Ciaran (Bourbon & Blood) (6 page)

He pulled the truck off to the side and put it in park, turning to look at her. His expression was utterly flat, devoid of emotion, and yet all the more evocative for it. Whatever had happened that day, he’d shut it down so fast that he hadn’t even allowed himself a chance to feel it. Immediately, perhaps even instinctively, she knew it had been bad. Her urge to reach out to him was difficult to tamp down, but she didn’t second guess herself on doing so. Offering him sympathy would only piss him off. Instead, she sat silently and waited.

Ciaran kept the truck in park, hands on the wheel, and stared out at the night as he told her the rest of it. “I went to his office at the distillery, told him who I was, and he told me to get my arse off his property before he called security. That I’d never see a penny of his, and if I thought I’d blackmail him over his past indiscretions, he’d see me in hell first.”

Her heart broke for him in that moment, shattered into a million tiny pieces. She knew what it felt like to be rejected by a parent, but never so completely. Through the pain and the well of anger at such blatant cruelty, something else finally struck her. “Distillery…Samuel Darcy is your father?”

His expression hardened, his eyes going cold and dark. “Samuel Darcy is the Yank who slept with my mother and left her. I’ll not call the bastard my father ever again. When I was in his office, I saw a picture of a group of young girls standing on the deck of a sailboat. You were one of them.”

Loralei slumped against the seat, the weight of that pronouncement sinking into her. Everything was getting more and more tangled by the minute. “I’m friends with Mia…your sister,” she said softly, though she didn’t doubt for a moment he was already aware of it.

“She’s not my sister. That was made more than clear to me, milish,” he said sadly. “I’m not welcome here, at least not by them. The question is, how do you feel knowing I’d be a blight to you here?”

“What the hell does that mean?”

He shifted the truck into drive and pulled forward. Once the truck was in motion, he reached over and took her hand, holding it loosely in his. “It means that if you were to be with me, beyond this mess that’s sprung up around you, it wouldn’t go well for you. People you’ve known your whole life would most likely turn their backs on you.”

Loralei unfastened her seatbelt and scooted toward him. On the gravel road, traveling at ten miles an hour, it was a safety risk she felt she could afford to take. Laying her head on his shoulder, she just savored the point of contact, the ability to touch him. “If they’re small-minded enough to do that, then I don’t need them in my life.”

“And me? Do you need me in your life?” he asked.

“No,” she answered honestly. “I don’t need you in it. I want you in it.”

He smiled up at her. “I think that might be better.”

“But Ciaran, you have to promise me one thing?”

“I’d promise you anything,” he said and there was a wealth of meaning in his tone.

“You can’t let what Samuel Darcy said color your perception of the rest of them. I can promise you he does not speak for the Darcys. His children hate him…Mia most of all. She has good reason. You need to meet her.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head even as he turned off of one gravel path and onto another. This one led to a gated entrance. “Is that really what you want to talk about right now? A sister who may or may not want anything to do with me?”

It was a topic they would revisit, she decided. “Whose place is this?” she asked.

W
ithout a word
, Ciaran got out and opened the gate then came back to drive the truck through. Afterward, he got out and locked the gate behind him, setting the alarm on it. She didn’t move from her spot as he returned to the truck and drove down the path.

When they reached the end of the long drive, he took a gravel road that veered off into the trees. The guest house was a log cabin that had been original to the property and had been restored.

“Come on. Inside with you and that…I hesitate to even call it a dog.”

“You love Churchill!” she protested.

“I tolerate Churchill because you come as a pair,” he said. “That dog produces more gas than some continents.” As if to prove his point, the dog chose that moment to yawn widely, which in turn produced a particularly noxious fart. “Jesus!”

Loralei was laughing while holding her nose. “He does require a certain level of understanding and patience.”

“Or the lack of a sense of smell,” he agreed, reaching for their bags. He ushered her toward the cabin and retrieved the key from its hiding place on the beam above porch swing. After he unlocked the door and she’d gone inside, he glanced behind them, scanning the trees for anything that seemed off. He noted where the densest of shadows were, where branches twisted and mingled to create natural pockets a person could hide in. Satisfied he had the lay of the land, he entered the cabin behind her.

It was one large room with a small kitchenette and a living area. The far corner contained a large bed and opposite it was a bathroom encased in frosted glass. It was clearly a space intended for a single person or a couple who were very comfortable with one another.

“This is cozy,” she said. By cozy she clearly meant awkward as hell.

He chuckled. “I’ve watched you shower up close, without even the benefit of glass between us.”

She moved toward the bed and sat down heavily on the edge of it. “Things were different then.”

