by Nora Roberts
"Such wonderful eyes." Her head was spinning, around and around like the dance. On the edge of giddy, on the verge of dreams. "I see them in my sleep. I can't stop thinking about you."
The muscles of his stomach twisted like iron, then tightened. "Darling, I'm doing my best to keep a promise here."
"I know." Everything was in slow motion now, a drift, a turn, a note. All of the colors and movements and voices seemed to fade mistily into the background until it was only the two of them, and the music. "You'd never break a promise, whatever it cost you."
"I haven't before." His voice was as tense as the hand holding hers. "But you're tempting me. Are you asking me to break it?"
"I don't know. Why are you always there, Murphy, on the tip of my mind?" She closed her eyes and let her head fall to his shoulder. "I don't know what I'm doing-what I'm feeling. I have to sit down. I have to think. I can't think when you're touching me."
"You drive a man past the end of his tether, Shannon." With an effort he kept his hands gentle as he drew her away, led her back to her seat. He crouched in front of her. "Look at me." His voice was quiet, below the music and the laughter. "I won't ask you again, I swore I wouldn't. It isn't pride that holds me back, or that makes me tell you the next step, whatever it is, has to be yours."
No, Shannon thought. It was honor. As old-fashioned a word as courtship.
"Stop flirting with the lass." Tim stopped by to slap Murphy hard on the back. "Sing something for us, Murphy."
"I'm busy now, Tim."
"No." Shannon edged back, found a smile. "Go sing something, Murphy. I've never heard you."
Fighting to compose himself, he stared down at the hands he'd rested on his knees. "What would you like to hear?"
"Your favorite." In a gesture that was as much apology as request, she laid her hand over his. "The song that means the most to you."
"All right. Will you talk with me later?"
"Later." She smiled at him as he straightened, certain she would feel more like herself later.
"So, how do you find your first ceili?" Brianna sat down beside her.
"Hmm? Oh, it's great. All of it."
"We haven't had such a grand, big party since Gray and I married last year. The Bacachs we had on the night we got back from our honeymoon."
"The what?"
"Oh, a Bacachs is an old tradition, where people disguise themselves and come into the house after dark, and-Oh, Murphy's going to sing." She gave Shannon's hand a squeeze. "I wonder what he'll do."
"His favorite."
" 'Four Green Fields,' " Brianna murmured and felt her eyes sting before the first note was played.
It took only that first note for voices to hush. The room went still as Murphy lifted his to the accompaniment of a single pipe.
She hadn't known he had that inside him-that pure, clean tenor, or the heart behind it. He sang a song of sadness and hope, of loss and renewal. And all the while the house grew as quiet as a church, his eyes were on hers. It was a love song, but the love was for Ireland, for the land, and for family.
Listening to him, she felt that something that had moved inside her during the dance shift again, harder, firmer, further. The blood began to hum under her skin, not in passion so much as acceptance. Anticipation. Every barrier she had built crumbled and fell, soundlessly, under the effortless beauty of the song.
His voice simply vanquished her.
There were tears on her cheeks, warm, freed by his voice and the heartbreaking words of the ballad. There was no applause when he had finished. The hush was acknowledgment of a beauty simple and grand.
Murphy's eyes stayed on Shannon's as he murmured something to the piper. A nod, and then a quick bright tune was played. The dancing began again.
She knew he understood before he'd taken the first step toward her. He smiled. She rose and took the hand he offered.
He couldn't get her out quickly. There were too many people who stopped him for a word. By the time he'd led her outside, he could feel her hand trembling in his.
So he turned to her. "Be sure."
"Yes. I'm sure. But, Murphy, this can't make any difference. You have to understand..."
He kissed her, slow and soft and deep so that the words slid back down her throat. Keeping her hand in his, he circled around the house toward the stables.
"In here?" Her eyes went wide, and she felt a quick tug-of-war between dismay and delight. "We can't. All these people."
He found he could laugh after all. "We'll save a roll in the hay for another time, Shannon love. I'm just getting blankets."
"Oh." She felt foolish, and not at all certain she wasn't disappointed. "Blankets," she repeated as he took two down from the line where they'd been airing. "Where are we going?"
He folded them, laid them over his arm, then took her hand again. "Where we started."
The dance. Her heart began to drum again. "I-can you just leave this way? All those people are in your house."
"I don't think we'll be missed." Pausing, he looked down at her. "Do you care if we are?"
"No." She shook her head once, quickly. "No, I don't care if we are."
They crossed into the fields under the streaming light of the moon.
"Do you like counting stars?" he asked her.
"I don't know." Automatically she looked up to a sky teeming with them. "I don't think I ever have."
"You can't ever finish." He brought their joined hands to his lips. "It's not the sum of them that matter. Not the number. It's the wonder of it all. That's what I see when I look at you. The wonder of it all."
With a laugh, he scooped her off her feet. When he kissed her again it was full of young, burgeoning joy.
"Can you pretend I'm carrying you up some fine curving staircase toward a big soft bed, plumped with satin pillows and pink lace?"
"I don't need to pretend anything." She pressed her face into his throat as emotion welled up and swamped her. "Tonight I need only you. And you're right here."
"Aye." He brushed his lips over her temple until she shifted her head to look at him. "I'm here." He nodded across the field. "We're here."
The circle of stones stood, waiting in the warm beam of the moon.
Chapter Sixteen
Under swimming stars and a moon that shone white like a beacon, he carried her to the center of the dance. She heard an owl hoot, a long call that drifted through the air and faded to humming silence.
