The Wayward One (The De Montforte Brothers Book 5) (40 page)

“I should hope that existing family and friends would top that list of what it offers,
mo chol ceathar,
” said Brendan warmly. “Besides, our wives seem to be getting on famously, and you can be in Boston in the time it takes to set your tops’ls. You could find worse places to settle, but none better.”

Ruaidri, who’d noted his wife’s well-concealed sadness earlier in the evening and correctly guessed the reason for it, laughed as Nerissa all but leapt to her feet. “Oh, Ruaidri—I would love it if we made this place our home. Could we?”

Ruaidri laughed. “Let’s have a look at it tomorrow. Plenty of time to make up our minds.” He wrapped a hand around her waist. Goodnights were said, and before they were even halfway up the staircase, he had lifted his wife in his arms and carried her the rest of the way.

She was asleep before he even peeled the covers back and gently lowered her down to the sheets. She might protest that she was no china doll, but in some respects, Ruaidri mused, he would always treat her as one—worthy of the utmost care and protection.

His
care and protection.

How he loved her.

Loved her.

His eyes filled with sudden, unexpected emotion as he looked down at her, sleeping. They were safe here in Newburyport, with a solid roof over their heads and the end of his mission in sight. A nice little town, this one, and his cousin was right. They already had friends and family here. It was as good if not better a place than any to settle down and begin their lives together. Ruaidri stripped off his coat, breeches and waistcoat, and clad in just the long linen shirt, climbed carefully into bed beside his wife.

He was already growing hard, and he ached to make love to her.

And then he remembered her pushing her food around on her plate and knew that her needs—a good night’s sleep—were far more important than his own.

Curling his body around hers to keep her warm, he wrapped her in his hard, strong arms, buried his face in her hair and fell asleep to the sound of the wind whistling around the eaves as the gale built outside.

Chapter 29

Nerissa awoke several hours later.

The room was still dark, save for a single candle that had burned low on the highboy a few feet away. Outside, she could hear rain lashing the windows, hammering them in wet sheets of fury. It was a miserable night out there and she was glad they were here in a warm, dry house as opposed to what would be the damp discomfort of
Tigershark
’s cabin in such “dirty,” as Ruaidri would call it, weather.

His warmth surrounded her, encompassed her, and she became increasingly aware of something hard pressing into her backside. She turned over and found him awake, his wildly curling black hair in sharp contrast against the pillow in the room’s faint light as he lay on one elbow gazing down at her. He made no apologies for his bulging arousal, and she stretched her arm out beneath the blankets and found him beneath his bunched-up shirttail. He was rock-hard, and she gently stroked him as they lay quietly together.

“Mmmm,” he murmured, with a sigh of relief.

“Why are you awake?” she asked.

“Why are you?”

“I’m hungry.”

“No surprise there,” he murmured, his voice deep and warm in the near-darkness. He traced the curve of her cheekbone with his fingers. “You didn’t eat much at supper, lass. Feelin’ better, are ye?”

“Yes.” She brushed her thumb over his velvety knob, loving the way he filled her hand. “But that doesn’t explain why you’re awake in the middle of the night.”

“Maybe it’s because I want ye.”

“You can have me. Any time you like.”

“Ye were asleep.”

“I’m not, now.” He grew restless as she continued to touch him, and her own blood began to ignite at the thought of him being inside her, filling her, loving her with all the strength in his big body and holding her protectively in his arms. The warm glow of the candle softened the hard, angular cast of his features and he smiled at her, drinking her in with his eyes before reaching up to clear a thick tress of long blonde hair away from her face.

He tucked it behind her ear. “I love ye, Nerissa O’ Devir,” he murmured softly. “Ye’re the best thing that’s ever come into me life. ’Til the day I die, I’ll be thankin’ the good Lord and every saint in heaven for sendin’ ye to me.”

“I love you too, Ruaidri.” His arousal filled her hand, hot and heavy and hard. “Thank you for abducting me.”

