“We’ll try again as soon as it’s light,” the woman assured him.
Donovan glanced at his watch. “But that will be hours. Can’t he give it one more go?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. O’Shea, but no. I can contact the PSNI to try and find you, shall I?”
“No, that won’t be necessary.” With a frustrated sigh, he rang off, then turned to face Rylie’s anxious stare. “They won’t be able to find us until morning. Too foggy.”
She heaved an equally discouraged groan. “Great.”
“Fuel injectors be damned!” he declared. “I’m running the heater.”
“No, wait!” She reached out and stopped his fingers from turning the key. “Save it for later. Maybe if we get some sleep we won’t feel so cold.”
Her hand on his made him think of the dance they’d shared earlier in the evening and he suddenly felt anything but cold. He pulled his hand away and gazed out the window into the chilly darkness. “Good idea.”
He heard her shifting around in her seat trying to get comfortable.
“Why don’t you crawl in the back and stretch out?” he suggested, still not looking at her. When she started to protest, he added, “Go on, I’m fine here.”
She clambered across the center console and heaved over into the back seat with a grunt. Having her derriere so close nearly undid him. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and clenched his hands into fists, not daring to breathe. When she finally stopped rustling around, he exhaled in relief.
Another long half-hour crawled passed. From the back seat, Rylie’s even breathing told Donovan she was asleep. He blew on his icy fingers and started the engine, shutting it down after another ten minutes, even though the heat had taken longer to come on and the chill was scarcely out of the air. An interminable thirty minutes later, he repeated the ritual. But this time, after eight minutes the car started to sputter. Quickly, he shut off the engine, and then the emergency flashers. No point in running down the battery too. Folding his arms tightly across his chest, he leaned his head back and tried to sleep.
“Donovan?” Rylie’s soft query jolted him awake.
He glanced at the illuminated face of his watch and saw it was nearly three. He’d been asleep over an hour. His nose and cheeks tingled from the cold and his feet felt like two lumps of ice.
“Wh-what is it?” he asked, his words a frosty cloud in front of his mouth.
“I know the car is out of gas,” she said, and he could hear her teeth chattering. “But I thought if we shared body heat . . . ” Her voice faded away, while a very warm notion sprang into his sleep addled mind.
“Are you suggesting that we . . . ” Words jammed in his throat.
“ . . . huddle up to keep warm,” she finished for him. “Yes. You can crawl back here with me.”
God in heaven! He must be still dreaming. She had to know that what she asked would court disaster.
“Or I could crawl up there with you,” she volunteered when he didn’t answer.
He gave his head a rough shake just to be sure he truly was awake. Then he answered, “We both know that’s not a wise idea.”
“I don’t care,” she retorted. Then she made an odd little sound of distress. “Please don’t make me beg. It’s so humiliating.”
Shamefaced, Rylie drew her legs up to her chest and shrank into the far corner of the back seat, shivering. She knew Donovan was right, but if wisdom meant being this cold and miserable, she wanted no part of it. What she wanted was him. Somewhere between Queen’s University and Callahan’s, she had lost sight of the concept that Donovan was her half-brother. Instead, she only saw the man who, last night, gave her a bone-melting kiss. The man who, a few hours ago, left no question about his desire for her and had threatened to break the sleazy professor’s arms. The man who shot her libido into the stratosphere and her rational thoughts beyond reach.
The sound of the car door startled Rylie, and she jerked her head up. The front driver’s door opened and shut, then the back door opened and Donovan slid onto the seat beside her.
“Bloody freezing,” he muttered, blowing on his clenched hands.
“F-f-for s-s-sure,” she agreed through chattering teeth, though just having him close to her suddenly made her feel a lot warmer.
And they were very close. He was a big guy, and the back seat of the car was small. No way could they both sit here and not touch.
He pulled one of her hands between his and rubbed, then repeated with her other hand, pressing hers between his when he was done. Warmth spread from her fingers across her palms, and where their shoulders brushed together, heat sizzled along her nerve endings and banished her rationality into the fog.
