“Do not challenge me, girl. You may find yourself in waters over your head.”
“No, Christian, ’tis you, I think, who’s afraid. Afraid of settin’ yerself free to love another. Afraid of followin’ the wants of yer heart, yer body, for fear of discoverin’ that ye can love someone else—someone who’s not yer dear Emily. And that scares ye, doesn’t it?”
His face hardened.
“Doesn't it?”
“By God—”
“The good Lord didn’t put us on this earth to suffer. Maybe ye think it’ll atone for whatever happened to yer wife, but torturin’ yerself isn’t going to bring her back.”
He looked away.
“What happened to her, Christian? What happened, that smiling comes hard to ye, and ye can’t sleep without nightmares that are so terrible that they frighten even those of us who’re on the outside lookin’ in?”
“Isn’t it obvious? She died. Because of me.”
Deirdre said nothing, and waited for him to continue.
He took a deep, steadying breath, and looked up at the deckhead, his eyes distant. “It was five years ago. I had been away at sea. I came home, and was awakened in the night by an empty bed, and voices downstairs. Hers . . . and a man’s.” He swallowed, hard. “I got up to investigate, of course, and found that she’d taken a lover in my absence. Because of my absence. I chased the fellow . . . he threw a lantern, and in moments, the house was in flames. He escaped. Emily did not. I was unable to save her, and she—she died in the fire.”
From outside, came the hum of wind in the rigging, the endless creaks and moans of a wooden ship at sea.
The clang of the ship’s bell, the sound of the watch being changed.
“I’m sorry, Christian,” Deirdre said quietly. “And I’m sorrier, still, that ye blame yerself for what happened. That’s a heavy burden to bear, but don’t ye think five years is a long enough time to be pullin’ it?”
He turned his face away, blinking. “You should go, Deirdre.”
His hand gripped hers, belying his words.
“Nay, Christian. I cannot, and I will not. Ye need me.”
“I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone.”
“Well, I need you.” She took both his hands in her own. “I need that fair-haired lieutenant who came to Connemara, a man who laughed and smiled and took the time to calm a frightened child. Where is that man now, Christian?”
“He is long gone,” he said harshly, his face still averted.
“Nay, I see him still. I see him in the captain who tries so hard to appear cold and distant, yet who croons to and cuddles a little dog when he thinks no one is lookin’. I see him in the man who cannot stand to see anything helpless and hurt. I see him in the officer who follows Royal Navy customs and rules to the letter, but who hasn’t the heart to have an offender whipped. Oh, no. That man’s still in there.” She laid her palm across his heart. “Right here. He just needs someone to show him out o’ the prison he’s locked himself in.”
“Why should you care? After what I’ve done to you?”
“Christian . . . ye didn’t want to do what ye did to me brother those thirteen years ago. I didn’t know it then, but after watchin’ ye, and gettin’ to know ye these past weeks, I know it now. Ye’re a product of the Navy. Ye live by its rules, its traditions, its principles. If I blame anyone for taking me brother, ’tis them, not you.” She reached out and touched his jaw, his cheek. “I forgive ye, Christian.”
He shut his eyes, unable to speak.
She leaned down and, ever so gently, placed her lips against his brow. He trembled violently. The cross slipped free of her shirt and lay heavily upon his chest. She felt him blink his eyes, the tips of his lashes grazing the underside of her throat, and gently kissed the faded bruise at his temple. Then she drew back, cupped his face in her hands, and looked deeply into his eyes, pretending not to notice the tell-tale glassiness of unshed tears, the rising emotion he was desperate to contain.
“For an Englishman, ye’re very handsome,” she said. “’Specially when ye smile. Ye just need someone to make ye do it more often.”
He took a deep, measured breath.
“And ye need someone to bring ye laughter and joy, someone to be making a big fuss over ye and tellin’ ye how special ye are.”
He trembled with the supreme amount of will it took to control his emotion.
“And ye need someone to . . . to love ye.” She gathered her thick, curly fall of hair, draped it over one shoulder, and pulling back the covers once more, climbed into the narrow bed beside him.
