Haunting Embrace (26 page)

Meaghan. Elan. The women seemed to tangle and merge in his mind, treachery and innocence tying him in knots.

Mickey turned on a light in the kitchen, and a sharp blade of luminescence found its way under the door. The glow eased the clench of terror he felt in Meaghan’s body. They stood like two matched pillars of stone as Mickey fumbled at the icebox, and Áedán suspected he searched for the stew. While he listened to the man’s clumsy movements, Áedán played scenarios in his mind. He would not allow Mickey to harm Meaghan, nor would he permit him to hurt Colleen or the baby, and if it meant dragging him off into the dark to kill him, Áedán would do it. Mickey settled at the table, spoon clanking pottery as he ate. The sound was monotonous, his grunts and slurps disgusting. Áedán shut him out, closing himself off to all but the feel of Meaghan’s body.

She was more curved and supple than Elan had been. Her breasts felt full and heavy against his chest, her hips rounded and womanly against his thighs. The hard length of him found a soft haven in the hollow of her belly. She was short, so small that her head fit against his chest, and yet she seemed perfect for him.

Was he insane to think that somehow Elan had wedged her spirit beneath Meaghan’s skin? Meaghan said she’d sensed no evil within him. Elan had known it existed from the start.

He found his fingers tunneling beneath her hair to cup her head in his palms. It seemed they moved without his thought or will. He tilted her face back so he could look at her. Her skin glowed like ivory, her eyes dark and drowned with emotion, her mouth soft and full. She’d bitten her lips in her anxiety, and now they were red, a vibrant splash of color in the gray world.

Her eyes widened as he lowered his mouth to hers, but she didn’t turn away, nor did she push him away. He felt the pending rush of fate slam into him as his lips touched hers. Thoughts of the stolen moments on the cliffs that afternoon had all but consumed him. He’d craved the sensation of her arms clinging tight, the softness of her breasts crushed against the wall of his chest, her hips pressed to his.. . .

Now he felt like an anchored ship whipped by a storm that refused to let it idle securely at bay. He ripped free in a powerful surge, backing her to the wall, needing that solid surface to keep from hurling himself out to sea.

The eye of the storm was within him, the fury of it all around. It uprooted his convictions, his resentments, his foundation. For a thousand years, he’d loved Elan, despite her betrayal, despite her condemnation. For a thousand years, he’d hated her, bitterly tarnished every memory, purposefully corroded every recollection until what he felt was a mordant collage of distorted untruths.

Meaghan made a soft sound that was so heartbreakingly familiar, so longed for, so desired that it made his knees buckle. She kissed him back with desperation, begging him with her lips to make Mickey and all the terror he represented go away. Áedán tried, even though he feared it might be futile.

He realized then that she might have once been the woman of his past, the woman who had destroyed him, but she was something else now. She was more . . . and less. Better . . . and worse. Different. Excitingly fresh, startlingly distinctive. She might flash glimpses of Elan’s eyes, but her scent, her lips . . . her kiss. Everything about Meaghan was unique.

Some distant part of his brain heard a soft knock at the back door, but who would be knocking at this hour? He had a moment to wonder if he’d imagined it, and then Mickey’s chair scraped back and his footsteps thumped the floor. The door squeaked when it opened, and the glass panes in it rattled when he closed it behind him.

“Is he gone?” Meaghan asked.

“Yes,” Áedán said, though he didn’t know where or for how long. Who had knocked? Where was Mickey off to now? A part of him worried over it, but another dismissed him with relief. Áedán didn’t care where Mickey went as long as he stayed gone.

Meaghan’s mouth grew hot and hungry, and he met each kiss with passion of his own. Her lips parted and the soft velvet of her tongue stroked his, bold and demanding. Elan had been an awakened virgin, needing his guidance, his teaching. Meaghan knew what she wanted and would settle for nothing less. Her hands moved from his shirt, where they’d clutched him in fear, and now her arms twined around his neck, pulling him closer.

He was flame, she an incendiary, and the need between them brushwood waiting to ignite. His hands roved down the slope of her back, fingers grazing the fine ridges of her spine before finding the soft round of her bottom. He molded her closer, lifting her up to her toes, then off the floor as he tried to fight the barriers of gravity, of nature, of all the damn clothes they both wore.