He stretched his arms over her head in the tight confines.
“I’m going to take off my jacket and spread it over the both of us,” he explained. “We should be warmer that way.”
Rylie could only nod her agreement.
His movements awkward, Donovan worked one arm out of a sleeve, then the other. With a grunt of satisfaction, he pulled the jacket in front of him. In the next instant, she felt his arm around her, and before she could think, he shifted her onto his lap. Sexual awareness sprang to life all over her, and she had to bite her lower lip to keep from moaning.
Adjusting into the corner she’d just vacated, Donovan tented the jacket over both of them.
“Better now?” he murmured into the top of her hair. Oh, God, he was warm! And solid. And irresistible.
“Ummmm,” was all she could manage.
Rylie folded her arms in front of her and snuggled against his chest, her head completely under the jacket. Her shivering stopped as she lost herself in the intoxicating feel and scent of the most alluring man she’d ever met.
One of the three buttons on his Henley pullover dug into her cheek and she shifted her head slightly to avoid it. Beneath her ear, his heart jumped. His arms encircled her and his hands worked their way under her windbreaker, but rested discreetly atop her sweater.
“Go back to sleep,” he urged in a rough whisper.
Like that was going to happen!
Just like at Callahan’s when she pulled him onto the dance floor, the dark, irrational part of her took over. She snaked one hand behind him and explored the length of his back. When she reached the bottom of the Henley, she slipped her hand under it and felt the smooth knit of his T-shirt, his skin toasty warm just beneath. Donovan inhaled raggedly, and the unmistakable bulge of his arousal nudged at her hip.
“Saints in heaven, Rylie,” he hissed. “You need to stop.”
“Why?” she challenged against his shirtfront. “You’re not my brother.”
He craned his neck to look down at her. “I know that, but do you?”
“I know I don’t want you to be.” She strained to make out his features in the darkness, and could faintly distinguish the squareness of his jaw, the curve of his lips. “You can’t be. It can be anyone else in Ireland, Donovan. Just not you.”
The desire flooding her veins drowned any remaining fragments of reason and she stretched up to plant a kiss on the side of his neck. With a groan of surrender, he dropped his head and claimed her mouth.
His hot tongue drove in hard and fast. Startled by the intensity, Rylie gasped, but quickly recovered, giving herself over to the hunger that had been building since they’d left Ballyneagh this afternoon. Digging her fingers into his forearm, she flattened her chest against his and delved her tongue into the tantalizing recesses inside his mouth.
He groaned again, and his hands shoved under her sweater. His fingers skimmed across the small of her back, then up her spine, their touch creating little explosions of sensation along the way. She ground her hips against the bulge of his erection and nipped at his bottom lip to encourage him to do more. Instead he pulled back, broke the kiss. She couldn’t stop a breathy little moan of protest.
“Oh, God! We can’t be doing this,” he panted, his brogue distinctly more pronounced. “Not now, and surely not
here.”
“Here and now is fine,” she insisted, nuzzling his neck. “I want to, and I know you do, too.”
“No, ’tis not fine.” His big hands settled around her hips and stilled their erotic movements. Then he moved one hand up and lifted her chin with his knuckles. “I want us to have no regrets, Rylie. And until you know for certain, about Dermot I mean, you will.”
She bit her lip to stem further argument, because– dammit!—he was probably right. Again. Taking a deep breath, she moved both hands back in front of her and sighed.
“All right, you win . . . Saint Donovan.”
A sardonic chuckle rumbled in his chest. “I’m far from a saint. But I will admit to a preference for a proper bed.”
“A traditionalist?” she teased. “I should have known. Do I have to crawl back into the front? Or can I stay here if I promise to keep my hands to myself?”
He gave her chin a little chuck, then pressed her head back against his chest. “As long as you keep your hands and lips right where they are, wee little minx, you can stay.”
