She’d kissed a few men before. More than a few. Timid kisses, passionate kisses. Eberhard kisses that had left her cold. A man didn’t kiss like this unless he was very deeply in love.
He loved her. The awareness trembled in her, just under the top layer of her skin, then seeped deeper, penetrating fully. How magnificent, to know he loved her so much. No question about it. He was cradling her face with his strong hands as if she were the most precious thing in the universe. She opened her eyes and met his troubled gaze, trying to say with her silvery silence all that she really felt, because she couldn’t say the words. She didn’t know how. No practice.
When he shifted her beneath him and his hard arousal rode between her legs she did it, made all that sound she’d sworn she wasn’t going to. Practically roared. So this was it. This was what made people crazy with passion and longing and hunger. This was what Shakespeare had known at some time in his life to write Romeo and Juliet, to pen such sweet verses of love. This is what the Hawk had meant by Valhalla.
She arched up against him, the muscles deep within her on fire, burning for something, aching and empty.
“Ari,” he breathed as he dropped his head to suckle one nipple into his mouth. He kissed and tugged and tortured it. He released the tightened crest and blew cool air on the heated tip. Nipped it lightly, then rubbed his rough, shadow beard gently across it. A flash of fire erupted in her, radiating outward from her breasts and flooding her entire body with waves of desire.
He scattered kisses lower, trailing across her stomach, the curve of her hips, her thighs. When he paused directly above her honeyed heat, his mere breath fanning her sensitive skin was sheer torture.
A heartbeat turned into a dozen, and she waited, frozen, for his next caress.
When it came, she whimpered softly. He dropped kisses on the satiny insides of her legs, then tasted the very center of her hunger. When his tongue flickered out, stroking her tiny, taut nub repeatedly, she cried out and her body quivered against him. She felt herself reaching, soaring for something just beyond her reach and then … oh!
How was it that she’d never experienced anything like this before? The Hawk flung her to the starlit heavens and spun her out between the planets, slid her down the Milky Way and through a star going supernova. Rocked her universe from end to end of its solar system. And when he finally, gently let her come back down, she shuddered beneath him with agony and ecstasy, knowing she would never be the same. Something had woken up inside her and blinked pale eyes, unaccustomed to the blinding brightness and stunning intensity of this new world.
She lay, panting and a little bit frightened, but ready. Ready to truly and completely give herself to her husband and make their marriage soar as she knew it could. Ready to try to begin to tell him the things she felt for him. How much she really admired his sensitivity and compassion. How much she adored his strength and fearlessness. How much she even cherished his brash and passionate rages. How glad she was to be his wife. “Hawk—”
“Ari, Ari … I … no. I don’t …” His face was fierce and wild, and she reached for him. But she missed.
Because the Hawk stiffened with a roar of agony and leapt from the bed. Leapt from her, and practically ran from the room without looking back.
The room fell silent except for the click of a lock.
Adrienne stared in total confusion at the door.
This was like being bedded in roses and waking up in the mud.
How could he just up and leave her after that?
CHAPTER 26
SIDHEACH JAMES LYON DOUGLAS DOES NOT SHAKE, HE REMINDED himself. Does not lose control. Does not almost start mooning about like some lovesick boy just because he gives a lass the orgasm of her life. He hadn’t missed that.
But it wasn’t the orgasm. Not even the way she’d shuddered against him, or how beautiful she’d looked as she’d panted, love-slicked, beneath his tongue.
It was that he’d been about to do something he’d never done in all his life—lose his seed outside of a lass. That and more, it was that he loved her and she still hadn’t said his name. Not even in the apex of her passion had she cried his name. Nothing. For all he knew, she could have been thinking of Adam. It was part of why he’d had to pull the damned hood off her. The hood had seemed a good idea at the start, but it just had to go.
The next time he loved her, he’d have her eyes open and seeing him from start to finish, and finish it he would. His throbbing shaft would not be able to handle that torture again.
But he didn’t want to give her his seed until he knew she belonged to him. Didn’t want the possibility of not knowing whose child she might bear.
And then he recalled the flask that the old Rom had given him. He considered it thoughtfully, wondering if now was the time to use the potion it contained.
He may as well, he mused, although he hated the side effects. The way it would leave him cold and remote in the middle of the greatest passion he’d ever known.
The next time he came to her was in silence, from beginning to end.
A scarce quarter of an hour before, he’d grimaced as he’d pulled out the stopper with his teeth. He had sworn never to take the potion again, but this time it was necessary. He had to make her want him, to bind her to him with desire so he could start working on making her love him. And he needed a clear head to do it.
Last night he’d almost made a fool of himself. He’d certainly lost control. Come close to spilling on her with both body and heart; foolish words of love and seed and hope for babies and a lifetime together.
So he tossed his head back and swallowed the bottle’s bitter contents, and waited.
When he could feel its eerie fingers unfurling through his body, only then did he go to her.
