The Fire and the Earth: Glenncailty Castle, Book 2 (15 page)

Séan grabbed her, pulling her to him so hard that she gasped. “I want to be gentle, but you tempt me.”

“I’ll do more than tempt you.”

She flicked open the top button of his shirt and kissed his neck as her hands slid down to his pants. As she unfastened and pushed them down, he tried to do the same to her dress but couldn’t find the zip at her back. Her hair hid it from his trembling fingers.

She slipped to her knees and Séan sucked in a breath. In his darkest fantasies, he’d imagined pushing her to her knees, her pretty lips wrapped around his cock.

“Unfasten your shirt, please,” she said calmly.

With trembling fingers, he did, shrugging it off and throwing it aside as she pulled down his pants and boxers.

“You’re a big man, Séan Donnovan.”

Any reply he might have made was lost when she grabbed his cock, holding it steady as her tongue swirled around the crown, her fingers squeezing the shaft. She took the head in her mouth and Séan had to fight not to come right then. The sight of her on her knees before him, the feel of her mouth around his cock, and the touch of her hands on his shaft and balls, was the most arousing thing he’d ever seen or felt.

She took him deep into her mouth, until her lips met her hand. As she pulled back, her tongue caressed the vein on the underside of his cock. Séan gathered handfuls of her hair, pulling it away from her face so he could see her. She started moving faster, her mouth working up and down his shaft, her tongue teasing the head every time she pulled back.

“I won’t last much longer,” he warned her between gritted teeth. He tried to ease away from her, not thinking she’d want him to finish like this.

Her free hand reached around, grabbing his ass. Her nails dug in, keeping him still so she could suck and nibble his cock. He looked down, her gaze met his, and Séan stopped fighting his desire.

Grabbing her head in his hands, he pumped his cock into her mouth, moving faster than she had. He paused, making sure she was okay, afraid of choking her, but she slapped his ass, urging him on. He pounded his cock into her mouth, the sight of her on her knees driving him, the feel of her warm, tight mouth like heaven on earth.

The orgasm built within him, his balls pulled tight to his body, and he thrust hard and fast into her mouth. He came then, pressing himself deep into her mouth, her tongue caressing him as his cock jerked once, twice, a third time.

He pulled out, looking down. Her lips were shiny and pink, her eyes wide and dark. As he watched, she swallowed, then delicately wiped her chin.

“I’ve imagined doing that,” she said. “This was better than my imagination.”

“
You’ve
imagined it?”

“Yes, have you?”

“I’ve done plenty of Our Fathers in penance for my lustful thoughts about you.” He drew her up, then scooped her in his arms, depositing her on the bed.

“You confessed to your thoughts?”

“I did, but if I’d know you were thinking the same thing, there would have been no stopping me from having you.”

“There doesn’t seem to be much stopping you now.”

“And I plan to keep it that way.”

Reaching under her skirt, he grabbed her knickers and pulled them down and off.

“Séan, what are…oh!”

Pushing her skirt up, Séan spread her legs and settled between them. He didn’t care to waste time dealing with her clothes. He wanted to taste her,
now
.

He stroked the folds of her sex, parting them to find the proof of her arousal.

“Oh yes, please, now,” she begged, hips rising off the bed.

“No, I’m going to take my time. I want to know you.” He kissed her thigh. “Every inch of you.” He kissed her other thigh.

He spread the lips of her sex, exposing her core to his gaze and mouth. He rubbed her labia, stroked the smooth warm skin before letting one hand venture up to brush her clit.

Her whole body reacted, her hips lifting, her fingers fisting on the duvet.

He wanted her moaning and writhing in pleasure. He wanted to make her feel something no man before had—to ruin her for everyone but him.

He lowered his mouth to her sex, tracing the folds and hidden places with his tongue. With her taste on his tongue, he settled his mouth over her clit. Taking it carefully in his teeth, he sucked the tiny nub, switching to delicate licks every so often. Her hips rocked against his face, and her fingers were fisted in his hair.

