by Nina Bangs
Did she understand the power of what she’d said, how much it aroused him? During a game, he did the touching, but no one drew pleasure from touching him.
Holding her gaze, he unsnapped his jeans. Stepping back, she watched him discard them along with his shoes. He was glad he wore nothing beneath his jeans, wanted her to see the full extent of his need for her.
She stepped close to him again. “I want to explore your body first, before you touch me and I lose all rational thought.” Her voice was a soft purr of anticipation. “I’ve figured something out. Touch is all about perspective. I touched Dave because I thought I had a duty to our marriage.” Her words were barely a whisper. “I touch you because I know I’ll die from want if I don’t.”
Brian couldn’t have said anything if his life depended on it.
Ally feathered her fingers along his jaw and throat. He clenched his jaw in response to the heat she left behind. Her fingers rested at the base of his throat where his pulse beat hard and fast, his blood pounding with a level of need he’d never thought to feel.
When she allowed her fingers to linger at his throat, he spoke in a guttural voice he didn’t recognize. “During the games I’ve waited hours to take my pleasure. But with you . . . ? Don’t press your luck, babe.”
Her laughter echoed off the ancient walls, the ripple of it filling dark corners where laughter had fled hundreds of years ago. Brian could almost feel the keep expand with the long-absent sound.
She slid her hand behind his neck, lifted his hair, let the strands glide through her fingers. “I’ve always wondered what men found so erotic about a woman’s hair. I understand now.”
Continuing her path of discovery, she trailed a line of sensation over his chest, pausing to touch each of his nipples, to squeeze gently, then roll them between her fingers.
He sucked in his breath, calling on all his vaunted discipline to keep from reaching out to her, to keep from begging her to touch him with her mouth. But his discipline wouldn’t save him. He knew this with every despairing particle of his soul.
He looked into his heart, and found the truth. The control that had made him the best in the universe was a sham. He’d only exercised rock-hard control because he’d never wanted a woman, never really wanted her. His body had wanted other women. Everything that made him a man wanted Ally.
Once again, she placed her palm flat against his stomach, pressed firmly as she moved her hand down to his groin and paused, as though she wanted to make sure he felt her.
He felt. And would feel her again and again through the long years, every time he closed his eyes, every time he remembered. “Not a good time to rest, babe.”
She smiled a shaky smile. “Give me my moment of enjoyment, Byrne.”
He moved his legs apart: wanting, anticipating.
Ally didn’t disappoint. She slid shaking hands roughly up the inside of his thighs. He understood the roughness, the shaking. This much hunger wasn’t gentle. The friction of her hands on his flesh seared him, and the heat spread in a flash of desire that almost buckled his knees.
“This is what I want.” She cupped him, rubbing her thumbs in a circular pattern over his skin. Then she clasped his erection in both hands, squeezed gently. “I want you inside me, filling all my emptiness, filling me with memories to get me through the long, cold nights of winter.” She touched the tip of his arousal with a forefinger.
He looked down, watched her finger touch him, then stared at the drop of moisture that appeared in response. He could stand no more.
Stepping back, he bent and quickly spread her thick sweater on the ground. Then he lifted her in his arms and laid her on the makeshift bed. He straddled her legs as he knelt over her. “I need your lips on my body. I need to slide my fingers over you, into you. I need to taste you.”
With a moan, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her.
He took her mouth with barely controlled savagery, his hunger clenching his stomach, tightening his groin. She opened her lips to him, her tongue exploring his mouth as his did hers, her taste forever a part of his present, his future.
Abandoning her mouth, he kissed a path from the sensitive skin behind her ear down to her breasts. Sliding his tongue over each nipple, he felt her tremble, her soft pleading as she arched her back.
Discipline disappeared. The determination to make this long and sweet died a quick death. He felt himself sliding down the slippery slope of raw desire, gaining momentum with each touch.
He closed his lips over her nipple, savored the sensation of her flesh against his tongue. Gently, he nipped her, felt her buck beneath him.
