by Nora Roberts
“What are you talking about?”
A honeymoon was what he nearly said, but he thought it best to be cautious for the time being. “About you coming away with me.” He had her hand again, nibbling along her fingers as he smiled at her over them. “About you flying off with me to places of romance and mystery and legend. I’ll show you Tintagal, where Arthur was conceived the night Merlin worked his magic on Uther so Ygraine thought she was greeting her own husband. And we’ll stay in one of those farmhouses in France and drink their wine and make love in a big feather bed. Then we’ll stroll along the canal in Venice and wonder at the grand cathedrals. Wouldn’t you like that, sweetheart?”
“Yes, of course.” It sounded glorious, magical. Like another of his stories. “It’s just impossible.”
“Why would that be?”
“Because . . . I have work, and so do you.”
He chuckled, then switched his attentions from her fingers to the side of her jaw. “And do you think my pub would crumble or your work vanish? What’s two weeks or so in the grand scheme of things, after all?”
“Yes, that’s true, but—”
“I’ve seen those places you spoke of.” He moved to her mouth to quietly seduce. “Now I want to see them with you.” His hands skimmed over her face, and he began to lose himself in her, the tastes and textures of her. “Come away with me, a ghra.” He murmured it, drawing her closer when she shivered.
“I . . . I’m supposed to go back to Chicago.”
“Don’t.” His mouth grew hotter, more possessive. “Be with me.”
“Well . . .” Her thoughts wouldn’t line up. Every time she tried to align one, it tumbled down, scattering others. “Yes, I suppose . . .” What was a couple of weeks, after all? “In September. If you’re sure—”
“I’m sure.” He got to his feet, then plucked her off the rock, grinning when she gave a gasp and locked her arms around his neck. “Are you thinking I’d be dropping you, now that I’ve got you? I take better care of what’s mine than that.”
Of what was his? The phrase worried her a bit, but before she could think of how to respond, she saw the figure behind them.
“Aidan.” Her voice was barely more than a breath.
He tensed, tucked her under his arm to defend, then turning, relaxed again.
The lady barely made a ripple on the air as she walked. But her pale hair gleamed in the moonlight, as did the tears.
“Lady Gwen, out looking for the love she lost.” Pity stirred in his heart when he saw the tears glittering on her cheeks.
“As he does. I saw him again today. I spoke with him.”
“You’re becoming right chummy with faeries, Jude Frances.”
She felt the wind on her face, could smell the sea. Aidan’s arm was strong and warm around her. Yet it seemed like an illusion that would vanish the moment she blinked. “I keep thinking I’ll wake up in my own bed in Chicago, and this, all of this, would have been some long, complex dream. I think it would break my heart.”
“Then your heart’s safe.” He bent his head to kiss her. “This is no dream, and you’ve my word on it.”
“It must hurt her to see lovers here.” She looked back. The lady’s gilded hair was flying, and her cheeks were wet. “They don’t have even that instant at dawn or sunset to reach out.”
“A single choice can build destinies, or destroy them.”
When she looked up at him, startled to hear him echo Carrick’s words to her, he stroked her hair. “Come, let’s go back. She makes you sad.”
“Yes, she does.” Jude clung to Aidan’s hand now, for going down was trickier than going up. “I wish I could talk to her, and I can’t believe I’m casually saying I wish I could talk to a ghost. But I do. I’d like to ask her what she feels and thinks and wishes, and what she would change.”
“Her tears tell me she would change everything.”
“No, women cry for all manner of reasons. To change everything, she’d have to give up the children she’d carried inside her, raised and loved. I don’t think she could do that. Would do that. Carrick asked too much of her, and he doesn’t understand that. Maybe one day he will, then they’ll find each other.”
“He only asked what he needed, and would have given all he had.”
“You’re thinking like a man.”
“Well, it’s a man I am, so how else would I think?”
It made her laugh, that hint of irritated pride in his voice. “Exactly as you do. And because a woman thinks like a woman, it explains why the two species are as often at odds as they are in sync.”
“I don’t mind being at odds off and on, as it keeps things more interesting. And since I’m thinking like a man right now . . .” He swept her up into his arms and muffled her surprised gasp with his mouth.
How could a kiss be gentle and searing at the same time? she wondered. So gentle it had tears swimming to her eyes, so hot it liquefied the bones. She let herself slide into it, a warm pool with flames licking at the edges.
“Do you want me, Jude? Tell me you want me.”
“Yes, I want you. I always want you.” She was already neck-deep in that pool, and slipping under.
“Make love with me here.” He chewed restlessly on her bottom lip. “Here in the moonlight.”
“Mmmm.” She started to consent, then surfaced with a shot, an incautious diver clawing into the air. “Here? Outside?”
He would have been amused by her reaction, but the seduction he’d begun had circled around to claim him. “Here, on the grass, with the night breathing around us.”
Still holding her, he knelt. And with his mouth roaming her face, murmured to her, “Give yourself to me.”
“But what if someone comes by?”
“There’s no one but us, in the whole world, no one else.” His hands moved over her, and his mouth. Even as she opened her own to protest, he spoke again. “I’ve such a need for you. Let me show you. Let me have you.”
