The Crusader ("The Crusader" Prequel to "Kingdom Come") (34 page)

"Bud
is very insightful."

"Not
when it comes to you."

The
dance floor was alive with revelers. Rory pondered the dilemma of Bud still
seated on Kieran's lap as they both watched the activity that Kieran would
later term as `seizures`. The fact that the majority of patrons seemed to be
busy with the music, however, cleared up the pool table and the video games
just beyond the entry. Having eaten his fill and no longer willing to linger on
Dr. Dietrich's personal problems, Kieran saw the miraculous lights of the
arcade games and demanded to inspect them.

Rory
reluctantly followed him through the crowd, explaining the video screen, the
knobs, the electical current that came in through the wires, and eventually the
rules of the game as she could understand them. Even if her mind and body
remained with Kieran as he delved into Mortal Kombat, her mind was with Bud as
he wallowed in pain she could only imagine. How she wished she could offer some
words of comfort to ease his ache, but she knew there was nothing she could
possibly say to the man short of setting a wedding date that would end his
suffering.

There
just wasn't any hope for a future between them. Bud knew the situation for what
it was and she hoped that someday he would meet another woman that would make
him forget about the eccentric biblical archaeologist who broke his heart. She
found herself praying that he would, for all their sakes.

They
left the pub when Kieran accidentally broke a pool cue and nearly a punk-rocker
with it when the man laughed at him. Returning to the bed and breakfast, Bud's
door was unlocked and Rory encouraged Kieran inside, insisting he take the
other twin bed. Kieran tried to tell her that he feared for his safety sleeping
in the same room with a jilted suitor, but she ignored his protests and bade
him good-night.

Going to
her own room, she locked the door and fell asleep in her underwear.When the
dreams came, not surprisingly, they were of Kieran.

***

Rory
wasn't sure how long she had been shivering. It was freezing in the room and
she snuggled under the fluffy comforter, trying to stay warm. But the chill
didn't dissolve and she opened her eyes sleepily, thinking about asking the
landlady for an electric blanket when she realized her French doors were wide
open. The chiffon curtains blowing in the soft night breeze, she could make out
a figure in the silver moonlight.

Kieran
stood against one of the doors, his gaze lingering on the garden beyond. He was
without his shirt, his massive arms folded across his chest and Rory sat up,
brushing the hair from her eyes.

"Kieran?"
she asked softly. "What's wrong?"

He
turned to look at her, a faint smile on his lips. "I apologize,
sweetheart. I did not mean to wake you."

"You
didn't," she pulled the blanket around her. "But it's freezing. Close
the door."

He
dutifully pushed himself off the doorjamb, closing the doors and using the
marvelous lock. Rory watched him as he moved to the lamp beside the bed,
turning on the soft white bulb. Noting her sleepy, inquisitive gaze, his smile
broadened as he sat on the edge of the bed.

"It
would seem that I am unable to sleep at all," he said quietly. "I
suppose eight hundred years of sleeping is enough. Moreover, I do not like the
beds of this time. Far too soft. I feel as if I'm going to suffocate."

She met
his smile, sleepily. "Is that why you slept on the floor last night?"

He
nodded faintly. "And because you were angry with me. I suspected that my
presence beside you on the mattress would not have been well met."

She
sighed and lay back down, pulling the covers up around her shoulders; it was
still very cold in the room. "You were correct," when he chucked
softly, revealing his deliciously deep dimples, she rolled onto her side and
tried to get comfortable. "Why are you here? I hope you don't think I'm
going to talk to you all night just to keep you entertained."

He
shrugged, his smile fading. "Nay, I do not expect you to keep me
entertained. But I have been thinking heavily since we parted earlier and there
are things we must discuss."

"What
things?"

"The
diadem. Bud's argument against the completion of my mission was solid, but I
know in my heart that I must return. He also set to me deliberating the fact
that I have wasted two precious days lingering about London when I should have
very well returned to Nahariya the moment I awoke."

Rory
scratched her head, trying to clear the cobwebs of sleep from her mind as she
pursued his train of thought. "Kieran, I would hardly call what we've been
doing 'lingering'. We've been very busy avoiding jail."

"I
realize that," he said softly. "But my attention has been diverted by
this strange new world when I should be concentrating on my chosen task.
Therefore, I have come to a great many conclusions this night; you said I could
not go to Nahariya without your help and you were right. I do need you, Libby.
I need your knowledge and wisdom to help me retrieve the diadem."

She sat
bolt up-right in bed, her sleep-heavy eyes instantly wide with surprise and
delight. "Do you mean it?"

"I
do."

Her
mouth opened with glee; forgetting the fact that she was clad only in her bra
and panties, she threw her arms around his thick neck and giggle happily with
pleasure. It was only when Kieran's arms wrapped themselves tightly about her
naked torso did she realize her state of dress, and by that time it was too
late. He had her.

She
pulled back, still enveloped in his arms and not feeling an ounce of the chill
she had been experiencing earlier. And the look in his eyes only seemed to
create more heat. "Uh... what changed your mind?"

He
cocked an eyebrow and she could feel his big hands caressing her. With only a
bra between their respective naked chests, Rory struggled to maintain her
control as his gaze seemed to drill a scorching path deep into her soul.

"I
am not sure," he said faintly. "Somehow I've come to realize that God
has led you to me. Or mayhap he had led me to you. In any event, it is obvious
that we were meant to have this crown together. I need you because you can help
me with the intricacies of this modern world, and you need me because I know
where the crown is. One without the other will not succeed."

He was
terribly close, his hot breath on her face. Rory swallowed hard, wondering if
she should try to disengage herself but not wanting to relinquish him for a moment.
He was so masculine, so massive, so entirely wonderful and nothing on this
earth had ever made her feel more like a complete woman.