“If you don’t go faster, Byrne, I guarantee your family tree will lose its last limb.” Her threat was born of heat and desperation, whispered between panted breaths.
Her desperation was catching. He slid his tongue down the middle of her stomach, watched the muscles contract, breathed in the scent of lavender soap and aroused woman.
Straightening, he gulped a deep breath of chilly Irish air, let the cool breeze play across his heated flesh. Then he deliberately tortured himself by rubbing his erection the length of her inner thigh, purposely paused as she spread her legs in encouragement, and then denied himself the almost overpowering need to plunge into her.
Ignoring her muffled curses on his family ten generations removed, he placed his hands beneath her buttocks and lifted her to his mouth. Touched her with his lips, his tongue. Slid his tongue along her hot slickness, teased the one nub of female flesh that had no resistance to this particular type of teasing, then probed her with his tongue. He plunged deeply, in a sensual mimicry of what he’d soon do with another body part that was fast losing patience.
She cried his name and shuddered within his grasp. He memorized the sound, the feel, the taste. Forever.
His own shudder ripped through him. And he knew if he went on he wouldn’t be able to control himself. He, who’d spent his whole adult life dedicated to control. He lowered her to the sweater and sat back on his heels. Drew breaths in deep gasps, tried to think of icy pools and ugly women.
“I want to touch you with my mouth. Now. You’re not the only mouth in town, you know.” Her demand was raw hunger. “Hah! No one takes away an O’Neill’s right to use her mouth.”
“So you’re saying O’Neills are mouthy?” He tried to grin, but he was afraid it came out more like a grimace. “Isn’t this the way you wanted it, babe? You, zip effort?” He thought about her initial touching. Okay, so maybe not zip effort. “Me doing all the pleasing?”
She stuck out her bottom lip and glared at him. He didn’t know how long he could resist that bottom lip.
“I changed my mind. Mind changing is a woman’s prerogative.”
She wiggled down farther between his spread thighs until her mouth was so close to his erection, he could feel the warmth of her breath. He beat back the urge to once again lift her, to push into her, bury all his flesh in her, then slide out only to plunge deeply again and again.
Brian was a master of control. He had to keep reminding himself. He’d make it last for Ally.
But she put a major hole in his resolve when she slid her fingers around his length and pulled him down to her. Before he could do more than suck in his breath, she slipped her lips over him, took him deeply while her tongue sealed her doom.
All thoughts of slow and sweet disappeared. Hot and dangerous took their place.
“I tried, babe.” What had happened to all the gentle words he’d intended to say? Gone.
Her mouth held him in molten bondage while her tongue slid along his length, finding every sensitive nerve guaranteed to drive him toward the inevitable explosion of the senses. When she gently nipped him, he could stand no more.
Once again he slid his hands beneath her bottom and lifted her to him. He’d always prided himself on the controlled power of his thrust. Now his hands shook, and his body wasn’t answering to him anymore.
His erection was stro
ng between her spread thighs, and as he glanced down in his last moment of lucidity, he recognized that this was the final moment of his old life, his last chance to back off and leave the future untouched. If he entered her now, nothing would ever be the same again.
He thrust deeply, burying himself smoothly in her heat. Her body welcomed him, clenching tightly to hold him inside her. She wrapped her long legs around him, urging him on with small cries of frantic pleasure.
His body automatically picked up the familiar rhythm, each plunge pushing him closer to his release. Too fast. He could feel the mounting wave pushing at him, carrying him along as he flailed frantically to slow things down. He couldn’t finish before her, never had left a woman behind.
“No!” His cry was one of denial. Denial that his body had failed him in his most important moment. And pleasure. A pleasure so intense his breath stilled for a moment as he tried to prolong the sensation.
It was the thunder of the wave as it crashed against the rocks, the instant when sea spray shot high into the air, the moment when the wave was at its most powerful. The second before the wave died.
