Dark of the Moon (23 page)

"Oh, your ale!" she said after an instant as a pungent smell assailed her nose, and she opened her eyes to discover its source. The jug that he had recovered with such triumph only minutes before lay shattered on the stone, while the frothy yellow of its contents rolled toward the spring.

" 'Tis nothing." Cormac's voice was husky. His arms around her were hard. Alarmed, Caitlyn leaned back against them, pushing firmly against his chest. He did not let her go.

"Caitlyn . . ."he began. He was breathing rapidly, and his hazel eyes were dazed as he looked down at her. Her initial instinctive alarm was rapidly being replaced with annoyance.

This was Cormac, after all.

"Let me go, Cormac," she ordered firmly. He shook his head, and his arms tightened the tiniest bit.

"You're so beautiful," he said, his eyes moving with feverish intensity over her face. "I could hold you like this forever. Do you feel that way about me too, Caitlyn?"

"No, Cormac, I do not. Now stop being so silly and let me go. I mean it."

"I will," he promised, tightening his arms and moving his head down toward hers. "If you'll first let me kiss you."

"No!" Caitlyn shoved harder against his chest, turning her head away from his proposed assault. " 'Tis a bloody nuisance you're making of yourself, Cormac, and no mistake! I don't want to kiss you!"

"You will," he promised and, maneuvering adroidy, managed to place a sloppy kiss against the side of her averted mouth.

"You dirty rotten son of the devil!" The sound of another human voice was one of the most welcome things Caitlyn had heard for a long time. That is, until she figured out that the voice belonged to Rory and he was charging down the spring-house stairs two at a time. "You low-life snake! Take your hands off her, you dog!"

Cormac did take his hands off her just in time to meet his brother's rush with a roar. Caitlyn jumped back against the wall, for a second time barely avoiding being knocked into the pool.

The two brothers clenched with violent snarls, trading punches furiously. Caitlyn watched with a combination of disgust and aggravation. She hoped they beat each other black-and-blue. The pair of them were getting to be nothing more or less than confounded pests.

She became aware of Connor coming down the stairs just as Rory got off a roundhouse punch that sent Cormac sailing into the pool. Rory barely got a glimpse of his older brother's furious face before he found himself lifted by the collar of his shirt and the seat of his pants and tossed into the pool after Cormac. Caitlyn, watching wide- eyed, was the recipient of a single blistering look from Connor before he turned his attention to his brothers, who had just surfaced, spluttering.

"Jesus, Conn, 'twas Cormac! He was kissing Caitlyn, for pity's sake!"

"I . . ." Cormac started to defend himself. Both brothers glared at each other as they treaded water in the middle of the pool.

"I've had more than enough of your foolishness," Connor bit off, with the air of a man goaded to the limits of endurance. "You're naught but moonlings, the pair of you. But I'm telling you now that I'll not be having any more of it." He reached out and caught Caitlyn by the arm, dragging her over to stand beside him. She stumbled but managed to right herself. His hand hard on her arm, Connor pushed her forward as if she were a prize exhibit. Nervously she looked down at Cormac and Rory in the water. They looked just as nervously back at her.

Connor continued. "From this moment on, the lass belongs to me. If I catch any of you mooning about her, I'll break both your arms and your legs, and maybe your neck. Do I make myself clear?"

This last was said in a muted roar that caused his brothers' eyes to widen. Caitlyn felt as though her eyes must be the size of saucers themselves. Had Connor really meant to claim her for his own? Her heart began a slow hammering.

"You don't mean it, Conn. Do you?" Astonishment, confusion, and resentment mixed in Cormac's face as he gaped at his oldest brother. Soaked to the skin, treading water, his hair slicked back around his face and dripping water, he looked very young all of a sudden.

"As God is my witness, I do." Connor sounded grim. His grip on her arm tightened enough to hurt. She could not forbear a wince, which he must have seen because his hand immediately loosened, though he did not seem to be looking at her. His scowling attention was focused on his brothers in the water.

"She's not a bloody chattel," Rory objected reasonably. "You can't just claim her, Conn.

We've a right to have a chance at her too."

"Rory's right, Conn. She should be allowed to make up her own mind, in her own time.

You're not some feudal lord, you know, even if you are an earl."