She hitched a thigh up and round his hips, anchoring the burning heat of her passion to his as she rocked her hips in an instinctive taunt that nearly pushed him over the edge. Elan had been goodness and light, but this woman was desire and heat. Meaghan whipped his blood into a boil until he knew nothing but the feel of her body, the need to make her his.

Muffling his frustrated groan against the silk of her throat, he turned so the wall braced his back instead of hers, letting it support him as he slid down to the floor. Meaghan stiffened for a moment, as if just realizing what she was doing. He felt the hesitation and it cut him like Mickey’s knife. He kissed her, refusing to let her doubt the passion he felt raging beneath her skin. With one hand, he reached toward the cot, caught the edge of the dangling blanket, and pulled it onto the floor, rolling them both on top. Pinning Meaghan with his body, he eased his hips between her legs, his arms bracing his weight as he plundered her mouth, drugged by the taste of her, by the sensuous slide of her legs against his, by the small sounds she made in her throat.

Meaghan still wore the wool dress Colleen had given her, and he reached for the buttons, slipping each free and following the opening he made with his lips. Meaghan arched for him so he could drag the fabric down her shoulders, where it pooled at her hips. She wore that lacy undergarment that had entranced him in the cavern. It cupped her breasts, concealing and revealing with seductive skill designed to drive a man mad. It succeeded with Áedán. His blood blazing beneath his skin, he tongued her nipples through the lace, then blew softly over one, making it harden and strain against the wispy veil. The sheer fabric turned dark and translucent, but even that was too much. He worked the straps down, and Meaghan lifted again, reached behind her back, and unsnapped it. Freed, her breasts were more beautiful, lush and weighted in his palms. He thought he could spend the entire night holding them, kissing them, listening to the small sounds she made, and watching her body move with each sensation.

But Meaghan had other ideas. She reached for him, fumbling with his buttons, and he hurried to help her, suddenly wanting nothing more than to feel his skin against hers. She didn’t stop with his shirt, and he almost died a death of pleasure when she stroked the length of him through the thick material of his cotton trousers. His hips bucked and he pushed to his knees, straddling her as he unfastened his belt. Meaghan followed him up, her hands roving down his back, over his buttocks, her mouth open and wet against his bared stomach. She tugged at his fly, and he winced as she eased the zipper over his swollen erection, and then he, too, was trapped with his clothes half on, half off. Meaghan didn’t seem to care.

With his pants and drawers bunched at his bent knees, she gripped his hips and took him into her mouth in a long, wet kiss. Áedán groaned, bracing himself with one hand against the wall. The sensation of her tongue against him, circling, teasing, her lips soft and tight, her teeth a gentle rasp . . . He couldn’t breathe, decided he needn’t ever breathe again.

Cupping her face, he pulled away and pushed her back until she lay prone beneath him. He kicked free of his pants and then jerked her dress down and off. Another lacy wisp barely covered her hips. It was pale as a pearl and showed him glimpses of dark blonde hair and pink flesh. His skin felt too tight, his arousal so painful he thought he might not survive it, but he couldn’t rush. He couldn’t hurry even a moment of this incredible act. He kissed her stomach, feeling her suck in a shaking breath as he pressed his open mouth to her hip, to that small point just above the lace, moving down, where he tasted her for the first time. She was hot and exotic, her scent and taste like nothing he could have imagined. His skull burned with need for more, and the sharp cries she caught in her throat made the flames inside him flare and sear until there was nothing beyond this moment and this woman.

As much as he wanted to linger, his desire rode him fiercely. He slid the lace down the silky length of her legs and then pressed hard against her. Her mouth found his and she rocked her body into his, bringing her legs up and around him, pulling him closer until he found the place where he belonged. He entered her in a long, slow thrust of hot pleasure and near pain. She felt like a tight fist around him, hot and wet and burning. It was Áedán who trembled now. Áedán who feared. He’d forgotten the power a female could wield, never imagined he’d be such a willing victim to it ever again.

