Smoke in Moonlight (Celtic Elementals Book 1) (12 page)

"Don't," Lacey whispered. "Just...don't. You wanted to talk to me about something, so talk." Her eyes were on his, and she knew her tone was pleading.

Ronan left the wall and walked closer. She swore she could feel a tremor with each step.
Damn him!

"I have so many things to talk to ye about, it fair boggles the mind. But right now, I canna think of a damme one." Ronan stood over her and Lacey gulped at the look on his face.

"You said you weren't going to attack me."

"Lacey," Ronan said, his brogue drawing out her name, as he stared into her upturned face. "Donna be a mouse."              

Before she could blink, Lacey found herself moving through the air.

When things righted themselves, Ronan was sitting on the divan and she was half-straddling him. Her heart was racing and beneath her hands the beat of his heart matched hers.

Lacey gasped as his hand found the small of her back, pulling her closer. She could feel his erection, thick and hard, pressed between her spread thighs.

The desire between them was impossible to ignore. It roared to life with a fury that shocked her, even though it shouldn’t have. Every second they spent around each other it was always
there.
Like a relentless craving for chocolate you tried to ignore, but couldn’t get quite rid of.

It would be such an incredible relief to give in to it. Here in the near darkness. Just them and one candle…

Lacey looked into those gray eyes and let them pull her away, away from sanity and reason and into delicious madness. Slowly, she started to move against him, her fingers wrapped in his shirt as little shocks burst low and hot in her belly. It didn't matter if it was crazy or stupid...or both. She just wanted him.

She wanted him
now
.

The very thought made her start to shake.

Ronan had his own plans. With his eyes fixed on hers, his big hand moved up her spine, fusing her to him inch by inch. Her soft, flat belly against his warm solid one, her breasts rubbing against the muscles of his chest. It felt as if they were skin to skin, as if the scraps of fabric between them were so ephemeral they did not exist.

When Ronan brought his lips to hers, Lacey was greedy for another taste of him. Her tongue sought his, her arms slipping around his neck. Ronan's hand darted into her hair, his fingers tightening in the short tendrils, crushing her to him, ravaging her mouth for one long, hot moment, then pulling her back.

She resisted. She was far from through with kissing him. His mouth trailed from her lips to her ear as she murmured a protest.

"Easy, lass," he murmured. His breath moved down her collarbone, making her skin heat. Lacey's arms loosened and her head fell back. Ronan tugged down the soft cowl of her knit dress, exposing the pale gold skin of her shoulders inch by slow inch. His mouth never leaving her body, the feel of those soft lips and warm tongue and the light rasp of his stubble an exquisite combination.

He slipped two fingers under the satin cups of her bra and freed her breasts. The lick of cool air against her bare skin made Lacey bite her lip and slide both hands into his hair, urging him on. She whimpered as his mouth moved lower almost brushing the puckered circle of her areola—

Cursing ripely as he lifted his head to look at her just short of his mark.

"There's a side of ye I have nae heard yet." His chuckle rumbled against her ribs.

She wanted to snap back, but all the air left her lungs as his tongue flicked out teasingly over the taut skin of one full breast again, circling the tight peak. She wanted to beg, but couldn’t find the breath. She tugged at his hair instead, not knowing or caring if she was hurting him, the black strands between her fingers like raw silk—

Oh my god—
I remember this!

The memory of her dream streaked through her dazed mind just as Ronan's warm mouth closed over her hardened nipple. Because this was no dream, it was damn near unbearably real. She arched, her hips grinding into his, trying not to scream, not to make a sound.

Then she felt Ronan's hand, heavy on her thigh, pushing up the material of her dress, moving aside the lace of her panties to cup the damp curls beneath. Lacey's breath caught. Her eyes fixed on his as she rose to her knees, knowing without words exactly what he wanted to do to her.

She trembled as he stroked her gently, his fingertips teasing and light, then parting her slow and sure. His groan when he found her slick and hot made her own throat tighten. Her hands fell from his head to his shoulders for support. His mouth pulled at her nipple, as his fingers eased inside her. One, and then when her muscles opened to him, two.

He was such a large man, and she so small, two fingers almost more than she could stand. Back and forth he worked them into her until she was gasping for air, her back arching. Her nipples were tight nubs, pulsing in time with the beat of her pulse. Ronan’s mouth seemed to be everywhere at once, teasing her breasts, nipping at her throat, muffling her soft cries of pleasure.

Then through the haze she heard him, a low growl in her ear as his thumb worked into her slick flesh and caressed her swollen clit.

“Come for me, Lacey. Sweet little
luchóg
, come now." Ronan's voice was rough and irresistible. Her body responded to him as if on cue, exploding in an orgasm so powerful she leaned forward, opening her mouth against his shoulder to stifle the scream she couldn't hold back, shaking from head to toe, the hot burst of her juices spraying her inner thighs and soaking Ronan’s fingers.