She'd
known from practically the moment of discovery that Sir Kieran Hage was
something beyond her wildest dreams. And the more time she spent with him, the
more she came to know the collected, intelligent man behind the marvelous
journal and the incredible adventures, the more she knew she was hopelessly in
love with him. Like no woman had loved a man before.

"You
said once that you belonged to me," she said, her voice tinged with an
aching quiver. "I guess I belong to you, too."

His grip
tightened. "I cannot explain it, Libby. I have known you for two days yet
I feel as if I've known you a lifetime. I feel as if God had a grander scheme
in mind when he allowed me to be surprised by Simon's assassins. Had I not been
mortally wounded, I would have not found the alchemist, and had I not been
subjected to the alchemist’s potions, I would have never found you. You would
have never found me."

Her
limbs were beginning to quiver with a peculiar ache, her gaze raking his
thoroughly marvelous face as he spoke his serious words. He was right; the bond
between them was difficult to explain and even more difficult to understand.
More than words could express, it was a feeling like nothing else - a feeling
that transcended time and space and the conventional boundaries of a normal
relationship.

Without
Kieran, Rory knew she would not be whole. He was a piece to the puzzle that
completed her, solidified her, made her want for nothing. Not even the crown.
As long as she had Kieran, her precious diadem ran a distant second. But
because retrieving it would close a chapter in his terribly eventful life, she
was willing to assist him however she could.

She was
deliciously warm in his arms, a warmth that weakened her, filling her with
wicked, giddy emotion. She didn't care if she would be giving herself to a man
she'd known a matter of two days; emotionally, she'd known him a lifetime and
the desire to feel him on her, in her, invading her body and senses, was an
overwhelming need. The hands embracing his massive shoulders suddenly found
their way into his hair.

"So
I found you," she murmured seductively. "I woke you from the dead.
Little did I know when I petitioned for my Nahariya dig where it would lead
me."

He
closed his eyes as her fingernails raked his scalp. "God's Blood,
Libby," he muttered. "Yesterday... when I said I hadn't had a woman
in eight hundred years... I never meant that I was desperate for any woman at
all. No other woman but you will do."

She
smiled, her hands moving to the face she had known so well in death as well as
in life. "You say that now. But at the time, you really ticked me off with
your conceit."

His eyes
opened, the gem-clear brown orbs coming in to focus. "What is this
ticked?"

Impulsively,
Rory caught his lower lip between her teeth and suckled gently, drawing the
flesh out as she released it. "It means you made me mad," she
whispered, groaning softly when he returned her gesture, suckling her lips with
painful sweetness. "God, Kieran, you really drive me mad."

He
grinned, his entire mouth closing down over her lips, ravishing her with his
power and desire. Throwing caution to the wind, Rory came alive in his arms,
responding to his passion as if she had waited for this moment all her life.
They fell back on the bed together, groping and suckling and caressing and
somewhere in the process, Rory's bra came off and she moaned loudly when his
scalding palm closed over her bare breast.

Rory was
hot all over, the flames fanned by Kieran’s touch. All that mattered was his
body against hers, his heat filling her, his delicious flesh taunting her
lust.  When his heated lips came to bear on a peaked nipple, she bit off her
screams in the top of his hair. He suckled her faster, hotter, better than she
had ever known, and when her panties were literally ripped from her body, she
was unable to bite back the scream of ecstasy as his searching mouth invaded
her private core.

The
pants of her pleasure filled the room as Kieran manipulated her with reckless
abandon. Sprawled out on the bed, her legs over his shoulders, Rory thought
quite possibly she might die from his expert attention. Just as she felt
herself building to a release, he suddenly pushed himself off her and removed
his Levis in a flash. Rory watched, dazed and panting, as his massive body
covered her once more. Tasting herself on his lips, she pOsgrovered his mouth
with her eager tongue.

But it
didn't end there. She was determined to taste him everywhere, to pleasure him
as he had pleasured her, and in little time she was moving down his chest,
sampling his scars and biting his nipples. Kieran growled as her hot hands
found his throbbing manhood, her delectable mouth plunging down on him again
and again until he thought he might go mad with the rapture of it. Knowing he
would not last long against her wicked skills, he pulled her up by the hair and
flipped her over on her back.

He
settled between her legs, bracing himself as she instinctively guided his
manhood against her slick pink lips. Mouths fused with unquenchable hunger, he
pushed into her wet body in one smooth thrust, burying himself as she groaned
into his mouth. Coiling his tight buttocks, he drove into her again and again,
pounding her with the proof of his desire. Rory grunted with every thrust,
gasped with every withdrawal, tightening her sugared walls around him as if to
never let him go. In a flash, she was on top of him, riding him and feeling an
entirely new sensation with his member deep inside her.  After a few powerful
thrusts, he hit the magic spot deep in her body and everything suddenly
exploded.

Rory’s
climax came so hard and delicious that she thought she had blacked out for a
brief moment.  She fell forward, her labored breathing filling the room.
Kieran's arms went about her and she was under him again, feeling him driving
into her love-drenched body until he groaned her name and she could feel his
manhood throbbing deep inside her. The movement, the gasping, faded until all
she could feel was the rhythmic pounding of Kieran's everlasting heart.

Rory
didn't know how long she lay there, sandwiched between Kieran's massive body
and the soft mattress. He was holding her tightly, protectively, and she relished
his embrace with all of the satisfaction of her soul. As she always knew it
would be, the physical union with him had been beyond her most vivid dreams.
More than that, she knew that she would never be the same again.

"God,
Kieran," she murmured into his neck. "You're not too bad for an old
guy."