He stripped her bare and guided her to the floor. She made no move to stop him; she remained mute, with an unfathomable expression in her eyes. It was mute fascination, but he didn’t know that. Her eyes lovingly wandered over every inch of his body when he looked anywhere besides her face. She marveled at the sensation of cool floor to her back and hot man to her front, but he seemed somehow different this time as with his hands and his mouth he brought her to that shining place in the sky not once but a half-dozen times. Perfectly skilled, almost frighteningly controlled, while she lay aching beneath him.
She didn’t like it one bit.
When he turned away from her, she felt somehow cheated. As if he hadn’t really been there with her at all. So what if he pleasured her well? She wanted the same sun glowing in his eyes, the same uncontrollable, wild passion that burned white-hot between them.
“Hawk!” she called to his back.
He stiffened and paused a long moment. Muscles bunched in his shoulders and back. He seemed so untouchable.
“Oh. Never mind …” she said softly, her eyes luminous and brimming with hurt.
Hours later the Hawk rinsed his mouth for the fifth time and spat into a basin. Well, that had been a disaster of epic proportions. It had hurt him more than it had helped him. The potion had kept up his enormous erection and not allowed him to spill anything.
Was there such a thing as a fire that froze?
He would never take that potion again. Not with his wife.
When he’d finally gotten the foul taste of it out of his mouth, he dressed and headed for the village gathering hall to hear more cases. More decisions and more people with needs he must see to. And all the while he knew he’d be wondering if he, who ruled numerous manors, villages, keeps, and men, was ever going to be able simply to make his own wife say his name.
Sidheach.
That’s all he wanted.
Adrienne paced the room restlessly. What had happened this afternoon? She felt dirty, as if she’d been touched too intimately by a stranger, not been made love to by her husband. Not like the night before when she’d seen that look in his eyes, that warmth and tenderness along with the epic desire. He’d been detached somehow this afternoon. When he’d retu
rned to their room to dress before he’d left again, he’d still been eerily distant. Had he done something, taken some drug to make him …?
Those flasks she’d seen. Lying in a leather pouch on the bed table last night.
Her jaw jutted as she stomped to the bed table. Not there.
Where had he put them? Her eyes flew to the clothes he’d dropped in the chair when he’d changed this afternoon. Rummaging through the pile, she found what she sought and dumped the little leather pouch. One empty, a full one left. Ha! That and the healing poultice he’d been using when he changed the bandage on his hand.
An empty flask. Hmmph! Well two could play that game, and he’d rue the day he left the other one just lying about. Wait until he saw just how cold she could be!
When the Hawk returned to the manor that night, he was unequivocally convinced he must have gone to the wrong house. His wife was waiting for him in the locked bedroom, completely nude, with a wild look in her eyes that made him quite certain he was dreaming, or lost or mad.
“Hawk,” she purred as she glided to him.
“Adrienne?” he asked warily.
His wife was so damned beautiful. And for an instant he didn’t care why she was acting this way. He was sick of the waiting and tired of the wanting. So he swung her up into his arms and kissed her, his hot mouth moving over hers hungrily.
Then he saw the flask lying on the floor by the bed, looking as if it had been dropped shortly after consumption.
Hawk blew out a breath of frustration and allowed himself one more longing look at his wife’s flushed cheeks, her magnificent breasts, and curves that went on forever. One glance at her darkly dilated eyes and her pouty mouth, plum-ripe and begging to be kissed.
“Lass, did you take that potion?” he said wearily.
“Uh-hmm,” she drawled as she reached for his lips hungrily.
He dumped her on the bed with a thump. The aphrodisiac. He figured it should last about twelve hours before he could be certain she was back to her normal shrewish self.
It would serve her right for him to just take her right now, honor be damned, he thought darkly.
Unfortunately there were no circumstances under which honor could be damned. Not even when his throbbing shaft was making him wonder how the hell honor had anything to do with tupping his own wife.
Oh, she would surely want to kill him the next time she saw him.
He locked the door and stationed four guards outside it, telling them he’d kill any one of them who went in that room for any reason during the next twelve hours.
Then the legendary Hawk sat down on the stairs to wait it out.
The next time he came to her, she was indeed furious. “What was in that flask?” she raged.
Hawk couldn’t help but smile. He tried to duck his head before she saw it, but failed.
“Oh! You think it’s funny, do you? I’ll have you know that you left me in here for a whole night thinking … oh my God! You have no idea how much I needed—”
“Not me, lass.” His eyes were dark. “It was not me you needed. You took a bit of an aphrodisiac the Rom brew. I had no intention of giving it to you or using it myself. I didn’t even ask them for it. And you snooped—”
“You took a potion to make yourself cold to me!” she shouted. “You hurt me!”
Hawk stared. “Hurt you? Never! I would not hurt you, lass.”
“Well, you did!” Her eyes were wide and luminous and her lip trembled.
He was at her side in an instant. “How did I hurt you? Only tell me, and I will make it up to you.”
“You were cold. You touched me and it was like you were a stranger.”
Hawk’s heart sang. Desire coursed through him in hot waves. She liked his touch.
“You like my touch?” he breathed before stealing a kiss from her pouty lips.
