“It’s no’ her bloody dust that worries me.” As soon as the words left his mouth, Blu’s eyes widened with surprise, wide mouth curling down in a set frown. “I mean nothing worries me. Life’s too bloody short to spend any of it fretting over a lady. There’s too many fine ones to choose from.”
Lach shot Kieran a knowing smirk. “I say we make this interesting. Why dinna we challenge him a thousand pounds that she has him mated and bonded within three months, kissing her cute little ass like a lovesick pup?”
Kieran smiled. “Sounds good to me.” He winked at Blu. “Nothing as satisfying as easy money.”
Blu looked ready to combust with frustration, his high cheekbones going dark with color. “You’re on, and when I’m still fucking away to my merry pleasure, whoever I damn well please, mind you, I’m gonna make you two little ass-kissers pay up with a big ol’ shit-eating grin on my pretty face.”
Lach damn near strangled on a bark of laughter. “Hell, only Blu would call himself pretty.”
Kieran nodded. “Always was the arrogant one.”
“Can we get back to the topic here?” Blu drawled. “The important one? I thought we were listening to Kieran whine about how he doesna have the heart to bite his little bitch.”
“Blu,” Kieran grunted, his laughter instantly forgotten, “dinna fucking push me right now.”
“But you know what they say,” Lach laughed, using his own towel to dry his hair. “You’ve never really been ridden until you’ve been bitten.”
Kieran choked and Blu whacked him on the back, chuckling as he groaned, “Oh man, that is so bad. I love it.”
Lach grinned from ear to ear, tossing the towel over onto his bag. “I thought someone with your warped sense of humor would appreciate it.”
“Aye, I do.”
Kieran shook off Blu’s pounding hand, finally turning his attention to the purpose of his visit. Looking at Lach, he said, “What do you know?”
Lach flashed him a jackass expression. “Quite a lot, actually.”
“I mean about Té,” he gritted through his teeth, wondering how he’d managed to keep from killing his smart-ass cousins years ago. Problem was—he loved them as much as they drove him mad, if not more.
The corners of Lach’s green eyes creased, gaze piercing. “Yeah, I knew that’s what you meant.”
Kieran regarded him with keen frustration, grinding his jaw. “But you’re no’ going to tell me, are you?”
“Well, hell, where would be the fun in that?” Blu snickered at his side.
“Damn it, this isna funny, you ass!”
“No’ from where you stand, I know—but it’s pretty entertaining from the sidelines.”
“Saephus, I canna deal with you two right now.”
Blu placed one hand on his shoulder, giving him a hard shove. “Damn it, man, if there’s something you want to know, why dinna you just use your power to get it?”
Hell, here it was again, the same damn argument that he was getting bloody tired of defending—and to be honest, no longer even wanted to try. But he wouldn’t back down against Blu. Not on this. “I dinna need this shit right now, Blu.”
Lach snorted. “Nae, what you need is to get your bloody head out o’ your ass, before you do something stupid and lose the lass for good.”
“You know, of all people, I expected you to understand.”
“It’s because I do understand that I’m tellin’ ya to give in gracefully, cousin,” Lach explained in an infinitely sensible tone that made Kieran want to smack him. “There’ll be nothin’ to gain from fightin’ a battle you canna win. And if you were honest with yourself, you’d admit that you dinna really want to.”
“It’s dangerous enough for Magicks to fuck around with gnach, but are you forgetting that until recently it was bloody forbidden for a Lupine to take a mortal?” Kieran demanded.
Lach nodded his auburn head, mouth pressed into a thin line. “It was a stupid law, Kieran, which is why the Council abolished it.”
“Was it? As a power, there are rules, cousin, as you well know—though Blu more often than no’ chooses to ignore them. But the rules protect the mortals, as well as those of our own kind. If we were allowed to act at our will, who knows what sort of anarchy we could create?”
Blu’s mouth compressed with irritation. “Yeah, and some rules are made to be broken.”
“Och. Just because you choose to violate every blasted code of honor we have—”
“Oh—so now I’m the black sheep. Is that it?”
