by Laurel McKee
“What was so urgent then?” he said.
At first, she didn’t answer. She slowly peeled off her gloves, folding them in her lap as she studied the office. “Your faro dealer is quite charming, and I like her gown. If that’s the uniform of the Olympian Club, I may have to ask for employment here.”
“You’d be good at it. Everyone would be so distracted by you that they would throw their game. But I think your situation in life is not quite so dire yet that you need to seek employment in a gambling club.”
“It might be, if I am discovered here in this wicked den of vice.”
“Then why risk it?”
“Because I like wicked dens of vice, I suppose. They’re far preferable to the Castle and the Rutland Square assembly rooms.”
“Anything would be preferable to the Castle, I’m sure.”
“Yes. Cold, drafty, dull place.”
“I’m glad I’m not invited there then.” Conlan sat down on the edge of the desk and took off his mask. Anna’s presence, so close in that small, dark space, wreaked havoc with his good sense. “But you did not come here to speak of Dublin Castle, I hope.”
“No.” She leaned back on her elbows. “You know my sister, Mrs. Denton, I think.”
Where was all this going? He was even more baffled by Anna than before. “Of course. Everyone knows of the famous Lady Mount Clare.”
“And her husband, Major Denton, as he was before he resigned his commission to go abroad?”
Conlan braced his fists on the edge of the desk. “I have not had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Denton.”
“You did not even encounter him during the rebellion? His regiment was in County Kildare, near Adair Court, I would think.”
“What are you asking me, Anna?”
She rose slowly to her feet and came toward him. She set her hands to either side of him on the desk, leaning so close that he could feel the brush of her soft hair on his throat. He held himself rigid, not grabbing her and dragging her across his lap as he longed to.
“One night at Killinan,” she said softly, “there was a knock at the door. Caro and I were terrified; we had lived with the awful certainty that any day we would be burned out. Mama even had our grandfather’s old dueling pistol loaded by her bed. But Eliza went down to open the door, telling us to hide and flee if need be, and she found Will there, wounded and bleeding, unconscious on our doorstep.”
Conlan watched her, not saying anything.
“We thought him dead, and Eliza was inconsolable. Will is her great love, you see, and he has been since they were children. But we nursed him back to health, and he took us to Dublin, where it was thought we would be safer. I thought I remembered nothing of that night, though I did go to the window. It was such a black night, and I was so very scared.”
Her face looked perfectly white, and her eyes were wide and almost midnight-blue as she remembered what happened. He recalled that night, too, every awful moment of it. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer. She went to him, but she stared past his shoulder, as if she was far away.
“But you do remember now?” he said.
“I don’t know if it’s a memory or a dream.” She looked directly at him then, steady and serious. “Was it you? Did you leave Will at Killinan?”
So it had come back. The night that he came across the ambushed patrol, too late. They were all dead except Will Denton, clutching his miniature of Eliza Blacknall as he bled into the Irish earth. “Yes. It was me.”
“And did you—were you the one who wounded him?”
“No. I swear on my mother’s grave, Anna. I did not hurt your brother-in-law or any of his men. One of my tenants told me about the planned ambush, but I reached them too late to do anything but find Denton.”
She studied him closely. She reached up and took his face in her soft hands. “In the Uprising, did you kill? Even if it was not that day, did you kill?”
He could not lie to her, not when she looked at him like that. “Yes.”
“So did I. I have blood on my hands, the same as you, Conlan.” She let out a ragged breath. “I wanted so much to forget those days. I tried everything—parties, card games, drinking. But it is still with me. What I saw, what I did. Do you feel the same?”
Shocked, Conlan reached up and clasped her hands in his. He held them tight against his chest, feeling her tremble. “Sometimes in life we’re forced to do terrible things, mo chuisle. Whatever you did, it was only because you had to.”