“Not when you do it like you did yesterday!” There was a furrow of consternation between her lovely brows and he kissed it away. “Besides, being that you wanted to bed me, why didn’t you just take advantage of it when I was so willing?” she sighed as he traced soft kisses across her eyelids and her lashes fluttered closed. His lips were warm and infinitely tender as he kissed the tip of her nose, then not quite so tender when he claimed her mouth with his.
“When I love you, ’twill not be because some drug has intoxicated you, but because you are intoxicated with me, as surely as I am bewitched by you.”
“Oh,” she breathed as he unbound her hair and let it tumble free down her shoulders.
“Why did you bind it?” He combed his fingers through her heavy mane.
“That potion was terrible. Even my own hair rubbing against my skin was too much to bear.”
“’Tis too much for me to bear, this mane of yours,” Hawk said, playing it gently through his fingers. His eyes turned hooded, darkly heavy with sensual promise. “You have no idea how often I imagined the feel of this silvery-gold fire spread across my shaft, lass.”
Desire enveloped Adrienne as she pondered the image his words conjured.
He backed her slowly toward the bed, encouraged by the haze of desire in her wide eyes.
“The thought interests you, lass?” he purred smugly.
She swallowed hard.
“You have only to tell me, whisper to me what pleases you. I will give you it all.”
She gathered her courage. “Then kiss me, husband. Kiss me here … and here … oooh!” He obeyed so quickly. His lips were hot, silky and demanding. “And here …” She lost her voice completely when he slid her gown from her body and tumbled her to the bed beneath him.
“I want to pull the drapes around this bed and keep you in here for a year,” he mumbled against the smooth skin of her breast.
“’S’ all right, with me,” she mumbled in response.
“Aren’t you supposed to be fighting me, lass?” Hawk drew back and studied her intently.
“Um …”
“Yes, do go on,” he encouraged. He knew his eyes must be dancing with joy. He knew he must have an absolutely absurd expression on his face right now. Was it possible? The taming had begun and was working?
“Just touch me.” She wrinkled her brow. “Don’t ask me so many questions about it!”
He rumbled with soft laughter and promise of infinite passion. “Oh, I’ll touch you, lass.”
“Too deep. You’re in too far.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I’ve given it thought, fool. We must end this. Queen Aoibheal is on to us. Even your time by her side has not allayed her suspicions. I, for one, do not wish to suffer the consequences of her wrath. The woman is simply going to have to return to her time.”
King Finnbheara waved his hand.
And the Hawk collapsed onto the bed. Stunned, he looked around the empty room.
Adrienne fell to the floor of her modern kitchen with a thud.
“Did you see what I saw?” King Finnbheara gasped.
Adam was stunned. “She was nude. He was panting. She was—oh shit!”
The King nodded emphatically as they both gestured. “She stays.”
It was one of the golden rules. Some things could never be interrupted.
“You really are from the future, aren’t you?” Hawk whispered hoarsely, when Adrienne reappeared scant moments later, a few feet away from him on the bed. While Adrienne had been drinking in his study, Lydia had told him of the disappearance in the garden. The Hawk had tried to convince himself that Lydia was mistaken, but his guards had confirmed that they’d watched his wife disappear and reappear several times in quick succession.
So, she could still return to her own time, even without the chess piece. The black queen is not what she seems. The seer had spoken true.
Adrienne nodded, still dazed by her abrupt transfer through time. “And I can’t control it! I don’t know when it’s going to happen again!” Her fingers flexed convulsively on the woolen coverlet as if a tight grip might prevent her from be
ing taken again.
“By the saints,” he breathed slowly. “The future. Another time. A time which hasn’t happened yet.”
They stared at each other, dumbstruck, for a prolonged moment. His raven eyes were deep with shadows, the beautiful golden flecks extinguished completely.
Suddenly Adrienne realized all too clearly that she never wanted to go back to the twentieth century. She didn’t want to be without him for the rest of her life! Desperation curled cold fingers around her heart.
It was already too late. How she loved him! The abruptness with which she had been reminded that she had no control over how much longer she could stay; the knowledge that she might be shuttled back, never to return; the fact that she had no idea how, or if, she could come again by herself terrified her.
To be consigned, no, condemned, back to that cold and empty twentieth-century world, knowing that the man she would love for eternity had died almost five hundred years before she’d even been born, oh dear God, anything but that.
Awestruck by her realizations, she gazed at him, her lips parted, openly vulnerable.
Hawk sensed the change in her; some kind of wordless admission had just occurred in that part of Adrienne he’d been trying to reach for so long. She was gazing at him with the same unfettered expression he’d seen that night on the cliffs of Dalkeith when she’d wished on a star.
It was all Hawk needed to see. He was on her in an instant. His awareness that she could be ripped from him at any moment made time infinitely precious. The present was all they had, and there were no guarantees for tomorrow.
He claimed her body, raining down upon her a storm of unleashed passion. He kissed and tasted, desperate with fear that any instant her lips might be torn from his. Adrienne kissed him back with complete abandon. Heat flared between them as it should have, as it would have from the very beginning had she permitted herself to dare to believe such passion, such love was possible.
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