“They could be again…would already be if we hadn’t been interrupted earlier,” he reminded her as he placed their bags on the small bench at the foot of the bed. There was no closet, just an open shelving system along the wall. “But for now, I think you should eat something. You didn’t have dinner, and you’re looking a bit pale.”

“I’ve been stabbed and shot at. It doesn’t exactly put roses in your cheeks,” she retorted smartly. “I’m not really hungry, and it isn’t like I can’t stand the loss of a few pounds.”

“Don’t do that,” he warned. “Don’t say things like that. There’s nothing wrong with your weight or your body, other than what it’s been put through in the last few days. You need to eat so you can heal. The kitchen’s supposed to be stocked. I’ll make you something.”

She frowned at him. “You really don’t think I’d look better thinner?”

He walked toward her, cupped her face in his hands and lifted her chin until they were eye to eye. “Loralei, I think you’d look better naked, but beyond that, there’s no room for improvement in my book.”

“I could be,” she replied huskily. “Naked, that is.” Her eyes had darkened with desire, and even in the dim light, he could see the hard points of her nipples through the thin, clinging fabric of her shirt. “I’m not hungry for food, Ciaran.”

His whole body caught fire. “What are you hungry for, mavourneen?”

She reached for him, her hands fisting in the fabric of his shirt as she tugged him toward her. “Just you.”

He wanted to ask her if she was sure, he wanted to be the kind of man who’d consider the fact that she’d been through hell and might not be making good decisions. But he wasn’t. He couldn’t be that man with her. With her, he was greedy. He wanted her, wanted what she offered, and he was just needy enough himself to ignore his conscience. The taste of her, the feel of her soft skin against his, of her soft curves beneath him, had haunted him for the last two months.

He kissed her, molding his lips to hers. Her hands came up to rest on his shoulders, then splayed over his back as she pulled him closer. As he nipped gently at her bottom lip, she gasped, and it was the only invitation he needed. Sweeping his tongue between her softly parted lips, each stroke was a slow, sensual dance, an imitation of the act to follow.

Ciaran pressed her back onto the bed and followed her down. They were still fully clothed, but their bodies touched from head to toe, pressed, held, strained against one another. It was, by equal turns, satisfying and frustrating. He wanted her naked against him, but he’d have to let go of her first in order to make that happen. As if she’d read his mind, her hands were at his shirt, tugging at it, bunching the fabric upward until her palms connected with skin. They skimmed over his sides, his back, her touch like a brand.

His own hands took a similar journey, delving beneath her clothes, skimming over the soft mound of her belly, his fingertips tracing the curve of her waist, moving upward until he encountered the lace of her bra. Cupping her breast, teasing the budded nipple through fabric, he pulled his lips from hers to kiss along her jawline, down her neck. When he reached the spot, the one just below her ear that always made her wild, he bit down, scraping his teeth over that sensitive skin as she gasped his name and arched beneath him.

“God, you make me crazy,” she uttered breathlessly.

“Too many clothes,” he murmured against her neck. “I need to feel your skin against mine.”

She pressed against him, pushing him back just enough that she could reach for the hem of her shirt. Rather than let her do it, he stilled her hands with his and then brushed them aside. He pushed the fabric upward, freeing one arm and the other before pulling it over her head and tossing it aside. His gaze was drawn immediately to the white bandage at her shoulder. There were bruises all over her body, small marks here and there that were a vivid reminder of what had almost happened…twice.

“I don’t want to think about that right now,” she said, once again plucking the thoughts right from his mind. “I don’t want to think at all.”

A slight smile curved his lips as he reached for the waistband of her leggings and began working them down, over her hips and her thighs. “Let me see if I can’t help you with that.”

“Just hurry for the love of God!”

He removed the rest of her clothes and her shoes, leaving her in only a pair of black lace panties and a matching bra. He stopped then, sitting back on his heels just to drink in the sight of her.

Bandages and bruises aside, which he couldn’t let himself think about without becoming furious, she was perfect. Loralei thought because she wasn’t thin, she couldn’t be sexy, but when he looked at her full breasts, the gentle curve of her waist, and the flare of her hips, he saw only perfection. He’d lost count of the number of times she’d complained about the size of her thighs or cellulite or stretch marks or any of the other things she perceived as flaws. Meanwhile, he could only think of how good it felt to have those lush thighs pressed against him, her long legs wrapped around him, to feel the softness of her flesh under his hands.

“Why would I hurry a moment I’d like to last forever?” he asked, one hand roaming over the curve of her hip, down her thigh to the back of her knee. She squirmed, just as he’d known she would.

Her hands did their own roaming at that point, raking along his sides until she could hook her fingers into his belt loops and tug him closer. As her fingers reached for his belt buckle, he knew then that he was lost. She’d have it and him her way, just as she always did, because he was helpless to resist her.

