The Selkie (16 page)

And then, as stunning comprehension tried to launch an assault on her brain, she lost consciousness.

Chapter 8

When she came to, he was lying at her side, propped up on one elbow. Still grinning that come-hither grin.
“
This is the second time you’ve fainted on me. It’s getting to be a habit,
”
he purred, brushing his fingertips across her stomach under the covers.
“
Should we check your blood sugar?
”

Maggie just stared back, not in fear of him, but of what was happening to her.

Calan’s brow furrowed when he saw the look on her face, and he passed a gentle hand over her hair.
“
Are you quite well, love?
”

She sat up, not even bothering to cover herself when the blanket fell from her breasts. She noted how his gaze dipped to her chest, how he struggled to fight his ever-present hunger. Once again, that ripple of tension shivered through his neck and shoulders, as he clearly sought to control the beast inside.

The one that hadn’t finished ravishing her.

Once his eyes met hers again, she spoke through a dry, but steady, voice.
“
Tell me the truth, Calan. Who are you? I don’t care if you’re a crook or some kind of con man. I just want to know.
”

“
You know what I am.
”
His response shook with a throaty, frustrated growl.
“
I know you’re confused, but surely you can trust your own senses.
”

“
It’s not possible.
”

He sat up, the flirty, insatiable expression gone from his face.
“
And is it possible that I’d know you envisioned my selkie face as I rained down the most earth-shattering orgasm you’ve ever had?
”

“
You really do read minds,
”
she replied, her voice hushed, goose bumps raised on her bare arms.

“
Maybe a little. Call it instinct.
”
His serious face crumpled with the merest hint of the smile that brought her to her knees.
“
Look, I’ll tell you whatever you wish to know, lass. I’m Calan of Kirkwall, shortened to Calan Kirk, in keeping with modern practice. I am of the selkie folk, and if I can’t have you, I believe I might die.
”
He reached out a hand to cup her breast, caressing it with great longing.

“
Okay, let’s say for the sake of argument you are selkie. Do you have a family?
”
she asked, trying to ignore how he brought her nipple to immediate, tortuous hardness under his thumb.

“
Aye. Rather a large one. And I’m the baby, the spoiled one according to my six brothers.
”

Her mind spun a little. Six brothers. That sounded challenging enough for a human family! Never mind … whatever he was.

“
How old are you?
”
She tried to brush his hand from her breast but it wouldn’t be moved.

“
Five hundred seventy-five years old. Like I said, I’m the baby.
”
He grinned and tweaked her nipple.

A dull pain throbbed in the back of her head, a throb that only intensified each time she glimpsed the soft sheen of his unblemished skin.
“
You must realize that’s hard to believe.
”

“
I understand, Maggie. But that doesn’t make it any less true.
”

He drew closer and looked at her breast as if he wanted nothing more in life than to suckle at its softness. He licked his lips and Maggie had trouble continuing but she forced herself to forge ahead.
“
And it’s your … job … to pleasure women?
”

“
Well,
”
he drawled, finally leaning down to lick at her nipple,
“
I wouldn’t call it a job. It’s fate.
”

She watched as he flicked out his tongue to tease the nipple that was angrily tight and eager for the scrape of his teeth. She wanted to just lie back and let him have her, in every way possible, in ways she’d never even considered before. But the thought of him with other women, maybe thousands of other women, had her reeling with a jealousy she’d never experienced.

“
So what do you do when fate isn’t summoning you?
”
she asked, and was surprised at the hurt catch in her voice. She pushed his head away from her breast, pulling up the blanket to cover herself.
“
You know, when you’re not employed as some waterlogged gigolo?
”

Calan looked up from her breast through disappointed eyes.
“
That’s a good one. I must write that down on my résumé.
”

Suddenly, Maggie was crying. And not just a demure blubber. Her shoulders shook and her throat felt raw, and the sobs had her gut lurching. She couldn’t even blame it on the gunshot or grief or stupid Matthew anymore. It was Calan, just Calan, who was doing this to her, when she’d sworn to forsake all men. Why couldn’t he be a dentist or in middle management in a nice office somewhere? Why did he have to plague her with all these questions?

She leaped from the bed, pulling the white quilt cover around her. Not knowing where to go, but not wanting to leave, she ended up in the corner of the room. There, she collapsed in a heap of cotton on the floor, and covered her face as she wept.

Calan rose from the bed, still annoyingly nude, and strode over to her crumpled form. He kneeled next to her, wrestling her hands from her face.
“
Maggie, please don’t.
”

She glanced up, taken aback by his fervent plea, and was shocked to see how pale he was.

“
Don’t cry,
”
he begged.
“
I’ve never been able to endure a woman’s tears, but yours are slicing into me like a shark’s tooth. Please, Maggie.
”

The only response she could muster up was to plop more tears into his naked lap.

“
Why weep, love?
”

“
Because one of us is clearly insane!
”
The pain in her voice shocked her. She hadn’t expected to feel so strongly about Calan, hadn’t expected any of this. And the more time she spent with the mysterious man from the sea, the more she cared about him. It scared her. What kind of future could she possibly have with him? None, she knew, yet she was having trouble envisioning a future without him.
“
This can’t be real.
”

“
Oh, it’s real,
”
he replied, the lust resurfacing in his eyes as he gazed at her surrounded by his blanket. He grabbed her hand, moving it to his thick, aroused cock.
“
And this is real too.
”

As Maggie encircled the significant girth of his cock, she stared openmouthed at the magnificent creature before her. And wished very much that she could believe.

