by Leigh Morgan
Mari’s throat was suddenly dry, making response difficult. The fact that he was bare-chested and barefoot wasn’t helping either. She loved the way he looked, always had. And now he was more defined, more muscled, more dangerous to her equilibrium. She ignored his ridiculous statement about summoning since he’d done no such thing, and asked what she really wanted to know. “Why have you been avoiding me?”
“You asked me to.”
“And since when do you do what I’m asking, Shannon O’Shay?” She meant to sound sharp but what came out sounded a lot like yearning. Damn the man six ways from Sunday.
Shay got off the bed and shucked out of his jeans. He didn’t wear under garments and he was fully aroused. Mari was stunned. She couldn’t look at him, well not at his face anyway, and she couldn’t look away. That part of him bounced at her. She wanted to leave, she wanted to run, she wanted him to throw her on the bed and take the choice away from her. Instead, she stayed rooted where she was. Shay laid back on the bed, like it was the most natural thing in the world to be naked in front of her again after twenty years.
Shay retrieved a devise that looked like a small phone and tapped on it. All the doors and windows locked in unison, the cha-chink sound it made was ominous. He set the small devise back on the table and lifted a brow daring her to come and get it. Shay always had the ability to melt her insides with a smile. He wasn’t smiling now.
“Take off your clothes, Mari.”
She shook her head.
“I’m done doing what you say you want me to do. We tried it your way. Now we’re going to try it mine.”
Mari found her voice. “Seems to me, Sham, you always did everything you wanted the way you wanted. You left me sure enough. My wanting had nothing to do with that.”
A muscle clicked at the side of his jaw, but other than that he looked unmoved by her anger. It wasn’t half as righteous as it should have been. She was having a hard time conjuring righteous condemnation when he was naked and hard and smoldering with luscious wickedness. She shivered in the summer heat and closed her eyes against the sight of him.
Mari didn’t hear him move, but suddenly he was beside her, so close the head of his penis butted against her stomach. She felt the heat of him sear her through the thin layer of her cotton tank dress. One hand caressed the side of her face, over her collar bone, rubbing the small space in the center, below her neck. “I’m only going to say this once, then never again will I allow you to question my motives or my honor in the matter. I had to leave because your life was in danger and so was mine. I got in with a bad sort and couldn’t get out. While I was with Jesse this time, I visited the north alone and resolved the problem. End of story. Now there is no danger. Not to you. Not to Magnus. Not to Seamus. It’s over.”
By the ‘north’, Mari knew he meant Northern Ireland. She knew very little about what he’d been involved in, but she knew enough to know it could have been lethal. Even twenty years later. So she had a choice. She could forgive him for leaving or she could leave.
“And what of you, Shannon O’Shay? Is Mrs. O’Shay’s little boy safe as well.”
He seemed surprised by her question, dropping his hand, he answered. “Aye.”
“Good.” When he didn’t respond to that she continued. “So what are we to do now, Sham? Forgive one another and start over?”
“Yes.”
Mari pushed him, but he didn’t budge. “You expect it’s going to be that easy?”
“With you nothing has ever been easy, love. I don’t expect that to change now.”
“Unlock the door.”
“No.”
“I want to leave.”
“Not going to happen until I’m good and ready. I’m sick of you dancing around like a fool pretending that what we had is in the past and not worth more than a polite how are you when we discuss our son.”
She turned around and made it exactly one step before he stopped her with a hand on her arm. “I knew you hadn’t forgiven me. And ye never will.”
He pulled her back to him forcefully, slamming her body into his. “There’s nothing to forgive. Not anything having to do with Magnus anyway. We’ve worked it out. That’s enough for us. It should be enough for you.”
He shook her and changed the subject. “How many men have you taken to your bed since me Mari-mine?” His hand reached under her dress, cupping her mound. “How many men have fucked you? How many have tasted this.” He pressed up, grinding the heel of his hand against her, making waves of heat course through her. Brigid help her, she was wet and swollen and aching for him no matter how coarse his words were.
