Haunting Embrace (17 page)

“It was much more than chance,” he breathed against her cheek. His tone was like the caress of his hands on her skin. Like the brush of his lips against her temple.

Meaghan’s legs turned to rubber. She leaned against the stone to catch her balance, trying to calm the mated frenzy of fear and longing that he’d managed to set loose inside her. Her feelings knotted in a melee as confusing as this man.

“Let me go,” she said.

“No.”

He moved closer, his body heavy and hard, so hot that it melted her to the bone. He smelled of the woods, of fresh, salted air and deep shadows peppered with secret hollows and ancient mysteries. Elusive and seductive, his scent made something coil tight and low within her. Made her want to arch against him despite the fear and the certainty that this man would be her doom.

“You want the key to make you powerful again, don’t you?” she forced herself to ask.

“Yes, I do. That is exactly what I want.” He said it with a harsh bite in his tone, a gnashing of syllables and tearing of vowels.

“Why? All that power didn’t do you much good before.”

“I will not return to my prison. I will not be at your mercy ever again.”

“I never asked you to be at my mercy, Áedán,” she whispered. “That’s not what I want either.”

He stilled, his body hot against hers, her curves molding to the hard, muscled angles of his. “Then what do you want, beauty?” he asked, his lips brushing her temple again, his breath stirring the fine strands of hair there.

Mouth dry, she fought the urge to look into his eyes.

And lost.

Stunned, hurt, needing more than anything for the crazy tilting of her world to be righted, she gazed into those eyes of green, found herself surrounded and overwhelmed by what she saw. His big hands cupped her face. The white bandage still around his stitches was softer than his roughened palms. His thumbs brushed her jaw as his fingers curled around her neck to the vulnerable skin at her nape. Each touch, each sensation sparked along her nerve endings and made her feel like she’d been plugged into the sun and now it melted her down, restructuring her foundation, reshaping her into a new mold.

The shock of his lips on hers shuddered into her soul. He pressed her back, against the solid wall of stone behind her, using his body like a tool to cleave her to him. Her traitorous hands moved to his ribs, sliding over rippled layers of muscle, around to the hard slope of spine, up to the ridge of shoulders. She’d meant to push him away, but something deeper drove her now.

Meaghan flattened herself against him, feeling like a junkie sliding that needle into her vein, injecting herself with ecstasy that would eventually bring her to the gutters of existence.

He’d betrayed her once. He would do it again.

She didn’t know where the thought had come from. Didn’t understand the clarity of its voice.

He parted her lips with his, let the soft hot velvet of his tongue find hers, wiping all thought from her mind, altering her perceptions until she was only corporeal, incapable of thinking at all. Incapable of reason, of doubt, of fear.

He bent his knees, rocked his hips against hers in a deliberate, carnal motion that found a response in every cell of her body. That primitive movement beguiled and enticed, it made her blood roar in her ears, made her loins feel heavy, needy. She wanted to open herself to him, wanted to welcome him inside her, grip him with the same liquid yearning that filled her. The intoxicating mixture of his desire and his resistance raged through them both. He didn’t want to want her. Well, she didn’t want to want him either, but stopping now would be like denying her body air.

His hands were on her hips now, urging her up, lifting her, molding her to him. Christ, she was ready to shag him right here on the cliffs.

“Wait,” she breathed into his mouth, and the intimacy of it nearly pushed her past the point of no return.

“I’ve waited forever,” he said. “Too long.”

Her dress bunched at her waist, her legs wrapped around his hips, the hot center of her hard against the length of him. He thrust against her, and her head bumped the rock behind her. It hurt but she didn’t seem to care. He felt huge and ravenous, and she could think of nothing but assuaging his hunger, of satisfying her own. Her hands went to his fly before a cold drop of reason sizzled against the inferno burning out of control inside her.

Seduced . . . Consumed . . . Enthralled.

She saw herself as if from a distance, skirts rucked up, eyes glassy with passion, drunk for a man she barely knew and didn’t trust. She’d asked him for the truth, and instead of giving it, he’d backed her into a sexual corner and conquered her with desire.

