Dark of the Moon (42 page)

He smiled then, a slight, taunting smile that lit her temper again despite her best efforts to control it. "Why, it means that, no matter how willing you might be, I could not see you bed my brothers, my little soiled dove."

Before she thought, on a blinding blaze of temper, she slapped him. His head jerked back, his eyes widened, though for just a moment she thought she saw the merest hint of satisfaction in them. Before she could think further, he was jerking her against him, bending his head to find her lips. He kissed her, grinding his mouth against hers as if he wanted to hurt her, to punish her. She fought him, tried to pull away, but he was too strong, forcing her lips apart with hurtful insistence. Despite her anger, despite the warning voice inside her that bleated doom if she failed to keep herself under control, she could not stop the tiny spurt of passion that flared to life under his mouth. He must have felt the beginnings of a response she could not control, because he released her, pulling back to study her with unnerving intensity.

Appalled and frightened at her own response and his apparent knowledge of it, she managed to jerk her arm free of his hold and slap him again. The openhanded blow was vicious, motivated by panic as much as by anger, and it rocked his head to one side. Before he could recover she slapped him a third time. This time he caught her wrist, imprisoning it. The mark of her hand was plainly visible on his dark cheek, the whitened imprints quickly filling with red.

His hair had come loose from its ribbon, framing his face in night-black waves. A muscle twitched at the corner of his hard mouth, and his jaw with its near a day's growth of beard was set and grim. He towered above her, his shoulders in the black cloak wide enough to block her view of the rest of the room. She had forgotten how tall he was, how strong and muscular.

Always, to her, he was simply Connor. Her Connor, who would never harm her. But now, looking up at him, she bethought herself of something: he was no longer her Connor. By her own words and actions she had stripped herself of that protection. Now she was vulnerable to the devil in him. And "devil" was exactly the right word to describe how he appeared to her in that moment.

With a kind of dreadful fascination she met that glittering aqua gaze. And she remembered how, when she had first laid eyes on him, she'd thought that he had devil's eyes. Now she was seeing those eyes again, and as she stared up into them she realized that she had managed to awaken the sleeping devil, and no mistake.

He didn't say a word. He didn't have to. His eyes were eloquent enough. Caitlyn stared into them, felt his hand tighten on her wrist. He jerked her against him, and she had no thought of resisting. If she had, she would not have been able to. He was too strong, too angry, too determined. He pulled her against him, imprisoning her arms with his, and bent his head to her mouth. The kiss he forced on her was insulting. Never before in her life had Connor kissed her in such a way. She would not have believed him capable of inflicting such deliberate cruelty, even on a female he despised. Connor was essentially a kind man. In that moment Caitlyn realized just how much pain he must have suffered because of her.

Somewhere she had heard that hatred was love's twin. The bond that tied her to Connor and Connor to her was far too strong to be destroyed even by the cataclysmic assault that this tangle of events had wreaked on their relationship. What he thought was her betrayal of him had made his love for her turn to hate. But down deep somewhere, under the hurt, under the hate, Connor's love for her still existed. Despite the grinding punishment of his kiss, knowing that made her mouth go soft beneath his.

He felt the change in her, felt her go limp and pliable in his hold, and lifted his head to look down at her. Caitlyn met his eyes. The bright glittering aqua was molten now, glazed with need, with wanting her. Although her mind screamed she shouldn't, her heart overruled. This was Connor, her Connor, whom she had hurt badly and who must love her more than she'd ever guessed for him to want to hurt her so. Her heart swelled with an aching need for him, with an almost uncontrollable desire to con sole and love and make up to him for all he had endured because of her. In that instant, she imagined how she would have felt if she had thought him dead, and the re suiting clenching of her heart almost made her cry out. That was how he had suffered, was still suffering from what he thought was her betrayal. But she could not tell him the truth, the one thing that would mend his wounded heart. All she could do was offer him the sweet solace of her body.

