Hot Whispers of an Irishman (21 page)

“In the water,” he replied. “Where I’ve little need for maps. Or redheads.”

Vi ignored his complaint, for she knew they were both impatient and tired. It seemed they wouldn’t have much longer to wait, though, for they had reached the sharply angled passageway depicted on her great-grandmother’s drawing. And unless she’d been toying with her progeny, there should be a small chamber at the end of it.

“It’s looking right to me,” Liam whispered. “Though tight.”

Vi moved until she was pressed against his back and aimed her flashlight the way he was looking. A small part of her—likely the same part that had experienced a brief and poorly timed thrill upon hearing the O’Gormans—relished this contact. Wrong time and place, but he still felt like a corner of paradise. Vi refocused, something she admittedly had little practice in doing.

The corridor they would next take was taller than the one they were in, but little more than a cut in the wall in width. Judging by the thick curtains of dust and cobwebs hanging from the entry, it hadn’t been traveled in years. Liam moved sideways, back against the wall, and Vi did the same, thankful he was to take out the worst of the webbings.

The going was slow as the space grew narrower and narrower. Vi found herself holding her breath even when she knew that slight difference wouldn’t ease her way.

“Stop,” Liam said, then handed her his light. She angled it along with the one she already had to cover the greatest amount of wall possible. To Vi, it looked an unrelieved grey, with even the lines between the individual blocks of stone nearly indistinguishable.

“I’m not seeing anything,” he said. “Hand me the lights and you try.”

She did as he asked, then lay her palms against the wall, inching them across the stones’ cool surface. Slowly, deeply she breathed, opening herself to whatever might be wanting to reach her…besides more dust motes.

“Are you feeling anything?” Liam asked in a hushed tone.

“Cross,” she replied. “And tired and dirty.”

“I meant anything from the wall.”

He must have caught the look she sent him, for he added, “You know what I mean. I watched the game you played with the gold in Dublin. You were feeling something then and it will do you no good to deny it.”

“I’m not denying it. This sense I get isn’t something I can turn on like water from a tap,” she said. “Even in the best of times—and this is not one of them—it comes when I don’t want it and hides when I do.”

“Try the other wall,” Liam said, apparently undeterred by her ill attitude.

The two of them performed an odd dance, inching their way in a half-circle till they were facing the opposite wall. Again, Vi quelled the pleasure of his touch as he brushed against her in the tight confines.

Just inches in front of her, Liam swept the flashlight the length of the wall. Vi drew a sharp breath when the yellowish glow passed over a shadowed spot nearly mid-shin down the wall.

“You won’t be needing my brand of sight,” she said to Liam. “Look down.”

“Damn me,” he said, sounding awed. “It’s real.”

“Real as the dirt down my shirt,” she said, earning a chuckle from Liam.

“This is it, my fire,” he said to her. “Ready?”

She aimed one of the lights into his face. “Don’t bloody tease. Just do it.”

He grinned. “I’ve heard that before.”

It was grand that his good nature was returning, but he needed the same reminder regarding setting and physical impossibility that she was giving herself. No matter, though. Excitement over both intimacy and discovery had her breathing enough dust that her nose was beginning to grow stuffy.

“Now, Liam.”

“Right.”

Reaching down that low in their narrow confines was no easy task. Vi finally backed up and Liam lay out flat on the grimy floor.

“Lower,” he directed as she tried to aim her light for the niche in the wall. “Perfect.”

Vi’s heartbeat slammed in her ears as Liam sent his hand venturing forth. She closed her eyes, praying that they would find the gold, even though she knew the finding would bring consequences of its own.

“Hand down a flashlight.”

Vi did, and seconds later Liam muttered an obscenity followed by one bleak word: “Empty.”

God, how she was growing to hate that word.

Hope was quite possibly the most dangerous emotion a man could have. Furious that he’d let himself believe that tonight, treasure would be his, and he could grab back his life, Liam followed Vi through the passageway and back into the O’Gormans’ library.

“That was a bloody waste,” he said to Vi once he’d closed the door on his failure.

“At least we know where the gold is not,” she replied while dusting off her clothing.

“Right. Not in the passageway and not in my pockets.” Liam brushed ancient grime and grit from his shoulders. He hated feeling this way, filled with a frustration so brutally sharp that he burned to lash out and release it. It felt as though the gold had been stolen from him as neatly as Alex had thieved his livelihood.

Vi came closer. “You’ve cobwebs in your hair.”

She raised a hand to free them. He flinched when she touched him, then muttered a “sorry.” His anger—though God knew not at her—demanded settling.

Liam glanced around the room in search of a cut crystal decanter of drink. Surely a library this well appointed would have one? It did not, and he was ready to explode.

“I wish it had turned out better,” Vi said in a voice so kind that he felt a worse bastard for being in such a foul mood. Yet everything in life he’d worked to achieve was escaping and he was helpless to stop it.

She moved closer, and of its own volition his hand rose to rub a dirt smudge from the soft skin of her cheek. He’d never thought himself an especially tender man, but with Vi, it was hard not to be…even when dismally bitter.

He kissed her and found it a balm better than whiskey. At least the anger was receding, even if frustration seemed a permanent guest.

“What a hell of a night,” Liam said, drawing Vi into his arms. He closed his eyes and focused on the one person who could know how he felt.

Vi must have been doing the same for in a matter of moments she had brought her mouth to his and then nipped at his lower lip until he opened to her. Her tongue swept in. In just a few pounding heartbeats, hunger owned him.

They kissed until nearly breathless, then she drew back. “That helps matters,” she said, her mouth still close to his.

