The Shadow and the Night: Glenncailty Castle, Book 3 (15 page)

“I don’t know for sure. But ever since I started, I’ve watched him watch her. It killed him every time she looked at someone else.”

“And he didn’t do anything about it?”

“That is not the Irish way.”

“There’s an Irish way?”

“Long-suffering and pining.”

Melissa laughed. “She must have been quite surprised when she realized he had feelings for her.”

“Ah, no, she’s Irish too. I think she knew, but she didn’t want to risk being with him.”

Melissa knelt and started photographing the topography. Once the grass had been cut down, it had been obvious what she was talking about—the mounds of the graves were easily discernible.

“What about you?” Tristan asked, watching the way the light played over her hair. She wore tan pants with pockets and zippers all over them, a tank top that dipped low enough to show off her cleavage and a large button-up shirt worn open over the top like a jacket. Now that he knew what had happened to her arm he couldn’t help but notice the way she favored her right side.

“What about me?”

“Have you ever been surprised to find out someone had feelings for you?”

“
I expected better of you.
”
Jacques was sitting on top of the ladder, his elbow propped on his knee.

Tristan bared his teeth at his brother’s ghost. He didn’t need an audience for this conversation.

“No. If someone had secret feelings for me, I never found out about it.”

“Your lovers have been direct?”

“My lovers?” Melissa sat back and looked at him.

“
You’re a disgrace to all French men.
”

“Am I inappropriate?”

“No. Chatting will pass the time.” She fiddled with her camera. “I just never really thought about them as my ‘lovers’.”

“What term do you prefer? Boyfriend, like the Americans?”

“No. I guess that I’ve had an odd experience. I didn’t really have a relationship in secondary school or at university.”

“I find it hard to believe that the men of both England and Ireland are so foolish as to have ignored someone so beautiful.”

“
Better, but not good. Stop pretending and playing games. Tell her she is the most beautiful woman in the world and that you want to make love to her.
”

“I doubt you would have thought I was beautiful. I was chubby when I was in school. I studied at this little cafe near campus, and I would reward myself with biscuits and tea whenever I completed an assignment.”

“You would still be beautiful no matter what you weighed.”

“It’s funny, normally when I come home from an overseas project I spend two months eating all my favorite foods. I gain two stone and then as soon as I leave for the next mission, I lose it again.”

“You say that normally you weigh twenty pounds less?” Tristan assessed her. “You do not have that to lose.”

“Ah, no. This time when I came home was different. This time…” She shook her head.

“Tell me.”

“The pain.” She tipped her face up to the sun and took a deep breath. “I’ve been in pain for a long time. It’s hard to sleep, hard to eat.” She smiled at him. “I guess the silver lining is that I stayed skinny.”

Tristan threw down his shovel and hopped over the string markers.
 

“You are still in pain?”

“Sometimes.” She bit her lip and looked away, blinking.

“You do not deserve to suffer. You are good. In a world of horror and evil, you are good.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I try. But it’s hard. Sometimes…I get so angry at what happened to me.”

A tear slid down her cheek. Tristan’s heart broke. He gathered her into his arms, stroking her back. She shuddered, and felt so frail in his arms that a wave of fear swept over him. Melissa was damaged—she was, as they said, walking wounded. He understood Séan’s desire to take Sorcha away from this place, to protect her even if it meant damning the whole rest of the world.

“I will protect you,” he whispered against her hair in French, hoping she wouldn’t hear.

“I’m sorry.” She pushed back, wiping her face. “I don’t normally break down like this.”

“Everyone is allowed.”

“I have work to do.”

“You need a moment.”

“
Take her to the church.
”
Jacques was hovering just behind her, looking down at Melissa with sadness.

Tristan urged her to her feet, looped an arm around her waist. She leaned into him as they walked a few steps to the little stone church.
 

Chapter Nine

What was wrong with her?

Melissa knew she was being ridiculous, but she couldn’t stop herself. Telling Tristan about what had happened to her in the Ivory Coast had brought all that fear and pain to the surface. She thought she was past the worst of it, but apparently not.

The interior of the little church was cool and dark. A few wooden pews remained, but for the most part the building was empty. A cross still hung on the front wall, knocked askew in a way that was vaguely disquieting.
 

Tristan left the door open, so the midday sun spilled across the stone floor. Whatever windows had once let in light were gone, boarded up.

Tristan rattled one of the pews, which creaked and clacked in a less than reassuring way. “It’s best to sit on the floor.”

Melissa sank down, sitting cross-legged. The stones were cold against her legs and butt.

There was a scrape of shoes and then Tristan joined her, matching her pose, his knees only inches from hers.

“What’s the French way?” she asked, not wanting to go back to the topic of her pain, her weight or her anger.

“What do you mean?”

“You said that the Irish way was to pine for someone. What’s the French way?”

A smile played over his mouth as he took the bandana off. His dark hair fell over his forehead and for the first time she noticed how thick his lashes were. They framed his pretty eyes perfectly.

“You are asking how I would let a woman know I wanted to touch her?”

“I, um, I only mean what would you do if…uh.” Melissa was rarely flustered or at a loss for words, but sitting this close to Tristan was making her light-headed. It was as if she were quicksilver and he were a lodestone. He brought her to life.
 

The other night in the garden he’d been the one to seem flustered and unsure. She’d taken the role of the aggressor, which she was much more comfortable with. Being looked at the way Tristan was smiling at her right now made her nervous. Waiting for a man to make a move meant being vulnerable, which she didn’t like.

