Skin Deep (23 page)

Garland suddenly vanished, undoubtedly bending over further to pick something up. But after five breaths she hadn’t sat up again. He inched closer to the door, craning to see what she was doing, and heard a strange noise—a thin, high keening sound coming from behind the desk.

Before he could stop to think, he was striding into the room just as the sound deepened into a sob. Garland lay curled into herself on the floor, fists pressed into her forehead. Boxes and papers were strewn haphazardly around her, but she seemed to have forgotten they were there.

“Garland,” he said, and dropped to his knees next to her. He worked his arms under and around her then heaved her rigid form onto his lap.

“It’s all right,
ionmhuinn
,” he crooned into her hair, rocking her gently.

At first she didn’t seem to notice that he held her, or that he was even in the room. But gradually she turned and huddled against him, one hand reaching up to clutch the edge of his robe. Her thin shirt, damp with sweat, had rucked partway up her back and he traced slow circles on her exposed skin with his fingertips, still murmuring to her under his breath as she shook with the force of her sobs. His beautiful Garland—what could have done this to her? His own throat ached as he listened to the pain pouring out of her. If the healer had been the cause of this, that confident grin of his would be permanently missing after he’d gotten his hands on him.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed until her sobs gradually subsided, leaving her limp against him, her face cemented by tears to the bare skin of his throat. He knew what he should do now: pat her shoulder and ask if she was all right, then gently put her off his lap and get her some water to drink and a wet cloth to wash her tears away. And he would do all those things in a few minutes. But this would be his last—his only—chance to hold her close to him, to smooth his face against her hair, to breathe in the scent of her. Once he let her out of his arms, the barriers would come up again between them. Was he wrong to want to delay that for just a few more minutes?

He had stopped rocking, but still stroked slow circles on the skin of her back and side. In the nighttime silence of the house, with his eyes closed, touch and scent suddenly seemed much bigger, more engrossing. Her skin was so soft under his hand…and her hair under his cheek was smooth and so redolent of her and—

She let go of his robe and slid her hand up his bare chest to his shoulder, then slowly down again, but tentatively, as if she were afraid he might protest, and he realized she too knew that if they let go, the moment would pass and they would never touch again.

“Alasdair,” she whispered, and he shivered as he felt her warm breath against the side of his throat. “Don’t you dare let me go.”

And then she reached up to turn his face to hers and kissed him.

He closed his eyes, the better to savor her. It would only be this once that he would feel the warm sweetness of her mouth—just once, in case he never knew love again. He tilted her back in his arms and kissed the last tears from her eyes, then found her mouth again and kissed her there too, not gently any more. If the healer had kissed her tonight he would wipe the touch of his lips from hers and make it so she would remember only
his
mouth on hers,
his
hands on her smooth warm skin—

Except that she was teasing him with her tongue so he groaned and could only kiss her deeper, and her hands were touching him, leaving trails of fire across his skin, and he knew that the tables had turned. As long as he lived it would only be
her
mouth that he wanted to taste,
her
body he wanted to touch and stroke and feel under him, around him. When her hand slid down his chest again and didn’t stop at the belt loosely tied around his waist he knew he was lost, and could have wept for joy.

Her fingertips just brushed his hardening length, hesitating, questioning. He answered her unspoken question with a sudden, convulsive movement, sliding her onto the floor and stretching out over her.
“A chiall mo chridhe,”
he whispered. His darling one.
His
. He kissed her and managed to remove all her clothes but the garment she wore over her breasts. Its resistance made him growl in frustration. He wanted her breasts
now
.

She laughed softly and arched against him, reaching beneath her, and then it was loose and he almost yanked it down her arms before tenderly cupping one rose-tipped breast, then the other. “So soft,” he murmured, brushing his tongue over them.

She inhaled sharply through parted lips. “Ohh...don’t stop.”

“I’ve only just started,” he whispered, and slid one hand down her warm belly to part her thighs.

* * *

“Did I seduce you, or you me?” Garland said, nuzzling his ear. “If it was me, I suppose I should be ashamed of myself.”

But he could hear the smile in her voice, and the small motion she made with her hips against him was more shameless than ashamed. He met her motion with one of his own so that her breath caught in a moan—oh, gods, the feel of her enfolding him!—then kissed her hard.

“I asked you to—no, I was begging you to, in my mind.” He shifted his weight onto his forearms so that he could look down at her. “You were more honest than I was. I thought I could pretend I didn’t want you.”

“No, I wasn’t. I thought I could pretend I wanted someone else.” For a few seconds her eyes dimmed. “But it didn’t work.”

The healer. Alasdair could think of him now without a jealous burn in the pit of his stomach. “I am sorry for him,” he said. “But not very much.”

She laughed and arched up to kiss him, and he knew that she belonged to him as much as he did to her. The thought was both exhilarating and terrifying. But he wouldn’t—couldn’t—think now. Not when she was cradling him between her long, lovely legs, moving against him just like
that
…

“Alasdair,” she murmured into his mouth a few moments later. “You know that we could go up to my room and do this a lot more comfortably.”

To her bed. They could make love again and fall asleep in each other’s arms, and he could waken in the morning and see her face next to his, just as he’d longed to do—

No. No thoughts of morning. Not now. “Yes. Let’s go.”

They checked on the peacefully snoring Conn, and then Garland led him into her room and shut the door behind her. He watched while she lit a pair of candles on a bureau, then turned to him and took his hands.

