Perfect Timing (28 page)

“What are shades?”

“Sunglasses.” At her blank look, he changed words. “Spectacles, only the lenses are tinted dark so you can still see well but the sun doesn’t hurt your eyes.”

“Mmm.” She gingerly touched the sore spot between her finely shaped brows. “Me mum would kiss the hurt away.”

Quincy had only dim memories of his mother, but he could clearly recall her lightly kissing his scrapes and bruises. He bent to press his lips to Ceara’s nose and murmured, “Better?”

“Nay.” The ice pack clunked him on the back of his head as she brought up her arm to hug his neck. “Kiss me lips, Quincy. ’Twill make all of me feel better.”

Quincy had never received a sweeter or more welcome invitation.
Problem
. If he accepted her offer, he might be unable to stop from taking things further. “Not a good idea,” he whispered. “If I kiss you, I’ll make love to you.”

She dimpled a cheek. “’Tis the
only
idea I have in mind.”

Quincy felt himself weakening. “You might have a concussion.”

“Whatever a
concussion
is, I dinna get stricken with one from a flying cork.”

“You need to keep the ice on your nose to minimize the bruising,” he tried.

“I shall ice me nose in betwixt.”

“In betwixt what?”

Her smile deepened. The ice pack plopped somewhere near her on the bed. She locked both arms around his neck. “In betwixt all the times ye’ll be making love to me tonight.”

“Ah.” Quincy had never loved anyone quite so deeply as he loved this slip of a woman. Just looking at her made his heart pang with yearning. “So it’s repeated lovemaking sessions that you’re requesting?”

She tried to pleat her forehead in a frown but winced at the discomfort. “If ye make me say the words, Quincy Harrigan, ye’ll be off to the woodshed with yer da tomorrow fer a man-to-man talk.”

The last thing Quincy wanted or needed was a woodshed lecture from his father, so he threw caution to the wind and kissed the woman.

Chapter Eleven

C
eara forgot all about her headache as Quincy feathered his lips over hers, sharing with her more a whisper of breath than a true kiss. Even so, her heart started to slog, and her pulse pounded with such force through her body that she felt the thrum even in the tips of her toes. She unfastened his shirt and pushed it off his shoulders, entrapping his arms. He reared back, sent the garment flying, and then straddled her hips, all in one fluid motion. No blaze burned in the fireplace, but a ceiling lamp at the other end of the room provided illumination, and the sight of his bare upper torso pleased Ceara so much that she almost protested when he bent to kiss her again, deeply and possessively.

Quincy
. Long ago, Ceara had believed herself to be in love with a young man, but never had his chaste and hesitant kisses made her feel this way—her flesh and bones going as soft as candle wax placed too close to a flame. Her body tingled at every brush of his fingertips over her skin, and her breath snagged at every pass of his hands over her curves. He touched her as he might a fragile seashell: lightly, reverently, setting off sparks of heat in her belly—and lower. He made her want with an aching urgency that encouraged her to forsake all the ladylike rules of behavior that had been drummed into her head all her life. If he thought her brazen, ’twas fine, for she
felt
brazen.

Breathing in short, raspy pants, they tore at each other’s garments, yearning to be body-to-body, limb against limb, heart-to-heart. Ceara reveled in the feel of his skin beneath her hands, the texture somehow coarser than hers, reminding her of the underside of silk. She explored the lumpy bones in his shoulders, the fleshy hardness of his biceps, the angular shape of his elbows, and the hard, tendon-roped slope of his forearms. But what truly made her blood run molten was touching his wide, thick wrists and broad, work-hardened hands. Their very maleness made her feel deliciously feminine.

Stripped of the camisole slip, Ceara wondered why she’d fussed so much over what to wear, because now she wore nothing at all. But Quincy didn’t give her much time to ponder. His hot mouth covered her nipple, and with one draw, he had her hands fisted in his hair and her spine arching. She heard herself cry out his name, and apparently he heard her, too, for he scraped the sensitive tip with his teeth, shrilling her cry to a soft shriek as ribbons of pure sensation spiraled from her breast into the hot, throbbing core of her.

Ceara became lost in the swirl of fiery sensation, feelings so intense, thoughts so dizzy that she couldn’t hold on to reason. She felt as if she were turning to liquid and being absorbed into him through the pores of his skin. No more Ceara, no more Quincy. They became one, so melded in passion that no separation existed between their bodies. His mouth, his hands, his igniting heat became her only reality.