“Is that no’ what you want?” Kieran snarled, the tips of his fingers beginning to tingle as his irritation began to get the better of him. His claws itched to slip the flesh that bound them, and a cold trickle of fear snaked down his spine at what he might do if provoked far enough.
And wasn’t that right there the main foundation for his steadfast belief in upholding their laws?
The sad truth of the matter was that he needed them—needed those damn restrictions to help keep the primitive side of his soul in check.
Ignoring the danger he was courting, Blu closed in on him, muscles bulging as his own temper flared with all the power of an irritated Warlock. “What I want is to stop seeing you so bloody afraid of what you are! Why do you think the miserable old bastards cursed your beast in the first place, cousin? They went right for the jugular with their bare teeth. You think they’ve no’ seen—no’ known—how this would all play out? Yeah, they may make the bloody rules, but they’ve no compunction about bending them to suit their own arrogant purposes.”
“That’s your own father you’re talking about, Blu,” Kieran muttered, knowing he sounded like Lach.
“Aye—and he’s as warped as the rest.”
Lach’s mouth twisted with grim humor. “And I’m thinking that you’re starting to get the itch your own turn is coming.”
Blu’s smile was suddenly smooth and deadly. “I’d like to see them try.”
Kieran looked back to Lach, eyes narrowed, irritated at the distraction. “I need to know what she’s running from.”
“Aye, but you’re no’ going to find out standing here and arguing with us, now are you?”
“What the hell else should I be doing?”
Lach sent him a pained look, as if the answer should be obvious. “I’m on my way to join Evan for a meeting with the contractors, so the lass is gonna be at the house all alone for the morning. If you canna come up with an idea of how to keep her busy, I guess I’ll have to rely on ol’ Blu here.”
“Hell, I’m game,” Blu announced with a feral smile of pure, carnal intent.
One second Kieran was standing in the middle of the room, and in the next, he had his fist twisted in the sweat-soaked front of Blu’s white T-shirt, the owner still inside, his big feet dangling a foot from the floor as Kieran slammed him into the studio wall. “Dinna even think about it,” he snarled, knowing his eyes were glowing with the silver fury of his beast.
But Blu only smiled down at him like a loon, snickering beneath his breath. “Och, okay…okay. I was only teasin’ ya, man. Damn, but you’re sensitive over the lass.”
Kieran released his grip, his laughing cousin dropping to the floor with a loud thud. He stared at the smiling ass, wondering if he’d ever be able to laugh like that again. Shit, he just wanted to be free. Wanted to be able to do just what he wanted, which was finding Té Hayes and showing her in raunchy, explicit detail everything he’d wanted to do to her since first setting eyes on her.
Was that really only yesterday? Hell, it felt like a lifetime ago. Felt as if he’d been living the aching nightmare of resisting her for years and years, instead of a measly goddamn day.
Sensitive over her? Fuck, his smiling cousin had no idea.
Without another word he turned and left, leaving Blu snickering behind him, and knowing exactly where he was headed. He could no more fight it than he could control the air that he breathed or the thundering beat of his heart.
He had to
see her, to be near her, even if it was a bloody torture.
* * * * *
Kieran told himself it wasn’t going to work the entire way to Lach and Evan’s. It was an annoying litany that played repeatedly over the nonstop thread of erotic images wreaking havoc on his sanity as the wind howled around his head, the cool morning air doing little to squelch the fire in his veins. Images of him and Té in his bed, their bodies hot and slick as he pistoned his hips between her widespread thighs with a violent desperation, spearing the luscious clench of her cunt with his big, burning cock.
He’d hoped he would be able to touch her the way he had last night, to get his fill that way, by feasting on her pleasure and ignoring his own—but it wasn’t going to work. It’d been a desperate, pathetic pipe dream—an anxious grasp at an illusion—one brought on by the gut-clawing need he felt for this woman and his body’s need to get his hands on her by whatever means necessary.