“Okay,” she sighed again, hoping he didn’t realize that if she could stay snuggled close to him, she would agree to almost anything.
She could feel the tension in his muscles relaxing under her. Her own still felt as tightly strung as the strings on the fiddle at Callahan’s.
“We both need to get some sleep,” he murmured.
“Okay,” she said again, though she didn’t think there was any way she could actually manage to do it.
However, somehow she must have, for the next thing Rylie knew, she awoke to the rumbling of a large engine very near by. She poked her head from under Donovan’s leather jacket and got a close up view of his darkly stub-bled jaw. The even rise and fall of his chest directly under her signaled that he was still asleep. Over his head, the window was beaded with condensation, and a pale grayness showed beyond it.
Morning.
“Donovan,” she whispered as the rumbling engine continued to idle seemingly on top of them. “Somebody’s out there!”
His breath hitched, and one arm tightened around her while the fingers of his other hand shifted down to her bottom. Then he seemed to remember where they were and the corners of his mouth eased upward into a grin. He gave her butt a possessive little pat before he slowly opened his eyes.
“Rescue at last?” he asked still smiling.
A tapping on the driver’s window froze her sassy retort in her throat. She scrambled to sit up and reach the far window, but her arms and legs seemed to hopelessly entangle themselves with Donovan’s.
The tapping continued.
“Anyone there?” a gravelly voice called.
“Yes!” Rylie tried to answer, but a strand of hair flew into her mouth and it came out, “Yuphth!”
“Half a minute!” Donovan choked out around a chuckle.
He easily lifted her and scooted under, plopping her down in the spot he’d just vacated. Wrestling open the door, he slid out, taking his jacket with him and giving Rylie a momentary view of a large yellow truck and an equally large man dressed in yellow rain gear. Frigid air whooshed in before the door shut.
No longer pressed against Donovan’s warm, protective body, Rylie felt bereft as well as cold. And she really needed to go to the bathroom.
The car door re-opened and Donovan offered her his hand. “Wait inside the truck where it’s warm.”
Embarrassed by the speculative expression on the tow-truck driver’s ruddy face, she mumbled thanks and hurried to the idling vehicle. After crawling into the cab, a glance in the rear view mirror confirmed that she looked very much worse for wear. However, as she watched Donovan and the driver conferring in the drizzly gray dawn, she realized she’d left her purse in the car. That seriously limited her ability to do damage control. Pulling off the elastic scrunchy, she smoothed her hair with her fingers as best she could, then put the holder back in place.
The warm air blasting from the truck heater thawed her nearly frozen toes, but she much preferred Donovan as a heat source. Her rational self, which had been completely MIA a few hours ago, resurfaced to remind her that this wasn’t the first time her hormones had led her down a disastrous path.
But Joel had never brought up regrets, and neither had any other guy she’d ever known. Only Donovan . . .
The whine of the winch interrupted her thoughts, and Rylie turned to look out the back window. Her rental car shuddered and, with the insistent tug of the metal cable, finally broke free of the muddy ditch. Glancing at her wristwatch, she turned around as the car thunked against the back of the truck. Their rescue was almost complete. She crossed her legs tightly and prayed her full bladder would hold out until they reached a gas station.
Twenty-five minutes later, they rolled into the Ballyneagh BP station directly across the road from Brigit’s Bakery and the pub. Donovan’s feet scarcely hit the ground before she scrambled out after him and rushed toward the side door marked WC.
“A couple of hours” Paddy Maguire had promised when he looked at the mud-encrusted car. Rylie didn’t question him, nor even ask about estimated costs, so Donovan did. Since returning to Balleyneagh four months ago, he’d garnered a reputation with the locals as a hard arse, and deservedly so. No longer the green boy who’d fled to America, he quickly proved that, unlike his father, he would not let anyone take unfair advantage of him or his.
