by Dorien Kelly
A little line appeared between Kylie’s brows. She tilted her head. “Money? Are you offering to pay me for a tumble in the hay... or wherever?” she added as she glanced into the shadowed corners.
“Jesus, no!”
She crossed her arms under her full breasts. Riveted by the sight, for an instant he forgot what he was trying to tell her.
“So I’m not worth a coin or two, then?”
He was immeasurably thankful for her teasing smile. “Don’t trip me up. I’m doing a fine enough job of that all on my own.”
He moved closer, so that the light played on him now, too. “I meant what I said in the car. I’ve been thinking ahead. I’ve got some money that Vi says our grandmum left to me. I consider it a loan from Vi, but one I’ll be taking to pay for what all I ordered from the tool supply catalog yesterday. A table saw, a lathe, a router with some really grand woodworking bits...”
He trailed off as Kylie’s eyes began to glaze over.
“Well,” he finished, “I just want you to know that—”
“I know all I need to,” she gently cut in. “I wouldn’t have told you I loved you if I didn’t.”
She paused, and he knew what she waited for. What she deserved. But he couldn’t give her those words; he wasn’t even certain he knew how to love. Shamed, he dropped his gaze to the tips of his shoes. He heard the rustle of old silage beneath her feet as she moved closer.
In an act that immediately drew his attention, she took his hand and settled it over the top buttons of her oh-so-bloody-proper blouse. Hurt still lingered in her eyes like a ghost, making pale-blue irises almost silver.
“I’m glad that you’re thinking forward,” she said. “But maybe we should take it one day at a time.”
He nodded. His hand still rested on that fragile spot where her heart beat so very close to the surface. He didn’t want to hurt her, to promise things he didn’t know how to deliver.
“Kylie—”
“Unbutton it.”
He blinked. “What?”
“My blouse, of course,” she said with teasing patience.
He knew what she was doing, bringing them safe to the other side of a rough moment. He didn’t deserve her, but damned if he’d let that stop him.
His fingers shook as he unbuttoned the blouse down to her skirt, then tugged it out and finished the job. She slipped the cuff buttons free and slid the cotton from her shoulders.
The radio began to play a dark and mournful dirge, and he grunted with amusement at the mix of irony and suitability.
“Strip,” she ordered.
“Me?”
Her mouth curved into the true, Kylie-bright smile that was becoming his anchor in life. “I wasn’t talking to Martin.”
“Martin?”
She laughed and pointed to the peacock who’d just strutted in. The bird appeared cross and wet and ready to chase them from what he apparently considered his shelter.
He narrowed his gaze. “Stay where you are, you arrogant wee bastard.”
The peacock looked at him with utter contempt, then with a shake of lax tail feathers, paraded to the grain bin.
“Strip,” Kylie repeated, “then come keep me warm.”
He left his jacket and his shirt on the ground, and pulled her into his arms, feeling hot enough to toast them both to a crisp. He kissed her once, twice, then followed the line of her scrap of a bra with his mouth.
Her fingers drifted though his hair as she cradled his face to her breasts. He wondered whether she thought he might walk away if she didn’t hold him. Michael smiled against her soft skin, which was faintly scented of flowers and goodness.
He told her how beautiful she was, how the taste of her drove him to want more. He gave her all the words of praise he could think of, except for the ones he knew she wanted most. The ones he couldn’t give.
He slipped the skirt from her, and set it on top of his jacket. Kneeling, he let his fingertips voyage up her slender calves, find the sensitive spots behind her knees, then trace the line of her white panties. She braced her hands on his shoulders and slipped off her shoes. He helped her out of her stockings, leaving the panties in place. As he worked his fingers beneath their elastic and cupped her bottom, he watched her face. Her beautiful mouth curved into an oval just wide enough to free a sigh of pleasure.
He brought his mouth to the silken skin of her stomach and kissed her, his hands still worshiping her, flexing and moving in time to an internal rhythm his body demanded be satisfied.