He had to touch her—that dewy, sensuous skin, like the delicate satin petals of a pansy. That silky, luxurious mane of red and gold. That impossibly seductive fuck-me mouth and the little mole positioned just beneath her eye. He wanted to run his tongue over that spot with an intensity of longing that he would have never believed himself capable of. Wanted to stroke it in a blatant act of ownership and then lick his way from her temples down to her delicate little pink toes. Needed to investigate each lush, incredible inch of her soft, intoxicating body. Needed the feel and scent of its heat. The taste of its seductive flavor.
There was every likelihood that he’d go mad if he didn’t get it, all of it, beneath his hungry hands and mouth and cock at the soonest possible moment. As galling as it was for a man of his reputation to admit, he was starving for her—this fiery little American gnach—to the point that he bloody ached with it in his bones, the pain far outreaching the tangible limits of his flesh, to settle heavily into his soul like a burdensome weight of guilt.
Ah…and wasn’t that million-dollar word his very problem? The painful, infuriating crux of the situation? Where it all came back to?
The truth of the matter was that he felt guilty as hell. Not for wanting her, but for the undeniable knowledge of the fact that he knew there was no way in hell he’d ever let her go, whether she wanted him to or not. Not in a thousand bloody lifetimes.
One way or another, he was going to be sinking his teeth into Té Hayes.
He only hoped he didn’t scare her to death when he did.
Chapter Eight
Té opened her eyes to the bright flash of the late morning sun glaring through the thin white curtains over the guest room window, and knew she’d slept late. The next thing she knew was that she was definitely not in bed alone. Looking over her shoulder, she gasped at the sight of the beautiful Warlock snuggled up against her back, one heavy, wonderfully tanned arm thrown over her waist, securing her to the bed. “What are you doing here?” she screeched.
The sexy rumble coming from the other pillow sounded suspiciously like, “Enjoying myself.”
She swallowed twice before muttering, “Not with me, you’re not.”
He lifted his head from the pillow and gave her a heavy-lidded, smoldering stare that nearly made her toes curl. The dark stubble covering his strong jaw looked deliciously tempting, and her mouth went dry at the thought of how that stubble would feel scraping gently across the inner faces of her thighs. “Too much temptation?” he taunted with a sexy smirk.
She snorted, trying ineffectually to move out of his hold. “God, you’re arrogant.”
He laughed and rolled onto his back, allowing her to move, which she immediately did, scrambling to the edge of the immense mattress, eyeing him as if he were a deadly viper that had found its way into her bed. One arm lifted to support his head in the open palm of his hand, the other scratching lazily through the silky, black pelt of hair extending between his small, dark nipples, arrowing down into a fine line that made its way into the low-slung waist of his indecently bulging jeans. Her mouth watered and her eyes went wide, wondering just how many magnificent inches a man would have to have to make that kind of beautiful package.
“It’s no’ arrogant, love, when you can back it up.”
God, did he have that right. Jerking her eyes away from his magnificent crotch, she drank in the impeccable sight of Kieran McKendrick without his shirt on, marveling at his ripped, lean physique, the long, corded muscles and bulging biceps. She even loved the silky tuft of jet black hair beneath his raised arm and the numerous small scars covering his forearms, most likely from battle. She had the strangest longing to soothe them with her lips, healing those past hurts with her kisses.
It took a moment to remember she was irritated with the gorgeous jerk. “What is it with you McKendricks? Do you all run so hot and cold?”
Kieran rolled onto his side, propping himself up on his elbow, his long black hair flowing over his lower shoulder. “Aye,” he rumbled, reaching out his hand to play with a lock of hair that had wrapped around the base of her neck, his rough-tipped fingers playing over the rapid pulse of her heart in the hollow of her throat. “Aye, you’ve got me all stirred up, I’ll give you that. Do you have any idea how beautiful you are in the morning, all soft and warm…and wet?”
Té shook her head as if to clear it, short strands of her sleep-tousled hair tumbling wildly about her face. She tried to keep her pulse from jumping, but knew he’d felt the revealing leap as soon as that slow, sexy grin once again shaped the corners of his sensual mouth. “Why are you here?”