The grass was so soft, and he was so warm. To be needed was such a miracle, so much more important than sense and modesty. There was a tenderness in his hands as he stroked her, slowly, slowly, heating her blood. His mouth brushed over hers, whispering of promises.
And suddenly there was no one else in the world, and no need for there to be.
Lazily, she lifted her arms as he drew off her sweater. when he trailed his fingertips down her body, her eyes grew heavy, her body slumberous. He slipped off her shoes, her slacks, undressing her without hurry and letting his hands touch and linger where they liked until it seemed her skin hummed.
She lay naked in the grass, moonlight sprinkling over her. When she reached for him, he drew her up.
“I want to unbind your hair, to watch it tumble down.” He kept his eyes on hers as he freed it. “Do you remember the first time?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Now I know what pleases you.” He pressed his lips to her shoulder, then let her hair riot down to curtain his face and smother him with silk and scent. “Lie back on the grass and let me pleasure you.” His teeth scraped lightly down the side of her neck as he lowered her again. “I’ll give you all I have.”
He could have feasted, but instead he only sipped. Long, luxurious kisses that shuddered into the soul and drew soft moans from it. And at each moan he went deeper.
He could have ravished, but instead he seduced. Slow, tender caresses that slid over the skin and sent it quivering. And at each quiver, he lingered.
She lost herself in him, in the delightfully dizzy mix of senses and sensations. Cool grass and warm flesh, fragrant breezes and husky whispers, strong hands and patient lips.
She watched the moon soar overhead, a gleaming white ball against a deep blue sky, chased by tattered wisps of clouds. She heard the call of an owl, a deep, demanding cry, and felt the echo of it leap into her blood as he urged her up and up to that first rippling crest.
She sang out his name, floating as the high, warm wave cascaded throu
gh her.
“Go higher.” He was desperate to watch her fly, to know that he could send her up until her eyes were wild and blind and her body quaking. “Go higher,” he demanded again, and drove her there more ruthlessly than he’d intended.
Heat flashed into her, a star exploding. The shock of pleasure was so intense, so unexpected after the tenderness, her body reared up, half in protest, half in delight. This time it wasn’t a moan that escaped her, but a scream.
“Aidan.” She gripped him for balance as her world went mad and they rolled over. “I can’t.”
“Again.” He dragged her head back by the hair and savaged her mouth. “Again, until we’re both empty.” The hands that had been so gentle dug into her hips, lifted her. “Tell me you want me inside you. Me and no one else.”
“Yes.” She was frantic, all but weeping as her body bowed back. “You and no one else.”
“Then take me.”
He drew her down until she was filled with him, until the glory of it burst through her. Her breath tore from his throat as she arched back, her body silvered by the moonlight. Her hair rained back in a dark tangle. She lifted her arms, a gesture of abandon, tangling her own fingers in those tumbling curls.
Then her body began to rock, to move, to seek.
The power was hers now, the control of each whip of pleasure. As his body rose and fell to her pace, she let herself take. His muscles trembled as she stroked her hands over him. His eyes seemed dark as the night as she leaned close to torment his mouth as he had hers. The low groan she ripped from him had her laughing in triumph.
“Higher.” She braced herself over him. “This time I’ll take you higher.” Boldly she took his hands, closed them over her breasts. “Touch me. Touch me everywhere while I take you.”
She guided his hands where she wanted them, reveling in the feel of them over her slickened skin as she rode him closer and closer to the edge.
She felt his body plunge helplessly under her, heard his breath strangle in a gasp, and thrilled with what she’d done to him, let herself leap after.
It was he who shuddered, he whose hands slid limply away when she lowered to nuzzle her mouth to his. When she pressed her lips to his throat, she felt the wild beat of his pulse.
Then with a sound of triumph, she drew back and threw her arms high. “Oh, God, I feel wonderful! People should always make love outside. It’s so . . . liberating.”
“You look like a faerie queen yourself.”
“I feel like one.” She shook her hair back, then looked down to smile at him. “Full of magic and marvelous secrets. I’m so glad you’re not angry with me. I was sure you would be.”
“Angry? How could I be?” He gathered enough energy to sit up so he could hold her, torso to torso. “Everything about you delights me.”
She snuggled closer, still flying on the pleasure of the moment. “You weren’t delighted with me last night.”
“No, I can’t say I was, but since we’ve straightened it all out, it’s nothing to worry us.”
“Straightened it out?”
“Aye. Here, let’s get you back into your jumper before you get cold.”
“What do you mean—” She broke off as he dragged her sweater over her head.
“There, that’s all you’ll need, as I’m going to get it off you again as soon as we get inside.” He began to gather clothes and bundle them into her arms.
“Aidan, what do you mean we’ve straightened it all out?”
“Just that we have.” Smiling easily, he picked her up and carried her toward the cottage. “We’ll be married in September.”
“What? Wait.”
“I am, till September.” He nudged open her garden gate.
“We’re not getting married in September.”
“Oh, we are, yes. Then we’ll go off to the places you want to see.”
“Aidan, that’s not what I meant.”
