was happier than she had ever been in her life.
He reached down, framing her face between his rough, calloused hands, and lowered his head to kiss her.
She eagerly received him, desperate for the taste of his lips, the heavy weight of his body pressing hers down into the mattress, that sweeping, delicious joy of being melded to, mated to, joined as one to, this man that she had married. His mouth drove hungrily into her own, forcing her head down into the pillow, covering and capturing her soft moans of pleasure as his tongue swept into her mouth and set her blood afire. She reached up and pushed her hands through his hair, clasping his head to hers. His curls tangled in her fingers, coarse and wiry and refusing to be tamed, much like the man himself.
“We must be quiet, Ruaidri,” she whispered, as he pulled her shift up and ran his hands down her sides. He drove them beneath her hips and cupping her bottom, pulled her up against his erection, pressing and grinding against her until they were both breathing hard. “The walls…they might be thin. I…oh… I would be terribly embarrassed if anyone were to hear us.”
His shifted his weight, not yet entering her, then lifted a hand to tweak and massage her nipple until lightning flared between her legs and became liquid heat. A helpless little cry tumbled from her lips and he quickly kissed her to cover it. “Nobody will hear us,” he murmured against the side of her neck, then kissed her again as he rolled the nipple, engorged now, between thumb and forefinger. “We’ll make sure of it.”
He moved lower on the bed, capturing the other nipple between his lips, teasing it with his tongue, flicking it into a peak of sensation. Nerissa tried to reach for him once more but he caught her hand, pushed it high over her head and anchored it on the pillow, all the while sucking at her nipple, drawing it deeply into his mouth and lightly nipping it until she gasped and twisted and pushed upwards with her hips, wanting him.
“Be still, lass,” he murmured, looking up from the gentle curve of her breast with a little smile. “We’re tryin’ to be quiet, remember?”
“I’m—” she sucked her lower lip between her teeth as his hand strayed lower, grazing the flat plane of her abdomen, the little indentations where her lower pelvis met her hipbones, and finally, that desperate, almost painful spot between her legs that was already wet with desire for him—“trying.”
“Then let me see if I can make it harder for ye,” he teased, spreading her with his fingers and stroking her inner flesh until she moaned and twisted slowly on the sheet, her heels digging into the mattress, the blankets already spilling to the floor.
“Oh, Ruaidri… I shall be so embarrassed if anyone were to hear us.”
“The house is asleep.”
She gave a little sob as he found her slick, hidden bud between thumb and forefinger and gently rolled it. “It won’t be if you continue to do that to me. I can’t keep quiet…it’s agony…”
He moved lower then, his mouth dragging down across her abdomen, his tongue coming out to dip into the little divot of her navel and to swirl around its perimeter, even as he still held her arm above her head, even as he still rubbed and stroked her into a heavy wetness. She turned her head on the pillow, dimly aware of the shadows moving across the ceiling, her breathing coming thick and hard as his lips dragged through her curls and he nuzzled that sweet, hot spot he was still massaging with his fingers.
“I love the smell of ye, Nerissa,” he murmured against her, his voice hoarse and savage. “I love the taste of ye. Ye make me crazy with need. Ye make me lose me fuckin’ mind. Ye slay me, ye do my head in, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
With his elbow, he forced her legs wide, so wide that she felt the tendons straining, and pushed his mouth deep into her cleft, his tongue taking over where her fingers left off until the scream she was helpless to prevent rose like a crazy, unleashed beast from deep inside her. Just in time, he released her straining arm and offered the palm of his hand to her mouth and she bit down hard on it to contain her cries, tears of sweet anguish coursing down her cheeks as climax rocked her not once, not twice, but a sharp and undulating three times. And then, before the last waves could die away, he rose up above her, strong and virile, his arousal thick and swelling in his hand, and guided it to her wet cleft. She rose to meet him, sobbing in joy as she felt him shove deep inside of her with an almost brutal possessiveness, filling her with himself, stretching the walls of her womanhood, the delicious penetration finding more sensation deep inside of her and causing it to build once more.
His own passion built with the force and gathering momentum of his thrusts, and it occurred to her, with some distant part of her mind, that the bed was squeaking, that someone might hear, and then her husband drove himself deep inside her a final time, shuddering as he spilled his seed. His hot forehead dropped to hers. Her arms came up to encircle his broad, brawny shoulders. He lowered himself to his forearms and buried his face against her neck, his breath hot against her skin, her damp hair.
They lay there for a long moment, their bodies damp with perspiration, his thick, coarse hair pushing into her cheek.
“That wasn’t quiet,” he rasped, still breathing hard.
“Do you think anyone heard us?” she asked, mortified.
“Don’t know. Don’t care.”
“I hope I didn’t hurt your hand,” she said a little sheepishly.
He just laughed and easing himself out of her, got up to fetch the washcloth that was neatly folded with the bowl and pitcher. He cleaned them both up, then went about retrieving the kicked-off blankets in the darkness.