“He tried to rape me, that English soldier,” she said tonelessly. “I panicked, I only wanted his—his hands off me. He pressed me to the ground and pulled my legs apart. I felt his—his thing against me. So I stabbed him with his own dagger. I stabbed him over and over until he was dead, and I was covered with his blood.”
A hot, wild fury filled Conlan at her words, at the horrible image they drew. Someone dared touch her, violate her, his beautiful Anna. If the tudan was not already dead, Conlan would scalp him and cook his heart over a bonfire as his Celtic ancestors had done to their enemies. He would send him to hell.
He held Anna against his chest and pressed a tender kiss to her temple. Her pulse beat frantically under her skin. “You did the right thing, the only thing you could do. You should never think of it again.”
“I know, but…” She tilted her head back to look up at him. “Do you go to confession, Conlan? I’ve heard that Catholics do that often.”
“I fear I have not been to church in years, cailleach.” Though he kept a chapel and a hidden school with a priest-teacher for his workers’ children, he could not go himself. His soul was too stained. “I went when I was a child sometimes, and my mother would have a priest visit from France.”
“And did you feel clean afterward? Forgiven?”
He laughed. “Considering my sins at the time consisted of stealing a pie from the kitchen and disrespecting my mother when she scolded me about it, I don’t think I needed much cleansing. It’s a different matter now. It would take a century of confessions.”
“I would just like to forget, to know myself again as I once did.” She flattened her palms against his chest, sliding them down until she reached the bottom button of his waistcoat. She slid it free as she kissed his throat. “You make me forget, Conlan.”
And she made him forget, too, God help him. “Anna, you should let me take you home.”
“No, I want to be here with you.” She kissed his jaw, his cheek. Another button popped free, and another. She went up on tiptoe, whispering against his ear. “Don’t you like it when I’m here with you?”
“Aye, I do.”
“Then kiss me, Conlan. Please.”
With a deep groan, he dragged her against him and covered her lips with his. His tongue slid deep into her mouth, and she greeted him eagerly. Their breath mingled, frantic with a need deeper than any he had ever known.
She spread his waistcoat wide and slid her hands over his thin linen shirt, tugging it out of his waistband. She touched his bare skin, her fingers teasing over his ribs, then his shoulders. The edge of her nail scraped over his flat nipple, and he moaned at the rush of sensation.
“Anna—you really should go,” he whispered against her lips.
“I can’t,” she answered, a sob in her throat. “I want you. I want it to be you, now.”
And he wanted her so much he could not see straight. It had nothing to do with his work, with Ireland, with what her family could do for him or with annoying his cousin. It was only her, Anna. She was all he wanted that night. All the beauty and sweetness that he had ever craved and thought could not exist in the world.
In answer, he kissed her again, roughly, nothing held back. He forced her head back as his tongue plunged deep into her mouth. She met him with equal fire, her arms wrapped tightly around him, her nails digging into his bare back.
He slid off the desk and walked her backward until they tumbled onto the chaise. She pushed his coat off and tore his shirt over his
head. He tossed them to the floor and leaned back into her to kiss her throat, her shoulder, licking a ribbon of fire over her soft skin.
“You are gorgeous,” she whispered, closing her eyes as she held on to him. “My god of the Underworld.”
“If you stay with me,” he said, “you may never see sunlight again.”
“I like the darkness.” Her hand slid lower and unfastened his breeches. He sprang free from the fabric confines, hard as iron, and he dared not move or even breathe as her soft, tentative touch slid over him. “Do you like this?”
“Diolain, yes,” he said hoarsely.
That seemed to embolden her, for her caress grew more certain. She slid down his length, then up again, leaving agonized pleasure in her wake. She shoved his breeches down over his hips and reached around with her other hand to caress his taut buttocks.
If she didn’t stop, it would be over before it began. He jerked out of her arms and stood up to strip out of his boots and breeches. He stood before her, naked and hugely aroused.