This time when he pushed forward, he held nothing back. As his long, thick shaft entered her wet passage, he bucked hard with his hips, impaling her. She heard a scream but was too lost in the throes of passion to care that it had come from her. His rhythm was forceful and fast, and her hips instinctively found the pace so she could meet him thrust for thrust. Higher. Higher. She felt like a champagne bubble, a tiny, sparkly bit of nothing, spiraling upward toward blinding brightness.

They reached the light together. Beneath the frantic grip of her hands on his upper arms, she felt veins pop up under his skin. She squinted open her eyes to watch his face, loving the grimace that twisted his dark countenance and peeled his firm lips back over his white teeth. And then she was caught up in the taut explosion of pleasure herself, bumping her hips hard against him, craving the slower but deeper invasions that set off bursts of delight low in her belly.

Afterward they lay clutched in each other’s arms, legs entangled, her head nestled in the hollow of his shoulder. As their breathing finally slowed to a normal pace, he gently placed the ice pack on her nose again, gasping when the cold touched the feverish skin of his shoulder.

“Nay!” she protested.

“You promised to ice it in betwixt, and I’m holding you to it.”

In betwixt? Ceara grinned and carefully settled the pack over the injured place. That meant he planned to make love to her again. ’Twould greatly please her if he did.

* * *

Quincy stirred to consciousness with Ceara still curled against him. The room had grown colder than a well digger’s ass, and he thought about getting up to start a fire. Thinking about it was as far as he got. As if Ceara sensed his wakefulness, she stirred and lifted her head to peer at him through the gloom, her mouth curved in a satisfied smile. She bent to nip playfully at his bottom lip. He didn’t know where the hell the ice pack had gotten off to.

“Me mum has it all wrong,” she said with a giggle. “The baser pleasures are na a wifely duty to be endured but to be eagerly awaited.”

That was all the encouragement Quincy needed to make love to her again. She responded with complete abandon, no longer a hesitant virgin, but a recently deflowered one who seemed eager to learn all the wonders of sex. Well, she’d come to a willing teacher. Quincy had been with so many women over the years that he’d nearly lost count, but never had he held anyone dearer in his arms, and he’d definitely never experienced such intense sexual pleasure.

Afterward, drained to absolute limpness, he fell asleep with his face buried in her hair. It smelled of her rose water. He needed to buy her some fancy perfume. He’d have to ask his brothers what their wives liked. His last thought before blackness settled over him again was that he’d become very fond of her rose scent and should probably stick with that. To him, the smell of rose petals was Ceara’s trademark.

* * *

They awakened the next time simultaneously, their eyes popping open like those of exhausted children who realized they’d snoozed too long and missed out on too much playtime. Ceara nuzzled her cheek against their shared pillow, pleased to see his sleepy but satisfied grin.

“Ye look happy,” she murmured. “Almost as happy as I am.”

“So you liked it, did you?”

Ceara traced the frown lines above the bridge of his nose. “A lady canna wax poetic about how greatly she
likes
that kind of thing. ’Tis brazen.”

He laughed. “So we’re back to that again, are we?”

“’Tis who I am.”

“I know that now,” he said huskily. Then he sighed. “Where the hell is your ice pack?”

“’Tis lost, and me nose has stopped paining me, so I have no further need of it.”

“You promised to use it in betwixt.”

“In betwixt what?” She flashed him a deliberate grin that she knew dimpled her cheek and made her look as impish and mischievous as her little sister did after she pulled a prank. “’Tis thinking I am that ye’re falling down in your duties, Sir Quincy, if ye expect me to keep me promise about icing during the
betwixts
. I need a bit more encouragement from ye than what ye’ve given me so far.”

“
Sir
Quincy? Please. Surely we’ve moved past that now.”

“A man who pleases his lady so much deserves to be addressed by his title.”

“Aha!” he said with a rich chuckle. “Caught you. You as good as told me that you liked it a lot, you brazen little hussy.”

Ceara gave him one of her most demure smiles. “Let me say only that if ye approach me again with such things on yer mind, I willna object.”

He studied her for a long moment, and then, with no warning, he growled, caught her in his arms, and playfully nipped her shoulder. “You won’t object? I’ll take that as a green light.” His mouth found her breast, and Ceara gasped, unable to suppress the sound. “Mmm.” He suckled her, sending jolts of sensation into her belly. “You taste like honey.” He tickled the hard crest with his tongue. “And one of my favorite things is honey. What if I have such things on my mind all day today and never let you out of bed?”