Liam glanced around the room, seeking something—anything—to focus on until he could get his need back under control, but his gaze kept settling on one tempting place.

“So do you think it was around there?” he asked, pointing to a spot now between two fat armchairs.

He could tell by the heat shining in her green eyes that she knew what he was speaking of…the first place they’d made love. He’d teased her earlier, but he’d never forgotten. And on nights like this one was proving to be—when luck was faithless—he would remember her passion, her laughter, and the way she’d given herself to him. She had been his most perfect gift ever.

Vi gave a considering look, as though measuring from the window to the place between the armchairs. “That seems about the spot.”

Liam took her by the hand and brought her there, then nudged the chairs farther apart. They fit so neatly, standing there. Almost as if what he was considering next had been fated to happen.

“I’m feeling nearly sentimental. Would you kiss me again, Vi?”

One kiss was not an unreasonable request, and she consented. What
was
unreasonable was his body’s response to hers. The need to possess, to have something good to take forward from this night, was too strong to deny.

He slipped his hand beneath the fabric of her top, seeking the warmth of her skin. Ah, this was what he needed. She was real—his to touch, his to kiss, and he planned to do it all. Vi’s smart hands were equally busy, working the buttons down the front of his shirt. He voiced his pleasure in a low moan as she caressed him, too.

Soon, it wasn’t enough. Liam stopped kissing just long enough to tug her top over her head and then unhook her pretty black bra and slip it from her, too. Whether it was the location they’d chosen—with both its aura of nostalgia and the danger of discovery—or the fact that frustration had transmuted to fire, Liam felt randy and ready as a twenty-year-old.

He kissed Vi’s throat and grew impossibly harder at the feel of her pulse pounding beneath his mouth. His tasted her breasts, suckled her nipples, told her how exquisite she was.

She stripped his shirt from his jeans and worked open his fly. He took her face between his palms and kissed her deeply and with the fire she deserved. Dusty, disheveled, half-dressed, she was irresistible. He tugged at the waist of her khaki trousers, wishing to have all of her available for his touch.

“If only you were wearing the skirt you had on at dinner,” he said.

Her laugh was low and incredibly sexy. “It was hardly snoop-about clothes.”

He kissed his way across the top of one white shoulder and to her ear. “But then I’d be able to slip my hand under it and ready you, then rid myself of these…” he said, taking her hand and settling it below the waistband of his open blue jeans, where nothing but some fine American boxers stood between Vi and his hard-enough-to-kill-a-man erection.

When she moved her hand beneath the boxers and circled her fingers about him, Liam was sure he was going to come then and there.

“And would you do something like this?” she asked before beginning to move her hand up and down the length of him. Liam moaned. Though it was the most difficult thing he’d ever done, he took her hand away, but only to tug her to the floor.

He pulled her khaki trousers and panties to her ankles, then was hampered from ridding her of them by some very substantial black lace-boots. No matter, for he could still touch her. Their eyes met and held. He drew her legs upward until her knees were bent and her footwear flat on the floor. Then he briefly slipped his fingers between her legs, and she gasped with pleasure. This was insanity, but he could no more stop himself than he ever could with Vi.

He kissed his way down her body, then brushed his fingers across the wonderfully red curls that covered her mound. Vi brought her hips upward, nearly begging for more, when she needn’t have begged.

Liam slid his fingers into her, and his erection jerked as he stroked her. He was mindless now, wanting only one thing…to surge inside her. It had been this way that night fifteen years before. This time as last, he shook as he knelt above her, pushing his clothing down his hips in one impatient move.

“Hurry.” She bent her knees farther, fully opening herself to him.

Liam could scarcely draw enough breath to form words. “God, Vi,” he gasped as he settled against her, teasing but not really entering.

Vi could take no more. If she couldn’t be filled by him now, she would perish.

“Please,” she said, the word sounding loudly over the beating of her heart. She grasped the shirt still hanging loosely from him and tugged hard. “Now.”

Liam looked down at her with such dark hunger that for a tiny instant, she wondered if she could survive her demand. He pushed his way inside her hard and fast, and she started to peak even before her body had adjusted to his entry.

Vi began to cry out, but he covered her mouth with a kiss and then moved harder and faster and her orgasm rocketed out of control. Unable to wrap her legs around him and hold on, she clutched at him with her arms as sensations continued to surge.

How well she recalled this—feelings of love and passion so huge that she couldn’t hold them. She drew in a breath even sharper that her others at the thought of that word:
love.
Then Liam stiffened above her. Emotions shattered, she could feel him pulse as his seed filled her.

Seed that would never bear fruit.

The thought had never before struck her in quite this way. Now she was sure it was the reason for the tears slipping from her eyes. She let her arms slide from him and rest at her sides.

Liam lay over her, vulnerable in the aftermath of his release. She could only hope he wouldn’t notice her tears. When a few moments later he moved to withdraw, she quickly wiped her eyes and turned her face to the side, eyes closed. She needed to gather herself.

“I’m sorry,” he said once his breathing had slowed.

Those were not words she wished to hear.

He lifted himself up on his elbows and looked down at her, concern etching his features. “It’s only the second time in my life I’ve let things get this far, unprotected. Once with Beth, and now this…”

Vi’s heart lurched. She felt as though the floor had dropped from beneath her.

“Three times,” she said. “It would have been three times, then.”

His expression fell blank. “What?”

“Three times. Remember the night by the river?”

She saw in his eyes the instant the memory registered.

“You’re right,” he said. “I can’t believe I’d forgotten.”

She couldn’t, either, and the hurt, though irrational, was searing. That night had marked her forever.