His thumb lifted to test the texture of her bottom lip in a slow, sexual exploration. “I’ve got a bad feeling, love.”
She wanted to tell him she wasn’t his damn love and he had no right calling her such a ridiculous thing, especially after leaving her high and dry last night, but the sharp words wouldn’t form, no matter how hard she tried to say them. “About what?”
He watched as the sunlight spilled across her pretty face, dazzling off the tiny silver hoops in her ears and the one pierced through her arched brow. He wanted her so damn bad, it was like a sickness in his soul, something that could only be cured by having her close, having her beneath him, around him. “Whatever it is you’re no’ telling me. We didna discuss it last night, but I’ve no’ forgotten.”
A bitter laugh burst past her lips before she could choke it back. “Really? And what makes you think there’s something I should be telling you, McKendrick? Are you psychic?”
“Nae.”
“And are you my boyfriend—my husband—my significant other?”
His smile flashed, so wickedly beautiful it made her melt between her legs, his eyes warming to a deep, burning black. “No’ yet—but you’ve got to give these things time, darlin’.”
“Why is talking to you always like banging my head against a wall?”
“I’m getting to ya, aren’t I?”
She snorted under her breath. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
He couldn’t stop smiling, feeling the warmth of having her near flood through his system. It was intoxicating, after so many days…weeks…months of nothing but anger and desolation. Loneliness. But now he had Té, and it was like she’d opened a door into a dark, dank, miserable chamber and flooded it with the brilliant, awe-inspiring warmth of the sun.
And no way in hell was he going to be able to let her go. Hell, he wasn’t even going to consider it anymore. No, his only concern now was how to do it—how to claim her without wrecking something so vulnerable and new.
Her nipples shone like dusky peaks beneath her thin nightshirt, the soft mounds of her breasts lifting with each breath, and he watched from beneath heavy lids as his long, dark fingers reached out for her. At first he barely stroked one puffy, beautiful peak with the back of his knuckles, loving the breathless gasp that tore from her throat, and the tiny nub hardened into a tight little pearl. He scooted closer, helpless to resist her pull, and nudged the aching ridge of his cock into her hip, wanting nothing more than to ri
p the clothes from their bodies, pull her over his throbbing dick, and force her gorgeous little cunt down on him until she’d taken every aching inch, her tight little body convulsing with pleasure, sleek inner muscles milking him to a blinding, shouting completion.
“I know I’m getting to you,” he rasped in a dark drawl, cupping her breast, rubbing his thumb back and forth across that perfect pink tip, “because you’re getting to me, too, beautiful.”
“And you’re the type of guy who lets lots of women get to him,” she stated breathlessly, her eyes nearly rolling back in her head at the feel of his magnificent hands on her body. She looked down to see him cup her breast through the thin fabric of her threadbare tank top, his skin dark, hands decorated with soft, black hairs, faint scars, and heavy veins. He was so ruggedly masculine, so outrageously sexy, it hurt just to look at him. “Am I supposed to be flattered?”
“I don’t know,” he said on a harsh breath. “But I’ve been a long time without a woman, Té. It’s true I’ve had my share, but I’ve no’ wanted one—I mean I couldna find one who I—”
She shook her head. “A man like you holds out for no woman. No, you’ve been without because of your little curse, Kieran. It has nothing to do with me.”
His eyes widened with shocked, stunned surprise.
“What?” she asked, her lips twisting with wry humor. “You thought my own sister wouldn’t tell me? I even know what happened with that MacIntyre woman.”
That guarded look was back in his eyes, and she couldn’t help but wonder at what it concealed. He rolled to his back once more, eyeing her with dark suspicion. “Seeing as how it has fuck all to do with her, I didna think she’d be the one doing the telling.”
Her head tilted to the side, expression serious as she studied him. “So then, you were planning on telling me yourself?”
He blew out a tense breath and his head fell back against her pillow, one arm lifting to cover his eyes, armpit dark with another silky tuft of ebony hair. “Aye, I would’ve told you, but no’ so soon,” he admitted with complete candor.
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