"I—I have made up my mind." Caitlyn was astonished that her voice didn't shake. All three brothers looked at her rather as if a mounted moose's head had spoken, but she went on doggedly. "I choose Connor. And 'tis my hope that the rest of you will honor that choice."

There was a thick silence as Rory and Cormac stared at her. Caitlyn did not dare look over her shoulder at Connor, who stood silently behind her, his hand heavy on her arm.

"As you wish, of course," Rory said stiffly after a moment, and swam the two strokes needed to bring him to the side of the pool. Cormac was right behind him. They hauled themselves dripping from the pool. Without another word, trailing water as they went, they climbed up the stairs and walked out of the spring house. Caitlyn was left with Connor. The moment they were alone his hand fell from her arm. Caitlyn was half frightened to do it, but she did it anyway: she turned to face him.

He was frowning at her, not scowling but frowning. He had shrugged into his shirt after she left the bam, but it was unbuttoned and hung free of his breeches. His chest was bare, and as Caitlyn looked at the sweat-filmed muscles roughened with dark hair she felt her heartbeat quicken.

"So you were kissing Cormac, were you?" he asked, his eyes narrowing at her.

"I . . ." Caitlyn began, meaning to defend herself. Then inspiration took her. "I just wondered how it would feel," she finished with demure provocation.

His frown deepened. That tiny muscle began to twitch again beside his mouth. Looking at him, Caitlyn felt her own mouth go dry. She swayed toward him, the movement almost involuntary. He reached out and caught her upper arms, pulling her closer but still holding her away from him.

"So you just wanted to know how it would feel," he repeated with soft bite. Then his eyes narrowed further and focused with sudden blazing intensity on her mouth. "Caitlyn, lassie, if

'tis kissing you want to try, then come kiss me."

He pulled her slowly closer until her breasts just brushed the mat of hairs on his bare chest. His eyes never left her face, and her eyes drowned in his. Her heart was pounding so hard that she could scarcely hear anything over it. When his hands released her arms to slide around her small waist, she wet her lips. He took a quick, deep breath.

"Put your arms around my neck." His voice was faintly hoarse. Tiny flames lit the backs of his eyes. Caitlyn felt her knees go weak as she obediently lifted her arms. At the first tentative touch of her hands on his neck he stiffened. Caitlyn felt the warm dampness of his skin under her fingertips and trembled. Her arms slid slowly around his neck, her fingers touching the curly tail of hair at his nape. He bent his head. She closed her eyes.

The first touch of his mouth on hers made her dizzy. His lips pressed against hers gently, warm and dry, nuzzling her mouth. She felt a quickening deep inside her, a longing so intense that she thought she might faint with it. Her chest heaved as she drew a long shuddering breath, and then his tongue was inside her mouth.

She moaned. Never in all her life had she imagined that kissing a man would be like this.

She felt lightheaded, intoxicated, enthralled as his tongue softly, gently, explored her mouth.

When he removed it and lifted his head, she dug her nails into the back of his neck in protest even as she opened her eyes.

"Gently, lass." He was breathing unevenly too, she saw. Her arms were still around his neck, and his arms enwrapped her waist. If it hadn't been for this support, she didn't think she would have been able to stand. Her knees had melted to butter, and her insides were all aquiver.

The look in her eyes was both languorous and urgent as she lifted them to his.

" 'TWas marvelous. Do it again." It was a soft murmur.

"Sweet Jesus." His eyes blazed down at her for an instant before he bent his head to hers and took her mouth with a ferocity that lit brushfires of need inside her. He pulled her up on tiptoe, bending her backward so that her head was pillowed on his shoulder as his tongue plundered her mouth. Caitlyn locked her arms around his neck and kissed him back, relying on blind instinct to teach her all she needed to know. Boldly her tongue stroked his, slid inside his mouth. A fine tremor shook the arms that strained her to him. His hands slid down to cup her bottom through the layers of skirt and petticoat and shift, pulling her up against him as he pressed boldly into her. She felt the rock hardness of him grinding against her belly, felt the kneading of his fingers on her bottom as they drew her closer yet, and moaned his name into his mouth. He groaned in answer and shifted his hold on her, so that she thought he would lower her to the stone floor beneath. Then he muttered a vile word into her mouth, pulled her upright again, and tore his mouth from hers, still holding her close while his heart pounded against her breasts and his face rested against the top of her head.