She didn’t run in fear, his witch. She lay back on the cushions and studied him, a smile on her lips. “I feel quite overdressed now.”
“I can help you remedy that, cailleach.”
“I’m quite sure you can.” She sat up and turned her back to him so he could unfasten her gown. As it eased away from her body to reveal her slender back, bare of corset or even chemise, he pressed his lips to the curve of her spine. She was warm and soft as summer cream, smelling of sweet lilies and the earthiness of orchids.
She trembled as he touched her skin with his tongue, tasting her. As her gown fell away and she kicked it to the floor, he slid the pins from her hair and watched the heavy golden mass tumble over her shoulders.
She lay back across the chaise, her bare body very white against the brown cushions, and stared up at him with parted, flushed lips. His avaricious stare took in her bare breasts, high and crowned with erect pink nipples, down to the indentation of her waist, her hips. And the vee of blond curls between her legs, glistening with the moisture of desire.
She still wore her stockings, black silk with red ribbon garters, and that pale hair seemed even more golden against their vividness. He remembered the musky taste of her, the sweet, salty smell, and he slid his hands slowly up her legs as he parted them and drew her to the edge of the chaise. He wanted to erase any of those terrible memories from her mind forever. To make her only remember pleasure.
He knelt between her thighs and softly kissed her bare skin just above her red garter. Her fingers threaded through his hair as she pressed him closer, and he was most happy to oblige. He traced her seam with his tongue before plunging deep into the soft, hot core of her and tasted her intoxicating essence.
Chapter Thirteen
Anna was sure she was dreaming again, but this time it was no nightmare. This time, she floated on a cloud of pleasure and bright joy.
When she ran away from home tonight, she was so terribly confused. She wanted to know the truth, yet she wanted to shut it out as well. To push it back into the dark recesses of the past and forget about it. She knew Conlan could help her forget. Perhaps, being so much a part of it all, he was the only one who really could. The only one who could understand and see past the pretty picture, which was all anyone else wanted to know.
But more than even forgetting, she had to know the truth. There was no moving forward without it. Conlan swore he had not wounded Will that day, and Anna knew that to an Irishman an oath on his mother’s grave was sacred. But that did not mean he was innocent of all wrongdoing in those black days. He confessed to killing—just as she had.
When she told him that, said the words she had never uttered aloud before, he hadn’t looked at her with disgust and loathing. In his eyes, she saw only understanding and sadness.
That sympathy released something inside of her, like a captive bird soaring free into the sky, and it made her want him with a desperate force she couldn’t deny.
Anna tugged at his hair, drawing him up from between her legs until he braced himself over her. He held himself carefully so he wouldn’t crush her with his strength, but she wanted him closer and closer. She wanted to lose herself in him and see his very soul.
She wasn’t afraid any longer. And she had forgotten how wonderful it felt to be fearless, to not be alone.
She wrapped her legs around his hips and tugged him into the curve of her body. His skin was warm, damp and satin-smooth over his powerful muscles. She traced her fingertips over his taut back and his buttocks, exalting in the feel of him, the strong life force of him.
“How alive you are, Conlan,” she whispered. She kissed his shoulder, tasting the salt-sweat beaded there. She craved that life like she craved the sun and the air. She needed him more than she had ever needed anything else.
“Anna,” he said roughly. He buried his face in the curve of her neck, and she felt him breathe in deeply of her. He felt a longing that echoed her own. “I tried to fight against this—whatever it is between us.”
“I know. So have I. But I can’t fight any longer. I know it’s wrong, that we can’t really be part of each other’s lives, but…” She drew in a shuddering breath and smelled him. The clean, dark essence of him—and herself on his lips. “I don’t want to fight now. I have no strength left.”
“Anna.” He kissed her neck, his mouth open and hot, sliding over her shoulder, the curve of her breast. “You are not like anyone else in all the world.”
“Neither are you. So we must be meant for each other— for tonight.”