Kylie again settled her palms on his shoulders, her fingers kneading muscles tense with excitement. “I wonder what it would be like to make love in the hay.”
He looked up at her, then around the barn. All the hay that hadn’t left with the cow was one small, unbaled pile to the left of the bench that held Kylie’s sweater. He stood, clasped her hand in his, and brought her there.
Michael bent and tested the meager stack with one hand. “It’s a bit scratchy, and there’s not much here.”
She nudged the hay with her foot. “Maybe it’s enough,” she said with such yearning in her voice that he had to smile.
“We’ll make do, love,” he promised.
What he lacked in practical experience, Michael figured he more than made up for with determination. Embracing her face between his hands, he kissed her. As they kissed, he walked her backward until she was practically knee-deep in the sweet-smelling hay.
“Let me look at you,” he said.
Kylie knew there was no need for false modesty, or shyness, either. She opened the distance between them, moving until she almost leaned against the wood-slatted wall behind her. Reaching back, she unhooked her brassiere, then let it drop into the hay.
Michael’s groan of pleasure wrapped around her, warming her blood, making her shiver.
“Is there more you’d like to see?”
He nodded.
She looped her thumbs into the waistband of her panties, and took those off, too.
Dried, grassy stalks tickled at her calves as she straightened. Perhaps he’d been right about the hay. It wasn’t quite the lovers’ cushion she’d imagined. Maybe if they—
Her thought was interrupted by her lover’s voice. “I’m thinking I might need a closer view.” Then his mouth was on hers, and his hands running possessively over all she’d bared for him.
Kylie’s eyes slipped shut. She moved into a dark realm of taste and touch and scent, a place where sight no longer mattered. The sweet pull of Michael’s mouth at her nipples, the firm brush of his knuckles at the vee of her legs, the hot urgency in his voice as he told her to open to him, to give him her all... that was her reality.
His kisses traveled down her body. She heard the rustling of the hay at her feet as he moved lower. She reached out and wound her fingers into his thick hair, holding his head close, not wanting to lose that magical contact of mouth against skin.
He settled his hands on the insides of her legs, just above her knees. “A little wider, love,” he urged.
Because she could refuse him nothing, Kylie did as he asked. His fingers parted her. Warm, humid places felt the kiss of cool air. She shuddered.
“Beautiful,” he whispered. “So beautiful.”
Then the cool kiss gave way to the hot, wet slide of tongue.
Kylie’s fingers tightened against his scalp. “Michael,” she gasped, half in protest over an embarrassment she didn’t want to feel, half in shock at the fire that shot through her.
“Let me,” he asked.
And so she did.
Fire consumed any last bits of hesitancy. Soon, Kylie was sure her legs would hold her no more. She begged him to stop, please, before they both tumbled. He answered by sliding one finger deep inside her. She flew then, hard and fast, to a release she wouldn’t have dreamt possible. But she didn’t tumble, for Michael was there to hold her.
Kylie’s heart eventually slowed. The sound of someone chatting on the radio drew her out of her own private real
ity. She realized that she sat cradled in Michael’s lap. He rested against the stall’s outer wall, his arms wrapped around her. Twining her arms about his neck, she sat upright and kissed him—with wonderment, with gratitude, but most all, with love.
He smiled. “Liked that, did you?”
She smiled back. “At the risk of sounding a total tart, yes.” She paused and brushed another kiss against his lips. She’d thought herself too tired for more passion, but as the feel of him—the hard pounding of his heart, his clean, male scent—steeped its way through her sated senses, she knew she wasn’t done. Not by a far cry.
Kylie shifted so that she straddled him, kneeling in hay that had become sadly flattened. “But grand as it was, I’m thinking we’re not quite done,” she said, pausing between words for more kisses.
The hay pile was out of the question for any serious lovemaking. She drew herself to her feet, then glanced around their shelter from the world. There was little in the way of creature comforts, though Martin seemed to be pleased enough, busily pecking at whatever ill-tempered peacocks snacked on.
Kylie, on the other hand, wanted a bit more for Michael and herself. Then the beginnings of an idea settled on her.