He lowered his mouth to her ear. “How many?”
“Two.” She answered honestly. There had been exactly two in the last two decades.
“I stopped counting after the first twenty.” His softly spoken words stung and as much as she ached for him, she hated him at that moment. She twisted violently trying to dislodge his hand from her arm and from her core. “Be still.” He hissed. “I’m not done.”
“I don’t want to hear any more.”
“Too fucking bad.” His tone was as harsh as his words. “Do you know what I saw with my cock buried deep inside them as I pounded away trying to forget you? Do you know what I saw each and every time.” He wasn’t asking now, he was accusing.
White hot anger coursed through her at the images he was making her see and a single tear escaped her eye. “No. And I don’t care. Stop. Please just stop.” She hiccupped, her breath catching painfully in her throat.
His grip eased, but he didn’t let go of her arm or her groin. He rubbed her again, more gently this time, making her groan. “I thought of this. Of how you taste. Of how you feel.” His forehead fell to hers and his voice changed to a thing of raw pain. “I saw your eyes. Your emerald eyes, and your sweet smile in my mind’s eye. It was you Mari. It was always you. Every goddamn time.”
Something inside Mari shattered, whether it was the truth in his words or the need she had swimming in her blood like a dark visitor that she couldn’t deny. She would never know what made her anger shatter, and right now she didn’t much care. The truth was she wanted this. She wanted him. And, she never wanted him to be inside anyone else ever again.
“Let me go, Sham.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
He’d poured his heart out to her and all she had to say was: Let me go, Sham.
Shay let her go. Hearing the name she used to call him, uttered now to dismiss him, damn near cracked him in two. He’d have felt better if she’d just shot him and put him out of his misery. How was he ever going to be able to be in the same room with her as they shared the important moments in Magnus’s life and not touch her? Worse than that, how was he going to stomach seeing her with another man should she choose to remarry? The thought revolted him, making what was left of his dinner threaten to make an appearance at his feet.
Shay let go and took a step back, schooling his features into an expression he hoped would pass for composed. He had a bigger problem than what would happen a month or a year or a decade from now. He needed to be concerned with finding a way to let her out of the room. He was feeling all kinds of mean, and for the life of him, Shay wasn’t sure he was man enough to let her walk away.
His jaw tightened as Mari stared at him, a single tear staining the rose and cream of her cheek. Her chin jutted up and she threw her shoulders back. He knew that look. She’d made up her mind and no amount of pressure or cajoling would change it. Shay closed his eyes, willing her to leave before he opened them again and did something worthy of a lifetime’s regret.
The soft swish of cloth met his ears, and if he hadn’t still smelled her, Shay would have thought she’d left. He knew that scent, and it wasn’t fear or loathing or anger, it was arousal.
He opened his eyes and Mari stood before him fully naked. The years had changed her. She was lean now with none of the baby fat that had graced her hips and her thighs when she was twenty. Her breasts were high
and tight and the soft rounding of her belly belied the thinness of the rest of her. Everything about her was lovely and he’d have thought so even if she’d gained fifty pounds.
What he remembered as pitch black curls hiding her sex was now a thin strip of short hair. The rest of her was shaved. She also had a small tattoo of a shamrock just to the left of center at the top of her mons. The artist had gotten quite a show. Shay’s eyebrows shot up and he turned his gaze from her thatch to her eyes that had bled from green to black. “Well that’s new.”
She smiled at him and he was lost. “Not to me my fine Irishmon. I’ve been branded with your mark a long time.”
He was instantly hard and throbbing, the fear that deflated him earlier, a distant memory. Shay scooped her up in his arms, and followed her down onto the bed. Moving between her legs he shimmied down until he was staring at her tiny green shamrock. He placed both of her legs over his shoulders and grabbed her soft behind. “I’ve wanted to do this since I opened my door and saw you standing there. And, every damned day before that since the day I left.”