Her arm went around his chest, holding him close to her own body, and answering heat began to beat in his blood even as the dimly lit cabin went blurry with unshed tears.
Don’t do this to me, he thought desperately, as she drew him close, her tiny hand warm against his ribs, gently stroking him with overwhelming tenderness. Don’t shatter these defenses . . . they're all I have.
The back of his throat began to ache, and he fought to control himself. He did not trust himself to touch her in kind, to respond to her, to even push her away. He did not trust himself to move. He did not trust himself to—
“I love ye, Christian,” she said.
He shuddered and shut his eyes, hoping that in the gloom, she would not see the wetness that was spreading down his cheek.
“And ye don’t have to suffer this alone.”
He began to shake, and a single, desperate sob caught in his throat.
“I’m here for ye, Christian. For as long as ye want me to be.”
He couldn’t move. His heart’s final defenses were slowly crumbling.
Tumbling.
Crashing to the feet of this young woman.
She had saved his life, when she’d had every reason to hate him enough to see him dead. She had dug a musket ball out of his shoulder—not with the steel probe, not with he harshness of a cold piece of metal, but with the loving gentleness of her bare fingers.
She had said she loved him.
“Nobody should live in the kind of hell ye put yerself in every night, Christian. It’s time to let it all go. Time to forgive yourself. To live the life that God set before ye.”
He took a deep, shuddering breath.
“Hug me, Christian.”
He needed no encouragement. He turned toward her, and she was suddenly crushed against him with a desperation that nearly broke her ribs. She felt his big body begin to quake with deep, awful sobs that shook him to the core.
“It’s all right, Christian,” she whispered, holding him close. “It’s all right . . .”
He clung to her, and her own arm went around his shoulders, holding him close.
“Go ahead and let it out,” she murmured, hugging him, rocking him, holding him, loving him. “No wound’s ever healed till the poison comes out. Yers has been festerin’ for five long years. There’s no shame in lettin’ it go.”
“She haunts my dreams every night. I see her face in the flames . . . I hear her screams as she’s dying . . . dear God, I smell her b-burning.” Harsh sobs racked him, and she felt his pain as her own, felt her own tears running hotly down her cheeks and splashing upon his proud shoulder.
“She’s dead, Christian, and nothin’ ye say or do can bring her back,” she said gently, feeling dwarfed by his size and strength as she held him close and her own tears mixed with his. “Ye’ve given five years to torturin’ yerself about it. Do ye want to sacrifice the rest of yer life to sufferin’ as well? Ye’re healthy and whole. If the good Lord didn’t want ye to live, he’d have taken ye, too. Such decisions aren’t ours to question, merely to accept.”
Her hands, gently and soothing, roved down his back. Christian clung to her, ashamed that she should see him thus: he, a proud and decorated sea warrior, veteran of countless battles, laid low and sobbing in the arms of a woman.
She’s dead, Christian.
The words pierced him.
Dead. Powerless. Unable to give him nightmares unles
s he allowed it. Unable to torment him unless he permitted it. Unable to harm him, hurt him, haunt him. For five long years he had allowed it, yes, perhaps even wanted it, as atonement for his failure to get her out of the burning house, as punishment for leaving her for so long while he was away at sea. The nightmares, the guilt, the grief—Emily had not done that to him; he had done it to himself.
In the quiet darkness, lit only by the soft glow of the lantern, he felt something open in his soul, like huge black clouds filing out after a heavy storm, and the pain and grief that had been his sole companions for so long began to file out with it. He saw Emily’s face, lingering briefly; then she began to fade, until there was nothing left but a quiet exhaustion and a tremulous, fragile hope.
Through the stern windows, dawn’s pink light began to glow against the sea.
Christian cupped the wet cheeks of the woman who held him so tightly. “Deirdre,” he breathed, and on a broken, victorious sob, claimed her lips with his own.