Please, God. Even just a little.

*

Calan loved a challenge. Yet he’d never had one. Not as far as women were concerned. The few times in his life that his pelt had been pilfered by some enterprising female, there had been no challenge to whet his own appetite. When women saw their selkie prize, they’d given themselves heart and soul to him, eager to believe the myth. They’d all been so gullible that it had been no trouble stealing his skin back from them.

Maybe it was something about those Orkney lasses. They were more inclined to believe in magic. From the buxom, human barmaid who’d taken his virginity centuries ago to every last lonely sailor’s wife he’d entertained. They’d all fallen for him, hook, line, and sinker.

Not Maggie.

She was different. Maggie wanted him, but railed against the idea that he didn’t fit into her neat, sensible world. Right from the start, he knew her skepticism would make their passion even more fiery, more electric.

Yet now that he felt her soft fingers on his shaft, he knew his world was being altered as much as hers. He stared down at the beautiful woman below him, the one he’d just finished ripping in two with delicious ecstasy. He’d claimed her heart, he could tell. From the haunted, desperate look in her eyes, and from the impassioned moans that had ensnared his soul.

And he felt absolutely shackled to her. He’d gone from being her reluctant stalker to her very willing prisoner.

It was going to be so hard, he realized with a heavy heart, to leave her.

For, leave her, he must. It was his way. The way of his kind, aside from the unfortunate few who’d been snared by their mates. Of course, Angus wouldn’t describe his relationship with Elsie that way, nor would his parents speak so about their mating. He knew it was possible to love.

But him? Calan of Kirkwall? Never.

He didn’t know the meaning of the word. And, he suspected, neither did Jamie, Machar, Breannan, Drummond, and Edan, his other wayward brothers. Angus was the only one so far to have fallen. And when he had, spying wee Elsie Tate that first day, he’d plummeted faster than a boulder sinking in water.

And he’d never been happier, the great fool.

Maybe Angus knew something he didn’t.

He looked down at the gentle way Maggie was swirling her fingers around his cock, endured the shards of painful pleasure as they cut through his body. All thoughts of Angus and the rest of his brothers flew away.

Fuck, this woman is sweet.

She was staring at his dick, seemingly entranced. With a tentative shadow in her eye, she finally looked up at him and then moved her hand lower. As she cupped his balls, swirling them with a careful hand, he let out a curse. He’d never felt anything so good, and he wasn’t even inside her yet.

He just knew she would fit him better than any he’d ever known. Better than Daisy, the barmaid who’d taken his virginity when he was a young pup, back when the sixth King Henry was still on the English throne. Daisy had been plump and willing, but had he loved her? No. Even though he’d developed a begrudging fascination with humans because of her, he hadn’t loved her.

Maggie would feel better to him than Mary, the lonely wife of a fisherman whom

he’d entertained back in the early eighteen hundreds. He’d stayed with the buxom wench for four years until he’d found his pelt. And had he loved Mary? No. In fact, after a time, he’d grown tired of her.

And the gods only knew, of all the selkie maids he’d bedded, he’d never felt inspired to mate with a single one.

So why did Maggie, an emotionally scarred mortal, suddenly feel so right? He didn’t know why. She just did.

He looked down at his auburn beauty, at the red curls dancing above her shoulders. At the echoing red curls at the base of her soft stomach, the ones he could see peeking through the folds of the gathered quilt. He took in the red flush on her sweet chest. Heard her labored breathing. Saw the longing in her eyes, a longing she probably didn’t even know was there.

And knew he wanted her. Badly.

“
Maggie,
”
he murmured.

“
Do it,
”
she challenged, her voice raw with desire.
“
I need it.
”

Damn, he needed it, too. It wasn’t the way he would have wanted, with her eyes still so full of tears. Tears that he’d caused with his so-called outrageous claims. But, by all that was holy, he couldn’t hold back any longer. He needed to feel her swallowing him up.

He laid her down on the floor and moved the cursed blanket away from her tantalizing body. Her tantalizing
human
body. Suffering one last moment of guilt, he thought of Kyla, remembering what the bastards did to her. He owed it to Kyla to remain strong and aloof.

Forgive me, Kyla.

Feeling like a bastard himself, he looked down at Maggie. Shite, she was exquisite, human or not. He stared down into her perfect face, a face made perfect by all its tiny imperfections. The slightly crooked nose. The many freckles. The funny, little red eyelashes, so wet with tears. The pretty, pale lips. He took in the crooked line as her mouth twitched into an awkward grin.

And realized something was changing in him, whether he wanted it or not.

The gods help him! Was this what Angus felt?

He ran a hand down to her pussy, sliding his finger along her wet seam. He got stiffer just feeling this evidence of her need. Cursing, he moved his hand and let his cock brush against her pussy, teasing her, and making himself mad with passion. Slowly, he prodded her with his tip, and she moved her hips to greet him. He wanted to take this slowly, to bring her to a ravenous breaking point, but he feared they were both already there.

“
Calan,
”
she implored.
“
Fuck me.
”

And so, he did.

Calan drove into the warmth of her body, his body exploding with luscious sensation. She cried out and he couldn’t control his own response. He was quaking in her arms, unable to catch his breath. And still he plunged into her again and again until he was seeing stars. Her perfume was all over him, marking him. Her sweet pussy wrapped around him as if it were part of his own body. And her every cry of delirium bound him to her.

As he felt the explosion rock his body, he held her tighter, breathing against her soft