But this moment was a world away from the garden at night. Here in the cool church it was just the two of them, no talk of ghosts putting him on the defensive and making her doubt his sanity.

“I prefer to be direct, but never harsh.” He picked up her left hand in his, then cradled her elbow with his other hand, supporting her whole arm. Tristan bent his head and once again kissed her palm, but this time he didn’t stop there. His lips pushed the cuff of her shirt up so he could kiss the inside of her wrist.

“It’s an interesting cultural study,” she stammered, trying to pretend his lips weren’t turning her insides to jelly.

“Tell me,” he whispered against her flesh.

“There are cultures where showing direct interest in a woman is considered rude or offensive.”

“Not in France.” He placed her left hand on his shoulder. She curled her fingers into the fabric of his simple T-shirt. He looked very, very good in a T-shirt and jeans.

“That’s true. For the most part, direct action and intentions are preferred in Western Europe, though I have seen very few people be truly direct.”

Tristan pushed her shirt off her right shoulder, then guided her arm free. She shivered, but it wasn’t from cold. He ran his fingers from her wrist up her arm to her shoulder. They dipped under the strap of her tank top, then under the strap of her bra. He tugged on her bra and Melissa gasped as her nipple pebbled from the slight friction of the fabric.

He was smiling in a way that said that he knew exactly what he was doing to her.
 

“In England they have an epidemic with young people who are so afraid of being emotionally vulnerable and therefore being direct about their interests that there’s a social culture totally dependent on drinking.” She was babbling but couldn’t seem to stop.

“That’s terrible.” Tristan
tsk
ed, then, smooth as could be, moved her left arm and pulled her shirt all the way off. He laid it out on the ground beside her.

“What are you—”

Before she could finish her question, he’d taken command of her body and smoothly lowered her back so she was lying on her shirt. She took a deep breath and his gaze dipped to her breasts.

“Is that how boys treated you? Telling you that you were beautiful, touching you, pleasuring you, only when they were drunk?”

“Um…yes.”

“Foolish boys.” Tristan touched her chin. “Look at me.”

She locked her gaze to his as he ran his hand from her hip up her torso, to her breast. He tugged her top down, baring her simple blue bra. She felt it happen, but didn’t look away from him. The intensity of his focus on her was terrifying, and more arousing than anything she’d ever experienced. No one had ever looked at her the way Tristan did—as if she were the most important, fascinating and beautiful woman in the world.

Cool air brushed her nipple, then fingers covered her breast. Melissa’s eyes fluttered closed in pleasure.

“Are you wet for me, Melissa?” He laid his cheek along hers and whispered in her ear.

“Yes,” she replied, embarrassed at the admission, even though she knew it was natural.

“May I touch you?”

“Please, oh please, Tristan.”

His lips replaced his fingers on her breast and she gasped, clutching his head. His hand slid to her pants, unbuttoning and then unzipping with an ease that she had to admire.

His fingers dipped into her clothes, sliding under the waistband of her panties.

“Spread your legs for me. That’s it. Ah, Melissa, you are so wet. So ready for me. I want to strip your clothes off and pleasure you properly.”

“Oh yes, please. Let’s do that.” His fingers were rubbing the lips of her sex, a gentle touch that was making the ache in her belly worse.

She felt him smile. “Not here. Later.”

“I think now would be better.”

His fingers finally dipped into her pussy, two fingers tracing her from the entrance of her body up to her clit. She hissed and arched up against his hand when he touched the bundle of nerves.

He raised his head, resisting her efforts to pull him back to her breast. “Look at me, Melissa. I want you to look at me when you have
le petit mort
.”

The little death.

For a second, the intimacy of the moment—their gazes locked as she lay on the floor half undressed, his hand rubbing and stroking her wet, swollen sex—was almost too much. She was struck by the urge to run from him. But then his fingers touched her clit, scissoring around it, and she couldn’t think, couldn’t protest. All she could do was feel, was accept him as he loomed over her, owning her in a base way that she’d never known before.

Her orgasm came faster than she’d expected. From one breath to the next the pleasure went from good to impossible and she gasped, her whole body arching up off the floor. She closed her eyes, and Tristan quickly took her nipple back into his mouth, sucking it while her sex clenched. She wished fervently that his cock was in her, that in that moment of orgasm she could feel him pounding into her.

As it subsided, Melissa opened her eyes. Tristan slowly withdrew his hand from her panties. She blushed when he put his fingers in his mouth, tasting her.

“I can’t believe we just did that,” she whispered. She looked down to see that her bra was half pulled down, her right breast exposed, the nipple pink and hard from his fingers and mouth. She started to pull her bra and shirt up.

“Leave it,” he said.

She looked at him, finally noticing the hunger in his gaze. He sat up and she could see the stiff ridge of his cock, even through the thick denim of his jeans.

She reached for him. “Let me return the favor.”

He blocked her hand. “That was no favor. That was a taste, a sample.”

“But you’re…” She gestured to his crotch.

“I’m hard for you. I want to fuck you until you cannot remember anything but the pleasure I’ll give you.”

Melissa felt more wanton in that moment than she ever had. Her muscles were still trembling from the orgasm, while at the same time aching for more.
 

“Remind me why we aren’t doing that right now?”

Tristan laughed. He helped her to sit up with gentle hands. She sighed, sad the moment was over.

Tristan fisted a hand in her hair, pulling but not hurting. She gasped, looking at him with eyes that were wide from a mixture of shock and arousal.