Her withdrawal caught him off guard, and she squirmed free before he knew what she’d intended. Chest heaving from the effort it had taken to break his thrall, she stood a few steps away. He was hard and flushed, his eyes glazed and heavy lidded. Her fingers had messed up his short black hair. He looked like sin itself, and oh, she wanted nothing more than to rip the ugly dress off her body and lay down, right here on the jagged shale, and give herself to him, mind and body.

The silence between them crackled and hissed. He searched her face for answers to questions that didn’t need to be voiced. Then shutters came down over his bottomless eyes and all she saw was herself, disheveled and lost inside them.

The need to escape swamped her. Not caring that it made her a coward, she turned and she ran. Ran like the devil was on her heels. Ran like she might actually stand a chance of escaping him.

Áedán did not follow, but she felt him watching until she disappeared over the bend, and she knew her reprieve would not last.

Chapter Twelve

M
EAGHAN was still shaking when she stepped through the back door of Colleen’s tiny house. Colleen took in her disheveled appearance with curious and somehow knowing eyes, and Meaghan couldn’t stop the blush that heated her cheeks nor could she meet that shrewd black gaze. She’d stopped running before she reached the small cottage, before she got close enough to be seen by any of the nosy neighbors who lived in Ballyfionúir. She’d used her fingers to comb out her hair and then braid it into a rope, but obviously, she couldn’t fool Colleen Ballagh. Some things never changed.

“And did you get what you were after?” Colleen asked in a casual tone that made Meaghan’s face flame hotter.

“I met the men who live in the lighthouse. They weren’t strangers. I recognized them.”

That wiped the smirk from Colleen’s lips. “You what?” she asked in an astonished voice. “And how would you be recognizing the likes of them?”

Meaghan sighed and pushed back a strand of hair that refused to be confined. “I could tell you, but it wouldn’t make sense. It’s all part of the Book of Fennore, though. I feel like everything since my birth must have been wrapped up in that fecking Book.”

Colleen scowled. “What did they tell you, these men?”

“That they’ll help me find it.”

“And it’s certain you are that finding it is the thing to do?”

“It’s what Saraid told you, isn’t it? It’s why she gave you the pendant to give to me. It’s my way home, right?”

“Sure and isn’t that what she said.”

But Colleen’s voice held doubt, and Meaghan couldn’t blame her. As Jamie had told her, what if finding the Book only condemned them to returning to the world they’d just escaped?

She couldn’t think of it, not now when she felt so torn and tormented by everything she’d learned, guessed . . . still didn’t know.

“No matter,” Colleen said cryptically. “It’s glad I am to see you back before Mickey comes in.”

Mickey and his sparkling personality. Another problem she wished she could forget.

Colleen had finished with the stew. The kitchen looked spotless and smelled heavenly. Meaghan’s stomach gave a loud growl in appreciation, surprising her. It seemed that things like food shouldn’t matter in the strange circumstances that had become her life.

“Is the baby sleeping?” she asked calmly, as if she wasn’t a bundle of nerves, as if every inch of her didn’t crave a touch that felt dangerous and forbidden. Where had Áedán gone after she’d run away? What was he doing? Did his skin burn for her hands as hers did for his?

“Still sleeping,” Colleen said with a sharp glance. Meaghan would swear her Nana could read her mind. “He’ll wake for a bit, but he’s a good babe. He’ll just want a little snack and a fresh nappy, then before long, he’ll be off to sleep again until morning.”

“And Mickey? You haven’t seen him since I left?”

“Not hide nor hair,” Colleen said, the warm note that had touched her voice when she spoke of Niall turning cold at the mention of his father. “You’d know if himself were about.”

Yes, she supposed she would. Mickey was not a man who’d sit quietly in the front room. She’d met him only once, and already she’d figured that out.

“Can I help you with anything?”

Colleen’s expression held such surprise that, for a moment, Meaghan thought someone must have come in behind her and caught the other woman off guard. She glanced over her shoulder, but there was no one there.

Colleen cleared her throat. “Well, yes. If you’d want to set the table, that would be grand.”

Meaghan took the cups and utensils from the cupboard and drawer and began to place them. For a moment, her mind settled and cleared as she performed the simple task of setting the table.

She felt it then.

At first it was only a whisper, a dark breeze blowing through her thoughts.

Come to me. . . .

She looked up quickly, but Colleen stood stirring the pot on the stove and no one else had come in.