She reached up to twine her arms around his neck, going on tiptoe to press her lips to his mouth. His eyes closed, and his arms clamped around her so tightly that his hold hampered her breathing. She felt him shudder against her as his mouth came down on hers again, not hurting this time but kissing her as if he would steal her very soul.

She felt him move, felt his arms shift position until one was behind her back and the other was behind her knees. With a single lithe movement he swung her up off her feet, his mouth never leaving hers, and carried her the three strides to the bed. Then he was laying her down, leaning over her, pulling her robe apart with quick jerky movements. Keeping her eyes shut tight, as though not to see would be to close out the world, she held him tighter and moaned his name into his mouth. For just a little while she would let the hurt and shame and pain go. For just a little while she would allow herself to pretend that things were as they had been between them before she had sought to join the Dark Horseman on that hell-born night. For just a little while he would be hers again, and she his. For just a little while. . . .

He cursed, his breath warm in her mouth, and tore at his clothes, as frantic for her as she was for him. She heard the ripping of cloth, the popping of buttons, but still she kept her eyes closed. Not to see was not to acknowledge the danger of what she was doing. For just once more, only once more, she would allow herself to love him, per- mit him to love her. What harm could come of just one more night?

He was naked now. She felt the heat of his skin, the rough abrasion of his body hair as he wrapped his arms around her, coming down on top of her so that her swelling breasts were crushed by the weight of his broad chest. His thigh, hard and urgent, was parting hers. She caught her breath, quivering at the feel of it, and spread her legs for him, still without opening her eyes. Then he came inside her, hard and hot and enormous and wonderful. She gasped, and clasped him close, her nails digging into the back of his neck. She had forgotten that a man could feel like this. That she could feel like this.

He drove deep, shuddering with need, and she cried out, her legs shifting of their own accord to wrap around his waist. His mouth left hers to trace hot kisses along her neck before he buried his face in the space between her shoulder and neck. She kissed his cheek, his ear. His skin was rough with the beginnings of a beard and tasted salty beneath her mouth. He was driving into her relentlessly, his movements hard and urgent, his body convulsing over hers as if he was no longer in control of what it did. She clasped him to her, and as she felt the near-forgotten tightening in her loins she cried out his name.

"Oh, dear God, Caitlyn, Caitlyn. My own, my love," he growled in anguished answer. Then he was coming into her so hard and fast and relentlessly that she was sent spinning away by the force of his strokes, rendered deaf and dumb and blind to everything but Connor and the way he was making her feel. She found that wonderful place again, that magical place that he had introduced her to so long ago, and entered it with a gasping moan as the whole world dropped away. She heard him cry out too, felt him tremble and shudder and stiffen. Then he collapsed on top of her, still holding her close, his breath warm on her neck, his sweat-damp body clinging to hers as if they were truly of one flesh.

The world came back slowly, but it did come back. Reluctant to acknowledge what she had done, she tried to hold the realization at bay. She stroked her hand over his thick hair, stroked the warm, damp skin of his shoulder and down his spine. She never opened her eyes, and retained just enough presence of mind to stay flat on her back. Even in this last bittersweet moment, she knew that she must not let him see the marks on her skin.

"Caitlyn." She felt him lift his head from its berth in the hollow of her neck and knew that he was looking down at her. Still she kept her eyes shut. To open them would be to confront reality, to do what she knew had to be done for his sake.

"Look at me, Caitlyn." His voice was quietly insistent. Caitlyn felt his weight shift until he was no longer lying on top of her but was stretched out alongside her, one leg thrown possessively over her thighs as she lay flat on her back. She knew that she would not be able to hold him off much longer, but still she tried, lifting her face with involuntary need to strengthen her contact with his finger, which was ruffling the lashes that rested so stubbornly against her cheeks.

"Open your eyes, cuilin," he said in a near whisper. The sound of that Gaelic endearment on his tongue was almost her undoing. With searing intensity she remembered when he had first called her that. Tears threatened to overwhelm her, and only with great difficulty did she manage to fight them back. She could not soften in her resolve, not now. For his own sake, she must play the part she had to play. Later, when he was safely out of her life, she could cry over the pieces of her broken heart.

Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes. As she had thought, he was leaning over her. He was so handsome and so dear and she loved him so much that she could almost hear the cracking of her heart. But for his sake, she had to drive the tenderness from his face and touch.

A nerve twitched at the corner of his mouth as he looked hard and long into her eyes.

"Now tell me you don't love me," he said finally, his eyes never leaving hers.

Deep in the nearly depleted well of strength that had sustained her through every adversity, Caitlyn found a tiny remaining reservoir that was untapped. Drawing on it, she forced herself to meet those eyes with derision dawning in her own.

"Oh, Connor, don't be such a romantic fool! 'Twas not love that prompted me to this. 'Twas merely the need of a woman for a man! Any man." She emphasized this last with that wanton, trill-noted laugh she had employed earlier. He stiffened, stared at her grimly.

"You lie."

"Do I? Methinks all your conquests have gone to your head. Not every female you bed is dying for love of you, you know."

She could see the telltale jumping of a tiny muscle in his temple. His eyes iced over as his expression hardened.

"You little bitch of a whore."

"There's no need to be insulting. After all, you certainly managed to pleasure yourself."

"As did you." His face was very grim; rage leapt from his eyes as they moved over her face, her body. As casually as she could, she tugged free the wrapper, which their passion had left twisted and tangled beneath her, and pulled the folds of crumpled silk around herself.

"Oh, aye, I've learned to take my pleasure where I can," she purred, all the while screaming inwardly at the agony she was inflicting on him. But there was nothing for it but to continue her charade. She had to drive him away. Hellfire blazed at her suddenly from those strange light eyes. For a moment she almost cringed, so sure was she that he was going to strike her.

"May your soul roast in hell, along with your cheating little body," he growled instead, rolling away from her and off the bed. As he began to pull on his clothes with savage motion, she saw that the ring and chain were absent from around his neck. For a moment she wondered what he could have done with the ring that she still thought of as hers. Then his nakedness distracted her from all thoughts that were not directly of him. She watched him, heart swelling with pain as for the first time she saw his damaged thigh. The scar that twisted halfway to his knee was obscene in the face of so much masculine beauty. She had to tear her eyes away from it or be overcome. . . .

"I wish your lover joy of you, and all those who will no doubt come after him. May they be as deceived by the angel face of you as I was, and may they come to know the devil that lurks inside."

"Why, Connor, that sounds almost like an Irish curse!" she said on a note of amused delight, and had the painful satisfaction of seeing him go pale with anger before he turned on her.

"Hold your tongue! 'Tis enough and more I've had of your blather." He glared at her for a moment, draping his neckcloth around his neck without bothering to tie it, so that the ends trailed down his shirtfront. He pulled on his boots, shrugged into his coat, then cocked a thumb at her. "Get up and get dressed. You're coming home with me."

Caitlyn gaped at him. She had not been expecting that; the idea had been to infuriate him enough so that he would wash his hands of her for good and all. She had succeeded in infuriating him, clearly—he looked angry enough to chew nails. But she had not foreseen that he would still be intent on carrying her off. One look at that dark, set face told her that she had a problem. She had seen Connor look like that before, and when he did he invariably got what he wanted.

"Don't be daft. I'm not going anywhere. Though I wish you'd leave and not bother me again."

"Oh, I'm leaving, all right. And so are you."

"I'm not! You can't make me!"

"What a child you are," he said contemptuously, and came over to the bed and yanked her to her feet. Caitlyn pulled her hand out of his and backed away, glaring at him.

"Damn it, Connor, you can't come in here like this and start bullying me! You don't own me! You have no rights to me at all! I don't want to come with you! I don't even want to see you again! Can't you get it through your head that what was once between us is over?'

"The hell it is," he said and came after her. Alarmed at the look in his eyes, Caitlyn backed away until she had reached the wall and could go no further. Still he kept coming, until he was a scant handbreadth away from her.