He shifted position and slid one hand beneath his chin, pressing two fingers into her. He released her clit from the prison of his teeth, instead licking it with short hard strokes in time with his thrusts. She was moaning and thrashing, making sounds that might have been words but were too breathless to be understood. He raised his head for a moment, pressing his whiskered chin against her as he looked up her body to her flushed face.

“I love the way you taste,” he said, fingers still working in and out of her tight body.

She hissed out a breath. “When you talk…your beard…”

Séan rubbed his chin against her, and Sorcha’s whole body trembled.

With a wicked grin, he bent his head to her slit once more. Pulling his fingers from her, he replaced them with his tongue, pressing it into her, then pulling out and tracing the path of her body up to her clit.

He settled in there, rubbing and licking, using his fingers when his tongue was tired and his teeth when he wanted to feel her jump and jerk against him. When her body went tense, as if waiting, he pulled back, stroking her sex with his fingers but avoiding her clit.

“No, don’t stop,” she hissed, raising her head.

“I’m not done with you.” He pinched her clit, twisting it slightly before the wet flesh slipped from his fingers.

“Please, Séan,
please
.”

He brought her to the brink twice more, until she was begging him with each breath, shaking with the need to come.

Only then did he slide three fingers into her, stretching and filling her. Pressing his tongue flat to her clit, he rubbed it, keeping up a steady, rhythmic friction until she came.

She screamed her pleasure, her legs vising around his head. He felt her body clamp down on his fingers.

He kept his tongue moving, extending the orgasm as she begged him to stop.

He pulled away and she lay shuddering on the bed, her legs spread, her skirt bunched around her waist.

He was hard again, his cock rigid against his belly. He rolled her onto her side and finally found the zip of her dress, jerking it down. She turned onto her back, still gasping for breath, as he jerked down the front of the dress and then her bra, exposing her breasts. He swooped down, sucking her nipples in turn as he positioned his cock at the entrance to her body.

With one hard thrust, he buried himself within her. She was tight from her orgasm and her body was hot around his cock. She cried out and lifted her hips against him, little shudders racing through her.

“Oh, oh Séan. I…I…”

He pressed his lips to her neck, feeling the hard pebbles of her nipples dance against his chest as he thrust, her body shuddering under him from the force.

Her nails scored his back, her legs wrapped tight around him. He rolled so she was on top—he wanted to see her.

She was disheveled—her clothing and bra pooled at her waist, trapping her hands to her sides. She braced her palms against his belly and rocked her hips forward and back, her eyes bright, her lips flushed pink.

Séan toyed with her nipples as she rode him. She came again, shuddering and falling forward over his chest. With his own orgasm tight in his belly, Séan slid out from under her, put her on her hands and knees and grabbed his cock. Holding her hips with one hand, his cock with the other, he positioned their bodies and thrust.

He grabbed her ass, her hips, as he thrust into her hard and fast. Reaching forward, he took a handful of her hair, pulling her head back so he could see her flushed face as he fucked her.

“Yes, more,” she whispered.

Yes,
he thought,
this and so much more.

He lifted her upper body, helped her free her hands from her clothes and urged her to hold the headboard so he could pound into her harder. Her breasts jiggled below her and he reached forward to tweak her nipples.

He couldn’t hold back any longer. Séan thrust in a final time, holding himself still as he came. Reaching under her, he rubbed her clit as his cock pulsed within her.

With a thin, high cry of pleasure, Sorcha came too.

After an endless, perfect moment of joined pleasure, they fell to the bed, a tangled, sweaty mess of arms and legs.

Sorcha rolled to face him, pillowing her head against his shoulder. Séan pulled her closer. It had been a long and troubling day, but in this moment Séan knew what was really important—and what he wanted.

Chapter Nine

The Scientist

Seamus stood at the end of the hallway, hand on the head of Finn, one of his two Irish wolfhounds. The
Garda Siochana—
the Guards, or police force—were giving him and the dogs a wide berth, but he wouldn’t make the mistake of going somewhere without them again. The dogs were more sensitive than humans and could feel when something wasn’t right.