“I’m cold now, Ruaidri. Come back to bed and keep me warm.”
“I’m tryin’ to find the blankets.”
He tossed them over the bed and she sat up, helping to straighten them and tuck them in. A moment later, he slid in beside her and gathered her safely up into his arms. They lay there together, the faint nausea she’d felt hours earlier beginning to press on her once more, he gazing up at the shadows playing across the ceiling.
“How long does the land-sickness last, Ruaidri?”
“Should be gone by now, I’d expect. What, ye still feelin’ poorly, lass?”
“Not quite poorly, just not…not myself. A bit sick to my stomach.”
“Do you want me to go find some ginger in the kitchens? ’Twill calm your stomach.”
“No, don’t trouble yourself. It will pass.”
“Probably all that rich food we had at supper. Ye’ve been eating shipboard shite for the past month and a half; ye’re not used to it.”
“What time is it, anyhow?”
“Don’t know, too dark in here to see the clock, but I’m guessin’ it’s comin’ up on about five in the mornin’. ’Twill be a while before the sun comes up.” He squeezed her hand. “Let me go find some ginger for ye.”
She didn’t want to send him out of this cozy cocoon even though she knew he’d do it for her, do anything for her, in a heartbeat. “No, Ruaidri. Stay here with me. Please.”
He lifted a brow at the plea in her voi
ce. “Come now, lass, what ails ye?”
“I just… I just don’t want to be alone.” She suddenly felt small. Vulnerable. A bit ashamed, especially after the way they had just come together and made the rest of the world cease to matter. “I don’t want you to leave me.”
“Homesick?” he asked gently, sitting down on the bed beside her, and she felt his word pierce her heart. He knew. He understood. She thought of her family in a distant England she would probably never see again, and blinked back a sudden, unexpected sting of tears.
What is wrong with me?
“What’s the matter, love?”
“I don’t know.”
He leaned over and wiped away the single tear tracking out of the corner of her cheek, down her temples and into her hair. “I’m here for ye, Nerissa. I always will be.”
“I know.”
“We’ll make a home together. Here, if ye like. We’ll be happy.”
“I know,” she repeated in a little voice, and felt a hot tear trickling out of the other eye, now.
He pulled her up against him, stroking her hair, just letting her rest in his nearness and strength as she wept quietly against his shirt.
“Things’ll get better, mo grá. Do ye like it enough to make our home here?”
“I could live anywhere as long as you’re there.”
“Brendan’s my cousin. And he tells me his sister Eveleen lives here, too. Only family I’ve got left except for Deirdre, and she’s off in England. I wouldn’t mind it, and it’s close to Boston, too. Useful, in my profession.”
“The wooden houses might take some getting used to.”
“So we’ll buy or build a brick one.”
“And the winters here are colder than in England.”
“No matter, I’ll keep ye warm.”
She smiled. “I would like that.”
He eased her back down to the bed, pushing an arm beneath her back and rolling her up against himself to plant a kiss on her forehead. “I love ye, Nerissa.”
She burrowed closer to him. “I love you too, Ruaidri. You make my life complete.”
“Feel better now?”
“Yes.”
And she did. All was, at least for the time being, right in her world. They lay there together listening to the rain tapping against the window and the wind beginning to die. She snuggled closer to him and idly traced the hollow beneath his collarbones with her finger, and it was then that a memory came to her, one that she’d put away at the time but now, in the close darkness, brought out to be examined.
“Ruaidri,” she said quietly, “you were sharp with your cousin earlier. When he called you that odd name… ‘Roddy.’”
It was a moment before he answered. “Aye, maybe I was, a bit.”
“Why?” She gazed over at him, confused. “Why this aversion to a name you once went by? I’m sure he meant no harm.”
He put a weary arm over his forehead, and gazed up at the ceiling. “Ah, Nerissa. I suppose that if I tell ye I’m finally gettin’ sleepy, ye’ll still demand an answer.”
“You have all morning to sleep in.”
“And you have all day to get yer answer.”
“But you know I’m impatient. And the fact that you’re suddenly too tired to tell me makes me all the more curious.”
He said nothing for a long moment, and even in the darkness she could see that the question pained him. She immediately regretted it.
“I’m sorry,” she said, releasing him. “I can wait. Let’s go to sleep, Ruaidri. You can tell me later.”
“Might as well tell ye now.”
“It was an innocent question.”
“I know, love.”
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“There are a lot of things I don’t want to tell ye but should. My aversion to what was once my nickname is just one of them.”
She moved up and over him, and rested her head on his chest. His shirt was damp and warm with his body heat, and beneath the fine fabric she could feel the little wiry hairs of his chest against her cheek, could hear the quiet beat of his heart.
“My da was a fisherman who came down from Mayo and settled in Connemara after he met and fell in love with my mother,” he finally said. They named me Ruaidri, and a few short years later, my sister Deirdre came along. We scraped a living off the land, a better one off the sea, but it was a hard life, Nerissa, bein’ Irish and servin’ an English landowner.”