He heard Ally’s cry join him from a distance. And as he emerged from his shuddering release, he felt her legs still clamped around him. Gently, he lowered her to the sweater and leaned over her, drawing in deep, gasping breaths.
“I’m sorry, babe.” He’d made it last for so many women, but he’d failed with the most important woman in his life. And even though he wasn’t yet capable of much coherent thought, he knew she was the most important woman in his life.
Ally stirred beneath him, and he reached down to smooth her hair away from her face.
She stared at him with wide-eyed awe. “Sorry? You mean it can get better than that?”
He shook his head, focused only on his own failure. “I’ve always been able to control my release. Nothing like this has ever happened before. I wanted to make it long, make the pleasure last, but I couldn’t stop. . . .” His explanation died into shame.
She put her palm against his jaw, forced him to look at her. “Do you know how good that makes me feel? That I made you lose control? You’ve given me a wonderful gift, Brian.” She smiled, her lids still heavy with her own climax. “Besides, if you’d made me wait one more second, the spirits would have a whole new vocabulary by now.”
He smiled down at her. “That’s what I love about you, sweetheart. You take all my negatives and make them into positives.”
The word “love” hung between them, then drifted into the quiet night.
Ally gazed up at him, memorized every line of his face, every strand of hair that lay tangled across his gleaming shoulders . . . and wondered if he knew.
I would dance as a gift of love, if I had nothing else to give, if I wanted to give something that would live forever in someone’s memory.
Did he know how much she loved him? She hoped not. He’d be going home soon. His sense of honor demanded he fulfill his contract. She wouldn’t interfere. But God, it hurt. She glanced away, hoping he didn’t see the glisten of tears in her eyes.
“Ally?” He didn’t try to hide his concern as he touched her face, forcing her to meet his gaze.
She smiled through her tears. “It’s nothing. I’m emotional. Great sex always makes me emotional. It’s a weakness.”
He frowned. “How much great sex have you had?”
She tried on her thinking-hard expression. “Umm . . . I think this is the first time. Initial experiences are the ones we remember most.”
He studied her for a moment, then let it go. “Sleep with me tonight, Ally.”
I’d sleep with you forever. “Only if you guarantee the sleeping-to-great-sex ratio will be balanced.”
His smile pushed back the sorrow building in her heart. “Can’t do. Wouldn’t guarantee any sleeping at all.”
She made a pretense of thinking deep thoughts. “Sounds fair to me.”
Brian lifted her to her feet, helped her dress, then pulled on his jeans. He slanted her a wicked grin. “My thigh’s aching again. Guess I overworked it. Think you can do anything for it?”
“Oh, yes.” She let the words out in an anticipatory sigh.
Laughing, he wrapped his arm around her waist, and they walked from the great hall toward his shelter.
Just before entering the shelter, she looked up. At the foot of the hill, a dark horse with yellow eyes watched them by the gate he’d just opened.
Ally wasn’t surprised. This place, this man, would always remain the magical home of her heart. She raised her hand and waved.
An answering whinny faded into the night.
Chapter Nineteen
How did you measure the length of a day? As Ally sat on the rock wall watching night creep up the sides of the old keep, she decided today had been the longest day of her life.
She’d left Brian sleeping in the early hours of dawn and crept back to her wagon. She didn’t wake him because she hadn’t a clue what to say that wouldn’t involve “I love you.” When he left, she didn’t want his final impression of 2002 to be her clinging frantically to his ankle, begging him to stay. And the more time she spent with him, the likelier that scenario would be.
He hadn’t approached her today, but she’d caught him watching her, his expression brooding. Good. She hated suffering alone.
Ally watched Claudia poking around the keep in the fading light. The old building sure obsessed Claudia. But Ally couldn’t criticize when the keep’s owner obsessed her.
She forgot about Claudia as Katy wandered over. Katy had given Ally her space today, and Ally was grateful.