“Make love to me again,” she said softly, pulling him to the bed. Her skin gleamed golden in the candlelight, and her beautiful round breasts under his hands were so soft and inviting, drawing him in, and as he touched her she made little wordless sounds of pleasure that drove him wild with need. He could never have enough of her, not if he lived till the seas went dry.

“Why do you cry?” he asked afterward, brushing a tear from the corner of her eye with his thumb.

She reached up to touch his face. “Because I’m so happy. This is…I didn’t know it would be like this.” Her smile turned impish. “If I had, I might have done it a lot sooner.”

“How much sooner?” He bent and nibbled the edge of her ear. “When did you decide you desired me?” He knew he shouldn’t be playing this game, but he couldn’t stop.

“Honestly? As soon as I saw you on the beach. But then I got wrapped up in taking care of you and Conn, so I pretended to myself that I didn’t. And then there was Rob.” She sighed.

Alasdair rolled onto his back and pulled her to lie against him, head pillowed on his shoulder. “Was he why you cried earlier?” he asked.

“Rob? Oh, no. Well, he had a little to do with it, but not really.” She sighed, and he knew his guess that something unpleasant had passed between them was correct.

“Then what was it?”

“He never loved me, you know,” she said quietly. “My husband, I mean. I didn’t know that. It was all right there in a letter I found when I was cleaning out his desk. That’s what made me cry.”

Alasdair kissed her forehead. “Then he was a greater fool than I’d thought. But he’s gone now. He can’t trouble your life any more.”

She was shaking her head. “You don’t understand. I know marriages fall apart because people fall in love then eventually figure out that they’re wrong for each other. I could handle that. But Derek never loved me at all. He was…he was using me. I never told you about how Derek and I met, did I?”

Using her. He shifted uneasily and said, “No. You don’t have to.”

“But I want to. I need to get this out.” She propped herself up on one elbow and looked down at him. “He was one of my father’s students. My father was a business management professor at the university where Derek was a scholarship student. He was also the head of the business liaison office that placed students in internships and jobs as part of their degree work—because of that, he knew absolutely everybody that mattered in the business world in Boston. We had CEOs and CFOs and presidents over for dinner or drinks all the time.”

He nodded. Many of her words made no sense to him, but the basic meaning was clear. Her father had been a powerful man.

“My dad loved Derek, you know. He thought he was one of the best and brightest he’d ever taught. I met Derek when I came home from college one weekend and he was invited for dinner. I was dazzled, of course—this handsome junior being so attentive to humble little freshman me. And Dad was dazzled too—he started regarding Derek as the son he hadn’t had. Derek and I started dating in November of my freshman year when I was home for Thanksgiving, and for the next three years he was absolutely devoted. He finished his BA but stayed at the university to get his MBA, and we graduated the same year. I’d planned to go on to graduate school but that summer he asked me to marry him. He needed me, he said. I really thought he loved me.” She paused, then added quietly, “I know I loved him.”

“What happened then?”

“My dad was thrilled. So happy to be able to introduce his go-getter of a son-in-law to all his CEO friends. I don’t think Derek ever had to write up a resume. He had his choice of positions.”

She took a deep breath and went on. “I was devastated by not being able to give him children. Maybe if we’d had them things would have been different—I would have been busy with them, and Derek would have had his work. Lots of people live those sort of parallel lives. Then about three years ago Dad had a stroke. I think in his way Derek did love my father, because he’d never really had one—his father left when he was just a toddler. It wasn’t till after Dad had a second stroke and died that I think Derek started seriously looking at other women. He would never have tried to leave me while Dad was alive.”

She chuckled, but he saw that there were tears in her eyes again. “It never occurred to me that Derek had used Dad. Had used me in order to use Dad. Somehow the divorce didn’t hurt as much before as it does now. I could accept that Derek and I had made a mistake. But it wasn’t a mistake on Derek’s part, was it? He knew exactly what he was doing when he married me. And that’s what hurts so badly now…the being used. I could have gone out and found the right man to love and had my babies if Derek hadn’t decided that I was going to be his means for getting what he wanted.”

That’s what hurts…the being used.
The words felt like an iceberg bearing down on him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, resting her head back on his shoulder and taking a deep shuddering breath. “You probably didn’t want to hear all that.”

“No, you didn’t…it was—” He swallowed again. “I needed to hear it.”

“And I suppose I needed to get it out. It was just being hit with it like that, realizing just how much of a lie I’d been living—”

He touched a finger to her lips. “You were young. And your father wished you to marry him. You cannot blame yourself too much.”

“I can’t help it. It was my life to screw up.” She sighed. “And boy, didn’t I.”

“But you overcame him. You are stronger and wiser now.”

She laughed gently, and it turned into a yawn. “I don’t know about that. But just this minute I know I’m much, much happier.”

He held her close, stroking her arm and shoulder until her breathing told him that she’d drifted into sleep. His own body longed to follow her there, but the thoughts whirling in his head would not let him.

Was he any better than Derek?

Yes!
said one part of him. He would never have forced her to bottle up her power inside her for so many years till she nearly burned herself up, consumed by her own flame. He would never be like Derek and hold her back. Her success would bring him only joy.

But like Derek he was using her—first as a shield until he and Conn had healed, and now to give him a quilt for protection against Mahtahdou. And just like Derek, once he’d gotten what he wanted from her, he would leave her.

How could he do that to the woman he loved?

But he was a selkie and she was not. There could be no future for them together. And there was Mahtahdou to contend with as well. He had to leave her for her own protection. But would she see it that way? When he took his quilt and left her, all she would see was that she’d been abandoned once more. She would have given her love again, and would be left again.