“I remember you telling me that, once.”
“Then I told you about the English comin’ to our little bay, and the press-gang takin’ me when I was still a young lad. There was no one to support me mam and little sister, as my da had died by then and they were left to the mercy of charity and neighbors. I never saw my mother again and when I next met Deirdre it was here, in America, and she was all grown up and married to the very man who’d led the press gang that took me.”
She sensed his guilt that he’d not been there for his family but said nothing, instead just letting his heart beat against her palm.
“I was forced to serve the Royal Navy for years,” he said, his voice quiet in the darkness. “Worked my way up, and had I been born to privilege and wealth instead of poor Irishfolk, maybe I’d have been able to make lieutenant. But there was nothin’ in the Royal Navy for me but scorn, contempt, and the lash. No chance for a fellow like me to ever get ahead or find equal footin’ in a race who looked down on, would always look down on, a poor Irishman. In ’74, I found a way off the ship I was servin’ at the time in Boston, introduced myself to some wealthy Bostonians and convinced them to give me command of a little sloop. Smugglin’, ye know…a man can get rich off it, and I did pretty damned well. Knew the ways of the English, knew their strengths and weaknesses, knew the waters around Boston like the back of me hand.”
“What did you smuggle?”
“Oh, anything that needed to be brought in. The English had shut down the port of Boston and nothin’ was getting through. People were starvin’. They needed food, and when Sam Adams, Joseph Warren, and John Hancock approached me about runnin’ guns and powder into Boston so that the rebels could be armed, well, I didn’t have to think too long or hard about it.” He looked up at the ceiling, the branches of the tree outside throwing moving shadows against the plaster. “I was called Roddy, then. A childhood nickname that grew out of my initials—R. O. D. Or maybe Roderick, the English version, I guess, of me given name. Hated the name, I did, but I was a tough, scrappy cub, hot tempered and easily riled to fisticuffs, and the lads liked to call me that because it was guaranteed to put my hackles up and bring on a fight. Figured out one day that it was easier just to let it go…there were other things far more important to fight over than a name.” He made a little noise of remembrance. “Like food.”
Something in her heart hurt. It pained her to think of him as a child, hungry and thin, probably existing on fish, onion soup, whatever his family could eke out of a stingy land while she had never known an empty belly, poverty or want, a single day of her life. But she knew him well enough to know that pity would only irritate him.
“I don’t see you as a ‘Roddy,’” she said, instead. “I could never see you as anyone but Ruaidri.”
“Well, ye didn’t know me back in ’75, and a damned good thing ye didn’t Nerissa, as lookin’ back, I didn’t like the person I’d become. I was good at the smugglin’, and I was good, very good, at twistin’ the tail of the British lion, that hated country that had robbed me of my youth, my family. Vengeance felt sweet, and it was. But success and the huzzahs of the people to whom I smuggled food and arms…it got to me. I was the local hero, and my head swelled with the knowledge that I was their savior, their Robin Hood. Someone started callin’ me the Irish Pirate, and the name stuck. I reveled in it. I grew proud, boastful, cocky…thoroughly unpleasant with my success…obnoxious…and careless.”
“You got caught?”
“Aye, I got caught. And deserved it, I might
say. Pride goeth before a fall and my fall was a long, hard, humiliatin’ one. It was Captain Lord—the very fellow who’d led that long ago press gang, the husband of my little sister—who got the better of me one night durin’ a smugglin’ operation. Next thing I knew my crew was in the gaol and I was locked up aboard his frigate and the town was calling for his head—and the Royal Navy, for mine. ’Tis doubtful they’d even have given me a fair trial…my fate was to die, and to die publicly. To make an example of me to the rebels.”
“But you’re here, now….”
“Aye, I…escaped.”
She heard the slight hesitation in his voice.
“Escaped?”
“Let’s just say I had some help…from the very man who captured me. It was tearin’ him up inside and he was about to lose the woman he loved—my sister—over it. So he found a way for me to escape with neither of us lookin’ bad. We’ve forgiven each other, and while we might not be best friends, we get on all right, Christian and I.”
“So why the aversion to the name ‘Roddy’?”
“Because it was the name of my childhood, the name I associate with pride, arrogance, and a certain ugliness of character that brought about my downfall. I associate that name with humiliation and embarrassment. With youth. I’m a better man than that, Nerissa, and lookin’ back on those times I’m filled with shame and disgust about how I behaved, crowin’ like a rooster at sunup to anyone who’d listen. I’ve grown up since then. I’m no longer the person I was when I was Roddy. I wanted to leave all that in my past, so I scuppered it, along with the name that went with it…and took back my real name. The one given to me by my da and mam. Ruaidri.”
She lay there, her cheek pillowed on his chest for a long moment. He had never struck her as a prideful or boastful man. A confident one, yes, and one sometimes given to judgments that some might have thought impulsive, but a braggart? Ruaidri?
No, she couldn’t see it.
The Wayward One Page 30
