Claiming Her (Renegades & Outlaws) (21 page)

Disappointment coursed through her. She sat back, affecting disinterest by means of a miniscule shrug.
 

A low rumble of laughter met this; he knew she’d been practically
speared
by the desire to know more.

“’Twas a mere curiosity,” she assured him.

“What I want isn’t mere, lass.” Low and lazy, it was a confident, masculine drawl, followed up by the immeasurably more confident, and equally masculine, command, “Come here.”

Heat swept through her, everywhere. “No.”
 

He gave a faint smile. “Getting tired of that word.”

Shivers, hard and pricking, like falling stars, rained across her belly and chest. Traitorous body, to turn into a night sky simply because this warlord had issued a command.
 

And he knew it. Knew every shiver that ribboned through her body, for he pushed to his feet and came around the table and lifted her out of the chair. He skimmed the fabric she still held to her chest with the back of his hand, then closed it around the silk and tugged it away, tossing it to the side, a slithery pile of silk by her feet.

Nothing lay between them now, nothing at all.

He tipped his head to the side, watching her. Waiting. She should walk away.
 

She did not walk away.

“Aodh,” she said, feeling strangely desperate. On
his
behalf
.
“You do not know what you have done here, by taking Rardove. Your arrogance will be your doom.”

“I am not arrogant. Rardove is. It sits, as we have said, on bedrock. With sea cliffs behind. It can hold off an army for years.”

She stared at him. “That is the extent of your plan? To hold them off for years?”
 

A shrug from the powerful shoulder. His gaze slid off hers, trailed down to her chest. “If all else fails.”

“Else?” A tendril of panic uncurled in her belly. “What
else
are you planning?”

 
“Negotiations. There are worse things than having an Irishman hold a castle in Ireland.”
 

“You cannot mean to try— You cannot think the queen will negotiate with you? Aodh, she will
annihilate
you. You must see— ” She stopped short as a new shot of fear went through her. “Does the queen know you are here?”

He nodded. “She ought. I wrote her myself.”

She felt flushed and feverish. “You wrote her? Oh no. Did you mention me?” She couldn’t keep the panic from her voice. “Aodh, did you mention
me
?”
 

His gaze came up from where it had been trailing down her body. “Is that what is worrying you, Katy?”

Her hands were shaking. “’Tis treason enough to harbor priests, but to harbor rebels…”
 

“I told you, Katy, I will protect you.” He turned his hand and slid it along her jaw. “I swear it, on my life. I will not abandon you.”

She stared into his eyes, dumbfounded, as if she’d never heard the word before:
abandon.
No one had abandoned her. Her father had been executed by the queen, her mother died of a broken heart, too swaddled in pain, perhaps too frightened of the queen, to stay alive anymore.
 

“Abandon me?” she whispered.

“Never,” he murmured, and skimmed his hand to the ties of her bodice and tugged on one frayed silk ribbon.

She watched his hard hand being so gentle with her, and began to tremble. “You are taking your life in your hands, Mac Con.” Her voice shook.
 

He slid his gaze up. “Right now?”

“By taking Rardove.”

“Ah.” He tugged on the laces harder.
 

“The queen will be enraged.”

“Are you?” he asked, his head bent, watching what he was doing to her bodice.

“You do not understand. The queen will
destroy
you.”

He leaned closer, put his mouth by her ear. “The queen will
try
.”
 

And somehow, with his body so close and his confidence firing the room, it actually seemed possible this Irishman might succeed, against the most powerful monarch in Christendom.

Madness
. Hopeless, reckless, madness.

She curled her hands into fists. “Aodh, listen to me. It is not too late. We could write her.
I
could write her, on your behalf.”

His gaze lifted from her bodice. “You would do that for me?”

Her mind raced. “Yes, of course, I will write the queen—”

“There’ll be no messages,” he said firmly. “But I thank you.” Ever so gently, he kissed her cheek. “For worrying on me.” He skimmed his hands to her hips and, in a single move, lifted her and set her down on the table.
 

Before she could release a shocked gasp, he’d stepped between her knees.
 

An exhale of desire broke from her. “We c-cannot…” Her words drifted off, as she almost forgot what they could not do. “P-people do not...”

He bent his head so it rested directly beside hers. His hair-roughened cheek brushed against hers. “Which people?”

The question stunned her. Sane people. Wise people.

Scared people.

“There is nothing I will not do, Katarina.” Her blood began to course in a heated river through her limbs, down low into the juncture between her thighs. “There is nothing we cannot do, you and I.”
 

 
Nothing we cannot do.
 

What did that mean? She almost didn’t recognize the words, arranged in such an illogical order. There were a thousand things she could not do. Should not do. Must not do.

“It is but a matter of you, Katarina. What do you want? Right now, I will do anything for you.”

Chapter Nineteen

LOW AND COAXING, his words rumbled through her hair, equal parts temptation and threat, for what Katarina wanted right now was unutterable. Thrilling and confusing. She wanted him to take off his clothes, wanted to see the painted lines covering his body. How far did they go? She imagined dark, inked flames licking over his entire body. Did they go across his chest? His hard stomach? Down his thighs?