“Follow me,” she said.
Michael rose, and she led him to the broad bench that sat several steps away. She wasn’t quite certain how to go about what she was envisioning.
“So, love, what is it you’re wanting of me?”
“Oh, I’m working on that,” she answered, her hands going to the fastening at the top of his denims. He didn’t ask or argue. He simply let her be the aggressor. And for that gift of power, so healing to her soul, she loved him all the more.
She had him gloriously undressed in no time at all. He was so hot and alive and wonderful that Kylie knew unless she was part of him, she’d never have enough.
“I was thinking ...” she began, then paused, her courage still a fledgling thing. “I was thinking that I want you sitting on that bench and that I want to take you inside me.”
His chest rose and fell hard beneath her palms. He stepped back and sat. “Come here, then.”
Their lovemaking wasn’t free of awkward moments, but that only brought a sweetness that Kylie knew she would cherish forever. Soon enough, she was just where she wanted to be. Michael holding her, in her, and she holding him, legs and arms wrapped tight, her body his shelter.
This time, her private world held two. They swayed and surged to a primal dance, his large hands settled on her hips, but letting her set the pace. Kylie thought it incredible, the absolute freedom in an intimate moment of dependence. Together they found the center of that world, their cries echoing to the rafters of the little barn. Then, boneless, replete, they held onto each other until the chill of the air became too much.
Michael groaned his protest as she unfolded herself from him, and he left her. He promised delights almost too tempting to refuse, if she’d just come back to him.
She made an apologetic little noise, then staggered, half love-drunk, toward her panties. Somehow, she managed to get back into them. Wrinkling her nose at her stockings—too much work—she moved on to her brassiere.
Having given up on luring her back, Michael stood and began to dress, too. Shirt gripped in one hand, and pants still unbuttoned, he came to her.
“So there’s no persuading you to stay?” he asked while trying to tease her fingers away from her skirt’s zipper.
She wrapped her arms about his waist. “It would be grand if we could be Adam and Eve,” she said, then sighed. “But we both have things to get back to. And Martin isn’t exactly the first creature I’d want in my Garden of Eden.”
Michael’s laugh was drowned by a raucous scream. They both jumped and held tighter to each other.
“I’ll make stew of the bird yet,” he muttered. “Bloody thing’s louder than an alarm.”
A flash of a movement drew Kylie’s attention to the doorway. In that instant, everything changed. She clung to Michael, suddenly thankful for the peacock’s shrill interruption. Peering around the muscled strength of Michael’s arm, she locked eyes with Gerry Flynn.
Cloaked in gray evening twilight, he stood in the entry, battery-powered light in hand. She looked away from the angry hunger that had pulled his face into a drawn mask. She didn’t want to think about how long he’d been standing there.
“Just leave,” she said in a low, trembling voice. “Go on, now.”
Michael chuckled and cupped the back of her head with a broad hand, almost as if he were protecting her. “It’ll take more than that to get the damned bird out.”
Flynn stepped all the way into the barn. At the sound of his footfalls, Michael swung around, taking Kylie with him. She held fast, fear for Michael’s reaction overriding any instinctive modesty.
“Get out, Gerry,” she cried as Michael snarled something far stronger. He didn’t let go of her, though, and turned her back around so that his body shielded her from Flynn’s eyes.
Michael edged closer to his shirt. “Put that on, then get in your car.”
“Not a bloody chance.” She snatched up his shirt and tugged it on. By the time she was adequately covered, Michael had started advancing on Flynn.
“What are you doing here?”
Flynn held his ground. “I saw the light and knowing that Mrs. Flaherty wasn’t here, stopped to have a look-see.”
“And when you saw my car—and Kylie’s. What then, Gerry? And why are you still standing here, unless you’re looking for that lesson on the extent of your official duties I promised you?”
“You’ve no right to be here, yourself,” Flynn shot back, though Kylie noticed a certain thinness about his voice.
“I have all the right I need. I’m setting up business in here.”