He laughed and used his body weight to dislodge her before she could bring him to climax, rolling her over onto her back. The covers tented above them, letting in drafts of cold air, and he quickly yanked the blankets up to try and hold the heat in.

Outside, the cold, autumn wind howled and a tree branch scraped against the window pane. Warmth, security, coziness, and the arms of her husband…there was no place Nerissa would rather be, no place on earth that even her wildest dreams could ever have taken her, and she realized that despite the fact she was in a strange bed in a strange country three thousand miles from home, she was happier than she had ever been in her life.

He reached down, framing her face between his rough, calloused hands, and lowered his head to kiss her.

She eagerly received him, desperate for the taste of his lips, the heavy weight of his body pressing hers down into the mattress, that sweeping, delicious joy of being melded to, mated to, joined as one to, this man that she had married. His mouth drove hungrily into her own, forcing her head down into the pillow, covering and capturing her soft moans of pleasure as his tongue swept into her mouth and set her blood afire. She reached up and pushed her hands through his hair, clasping his head to hers. His curls tangled in her fingers, coarse and wiry and refusing to be tamed, much like the man himself.

“We must be quiet, Ruaidri,” she whispered, as he pulled her shift up and ran his hands down her sides. He drove them beneath her hips and cupping her bottom, pulled her up against his erection, pressing and grinding against her until they were both breathing hard. “The walls…they might be thin. I…oh… I would be terribly embarrassed if anyone were to hear us.”

His shifted his weight, not yet entering her, then lifted a hand to tweak and massage her nipple until lightning flared between her legs and became liquid heat. A helpless little cry tumbled from her lips and he quickly kissed her to cover it. “Nobody will hear us,” he murmured against the side of her neck, then kissed her again as he rolled the nipple, engorged now, between thumb and forefinger. “We’ll make sure of it.”

He moved lower on the bed, capturing the other nipple between his lips, teasing it with his tongue, flicking it into a peak of sensation. Nerissa tried to reach for him once more but he caught her hand, pushed it high over her head and anchored it on the pillow, all the while sucking at her nipple, drawing it deeply into his mouth and lightly nipping it until she gasped and twisted and pushed upwards with her hips, wanting him.

“Be still, lass,” he murmured, looking up from the gentle curve of her breast with a little smile. “We’re tryin’ to be quiet, remember?”

“I’m—” she sucked her lower lip between her teeth as his hand strayed lower, grazing the flat plane of her abdomen, the little indentations where her lower pelvis met her hipbones, and finally, that desperate, almost painful spot between her legs that was already wet with desire for him—“trying.”

“Then let me see if I can make it harder for ye,” he teased, spreading her with his fingers and stroking her inner flesh until she moaned and twisted slowly on the sheet, her heels digging into the mattress, the blankets already spilling to the floor.

“Oh, Ruaidri… I shall be so embarrassed if anyone were to hear us.”

“The house is asleep.”

She gave a little sob as he found her slick, hidden bud between thumb and forefinger and gently rolled it. “It won’t be if you continue to do that to me. I can’t keep quiet…it’s agony…”

He moved lower then, his mouth dragging down across her abdomen, his tongue coming out to dip into the little divot of her navel and to swirl around its perimeter, even as he still held her arm above her head, even as he still rubbed and stroked her into a heavy wetness. She turned her head on the pillow, dimly aware of the shadows moving across the ceiling, her breathing coming thick and hard as his lips dragged through her curls and he nuzzled that sweet, hot spot he was still massaging with his fingers.

