Briarwood Cottage

by JoAnn Ross

  They’d danced for their first and, until tonight, last time together on the beach after their wedding. The resort staff had returned to work, the minister had left for wherever the concierge had found her, and the vacationers who’d been baking their bodies in the sun while drinking mai tais all day must have gone inside to party in one of the many bars.

  They’d been all alone, swaying together barefoot in the sand, Duncan humming Adele’s “Make You Feel My Love” while a huge white moon floated overhead. At the time, when he’d requested the song, Cassandra had considered it an easy choice given that it had been one of the most popular wedding songs of the year.

  But now, looking back on it, he’d been echoing the vows he’d written on the flight to the island. The ones he’d reminded her of earlier today. Had it only been one day? Like the lyrics said, the winds of change were definitely blowing wild and free.

  She leaned her head back to look up at him. “You chose that song on purpose, didn’t you?”

  He didn’t pretend to believe that she might be talking about how the musicians had segued from “The South Wind” to the even more haunting “She Moved Through the Fair.”

  “I did. Because I meant those words then and I meant them this morning. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to make you feel my love.”

  The fierce heat in his eyes and rumbled baritone that strummed at least a gazillion strings had Cassandra almost dissolving into a puddle of need right on the dance floor. How was it that just days ago, she’d considered going to dinner with Sedona and her friends a major achievement? But now, here on this very public dance floor, she was on the verge of tearing off her husband’s clothes and climbing up his body right here in Brennan’s in front of nearly the entire population of Castlelough.

  Before Egypt she’d never been able to resist this man.

  After Egypt just the sight of Duncan struggling to make things right had caused her heart to ache even worse than when she’d learned about their baby.

  Now, even as she tried to tell herself that it was only sexual chemistry intensified by months of celibacy, Cassandra knew what was happening between them was much, much more.

  “Ah,” she tried for humor as she barely resisted biting that square jaw that had been chiseled by more than his fair share of testosterone, “is that what I’m feeling?”

  “Like most guys, the good Lord only gave me enough blood for my head or my penis,” he growled into her ear, not that anyone could hear them now that the musicians had moved on to a lively jig even as she and Duncan continued to sway in place, surrounded by energetic Riverdance wannabes. “Which means that any doctor in the country would probably declare me brain-dead right now.”

  He’d always been able to make her laugh.

  Until he hadn’t.

  But then, miracle of miracles, he did again.

  “Well then,” she said, giving into impulse and going up on her toes to nip that sexily stubbled jaw, “I suppose we’d best get you home.”

  He went as still as one of those ancient Celtic stones surrounding the cairn as he gave her a long, speculative look. “Are you saying—”

  “Brain death is not to be taken lightly.” It had been so long since she’d flirted. Too long. Cassandra had forgotten the fun in tongue-tying a strong, confident alpha male. “We could call the local doctor. Or…”

  She skimmed her index finger down the front of his shirt, pausing to toy with his belt buckle. “We could go back to the cottage, put you to bed, and try some old-fashioned home remedies.”

  He covered her hand with his. “I vote for number two.”

  She felt those unused muscles beside her mouth stretch as she smiled again. “Good choice.”

  Arms wrapped around each other, they stumbled across the street to the parking space like two drunks holding each other up. Which, except for the drunk part, was mostly true.

  The rental beeped as he unlocked it with the remote, then, with a broad palm cupping her butt, he boosted her into the high passenger seat. Her girly parts had given up their happy dance and were now shouting at her to satisfy them. Had it not been for the streetlight shining into the SUV, she might have actually seriously considered doing exactly that here and now.

  After settling into the driver’s seat and starting the engine, before shifting into reverse, he turned toward her. “I don’t suppose you happen to have brought along one of those tight nurse outfits with the lace garter belts, white, lace-topped stockings, and do-me-big-boy stilettos?”

  “Sorry. Frederick’s of Hollywood hasn’t reached Shelter Bay yet.”