“I’m getting all my gear together and going down to that walled-up room as soon as it’s dark enough.” Katy’s expression said the only way Ally could keep her from the room was by tying her hand and foot. “That room is my best chance of seeing some spirits in this blasted place. I’ll tell you I’m a disappointed woman right now. If this doesn’t pan out, we may as well leave.” She cast Ally a searching look. “Whenever you’re ready.”
She’d never be ready to leave. Not until the moment Brian faded into the future. Then she’d leave Ireland and never return because seeing this place again with Brian not here would destroy her. Okay, maybe when she was eighty years old and living in her memories, she’d make one last visit.
Ally forced her attention back to Katy. “I’ll go down with you.” She met Katy’s gaze and knew her great-aunt recognized the O’Neill stubbornness in her grandniece.
Katy only nodded, then headed back to the wagon. Ally hoped a kind spirit or fairy would appear for Katy. All the technology Katy had stored in her fisherman’s vest shouldn’t go to waste. And the truth was that Ally wanted Katy to go home happy.
Katy had barely disappeared into the wagon when Cap sat down on the wall beside Ally.
Ally smiled at him. “What’s the matter, Cap? I haven’t seen a potion in a couple of days. Running out of recipes?”
He cast her a sly glance. “I only tried one recipe.”
“But you said . . .”
“I lied.”
“Then the other things you sent, the coffee and juice . . . ?”
He grinned. “Nothing in them. Placebos. I was counting on the power of suggestion.”
Ally felt no surprise, only relief. Every bit of emotion she’d experienced, every bit of the love she’d felt, had been hers alone. “Why’d you give up so easily?”
His smile faded. “I didn’t need any potions. Love didn’t need any prodding with you and Brian. I only hope he makes the right decision.”
She couldn’t miss the sympathy in his gaze as he stood and headed toward his shelter.
Ally sighed as Nebula headed her way. It seemed if you sat on a rock wall in Ireland long enough, the whole world came to you.
Nebula didn’t sit. She probably considered sitting a weakness. “Did the exercises I showed you help last night?”
“What?”
Nebula’s expression suggested she was
speaking to a slightly dense child. “Did you have enhanced lower-body control in your sexual encounter with Brian?”
“How did you know?” Suspicion flared.
Nebula’s glance was dismissive. “Brian has achieved great control of his body, but his face hides nothing.” She shrugged. “His feelings are plain to see for someone with heightened sensitivity.”
Heightened sensitivity? Ally didn’t think so. Emotions would bounce right off Nebula’s “more than a woman” superiority like pingpong balls off a steel wall.
“What are his feelings?” She shouldn’t play into Nebula’s need to expound on her many talents, but she needed to know.
Nebula smiled. A real smile.
For the first time, Ally looked beyond Nebula’s overbearing exterior and saw the woman within.
“He loves you.”
Did he? Ally wanted to believe it, but she had doubts about Nebula’s qualifications in the recognizing-undying-love department. “Were you ever in love?”
Nebula’s smile faded. “Yes.” She looked uncertain.
Ally checked to make sure her jaw hadn’t dropped. Nebula with doubts? Amazing.
Nebula’s gaze shifted away from Ally. “He was very . . . short. He had superior intelligence, but his body lacked overall tone. He was . . . flabby.”
Flabby. It amazed Ally that Nebula even managed to get the word past her lips. Nebula’s shallowness in the understanding-love area boggled Ally’s mind. “Too bad. Guess he’d never make more-than-a-man status.”
Nebula’s expression turned defensive. “I asked him to strengthen himself for me, but he said I must accept him as he was.”
Ally got the picture. “I bet you didn’t ask. I bet you demanded.”
“Perhaps.” Nebula still avoided her gaze.
“Has being more than a woman made you happy, Nebula? Has being alone made you happy?”
Nebula finally met her gaze. “No.”
Ally smiled. “I’m going to share a hard-learned truth with you. It doesn’t matter whether he’s perfect, if he’s perfect for you. So I’d suggest you find your short flabby lover and give him a big hug.” She glanced at Nebula’s massive arms. “Well, maybe not so big.”