He swept aside her hair to kiss her ear. She felt the rush of his breath and the bite of his teeth on her soft earlobe, and it made her shudder with a lightning rush of lust. She arched into him, rubbing against the iron hardness of his erection.
His mouth touched that sensitive spot just below her ear, nibbling at it as she cried out.
“Do you like that?” he whispered. His accent was thick in his voice, rich with the greenness of Ireland. Her ancient warrior god.
“I—I feel like I’m falling,” she gasped. The room twirled around her, and she tightened her arms around him to hold herself on the earth.
“Let yourself fall. I’ll catch you.”
So she did. She imagined leaping off a precipice into the fog, a thick gray cloud shot through with red and gold sparks. “Anything can be on a night like this,” she said.
“You can be anything that you want, Anna,” he said, sliding deeper into her caress. “What is it you want to be?”
“I don’t even know any longer. I only know I want you now.” She traced her hand down his chest, the hair sprinkled over his hot skin rough on her fingers, and then along the sharp curve of his hip. She felt his back stiffen and his breath catch as she touched his penis. It hardened even more under her light touch, and she traced its velvety, hard length in fascination.
He shuddered as she caressed over its head, catching a tiny bead of moisture with the tip of her finger. Overcome with curiosity, she lifted it to her lips and tasted the salty musk, licking it from her own skin.
“Damn, Anna!” he groaned. “You’ll kill me yet, I swear it.”
“I told you—I want you now. And I think you want me, too.”
Conlan’s hand touched her between her spread legs, his thumb sliding into the wet core of her. “I’ve never wanted anything more. But I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t. I trust you.” She closed her eyes and spread her legs wider, letting him feel her desire. “Please, Conlan.”
She heard his ragged breath as he reached between their bodies and gently parted her folds as he sought entry. Then she felt the stretch and burn as he eased slowly inside of her.
Her years of horseback riding and activity had left her not as tight as she feared, but it still hurt as he entered her, as her womanhood accommodated his thick length. She gasped at the friction, the new sensation of fullness and pressure.
“I’m sorry, mo chuisle,” he w
hispered. His body went still, his arms rigid as he held himself balanced above her. His buttocks tightened as if he would withdraw from her.
“No!” Anna cried in protest. Her legs closed around his hips to hold him to her. “It’s better now.”
And it really was. The ache was fading as her body grew accustomed to his, leaving only that fullness and a glimmer of something she could not quite grasp. Something very—pleasant.
He drew back one slow, tantalizing inch at a time, almost sliding out of her before he flexed his hips and plunged deep.
“Oh,” she sighed as he did this again and again, faster and faster. That seed of pleasure grew, flowering and expanding low in her stomach. Every nerve ending in her body seemed to come to fiery life, ignited by the feel of his body in hers, joined to her in every way. She learned his rhythm, arching up to meet him as they moved together, ever faster, more frantic.
The room was hot and humid against the cold night outside, the whole planet narrowed to his body in hers. The two of them together. Behind her closed eyes, she saw sparks, gold and silver, shimmering, and a humming started in her ears, growing louder and louder like a rising chorus of pleasure. Then she realized it was her, her making those mews of joy and ecstasy. And she didn’t even care. She just wanted more and more. Wanted this to go on forever.
Then all her thoughts and senses, everything she was, flew apart in an explosion of fiery stars. She felt like she was soaring into the sun, her old self burning up until she could emerge, phoenix-like, into a new life.
Above her, Conlan shouted out in a torrent of Gaelic words as his back tightened. He pulled out of her, and she felt the damp warmth of his seed against her hip. He collapsed beside her, to the chaise, their arms and legs entangled.
Anna slowly sank back down to earth, as if on a cloud of feathers. She had never felt so relaxed, her bones soft in her body. So tired, so light, so—confused. And yet also so certain. She didn’t know what would happen tomorrow, or even in the next hour. But for now, she was where she should be.