Ceara could barely collect her thoughts to give him a coherent answer. “I willna object,” she managed shakily.

He laughed and then turned serious as he began making love to her again. Ceara nearly groaned when he abandoned her breast. She wondered whether it would be considered brazen of her to ask him to go back to it. She quite liked the pull of his mouth on her nipple. Ah, but his kisses along her rib cage were just as delightful, and before she could answer her own question, she’d forgotten what it was.

* * *

When Ceara next awoke, it was to the urgent sound of someone’s stomach growling. Blinking open her eyes, she couldn’t be sure at first whether it was Quincy’s or her own, but after drifting upward to full consciousness, she determined that both of their guts were complaining of hunger. As if he felt the pangs, too, Quincy opened his eyes, seeming to come instantly alert.

“You’re hungry.”

He pushed up on an elbow, looking so good that Ceara considered having another taste of him before they ate, but her belly hunger won the vote. “’Tis
starving
I am.”

He swung off the bed, pulled on his boxers, and shoved his feet into his boots. As Ceara stood to pull on the camisole slip, he said, “The kitchen’s a total wreck. I’ll carry you down. I don’t want you cutting your feet.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, blinked, and then focused on her face. “Well, shit. So much for using ice in betwixt. You’re well on your way to having two beauts.”

“What are beauts?”

“Black eyes, Hollywood. Shades for you, coming up.” He made circles with his thumbs and forefingers over his eyes. “Great
big
suckers. And you’ll wear them whenever we go to town. Otherwise strangers will think I’m a wife beater.”

“Yer family willna?”

Quincy chuckled. “Darlin’, in this family, any man who lifts a hand in anger to a woman can expect to see his picture in the obits three days later.”

“What are obits?”

He circled the bed, scooped her up in his arms, and said, “I’ll explain while I sweep up the glass and mop the kitchen floor so your pretty little feet don’t stick to the slate.”

* * *

Quincy turned up the thermostat so Ceara wouldn’t be cold in Loni’s camisole slip, and after cleaning the kitchen floor, he set to work cooking breakfast. Ceara sat at the table with a fresh ice pack over her nose, but every time he wasn’t looking, she lowered it so she could feast her eyes on her husband. She quite liked the trews that he called boxers, she decided. He had legs as brown and sturdy as tree trunks, and his back, chest, and arms put on a show for her, muscles rippling and bulging under his bronze skin. As hungry as she was for real food, watching him kindled other fiery needs within her. She doubted that she would be in need of the spectacles he called shades to hide her black eyes, because, brazen though it might be, she wanted to spend at least the next week in bed with her husband. She had a delicious feeling that he’d introduced her to only little bits of the whole picture when it came to what he called “sex.” She felt like a child who was being taught tiny words etched on slate while whole tomes filled with complicated sentences awaited her.

He was whisking eggs, putting so much force into the swirls of the beater that his boxers danced on his narrow hips, when she collected the courage to ask, “Quincy, what is an electronic boyfriend?”

He nearly toppled the bowl of frothy yellow as he jerked his head around to gape at her. “Say what?”

Ceara restated the question. “Dee Dee tossed hers in the trash, but Rainie still has one. They call him Mr. Purple.”

“Son of a bitch.” He went back to whisking, but with far more enthusiasm. “That’s it. No more hen parties for you. The women in my family are teaching you all kinds of stuff you have no need of knowing.”

“Why do I have no need?”

She saw his muscular shoulders tense and then relax. “Okay. You
do
have a need. You’re in my world now, and I guess females are going to talk to you about stuff like that.” He sighed and his shoulders slumped a bit more. “An electronic boyfriend—well,
hell
.” He released the handle of the whisk so abruptly to turn to face her again that the implement rocked out of the bowl and splattered whipped egg all over the counter. “It’s a gadget.” He threw up a hand. “Don’t ask what a gadget is. Just let me get this said. When women get . . .” He dragged in a deep breath that swelled his already impressive chest, and then released it with a
whoosh
. “When women get lonely for
male
companionship, they use what they call electronic boyfriends to satisfy themselves. The correct nomenclature isn’t ‘electronic boyfriend’ or ‘Mr. Purple.’ Its proper name is a vibrator, and when it’s turned on, it vibrates. The sensation is . . . well, when applied to certain parts of a woman’s body, the vibration is arousing, and a woman can get off using one.”