Chapter 20
Deirdre melted against him, feeling the hard strength of his arm behind her back, sighing as his lips drove against hers and his tongue slipped out to gently coax her lips apart. She wiggled closer to him. She felt the gentle pressure of his tongue against her teeth, and opened her mouth to him, touching her own tongue to his, hesitantly at first, then growing bolder as her confidence grew. Her heart began to pound. Her clothes began to feel too warm, too tight, too constricting. The strange heat between her thighs began to thread its way up her belly. Breathe, she thought, somewhat dizzily. She sucked in a great lungful of air through her nose. She had it now. She was breathing, all right, and breathing hard.
So was he.
He dragged his mouth away from hers, and when she looked up into his face, she saw that his eyes were dark, heavy-lidded and intense—and that he was smiling. Smiling. For her, and at her, in relief, in triumph . . . in wonder.
“Deirdre,” he said simply, and touched her cheek.
He was looking at her as though he had just discovered something beautiful and revered. His gaze roved over every detail of her face, and she blushed, feeling suddenly shy. He reached out and cupped her jaw against his palm, his thumb gently rubbing her cheek as he studied her with an intensity that brought a swirl of heat to her insides.
“Thank you,” he murmured. “Thank you . . . for not leaving me, even when I asked it.”
His hand slid back, through her hair, cradling the back of her head and pulling her close. She closed her eyes as his lips, so hard, so warm, found her own once more. She moaned deep in her throat and pressed against him, feeling his other hand come up to gently touch the rise of her breast, and then, the gold chain that hung around her neck, following it down until he came to the cross.
Slowly he pulled away, his head bent and his pale hair falling over his brow as he gazed down at the talisman in his hand.
“It never leaves me,” Deirdre said, feeling a need to explain.
“I know.”
“’Tis part of me . . . part o’ me heritage . . . but if it disturbs ye for me to be wearin’ it in light of what’s about to happen between us, well . . . I suppose I can take it off.”
“Do you wish, uh, something to happen between us?” he asked, with a little smile.
“I don’t think I’d be lyin’ here in a narrow bed with a man as naked as the day he was born, if I didn’t.”
He looked up then, smiled, and gently let the cross fall back against her shirt. Then he leaned close. His lips touched her brow, and his breath grew warm against her temple. “Leave it on, then,” he murmured. “It is as much a part of you as . . . as that bottle of Irish seawater, or the bread that Tildy ate.”
“Aye, Christian,” she said soberly. “’Tis more than a part o’ me. ’Tis a part of Ireland.”
He gathered her close, clasping her tightly to his chest. She shut her eyes again, her chin just touching his bandaged shoulder, every nerve in her body jumping, every inch of her skin tingling. Neither spoke. The silence stretched on, until it became awkward for both of them; he, knowing what he wanted but afraid of failing himself and her; she, knowing what she wanted but innocent, unsure, and afraid to push him too far, too fast. The cabin began to glow pink in the light of the strengthening dawn, and tiny orange diamonds began to glint off the waves beyond the stern windows as the sun slowly heaved itself above the horizon. But neither noticed. They were aware only of each other: he, of her soft, soapy scent, a strand of hair that was tangled in his eyelashes, the swell of her breasts pushing against his bare chest; she, of the hard muscles of his shoulder, the little scar on the side of his neck only an inch from her nose, the scent of his skin and the thump of his heartbeat against her own.
“I”—he took a deep breath—“I do not know if I . . . if I can do this, Deirdre.”
She pulled back slightly and looked into his eyes. Gently, she said, “If ye can’t, Christian . . . only the two of us will ever know.”
He tightened his mouth and stared at the checked flooring. Long moments went by, and she sensed the inner war he was waging; for him, the courage he had to muster for this most manly of acts, this most supreme test of his masculinity, must be far more than that of sending a ship into battle.
And then he raised his head and looked at her, his voice commanding and direct.
“Go lock the door, Deirdre.”
Her heart began to race. She slid from the bed and did as he bade. It took her a moment to accomplish the task, so badly was her hand shaking. Then, taking a deep breath, she turned and slowly faced him, suddenly aware of the sensuous feel of her hair falling in thick, riotous disarray around her shoulders and back and breasts.