  He shrugged. “No problem. You’ve always been hot to me whatever you’re wearing.” He waggled wicked brows. “Or not wearing.”

  “This is crazy,” she said breathlessly.

  “Insane,” he agreed. “The plan was to get our marriage situation worked out before we moved on to screwing each other’s brains out.”

  And didn’t that suggestion cause vital body parts to spike? But…

  “You actually had this all planned out?”

  “I’m a Marine,” he reminded her. “We always have a plan.”

  Which put him miles ahead of her. Cassandra hadn’t even come up with what to say when he’d opened the door.

  She could have felt manipulated. But instead, as they drove away from the lights of the village, headed back toward Briarwood Cottage, she said, “Sometimes, going off plan can turn out to be a good thing.”

  “Oorah,” Duncan agreed.

  15

  As they pulled up in front of the cottage, the lights in the window gleaming a warm welcome, Duncan turned toward Cassandra.

  “Are you sure about this?”

  There might be many things she didn’t have a handle on, but about this, Cassandra was absolutely, one-hundred-and-a-gazillion percent positive. “Absolutely.”

  His face, shadowed as clouds drifted across the moon, revealed a hesitation she hadn’t expected. The one thing that had always been good between them was the sex. Not that they’d had any since the last time they’d been in Ireland.

  “No regrets,” he warned.

  She shook her head and kissed him. A long, deep, breath-stealing kiss. “No regrets,” she echoed when they finally came up for air. “I want you to take me to bed, Duncan.” She pressed a hand against his chest and felt his heart beating as hard and fast as one of the bodhran drums at the session. Once again in sync, its rhythm echoed that of her own wild, reckless heart. “Now.”

  They were no steadier making their way from the SUV to the cottage than they’d been leaving the pub. As soon as they got inside, he spun her around, pressed her against the blue door, and dove back into the interrupted kiss.

  Cass followed him willingly as tongues tangled, teeth scraped, heat flared. When his fingers took hold of her short curls and pulled her head back, allowing access to her throat, her entire world narrowed down to his mouth and hands, which were cupping her breasts while his thumbs rubbed her nipples. Which were, unfortunately, covered by that sweater dress she’d thought was so pretty when Sedona had talked her into buying it.

  “You’re wearing too many clothes.” He read her reeling thoughts.

  He lowered those wonderfully wicked hands to the hem of her dress and lifted it up her legs. “Raise your arms.”

  She raised them above her head, wiggling her hips a bit as he peeled it up over her head and threw it across the room.

  Then, before she could rip away his shirt so she could feel them skin to skin, his mouth took hers again, his hands streaking over her, causing flames to shoot through her veins as he nudged her legs apart, then moved between them, his hard, urgent erection pressing against her, causing her lower body to throb.

  “Damn, I’ve missed this.” His breath was harsh. Ragged. “Missed the way you feel,” he said as he undid her bra and claimed her breasts with first his hands and then his hot and hungry mouth.

  Her underpants went next. Then, needing to touch him as he was touching her
, she slid her hands up beneath his shirt to touch hot flesh.

  It was crazy. Insane. Incredible.

  She hadn’t even realized what a dry, empty spell she’d been in until all it took was his hand cupping her, and the stroke of a clever thumb at the same time his teeth tugged on an ultrasensitive nipple to send her over the edge.

  She was not alone in her hunger. Her gasp, then shuddering moan fueled his own demand as he kissed her again, his mouth hard. Hungry.

  “I wanted to do this right,” Duncan ground out as he yanked open the buttons on his 501s. “Take things slow. Seduce you.”

  “I don’t need seduction.” What she needed was that bold, hard nine inches she now wondered how and why she’d gone so long without. He jerked in her hand as she wrapped her fingers around him, stroking him in a familiar way that had him yanking a condom from his pocket and tearing the package open with his teeth. The first time she’d witnessed that raw male hunger was the night they’d met in Kabul. Knowing that she was the one who could drive him to such extremes only made her own fires flare hotter.