He liked the small tattoo. He licked it and her until she came in a twisting mass under him. It took less than a minute. She was so damned responsive she made him ache with the need to keep making her come over and over again. He pushed himself up and kissed her, sending his tongue along the seam of her lips. Hers snaked out and captured his, pulling him in, sucking and rubbing, tasting and thrusting. In his dreams she was never this demanding. He was always the aggressor. This was so much better.
He groaned as her small hand found him, drawing him to her heat, bathing the tip of him with her wet need. He pushed, hitting her clitoris and she shivered, squeezing him in retaliation, before bringing him to her core. Placing him inside her, Mari thrusted upward until he was fully sheathed. “Now you’re home, Sham. Finally. Now you’re home.”
He took over then, pounding then probing more gently by turns, building up the pressure until she was making mewing sounds that seemed to come from her toes. She was rubbing against him, pulling him deeper with every muscle. He’d learned a hell of a lot about fucking since he was twenty-two and he employed it all now. Cork-screwing into her until she came again in his arms, soaking in her cries through his mouth.
He followed her by riding the last of her convulsions to a place he hadn’t been since the day he left, all those years ago. When he regained enough strength to pull out of her, he rolled onto his back, gently fitting her head above his heart. She came willingly and after snuggling in tightly she was gently snoring within seconds. He’d forgotten how quickly she fell asleep after making love, he who didn’t think he’d forgotten a thing that had to do with his Mari.
“I’ll not be forgetting again, Mari-girl. I’ll have you right by my side from now on.” He kissed the top of her heather and moss scented head, reveling in the silk of her ebony hair. “You’re home now too, Mari. Neither of us will be leaving again.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Taryn palmed the warm golden figure she’d swallowed in the well, marveling again at its weight and texture. It was so pure and deep a gold she wasn’t sure anyone could replicate it. The fine symbols, some in what looked to be ancient Ogham language, some in what she knew to be runic script, were finely written in what must have been a well educated hand. Unfortunately, she didn’t know exactly how to decipher the meaning of any of it.
Taryn awoke early, somewhat disappointed that her absence from Jesse’s home garnered no response from him. Either he didn’t notice, he didn’t care or the black knight’s grumpy ‘I love you’ was as ephemeral as his regal presence. He’d been cold and distant since they left Britain, since she’d seen his willingness to kill for her in his eyes. Had she driven him to that with her lack of trust? Or was she simply misreading him entirely?
What the hell am I doing here?
You’re keeping your word.
Yea? Well, unless that word begins, ends, and has husband-acide in between, I don’t want to hear it ever again.
Taryn looked up at the sudden snapping of a twig, wondering how she managed to get herself to the opposite side of the pond in what looked to be a glen where fairies, good and not-so-good, woke in the early dawn and danced until dusk. Why said fairies were all naked in her imagination was something she didn’t want to explore. Running from the needs of her body was a new experience for her. One she didn’t particularly enjoy.
You’re not running from your body. You’re running from your heart. And your mind. And the man who has undeniably become your best friend.
“I don’t want to hear it, so shut the hell up and go away.” Taryn muttered, hoping to silence Jiminy Cricket who’d taken up residence in her head.
“The sun hasn’t chased the purple from the sky and you’re growling like a petulant puppy who’s just had her favorite squeaky toy stolen by a two year old she knows she can’t bite.”
Reed’s voice forced Taryn back into the reality that she was a guest here in this magically unreal place. Apparently a reluctant, petulant guest who was invading her wanna-be mother’s environment and bitching about it.
“Just for the record I’m blaming your son for this sudden urge to talk to myself.” As apologies went it was rather pathetic, but Taryn gave herself credit for trying.
Reed plopped down beside her. Taryn didn’t move away. They sat in companionable silence for a time. Each of them watching and appreciating the water bugs dancing on the surface of the pond, the symphony of sounds all the woodland and water creatures made as they greeted the day with the simple joy of being alive.