Her breath came in short, choppy bursts as he moved, pulling out and sliding back in with a rhythm older than his memory, more potent than anything served at the Pier House, more meaningful than he was able to acknowledge. He looked down at Meaghan’s face and saw nothing of the woman from his past—only the woman of a future he dared not dream. And yet he knew that something of both women lived within her.

“Open your eyes,” he said softly, surprised at the rasp of his voice.

Slowly those beautiful blue eyes opened, and Meaghan stared at him as he buried himself as deep as he could within her.

“You’ve come back to me,” he said. “You belong to me.”

The words shocked and elated him. They rode a fierce wave of possessive need and drowned him in their glory.

She was
his.
Would always be
his.

She blinked, dragged from the sensation of his body into the emotion of his words. He kissed her deeply, pulling out, thrusting in, bringing her to the edge of a chasm that waited greedily to devour them both.

He felt the rush of liquid fire surround him, and she said his name, pressing her open mouth to his chest as the orgasm tore through her body, taking him over the edge with her. He felt his climax from his head down to the soles of his feet, pouring from him in a wash of joy and anguish and need that had driven him for time unending. She came a second time—as if the power of his release had driven her to it—and made another of those sounds that fired his blood. He lost himself completely in the paradise of her touch.

Only then did he notice that the light under the door had turned gray, letting him know the sky outside had brightened. Time barely existed for him, though. There was only now as he rolled to his side, tucking Meaghan to him.

Thoughts of the pendant and how he would take it from her had faded for a time, but as he lay beside her catching his breath, he felt them begin to crowd in again. No matter what he thought in the heat of the moment, reality still waited outside of this room. Somewhere Cathán still searched for a means of escape. The pendant might give Áedán a way to stop him. Or, in Elan’s hands, it might lock him up alongside of Cathán.

Feck.

A baby’s cry carried from upstairs. Beside him Meaghan stiffened, and with a reluctance that went down to his soul, he withdrew just enough to look at her. Her lips were swollen, her hair tousled, her skin pale as pearl in the muted light.

“You are so beautiful,” he said.

She made a soft, self-deprecating sound and raised a hand self-consciously to smooth her hair. He caught it in his own, weaving her fingers with his. He pushed her arms up and trapped her wrists above her head, her body stretched like a sacrifice to him. Then he kissed her, a slow, enthralling kiss that made him both jailer and prisoner. Somewhere in his subconscious, he heard a lock click and a key clatter down a dark drain and acknowledged that any hope he’d harbored of salvation had died in her embrace.

“We are not finished, you and I,” he murmured as he pulled away.

“No,” she agreed, but he heard doubt in her tone. “But there’s more between us than just this, isn’t there, Áedán? I just don’t understand what it is, what you want.”

You,
he thought. He almost said it but caught himself. He’d already learned that he couldn’t depend on his body, his senses, hadn’t he?

She’d reached for the brown dress and covered her naked flesh while his thoughts circled in his mind. He hooked his shirt with a finger and pulled it on.

Slowly he stood, intending to dress and prepare to face the world outside of this room. But as he turned, he caught sight of something silvery glinting in the muted light. Stunned, he stared at it as his troubled mind worked to place what he saw.

A comb. A silver comb lay against Meaghan’s pillow.

He didn’t want to recognize it or give it significance, but how could he not?

It had once belonged to Elan. He knew, because like the pendant, he’d made it with his own hands. And now it lay in Meaghan’s bed. It felt like a confirmation of everything he’d feared, all he’d tried to deny.

The White Fennore and Meaghan Ballagh were connected, and though Meaghan pretended to know nothing of it, he could no longer believe it. Like Elan, Meaghan tried to trap him in a honeyed web that would lead to hell.

Chapter Eighteen

M
EAGHAN followed Áedán’s stare to the stripped cot pushed against the wall. She didn’t understand the look of horror on his face until she saw what lay there on her pillow.

The silver comb from her
dream.

She remembered pulling it from her pocket, thinking it the knife, and then flinging it onto the cot. She’d thought—
hoped
—she’d imagined it, like the walking corpse she thought she’d seen.

“That’s not possible,” she said, her voice a thin reed in a murky swamp. Áedán’s gaze swung to her face, and he studied her with a coldness that went deep.