I can help you. I am what you seek.. . .

She’d taken a step toward the door before she even realized it.

I am not to be feared. I want only what you want. Freedom. Life. Acceptance. . . .

The spoons she held clattered to the floor, making both women jump with surprise. Meaghan gave a sharp yelp and then a nervous laugh.

“We’re both of us stretched tight as wire,” Colleen said with a stiff smile.

Before Meaghan could answer, someone pounded on the front door. Not a tentative knock—the summons echoed loudly and demanded attention. Meaghan had a bizarre image in her head of the Book of Fennore hurling itself against the door until it opened. She almost laughed at the visual, but it wasn’t funny. She was certain that the voice she’d heard had come from the Book, although how she knew was a mystery.

Jamie said it searched. Like a beacon. Áedán had concurred.

That’s how that voice felt—like a signal broadcasting on an open frequency, seeking a listener.

Upstairs, the baby began to fret, and then the knock came again, loud and insistent. Niall let loose an outraged cry at being woken.

“I’ll go see to him,” Meaghan said, heading for the stairs, but as she passed, she met Colleen’s eyes and paused. Her grandmother looked frightened. A shiver danced over her skin. Had she heard the voice, too? “What’s wrong?” Meaghan asked.

“Nothing,” Colleen said too quickly, too breezily. “Just late for visitors is all.”

Twilight had settled outside, and still Mickey and Áedán had not returned. The kitchen didn’t have a clock, and Meaghan didn’t really know just how late it was, but it couldn’t be much past six or six thirty. Yet Colleen’s reaction made it seem like midnight.

She heard the door open behind her as she started upstairs. Niall fussed again, but now that the pounding had ceased, he sounded like he might settle easy enough. Pausing halfway up, Meaghan could see the open front door without being seen herself. A man stood just on the other side bathed by the dim and dirty light spilling from the fixture overhead.

He was heavy-set, with broad shoulders and a solid middle. She couldn’t make out his features, but even in the shadows, she could tell his clothes were of a better make than Mickey’s or Áedán’s had been. He wore a coat that fit him well and looked warm, not like the threadbare woolen jacket Áedán had shared with her.

“Colleen,” the man said, gazing at her grandmother. Reassured that her grandmother knew the visitor, Meaghan continued upstairs to check on the baby. Niall had found his thumb and sucked furiously as she checked his diaper, found it dry, and arranged his blankets while murmuring soothing nonsense to him. He was an easy baby, used to comforting himself when his parents were too busy to dote. Within a few minutes, he’d fallen back to sleep.

Quietly she made her way from the room, closing the door behind her all but a crack. Colleen’s voice traveled up as she moved to the landing.

“. . . cousin Meaghan is upstairs with the baby.”

Meaghan hesitated on the steps, eyeing the man below before making herself known. Colleen had kept him on the porch, and she couldn’t get a good look at him. She could see Colleen clearly enough, though. Her entire body was rigid with tension.

“Is Mickey here?” he demanded, his tone gruff, his words hard.

“Lower your voice,” she admonished the man. The hand that held the door open was white knuckled, but Colleen’s voice remained calm as she answered him. “And the answer is no. He’s gone to the pub, but I expec—”

The man didn’t wait for her to say more. With one step, he barged over the threshold and pushed Colleen against the half wall that anchored the banister. He kicked the door shut behind him, but the rag rug slowed it and kept it from slamming. Meaghan clasped a hand over her mouth to smother her shout and looked around for something she could use as a weapon. An umbrella stand stood at the bottom of the stairs. As Meaghan calculated the distance in her mind, she had a ridiculous image of herself sliding down the railing, snatching up one of the black umbrellas, and bashing the stranger senseless with it.

His words stopped even her imagination.

“I’ve missed you so much, Colleen,” the man said, his voice dropping, now husky and deep with emotion.

Frozen, Meaghan stared down at the top of his head as he loomed over Colleen. Now that he’d come indoors, she could see he was a fair man, with golden red hair, but from this angle, she couldn’t make out his features. He stood pressed against her grandmother, one hand cupping her cheek, the other braced against the spindly rails of the banister where they met the rising wall. Though he had Colleen trapped between his thick body and the stairway, she did not try to get free. Her hands rested gently against his arms, and her face turned up to his.