  Cupping her butt, he lifted her off her feet and entered her with one stroke that had her crying out his name. Then he began to move, and as she wrapped her legs around his hips and was dragged into that spinning, whirling place where only he’d ever been able to take her, Cassandra’s last coherent thought was that the cottage could burn down around them, and neither of them would ever notice.

  It didn’t take long. Only a few hard, deep strokes for him to find his own release, at the same time she felt herself breaking apart.

  Somehow, when she’d floated back to earth, they were lying on the wooden floor. As her head cleared, she realized that she was completely naked. Well, almost.

  “I’m still wearing my boots.”

  He pressed his lips against her throat and caused her cooling blood to heat again. Then glanced down at her, giving her a lazy, lustful study that had her toes curling in those red boots. “It’s a good look,” he decided. “I think you ought to keep it.”

  “And wouldn’t that cause a stir down at Brennan’s?”

  His hand settled between her legs with an easy familiarity that was at odds with the fact that it had been months since they’d been this way together. “I had in mind something a little more personal. That you stay that way for me.”

  “All the time?”

  He glanced over at her. “You have a problem with that idea?”

  “Actually, I do. Are you trying to tell me something?”

  “Yeah. I like sex. With my wife. Who I’ve really missed seeing naked, so I figure we’ve got some time to make up for.”

  “So you haven’t turned into one of those guys with a dungeon?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I take it that’s a no,” she decided as he jerked his hand away from where, if she were to be perfectly honest, it had felt good. Really, really good.

  “Where did that idea come from?”

  “Well, you know. I’ve been reading how BDSM seems to have become a popular way to jazz up sex these days, so I just thought, just perhaps, you’d taken it up.” His answering glower could have cut through steel. “I guess not,” she said.

  “Definitely not.” He began making little circles on the damp inside of her thigh. “And we never had to play any games to jazz up our sex. But if the idea turns you on, hey, I’d be willing to give it the old college try.”

  “That’s okay.” She wiggled a bit to encourage him to move those fingers up and over just a bit. “I’m pretty much a vanilla girl.”

  His earlier annoyance dissolved as he flashed her a wicked grin. “That’s always been my favorite flavor.” To prove the point, he shifted positions and planted his mouth where his hand had been.

  Which essentially put an end to the conversation.

  16

  They’d finally made it to the bed, where they spent the night making up for lost time. The sun had begun to rise in the sky outside the window when Cassandra opened her eyes. “I dreamed of something last night.”

  Duncan put his arm around her and tugged her close. Although he’d lost track of the number of times she’d come, and his own count had been a personal best, he was already wanting her again. “In the all of ten minutes you slept?”

  “Hah hah.” She playfully slapped his upper arm in a way that reminded him of his old Cass. “What makes you think I didn’t doze off during one of those times when you thought I was just dazed with lust?”

  “Maybe because everyone down at Brennan’s probably heard you screaming my name? Along with ‘Take me now, you damn barbarian Scotsman’?”

  “I said that?”

  “Actually, you shouted it. And while I like to believe I have a fairly strong ego, it would sting a bit to discover that you’ve been using my body to have sex with Gerard Butler.”

  “Of course I didn’t do that. Though, and I really don’t want to hurt your feelings, because you’re a fabulous lover, there are admittedly times, occasionally, when I fantasize about you wearing a kilt.”

  Duncan felt his face splitting into a bold Highlander’s grin. “I’ll go out and get one today.”

  “You wouldn’t get any objection from me. And I couldn’t have been that loud.”

  “Sweetheart, they’re going to be finding bits of thatch all over Castlelough.” He glanced up at the ceiling. “Because I think we may have blown the roof off.”

  “Well, then, you’ll just have to go up there and fix it. While wearing your new McCaragh kilt. While I stand down on the ground and watch.” She laughed and snuggled closer, her hand on his chest. “You know how often dreams don’t make any sense when you’ve been awake awhile?”