“It was what I meant.” He smiled at her again, pleased he’d found just the way to handle the situation. “I don’t mind if you need to wiggle around it for a while, darling. Not when we both know it’s what’s meant.”
“Put me down.”
“No, not quite yet.” He carried her inside and started up the stairs.
“I’m not marrying you in September.”
“Well, it’s only a few months away, so we won’t have long to see who’s right in the matter.”
“It’s insulting, and it’s infuriating that you simply assume I’ll fall in line with your plans. And that I’m too stupid to know what I want for myself.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid at all.” He walked down to the bathroom. “Fact is, darling, I believe you’re one of the smartest people I know. A bit stubborn is all, but I don’t mind that.” He hitched her up a bit, so he could reach out and turn on the shower.
“You don’t mind that,” she repeated.
“Not at all. Just as I don’t mind having your eyes shoot darts at me as they are at the moment. I find it . . . stimulating.”
“Put me down, Aidan.”
“All right.” He obliged by setting her in the tub, right under the stream from the shower.
“Damn it!”
“Don’t worry about the jumper, I’ll take care of it.” And laughing while she shoved and wiggled, he stripped it off and tossed it with a wet plop onto the floor.
“Keep your hands off me. I want to settle this.”
“You’ve settled it in your mind just as I have in mine. I say I want my way more than you want what you’re thinking is yours. But . . .” He brushed the wet hair out of her face. “If you’re so sure of yourself, you’ve nothing to worry about, and we can just enjoy the time we spend together.”
“That isn’t the point—”
“Are you saying you don’t enjoy being with me?”
“Yes, of course I do, but—”
“Or that you don’t know your own mind?”
“I certainly know my own mind.”
He pressed still curved lips to her brow, her temples. “Well then, what’s wrong with giving me at least the chance to change it?”
“I don’t know.” But there had to be something wrong with it. Didn’t there? Reason, she decided. Cool reason. Even if she was standing naked in the shower. “We’re not talking about a whim here, Aidan. I take all of this very seriously, and I don’t intend to change my mind.”
“All right, then, in the fine Irish tradition, we’ll wager on it. A hundred pounds says you will.”
“I’m not betting on such a thing.”
He lifted a shoulder carelessly, then picked up the soap. “If you’re afraid to risk your money . . .”
“I’m not.” She hissed out at him, trying to see exactly where he’d turned things around and trapped her. “Make it two hundred pounds.”
“Done.” He kissed the tip of her nose to seal it.
NINETEEN
IT WAS RIDICULOUS. She had actually bet money on whether or not she would marry Aidan. It was laughable. And annoying. And not a little embarrassing.
Temper had pushed her into it, which was odd in itself. She usually had such a mild and easily controllable temper.
She would forget the bet entirely, of course, when the time came. What point would there be in making herself or Aidan feel foolish by bringing it up?
For now she had chores and work to concentrate on. She needed to take Finn for a walk, and return the dishes that Mollie O’Toole had brought to her party. It was time to call home and check in with her family. Then, if the weather held, she’d set up her outside work area.
She wanted to write down the story Aidan had told her the night before. Already she had the rhythm of it in her head, and the images of the white bird and the black wolf. She doubted she would do them justice, but she needed to try.
She gathered the dishes, along with a container of sugar cookies she’d baked. Ready to set out, she glanced around for the dog just in time to see him squat under the kitchen
table and pee. Naturally he’d missed the paper by two feet.
“Couldn’t have waited one more minute, could you?” She only chuckled when he cheerfully thumped his tail, then she set the dishes down again to deal with the puddle.
He had to leap and lick at her face and make growling sounds while she scrubbed it up, which made her forget to scold him. Since cuddling him made her as happy as it made him, she spent ten minutes nuzzling, wrestling, and scratching his belly.
She’d spoil him, of course, Jude admitted. But who could have known she had all this love inside her she needed to give?
“I’m nearly thirty,” she murmured as she stroked Finn’s long, silky ears. “I want a home. I want a family. I want them with a man who loves me outrageously.” She cuddled as Finn wiggled around to lick her hand. “I can’t settle again. I can’t take a life in pieces just because it looks like the best I can get. So . . .”
She picked Finn up to rub her nose against his. “For right now, it’s just you and me, pal.”
The minute she opened the back door, he was off like a spotted arrow. It delighted her to see him race even if his first sprint was directly toward her flowers. He stopped, skidding and tumbling, when she called his name sharply. She considered it progress that he flattened only one row of ageratum.
Finn darted ahead of her, darted back, raced in circles around her feet, then zigged and zagged off to sniff at everything of interest. She imagined how he’d look when he grew into his feet, a big, handsome dog with a whipcord tail who loved to run the hills.
What in God’s name was she going to do with him in Chicago?
Shaking her head, she pushed that worry aside. There was no point in thinking of something that would spoil the pleasure of her walk.
The air was crystal, with the sun sliding and streaming through clouds on their way to England. She caught glimpses of Ardmore Bay, rolling dark green toward shore. If she stopped, concentrated, she could almost hear its music in the shimmering silence. Tourists would flock to the beaches today, and some of the locals as well if they had an hour or two to spare.