He smiled, looking unbearably handsome in the warm, pink and orange light.
“Come here, Deirdre.”
Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself and moved back across the cabin to where he lay, her gaze never leaving his. Every sensation was heightened, acute: the scent of the sea outside, the taste of nervous anticipation in her mouth; the fear and eagerness of the unknown; the chill of the air, the hard deck beneath her shoes, the thunderous echo of her heartbeat in her ears.
He raised his hand, stopping her several feet away from the bed.
“Deirdre—” His voice was hoarse, shaky, a direct contrast to the boldness of his eye. “I think this is the last chance I shall have to invite you to leave.”
She hugged herself tighter, knowing that despite his injured shoulder, his fears, and his tenuous, slipping grasp on his standards of behavior as an officer and a gentleman, he did not want her to leave.
She walked straight up to him and into his arms. “I don’t want to leave, Christian. Not now . . . not ever.”
“Ah, Deirdre,” he murmured, pulling her down with him. “Against every principle I hold dear, against every rule I enforce, against every shred of my conscience, my morals, my better judgment . . . you have broken me.”
She cradled his face in her hands, shamelessly kissing his lightly-stubbled cheek, his jaw, the corners of his mouth.
“You’re shivering,” he said.
“I haven’t done this before.”
“Slide under the covers with me.”
She did so, wrapping her arms around his neck as he kissed her once more, his mouth moving urgently against her own. Beneath her shirt, his hands—big and warm, the palms rough with callous—cradled her breasts, teased the nipples, burned a path over her skin. She kicked off her shoes, heard them thump on the deck flooring, and broke the kiss long enough for him to coax her shirt over her head, the trousers following it on its way to the floor. Cold air swept against her skin; his palm roved over her bottom, down her thighs, and then he pulled her protectively close and back under the blankets with him.
The heat of his powerful body was like a furnace. She molded herself to it, delighting in the roughness of his chest against her naked breasts, the rocky muscles of his arm pulling her close. There, that stab of sensation deep in th
e pit of her belly again; there, a flood of dampness between her legs. Her toes curled with pleasure, and she quivered in eagerness as he drew the blanket up to their chins, encasing them in warmth and making her feel delightfully wicked and wanton in the knowledge that they were both shamelessly naked beneath.
She felt his breath, warm against her nose and cheeks and brow. She moved restlessly as sensation built within her and her nipples tingled with a gnawing ache. Anticipation rocked her body, and suddenly she realized that now it was she who was shaking, he whose hands were confident and masterful.
“Yer shoulder,” she said weakly, pushing back a bit so that they lay side-by-side, facing each other.
“Bugger my shoulder.” Beneath the blanket, his palm trailed down her arm and over the concave dip of her hip. “I know what it is capable of.”
Face-to-face on the pillow, they gazed into each other’s eyes, touching each other beneath the covers, learning the shape and feel of each other’s bodies. Never had Deirdre experienced the sensation of a male body against hers, and the feeling left her deliciously weak. She was aware of his chest hair against her breasts; the heaviness of one hard, muscled leg thrown possessively over her thigh; the scrape of his foot as it moved up and down her calf. . .
And the feel of his manhood—strong, rigid, hot, and pulsing with life—against her soft belly.
She reached down beneath the covers and touched it, feeling it throb with response; but he gently pulled her hand away, guiding it upward and murmuring that she must not rush things. Her fingers splayed against his chest, tangling in the mat of crisp hair as his hand moved over her skin. Her breathing grew harsh, raspy, erratic with each new spot he touched, each previously unexplored inch of flesh.
Gently he pushed her onto her back and, supporting his weight on his good side, he pushed the blanket down her belly, leaving it bunched above her knees. She shut her eyes, trembling as he rained gentle kisses over her face, her lips, her eyelids.
“Relax,” he murmured, remembering that she was an innocent virgin. “You have taught me how to hug, how to smile, encouraged me to live again. Now let me show you what it feels like to be cherished, adored, worshipped . . . loved.”
Master Of My Dreams Page 21