“He learned that from his father.” Reed sent Taryn a rueful smile. “I blame it on Jordon, but the truth is I’ve talked to myself for as long as I can remember. Jesse does it too, just not often. Most of the time, he exercises such extreme control over his every action and reaction that there is no room for the frivolity of talking to one’s self.”
Why that statement should hurt, Taryn couldn’t fathom, but it did. It made her want to find Jesse and hold him. She pushed the thought away and looked at Reed, wondering how this tiny woman managed to have such large offspring. They didn’t even have size in common.
Reed didn’t look back, she kept looking at the water. Her tone and her visage were open yet unreadable. Taryn took a deep breath and relaxed, choosing to share the moment without angst or pressure or animus. She wanted to know more about Jesse, and like it or not, Reed was probably the best source of information.
“Why do you want me here?” Where in all that’s holy had that come from? Taryn wanted to take the question back, but she was too proud and too stubborn to do so. She also surprised herself by wanting an answer.
Reed slowly turned to face her. A slow smile spread across her face, making her come alive with subtle but very real energy. It surrounded Taryn in a cocoon of warmth and acceptance. Instead of fighting it, Taryn let the feeling in, absorbing it on a cellular level that didn’t change her DNA, but went a long way toward helping her accept this new identity. If she had the courage to let Reed in, she could change her life in a good way.
“I want the opportunity to be a part of your life in whatever capacity you are willing to accept me.” Reed paused, her blue-green eyes taking on the sheen of tears she didn’t hide and didn’t let fall. “My son loves you. That is fact and because of whom he is, that fact isn’t going to change as long as he draws breath. Jesse’s need is greater than mine. His happiness, and yours, mean more to me than my need to have you in my life.”
Taryn felt hot tears on her cheeks, but she didn’t look away. She didn’t try to wipe them away either. She rarely cried. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she did. It had to be this place. It was making her daft. She was becoming a woman who talked to herself and felt more than she thought.
She sensed Reed wasn’t done so she didn’t respond, she simply waited for Reed to continue. Taryn wasn’t sure what to say anyway so she might as well listen. The difference now was she listened w
ith her heart open.
“That’s why I won’t hold you to your bargain with Jesse. You’ve bonded with Daisy and Jordon believes the two of you have formed an alliance of sorts. That’s enough. If accepting me is not something you are prepared to do, that’s okay. I’ll understand if you and Jesse need to move away. I’ll also understand, although I doubt he will, if you chose to leave all of us. If that’s what you want, you have my blessing to leave immediately. I’ll deal with my son.”
Taryn watched Reed swallow with difficulty, the movement of her throat making it look like she’d swallowed an egg whole. How brave this tiny woman was not to break eye contact as she calmly stated she was willing to give Taryn up all over again if it would make her son and Taryn happy.
The rational part of Taryn’s adult brain praised Reed’s love and loyalty to her son and to some extent she even realized Reed was looking out for her as well. The irrational, hurt child part of her brain pushed the adult over in a magnificently flamboyant temper tantrum and said, “I’m not going anywhere.”
Taryn pushed herself up, ignoring the pain as a twig pierced her palm with the effort. She towered over Reed who didn’t move, only blinked, as her eyes widened in surprise at the violence propelling Taryn’s movement. Not stopping to think about her actions, Taryn pulled Reed to her feet and enveloped her in a quick hug before setting the nearly weightless woman at arms length, holding her there with hands on small but surprisingly strong shoulders.
“Neither you, nor your son, nor the rest of this crazy family are getting rid of me that easily. I am not disposable. And I’m not done here.”
Taryn pocketed the gold goddess she’d had a strangle hold on since she heard Reed’s voice and turned and walked away. She didn’t see the shock meld into intense hope, then transform into a look of undying love as it flashed across Reed’s face. Nor did she hear Reed’s reverent prayer of thanks addressed to the very goddess whose image Taryn now carried in her pocket.