  “Sure.” The past few years his dreams had been more the stuff of nightmares. Of a continually changing kaleidoscope of images that hadn’t made any sense when he’d witnessed them in real life.

  “Well, this one keeps calling to me.”

  “That’s always a plus.” Duncan was not going to think about those bad times. Instead he was going to focus on being back in bed with his wife.

  “It is. I was thinking that perhaps, rather than write a novel about a female journalist, which had been my original idea—”

  “Going along with the old ‘write what you know’ adage.” He touched his lips to the top of her head, breathing in the crisp citrus scent of her shampoo.

  “That’s what they say. Whoever they are. But I’ve no desire to relive my journalism days, so I was thinking more along the lines of a fictionalized version of what’s happening here. Of some sort of event that could be considered by many to be miraculous. And how that changes the people who live in the small, isolated town where the miracle occurs while also changing those who witnessed it.”

  “That’s not a bad idea.” Although fiction might not be his strong suit, Duncan could see Cass making it work.

  “As I said, I’m still just playing with what-ifs.”

  “You’d probably want to stay here a while,” he suggested carefully. Like a month, for starters. “Getting a better handle on the town and residents would give your story more verisimilitude, making it more realistic and believable even though it’d clearly be fiction.”

  “I loved how Quinn Gallagher had me suspending disbelief when he wrote about the Lady,” Cass said. “Since I felt I knew the people and the setting, I was able to accept the idea of an underground kingdom beneath the lake and scientists trying to capture her… Maybe once the Lady seekers leave town, I can find a flat to rent,” she mused.

  Or move in with me.

  “Sounds as if you’ve pretty much made up your mind.”

  “Not quite yet. But I’m getting closer.”

  “Maybe some local color will help,” Duncan said.

  “That a good idea,” she agreed.

  “So, I have a proposition for you.”

  “Anything,” she said.

  “Great. We can stop for breakfast on the way.”
>
  “On the way? Where are we going?”

  “To the Lahinch Surf Shop.”

  Her gaze cut to the window, where the day had dawned bright and so atypically sunny Duncan could picture people stumbling around the streets of Castlelough, hands over their eyes, looking up toward the robin’s-egg-blue sky while crying out, “I’ve gone blind! Blind, I tell you!”

  “You’re proposing we go surfing?” she asked.

  “Yeah. We had fun the last time, so I thought it might be worth trying again. I went online to check while you were knocked out, and although surfing here on the west coast can be iffier than the east where we were before, thanks to the wind changing, the waves are going to be clean and glassy until late afternoon.”

  “Which is a good thing?”

  “A very good thing. They’ll be perfect for a novice, but you don’t have to worry, because I won’t let you fall.”

  “I thought you were supposed to be writing a story for Winston.”

  “I only need one a week.” He snapped his fingers. “Piece of cake.” Leaning down, Duncan nuzzled her neck. “Come on, my little beach bunny,” he coaxed. “Play hooky in the surf with me.”

  Even as she sighed heavily, Duncan knew she was tempted. “What ever happened to spending the day in bed?”

  “After surfing,” he promised. They’d always meshed in bed. Even after that argument the night before she’d flown off to Egypt. Sometime during the night of marathon sex, Duncan had come up with a new plan to show Cass all the ways they fit perfectly together in the rest of their lives. “You’ll love it.”

  17

  Cassandra did love it. Loved looking at her husband in that body-hugging black wetsuit, loved the way he looked at her back, and she especially loved having his arms around her as they’d flown across the waves like Fann, a Celtic sea goddess portrayed in the Ulster Cycle, one of the great collections of ancient Irish mythology.

  “That was a grand time,” she said later as they warmed up back at the cottage beneath the shower. “Though I’m still not sure about the pie.” He’d eaten a huge piece of berry pie topped off with a mountain of vanilla ice cream.