“I love the smell of ye, Nerissa,” he murmured against her, his voice hoarse and savage. “I love the taste of ye. Ye make me crazy with need. Ye make me lose me fuckin’ mind. Ye slay me, ye do my head in, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

With his elbow, he forced her legs wide, so wide that she felt the tendons straining, and pushed his mouth deep into her cleft, his tongue taking over where her fingers left off until the scream she was helpless to prevent rose like a crazy, unleashed beast from deep inside her. Just in time, he released her straining arm and offered the palm of his hand to her mouth and she bit down hard on it to contain her cries, tears of sweet anguish coursing down her cheeks as climax rocked her not once, not twice, but a sharp and undulating three times. And then, before the last waves could die away, he rose up above her, strong and virile, his arousal thick and swelling in his hand, and guided it to her wet cleft. She rose to meet him, sobbing in joy as she felt him shove deep inside of her with an almost brutal possessiveness, filling her with himself, stretching the walls of her womanhood, the delicious penetration finding more sensation deep inside of her and causing it to build once more.

His own passion built with the force and gathering momentum of his thrusts, and it occurred to her, with some distant part of her mind, that the bed was squeaking, that someone might hear, and then her husband drove himself deep inside her a final time, shuddering as he spilled his seed. His hot forehead dropped to hers. Her arms came up to encircle his broad, brawny shoulders. He lowered himself to his forearms and buried his face against her neck, his breath hot against her skin, her damp hair.

They lay there for a long moment, their bodies damp with perspiration, his thick, coarse hair pushing into her cheek.

“That wasn’t quiet,” he rasped, still breathing hard.

“Do you think anyone heard us?” she asked, mortified.

“Don’t know. Don’t care.”

“I hope I didn’t hurt your hand,” she said a little sheepishly.

He just laughed and easing himself out of her, got up to fetch the washcloth that was neatly folded with the bowl and pitcher. He cleaned them both up, then went about retrieving the kicked-off blankets in the darkness.

“I’m cold now, Ruaidri. Come back to bed and keep me warm.”

“I’m tryin’ to find the blankets.”

He tossed them over the bed and she sat up, helping to straighten them and tuck them in. A moment later, he slid in beside her and gathered her safely up into his arms. They lay there together, the faint nausea she’d felt hours earlier beginning to press on her once more, he gazing up at the shadows playing across the ceiling.

“How long does the land-sickness last, Ruaidri?”

“Should be gone by now, I’d expect. What, ye still feelin’ poorly, lass?”

“Not quite poorly, just not…not myself. A bit sick to my stomach.”

“Do you want me to go find some ginger in the kitchens? ’Twill calm your stomach.”

“No, don’t trouble yourself. It will pass.”

“Probably all that rich food we had at supper. Ye’ve been eating shipboard shite for the past month and a half; ye’re not used to it.”

“What time is it, anyhow?”

“Don’t know, too dark in here to see the clock, but I’m guessin’ it’s comin’ up on about five in the mornin’. ’Twill be a while before the sun comes up.” He squeezed her hand. “Let me go find some ginger for ye.”

She didn’t want to send him out of this cozy cocoon even though she knew he’d do it for her, do anything for her, in a heartbeat. “No, Ruaidri. Stay here with me. Please.”

He lifted a brow at the plea in her voice. “Come now, lass, what ails ye?”

“I just… I just don’t want to be alone.” She suddenly felt small. Vulnerable. A bit ashamed, especially after the way they had just come together and made the rest of the world cease to matter. “I don’t want you to leave me.”

“Homesick?” he asked gently, sitting down on the bed beside her, and she felt his word pierce her heart. He knew. He understood. She thought of her family in a distant England she would probably never see again, and blinked back a sudden, unexpected sting of tears.

What is wrong with me?

“What’s the matter, love?”

“I don’t know.”

He leaned over and wiped away the single tear tracking out of the corner of her cheek, down her temples and into her hair. “I’m here for ye, Nerissa. I always will be.”

“I know.”

“We’ll make a home together. Here, if ye like. We’ll be happy.”

“I know,” she repeated in a little voice, and felt a hot tear trickling out of the other eye, now.

He pulled her up against him, stroking her hair, just letting her rest in his nearness and strength as she wept quietly against his shirt.

“Things’ll get better,
mo grá
. Do ye like it enough to make our home here?”