"Connor!" This time his name was a soft protest. She felt him draw a deep breath. Then his arms slid from around her waist and he took a step back from her, his hands closing over her forearms where they were linked behind his neck.

"You are a menace," he said through his teeth, spacing the words out. When she still swayed toward him with invitation, he pulled her arms from around his neck and held her away from him by his grip on them. "Stop it! Do you want to end up as my mistress, taken right here on the bloody floor?"

Caitlyn smiled at him. Her insides were a-clamor, her head awhirl. There was only room for one thing in her thoughts: Connor himself. He looked so incredibly handsome as he stood there scowling at her, his eyes narrowed beneath frowning brows and his mouth, his marvelous mouth that could do the most incredible things to her, fierce. His black hair was escaping untidily from its ribbon, and she supposed that she had caused that when she had stroked its silken waves. His broad shoulders were set rigidly as though to hold her off, but his chest heaved beneath his open shirt as if he were having trouble drawing breath. Caitlyn stared at that hard-muscled, sweat-filmed chest for a long moment before she lifted her eyes to his again.

"If you like," she said simply and lowered her eyes to his chest once more. That broad, hair-roughened expanse fascinated her. Of its own volition her hand came up to rest gendy over his heart, and she had the answer to the question that had troubled her: the mat of fine hair was as soft as a kitten's fur.

"Holy Mother of God!" Connor yelped, jumping back as if stung by her gende touch. Then, before Caitlyn knew what was happening, he was tottering on the edge of the pool.

Instinctively she reached out a hand to him, but it was too late; he fell in.

She was staring wide-eyed at the spreading ripples on the dark water when he surfaced what seemed like eons later. Treading water, he scowled up at her, brushing the strands of sopping-wet black hair from his eyes. Then the sheer ridiculousness of it coaxed a reluctant grin from him.

"I should have listened to Mickeen from the beginning," he told her, swimming for the edge of the pool and hoisting himself up. "You've been nothing but trouble to me from start to finish, young Caitlyn, and it seems the more I try to get out the deeper I get into the coil. And you are no help at all."

"What are you talking about?" She stared at him, bewildered, as he stood up and looked ruefully down at him- self. He was soaked to the skin, his boots doubtless ruined, the ribbon securing his queue left behind to float on the surface of the spring. Water poured off him like rain. He looked up at her, his expression wry.

"I never meant to lay a finger on you, lass, and 'tis ashamed of myself I am for doing so.

With a little cooperation from you, I'll undertake to make certain that it does not happen again."

"But—but—" Caitlyn sputtered at him, unable to believe her ears. "You said—you told Cormac and Rory that you—that I was your property. I thought—I thought . . ." What she had thought trailed off into nothingness as she found herself unable to put it into words. Connor looked at her steadily.

"What I said was merely my own clumsy way of trying to keep my brothers from killing each other over you. I never meant to claim you truly. Only to keep you safe."

"Oh!" Her cheeks burned with mortification. Her hands flew to them and she stared at him in dawning horror. Remembering every little thing she had said and done, she wanted to die.

And with shame came flaring, healing anger.

"Caitlyn . . ." He said her name in a gentle tone, reaching for her. She glared at him, her hands dropping away from her cheeks to clench at her sides.

"You are a vile beast, Connor d'Arcy!" she hissed, and as he took a step toward her she shoved him so hard that he tumbled backward into the spring. Even as the water from his fall splashed over her, she was turning away with a swirl of skirts and rushing up the stairs. If she was lucky, she thought, fuming, maybe he'd drown in the bloody pool!

By the following morning, having spent the night giving considerable uncomfortable thought to the previous day's happenings, Caitlyn had decided that neither suicide nor murder was the answer to her problem. Vile beast though Connor certainly was, she did not really want to see him dead and doubted her ability to bring such a thing about in any case. And she certainly had no intention of killing herself and thus ridding him of his problem. She had also reached a conclusion. No matter how much he tried to convince her and himself otherwise, Connor found her desirable. There had been no pretense in that soul-shattering kiss.