She wanted him to keep talking. Keep telling her what he wanted. Keep telling her all the impossible things they could do together.

She breathed into the space under their downturned faces. She could taste him, smell him. Leather and steel, musky masculinity. She felt almost weak from wanting.
 

“I want…” she whispered, shocked at how the words sounded leaving her lips.

“Aye?” Fierce male desire filled the word. Barely patient, wanting her. It urged her on.
 

“I want to see how far your paint goes.”
 

His body stilled. “’Tisn’t paint,” he murmured, then his arms bent, his hard muscles flexed, and he dragged his tunic up and over his head.
 

“God in heaven.” The words emerged as breath.
 

He was magnificent.

Stunning, foreign, and beautiful, he towered before her like carved marble. The entire left side of him was covered in painted, curving, arcing lines, like comet trails across his body. He was a sorcerer, the lines more spell than ink, winding across him like a landscape, down his arm, his chest, across his flat stomach, until they disappeared under his waistband.
 

She felt as if butterflies had landed on her skin, thousands of butterflies with red-hot little feet, so they burned in shivers down her body.

She reached out to touch the inky flame that licked up the side of his neck and felt his body shudder.
 

She traced the curve with her fingertip, down his neck, across his shoulder, his chest, over his nipple. His breath hissed. She turned her finger to scrape her nail down his flat stomach, following the trail of ink.

His muscles rippled as he let her explore his body. She felt as though she’d entered another land. She was as far from the rules as the sun was from the earth. She was a shooting star, rushing away from everything she’d ever known in a fiery trail of desire.
 

Her hand drifted to his waistband, then fell away. Their eyes met.

Then, Aodh did the same thing to her as she had done to him. His hand became a mirror of hers.
 

He ran a calloused fingertip down her neck, over the rise of her breasts and down her belly. As he went, he caught the loosened laces of her bodice between his knuckles and gave another long pull. It tightened the fabric against her already hardened nipples and the corset, once bound like a fist around her ribs, suddenly loosened.
 

The breath rushed out of her. The ribbons dangled down in front of her gown.
 

“Now, Katy, there is no one here but you and I.” His fingers pushed into her hair. He fisted around the veil and tugged it free. “There is no one to see you, no one to disapprove.” He tossed the veil aside, slowly dismantling her, stripping her bare of all the trappings of propriety. “It is only you and I. Let us be.”

She felt dizzy at his words, his touch. The want in them. The hope in them. “And where will it stop?”
 

His gaze swept to hers. “I will stop whenever you say.”

She gave a small, hiccupped laugh. “Aodh, you never stop.”

 
“I will stop, for you.” He touched the tip of his tongue to the seam of her lips, so gentle. Oh so gentle. He bent his head to the side and brushed her again, a stroke of lips over lips.

“Let us be. Let us try.”

The bulwark that had held her up all these years, the wall that had held all the passion at bay, was simply washed away under the power of Aodh’s intentions for them.
 

She tipped her face up and opened her mouth for him.

With a last hard pull, he tugged the final ribbon free and swept the bodice from her body, peeling it away from her skin, leaving her bare and flushed, and then he claimed her mouth.
 

So gentle the pressure of his tongue, pushing in, parting her lips for him, so gentle, but so explosive. It ignited an arc of fire through her body that grew hotter as the kiss became deeper, more demanding, more open-mouthed, more
everything
, until her head was back, cradled in his powerful hand, her spine arched, her body unfurling beneath the wicked, wonderful slow lashing of his tongue.
 

His hands tested the length of her, skimming over everything he could touch. Detoured momentarily by her braid, he swiftly uncoiled it, loosed the plait and ran his fingers through the banded tresses to let it flow down her back. Then he resumed his exploration of her body, skidding down to her hips.

She did the same to him, utterly lost in him, sliding her hands over the hard bulge of his arms, down his muscled back, her fingertips raking into the valley of his spine until he hissed and nipped at her neck, both punishment and invitation.
 

With a breathtaking move, he pushed his hands beneath her bottom and dragged her forward, until the thrust of his erection pushed boldly into the fabric of her gown, into the juncture between her thighs.
 

It was a stroke of pleasure, a perfect push. Heedless now, she pressed forward, until she was right up at the edge of the table, her thighs dangling on either side of his hips. She straightened against his body, pressed her bared breasts to his chest, and leaned up to taste his neck.
 

Her mouth moved down the strong column of his throat. The rough scratch of hair abraded her lips, heightening her pleasure. Dangerous, this was so dangerous. So irresistible.

“Katy.” It was a ragged, male plea. He cupped her bared breasts in both hands. His hands, so hard, so capable of destruction, brushed gently over her nipples.

A firestorm of sparks raked down her body.

Everything about him was hard intent now. He put a hand on her shoulder and tipped her back to the table, onto her elbows, her body laid out like a sacrifice. He stood above her, rock hard with restraint, and raked his gaze down her. “
Leannán
.”