Brushing her hands away, he completed the task for her. With one tug, he sent his shirt flying across the room. He rose from the bed just long enough to remove his boots and shed his jeans, a task he completed in record time. Then he was on the bed with her again, skin to skin, their bodies touching with the promise of what was to come.

“I don’t want you to regret this later,” he murmured softly. “We’ve enough regrets between us already.”

“The only thing I regret is wasting time. I pouted and whined because you didn’t call me, but I didn’t make an effort to reach out to you either,” she confessed as her hands coasted along his back, her nails raking along his skin in a way that always drove him wild.

“I wanted to apologize. A hundred times I picked up my phone and then changed my mind. I wanted to tell you the truth then, about my father and everything else…but I never wanted to see that pitying look in your eye. But we’re here now.” He punctuated those statements with soft kisses along her collarbone, the tender skin of her neck, the curve of her shoulder which had always lured him.

“So now that you’ve got me naked, do you think you could do something besides talk my ear off?”

Her sharp words prompted a chuckle from him. As his breath fanned over her skin, she shivered beneath him. Her response effectively ended his amusement, the mood suddenly becoming far more serious.

“Tell me what you want, mavourneen, and I’ll be happy to give it you.”

L
oralei felt
the weight of his body on hers, the hot press of his skin, and the skilled touch of his hands as they roamed over her body. “I want you,” she answered simply.

He kissed her again, his lips moving over hers in a way that left her breathless and weak. All the while, his hands roamed her body, touching her everywhere, sometimes gently and sometimes bordering on rough, but always, it was just what she needed. Every touch was designed to inflame, to drug her senses and leave her wanting more.

As his lips left hers, burning a path along her jaw, over the tender skin of her throat, she gave a startled yelp when his teeth scraped there, just forcefully enough to sting. But the soothing sweep of his tongue over her flesh prompted a moan and then a sigh as she held him close, her fingers twined in his dark hair as if to hold him to her. It was an illusion. No one would hold Ciaran unless he wanted them to, but in that moment, anchoring him to her in such a way made her feel whole and alive like she hadn’t since he’d left.

Then his mouth was at her breasts, teasing and taunting her through the satin and lace of her bra. He played with the hardened peaks of her nipples. First one and then the other was treated to the warm pull of his lips and the soft rasp of his tongue. It was followed with the firm pressure of his fingers, taking her to that ephemeral place between pleasure and pain. It was all yearning and eagerness and consuming need.

“Ciaran, please!” she urged, as her hands left his hair to roam over his back. Her nails scored his skin and some part of her reveled in causing him that little bit of pain. “You’re killing me.”

He smiled, but there was a tension in his face, in the tight line of his jaw and the clenching of his muscles. It told the truth of just how much it cost him to let the fire build in a slow, controlled burn rather than an all-consuming inferno. Hoping to urge him along, she reached for the clasp of her bra but winced as the movement pulled at her stitches.

“Let me,” he said and stilled her hands. He sat up, lifted her against him, cradling her against his chest as he quickly disposed of the garment. Then he laid her back on the bed again. He remained sitting, his eyes raking over her body.

The weight of his stare was like a touch—hot, heavy and painfully arousing. Her nipples tightened further, furling into taut, aching buds that begged for his touch. A soft sigh escaped her as he dipped his head to take one in his mouth. Without the impeding fabric between them, the heat of his mouth was scorching. His touch was surprisingly gentle, but heightened as her nerves already were, it took only the slightest pressure to have her writhing against him. She wanted to feel him inside her, to have his hardness filling her up and easing the ache that had settled low in her belly.

Her hands roamed his back, his sides, tracing the ridged indentations at his abs, and then moved lower. When her fingers encountered the thick, hard ridge of his cock, she gripped him firmly with her fingers but traced slow, lazy circles with her thumb. “Don’t make me wait anymore, Ciaran.”

He didn’t make her ask twice. He moved away from her questing hands just long enough to shed his jeans and the dark boxers he wore. When he came back down onto the bed, he hooked his thumbs beneath the elastic band of her panties and worked them slowly over her hips, careful of her injuries. Once they were both completely naked, he urged her onto her side and moved behind her. She could feel the hard press of his erection against her bottom as he draped her thigh over his.

“Those stitches,” he said, his fingers tracing the edge of the bandage, “Have taken enough of a beating tonight.”

“I just want to feel you inside me…I don’t give a damn how you make it happen,” she said, arching against him.

His head dropped, and he brushed a gentle kiss to her shoulder as he shifted slightly. The head of his cock nudged at the slick seam of her sex. He moved against her, teasing her, sliding over her damp flesh, but never seeking entrance. A shattered moan escaped her, and it was all the encouragement he needed. He pressed more fully, parting her flesh, sinking into her in one long, slow push.