He set her on her feet, then spread the first blanket, letting the other fall before he knelt in front of her.
"What are you doing?" Where had the nerves come from? she wondered. She hadn't been nervous even a moment ago.
"I'm taking off your shoes."
Such a simple thing, an ordinary thing. Yet the gesture was as seductive as black silk. He took off his own, setting them tidily beside hers. His hands skimmed up her body, from ankle to shoulders as he rose. "You're trembling. Are you cold?" "No." She didn't think she could ever be cold again with the furnace that was pulsing away inside her. "Murphy, I don't want you to think that this means... anything but what it means. I wouldn't be fair to..."
He was smiling as he cupped her face gently in his hands and kissed her. "I know what it means. 'Beauty is its own reason for being.' " Still soft, still tender, his lips skimmed over her cheekbone. "That's Emerson."
What manner of man was it, she wondered, who could quote poetry and plow fields? "You're beautiful, Shannon. This is beautiful." He would see to it, giving her his heart as much as his body. And taking hers. So his hands were soft, easy as he stroked her-her shoulders, her back, through her hair, while his mouth patiently persuaded hers to give more. To take more. Just a little more.
She trembled still, even as her body leaned more truly into his, as the sound of quiet pleasure sighed through her lips, then through his. A faint breeze danced up, through the grass, then swirled like music around them. He drew back, his eyes on hers, and slipped the man's vest she wore from her shoulder
s, let it fall. A murmur of surprise and longing whimpered in her throat as he kissed her again, his hands on her face, his fingers tracing.
She'd thought she'd understood the rules of seduction, the moves and countermoves men and women executed in the path toward pleasure. But this was new, this quiet, patient dance, this savoring of each elemental step. As with the waltz he'd taught her, she could do no more than hold fast and enjoy. Her breath caught, released shakily when his fingers rested on the top button of her shirt. Oh, she wished she'd worn silk, something flowing and feminine with some lacy fancy beneath to enchant him.
Slowly he opened the shirt, spread it, then laid his palm lightly against her heart.
The thrill shot through her like a molten bullet. "Murphy."
"I've thought about touching you." He took the hand she gripped at his shoulder, brought it to his lips. "How your skin would feel. And taste. And smell." Watching her, he slid the shirt from her shoulders. "I've rough hands."
"No." She could do no more than shake her head. "No."
His eyes were solemn as he traced a fingertip above the downward curve of her bra, and up again. He'd known she'd be soft. But the way her flesh quivered under his lightest touch, the way her head fell back in stunned surrender, added sweetness to desire.
So he didn't take-though he could already feel the way her breasts would cup, small and firm in his hands. Instead he bent his head and took her mouth again. Her lips were incredibly generous, opening and welcoming his. The dark, potent tastes curled through his system, hinting of more heated, and more intimate flavors.
"I want-" Her hands shook as she gripped his shirt. She steadied herself by staring into his eyes. "I want you, more than I ever imagined." Now watching him, she unbuttoned his shirt, reaching up to tug it over his shoulders. Then her gaze lowered.
"Oh." It was a sigh of delight and admiration. This was a body hardened and defined by labor and sweat rather than machines. Experimentally she spread her hands over his chest where the skin was smooth over solid strength, and his heartbeat jumped.
Then hers leaped into her throat as he loosened the waistband of her slacks. Mesmerized, she felt him take her hand, balancing her as she stepped free. But when she reached for him, he shook his head. Even the patience of love had its limits.
"Lie with me," he murmured. "Come lie with me."
He lowered her to the blanket and captured her mouth.
He touched her with a terrifying tenderness, molding her breasts, giving himself the aching pleasure of slipping beneath the cotton to test and tease. He needed the flavor that tempted him along her throat, over her shoulders. When his tongue skimmed, as his fingers had, under the material to lave her nipple, she arched like a bow.
"Now." Her breath sobbed out. "For God's sake."
He only flicked open the front clasp of her bra and took her silkily into his mouth.
Tormented, exhilarated, she pressed him closer. Beneath him her movements were frantic, shameless. He was undoing her with tongue and teeth and lips, making her beg with stumbling, breathless words. The flash came so fast, so hot, she reared up, gripping the blanket in defense. The hard, jittery climax had her shuddering, shuddering until she fell limply back.
Impossible. Fighting for breath she lifted a weighted hand to push at her hair. It wasn't possible. No one had ever made her feel so much.
On a groan of his own, Murphy pressed his lips to her flesh, letting his hand roam lower now, over the curve of her waist and hips. "Shannon, I love you. Ever and always."
"I can't-" Weak, she laid a hand on his back. It was damp, she realized dimly, the muscles tightly bunched.
"I need a minute." But his mouth was skimming over her rib cage. "God, what are you doing to me?"
"Pleasuring you." And he intended to do more to her, had to do more to her. The need was building painfully inside him, all hot blood and violent lust he knew he could only chain down for so long. He tugged the skimpy panties over her hips, and nipped. "Pleasuring me."
Her body was a treasure of dark delights he intended to explore fully. But the time for leisure had passed. Greedy now, he took, reveling in her frenzied movements, her gasps and cries.
He wanted her like this, helplessly his, clawing at him as he drove her ruthlessly into flame after flame. And when she was writhing and wet and wild, it still wasn't enough.
He was tearing at his jeans as he took his mouth on a sprinting journey up her torso, over her heaving breasts and back to her trembling lips.
She arched urgently against him, then her legs scissored to clamp hard around him. He shook his head, not in denial, but to clear his hazed vision. He wanted to see her, and for her to see him.