He only wished he’d had them with him earlier.

The guards were down at the end of the hall. Besides the bits of cleaning Liam and Elizabeth had done before they’d opened the door, everything was still a mess and rapidly becoming more so as the guards stomped across the ruin of the false wall he’d put up.

Had he made a mistake?

When he’d returned home to Glenncailty, finally willing to accept and deal with his heritage, he’d explored every inch of the castle. Both the buildings and the grounds held secrets. He knew that not just from his explorations, but from the stories and legends he’d grown up with.

But this room, the lost room of the west wing, was the most obvious of those secrets. When they’d cleared away the ivy that covered the door, pulling down the vines that had found their way in through cracks in the walls, he’d seen the door for the first time—or more precisely, the bricks where the door should be.

He’d chosen to respect the choices of the past and to keep Glenncailty’s secrets. He’d had the wall erected to hide what was there, hoping it would never need to come down and the secrets behind the door would remain safe.

“Mr. O’Muircheartaigh.” A detective sergeant in the Guards, a burly older man named Oren who Seamus didn’t know, approached him. “Let’s go over this one more time. When did you close up this room?”

“As I’ve told several of your colleagues, I didn’t close up the room. It’s been closed off for years.”

“And why did you open it now?”

With a mental apology to Séan, Seamus told the truth. He believed that there were times when a lie served as much good as truth, but at this moment, he didn’t know what lie he needed to tell and so resorted to truth—or at least as close as he thought prudent. “It was Mr. Séan Donnovan who decided we needed to take the wall down. He thought he heard something.”

“Séan was in the castle?” Oren seemed to know Séan.

“Most reluctantly, I assure you.”

“And where is he?”

“I believe he went home. He was a bit dusty.”

“And you said it was…” He checked his notes, “Sorcha Kerrigan, who found the bodies?”

“Sorcha, Séan and I went in to the room. Sorcha was the one who found the skeletons.”

Oren sighed. “You’re right there, they’re more bones than bodies, aren’t they?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“This isn’t something we’d know the way of handling,” Oren said, unashamed of his county force’s shortcomings. “I’m afraid we’ll need to keep this whole area closed while we call Dublin and see if they have any ideas.”

“We’ll close this whole wing.”

“That will help. And now where is Sorcha, the woman who found the bones?”

“I believe she went with Mr. Donnovan.”

“Is Sorcha the redhead?”

“Yes, she has red hair.”

“Ah, well, then good on Séan.” Oren made a note. “We’ll talk to her too.” He flipped the little booklet closed and then looked at the end of the hall, where one man stood guard and a few others could be seen moving around inside the long-forgotten room. “This will be something for Dublin,” Oren said, as if he’d decided to wash his hands of it.

“Then we’ll prepare to welcome assistance from Dublin,” Seamus said.

Sorcha tried, for the tenth time, to set the staff schedule. She couldn’t concentrate, knowing what was there, waiting, on the second floor of the west wing. It had been two days since Séan had ripped down the wall and they’d made the grisly discovery.

The police had taped off the floor and Elizabeth had gone one step farther by locking up the whole building. That meant Sorcha had some work to do rearranging guests. There was a golden anniversary party taking place at the castle this weekend. Rory, the acting head of Special Events now that Caera was off touring with her American, was taking care of the post-dinner dancing and drinking that was set to take place out in Finn’s Stable, the renovated stable turned music space, while Sorcha and Elizabeth were handling the formal dinner in the restaurant. Event guests had booked out all the rooms in the east wing above the pub and a few in the first floor of the west wing. Since they couldn’t stay there any longer, Sorcha had Liam look in on the unoccupied guest cottages. Though Sorcha, Caera and a few other staff, including Liam and his wife Kristina, lived in the nicest cottages, there were a few that had gone through preliminary renovations. Liam had called in a few men to help move beds out of the first floor west wing rooms into the cottages. All the guests she’d called had been happy enough to change to the cottages in exchange for a reduced fee.