That is, until Rylie Powell had strolled into the pub three nights ago. One smile from that alluring mouth of hers and all his logic and acute business sense flew right out the window. At the moment, as they climbed the stairs to the apartment over the pub, the sight of her rounded derriere just in front of him was giving Donovan enough wood for a Samhain bonfire. If she threw herself at him again, like she had a few hours ago, he would be utterly and completely lost.
The thought made him fumble with his keys when they reached the door. She gave an enormous yawn, stretching her arms wide, her small, firm breasts jutting out seductively under her sweater and jacket.
God in heaven! Sainthood was extremely over-rated.
Finally getting the door open, he ushered her inside.
“Have a seat,” he said, hitting the knob on the radiator on his way to the kitchen. “I’ll fix us a cuppa.”
“Sounds good,” she replied, plopping her cute little bottom onto the couch and yawning again.
He looked away fast, beating a hasty retreat to the kitchen where he filled the electric teakettle, then rummaged in the cupboard for cups and something resembling breakfast food.
“What about some toast?” he called.
“Great! I’m starving.”
So was he, but not for toast. He heard the sound of the telly as he dropped two slices of bread into the toaster. How would he manage to keep his hands off her for the next two hours? He checked the fridge for marmalade, and then decided that, though a cold shower might be a bit too obvious, dousing his face and hands might do the trick. Hurrying through the sitting room, he noticed she’d removed her jacket and shoes and sat in the corner of the sofa with her feet tucked under her.
“Can you listen for the teakettle?” he asked, not daring to linger.
“Okay,” she murmured in a tone that sounded either drowsy or mesmerized.
Once in the loo, Donovan ditched his jacket, and then washed his face, hands and forearms with cold water. Invigorated, he ran a comb through his hair and brushed his teeth, at the same time checking in his toiletry kit to be sure he had a condom. Just in case . . .
The whistling of the teakettle startled him. Guiltily he shoved the foil wrapper into his pocket.
“Can you get that, Rylie?” he called, hastily rinsing his toothbrush. “Please?”
The whistle continued, while he sloshed a gulp of water around his mouth and spat it into the sink.
“Rylie?”
He strode back into the sitting room and saw why she didn’t answer. Head lolled against the arm of the sofa, she was sound asleep. Shak
ing his head at his own miscreant self, Donovan went into the kitchen, brewed the tea and buttered the toast.
She must have really been exhausted for when he came back a few minutes later, she was still sleeping, her face serene as a child. He turned off the telly, but couldn’t bring himself to wake her. Instead, he lifted her into his arms.
McRory had the right of it, she was as slight as one of the faery folk. He easily carried her the short way into his bedroom, where he deposited her gently on the bed. She stirred a bit, shifted onto her side, but didn’t open her eyes. He pulled the down comforter from across the bed to cover her, then slipped back into the kitchen to have the tea and toast.
When Donovan finished in the kitchen, he went back to the bedroom and found she still hadn’t moved. Perhaps a shower was in the cards after all. Moving stealthily, he removed clean clothes from the bureau, then headed for the loo. He reemerged a half-hour later freshly shaved, showered, and dressed.
Rylie continued to sleep, though she’d kicked the comforter halfway off. Gently, he pulled it back into place, and fought a momentary urge to kiss her awake. Chastising himself, he went back to the kitchen, checked to see if the milk was sour, and poured himself a bowl of Weetabix cereal. He’d nearly finished when a knock on the front door interrupted his reverie.
“Morning, O’Shea.” Inspector Lynch thrust his foot into the narrow space Donovan had opened. “May I come in?”
Considering the man showed every intention of barging inside, Donovan swung the door wider to allow him entrance.
“What brings you here, Inspector?” he asked, carefully keeping his tone neutral.
“Since you didn’t return my calls yesterday, I didn’t expect you would today either,” the burly policeman replied with a lift of his eyebrow. “And I suspect you already know that your sister and the doctor have forbidden me from speaking to your father until I obtain an order from the court.” He crossed to the sofa and sat down without invitation. “Which I shall, to be sure.”
The Wild Sight Page 10