Gerry pointed the beam of light at Michael. It shone on the ridges of muscle across his flat abdomen, on the rope-like strength of his arms. Michael’s mouth quirked into a smile. He didn’t appear in the least uncomfortable with his lack of clothing. And he shouldn’t have been. He was a man at the peak of his physical prowess, a fact that set Gerry at obvious disadvantage.
Flynn moved the light around the barn. “Business? You? We’re too peace-loving to be needing your services.”
Michael stiffened. “Kylie, love, go on home now,” he said almost gently. “Flynn and I have matters to settle.”
“I told you I won’t be leaving,” Kylie answered in a voice every bit as calm as Michael’s. Quite an accomplishment, considering the way she trembled. “Unless you come with me.”
He shook his head, but kept his gaze on the officer. “I can’t do that, darlin’.”
Kylie knew he was slathering on the endearments to goad Flynn. It was working, too.
“Unless you can show me proof of Mrs. Flaherty’s permission to be here, you’ll both leave now,” Gerry snapped. “Or I’ll arrest you for trespass.”
Michael laughed. “Fine threat, but hollow. Everyone knows Breege is staying with Kylie, and that trespass charge would have you laughed out of town. Go on your way, now.”
Gerry looked Kylie up and down. “Payment for services rendered, is it? You tend to Breege so you can use the barn to f—”
Michael had his hand about Gerry’s throat so quickly that Kylie couldn’t have cried out if she had wanted to. He forced the Garda backward and slammed him into a wall. Gerry clawed at Michael’s hand. He would have had better luck at digging his way through the rough stone of the wall.
“This is between us,” Michael said. “I keep telling you that, and you keep cocking up. What you said there, Gerry, that was the greatest cock-up of all time, and I think it’s going to have you swallowing some teeth.” He raised his fist.
Kylie jumped onto Michael’s back and wrapped her two hands around his single large one. “No! You’re doing just what he wants. He loses a tooth or two, and you lose your freedom.” The words rushed out in a burst of pure terror. “Let him go. It doesn’t matter what he said.
Don’t let him hurt us like this.”
“Ah, love, but it does matter what he said.” He frowned at Gerry, who was panting and looked pinched and white about the mouth. “It matters very much.”
Michael glanced over his shoulder at her. She still clung to him.
“You won’t be leaving without me?” He sounded almost teasing.
“No,” she said as fiercely as a flea on a lion’s back could manage. “Perhaps an apology will do?”
Michael pondered the matter while Flynn still squirmed within his grip. “You can get down now, love,” he finally said to her.
Kylie unwrapped her legs and stood, her heart beating far too quickly with residual fear and dawning relief.
“On your knees, little man,” he said to Flynn, enforcing the words with a shove that sent Gerry sprawling. “You’ll give Kylie the apology she deserves, and tell her that you’re nowhere near fine enough to stand under the same sun she does. Then you’ll hurry your pasty white arse out of here before I change my mind and knock your teeth out. Understood?”
Gerry did exactly as told, his words strangled, ugly, almost frightening to hear. The message delivered was one of reprisal, and Kylie shuddered with it.
In the silence that followed Gerry’s departure, Kylie unbuttoned Michael’s shirt and slipped back into her own, using the mundane task to calm her nerves. Michael dressed, switched off the radio, then stood staring out the doorway.
After twisting her hair back into some semblance of dignity, she joined him.
“We made an enemy tonight.”
Michael brought her hand to his mouth and brushed a rough kiss on her knuckles. “No, love, you’re just finally seeing him as one.”
Kylie closed her eyes to whatever else in her life she’d missed. It was simply too much.
Chapter Nineteen
A shoulder without a brother is bare.
—Irish Proverb
Michael saw Kylie safe up the road to her home, then went back to the barn to work out the rage he hadn’t been able to spend on Gerry Flynn’s face. While the radio blared one of those mindless chat shows, he mucked out the already clean cow stall, swept the main floor, and would have taken on fixing the sagging window if it weren’t so damned dark.