Before the exquisite tremors had faded, Ronan's hand moved from between her thighs to cup her bottom. His fingers left wet imprints on her skin. He stood and pivoted easily, her weight wrapped around him an insignificant hindrance. He half-set, half-dropped her back into the divan.

Ronan gave her a dark, unfathomable look, his hand raking his hair, before turning away to stare blankly at the flickering candle. Lacey smoothed her dress, pulling the neckline up and the hemline down, her movements languid. She felt warm and somehow softened, like a wax figure placed too near a blazing fire. Muscles still danced in her thighs.

If she'd ever had an orgasm like that in her life, she sure as hell couldn't remember it.              

It took her a second to register the tension in Ronan's spine. Immediately, she felt a stab of guilt. He'd given her incredible pleasure, while she'd barely given a thought to his. Actually, she hadn't given any thought to anything whatsoever except what he was doing to her—so it was his own fault. The idea of returning his unselfish behavior was hardly unpleasant.

In fact Lacey felt her heart double its slowing beat immediately at the prospect of making
him
tremble. She licked her lips and took a deep breath.

"Ronan," she said, her voice a low, husky purr she didn't even recognize.

He turned when she said his name and Lacey rose to meet him—when his eyes stopped her. They were the gray of chilled steel.

She fell back in surprise.

“Wh—"

But Ronan held up a hand, his jaw flexed so tightly she could hear his teeth grinding.

Lacey shut her mouth, biting her lips, hoping he would break the awful silence. Surely he was going to do something—or say something—anything to let her know how he could be looking at her like
that
again, after what they'd just done. What he’d just done to her.

She suddenly felt very cold. It was as if all that delicious heat had just drained away in one look from those cold eyes. Shivering, she drew her knees up to her chest, unable to tear her gaze from his face.

His eyes seemed to soften for a fraction of a second as he looked down at her. Then he shook his head and—walked out. The door clicked shut behind him.

She knew there would be no point in going after him.

Lacey dropped her head and pressed her stinging eyes against her knees. She didn't know what had just happened, but it really wasn't fair of the bastard to walk away without even a word.

He knew it wasn't fair. But nothing in his world ever was. Not
ever
.

And he couldn't handle
this
, the way she got to him. He didn't know where to start.

Emotionally, Ronan could shrug off being such an ass, if he really tried, but physically his body was punishing him. He wanted her so bad it very literally hurt.

Ronan was aware he could've easily taken her back to his cottage. They could have taken each other all night long.  His stomach clenched as images washed over him; Lacey's face when he'd slid his fingers into her, the way her mouth had felt on his shoulder, her teeth sinking into his skin as she'd rocked against him in her climax.

Ronan thought by indulging his desire and hers, he'd be able to dull the attraction, instead he only fine-tuned it. He hadn't been able to focus on anything but her, not his own pleasure, his own needs. Nothing. Just Lacey.

His hands had actually been shaking at the prospect of taking her when he'd walked out.             

Which was precisely why he had. It scared him.

Nothing was worth him letting his guard down.
Nothing
.

It was too dangerous. Hadn’t today proven that?!

She already distracted him once and for the first time in at least half a millennium a Changeling had nearly taken him down! He should have never allowed himself to touch her.

His body didn't agree with him at the moment. It was rock solid and uncomfortable in its protest. Ronan wanted very badly to hit something, to do
something
with this energy that screamed to lash out of him.

The dreams had warned him she could destroy him, but he hadn't expected the trap to be such a predictable one. Using a woman as a distraction to bring down a warrior was as old as time, but who was using her? Aine? Aillen?

Or plain old fate? It didn't matter,
because it wasn't going to work.
Fury snapped through him with gale force. Gods, he needed to kill something!

He stalked out of the house, stopping only to grab his sword from the kitchen and check the lock after he slid the glass door shut. Outside the night was washed in a pale grey glow of a shrinking moon, as he walked down the path to the cottage.

Ronan reached the fork to the cottage quickly, but he passed it. There was no relief for him there either. His eye were fixed on the woods, a sudden urge to hunt had seized him. He rarely hunted without transforming and it was still over a week until the new moon. It was so much more difficult to track and kill Changelings as a human. But in his present mood, Ronan figured it would be easy. He slung the scabbard over his shoulders and entered the dark woods at a lope.              

He didn't look back.

He didn't return for six days. The rest of the household seemed to take it in stride. As if Ronan disappearing with no word were a common, unremarkable occurrence. For some reason they weren't worried about another attack either, Moiré and Daire shrugged off her concerns with vague comments about Ronan handling things like that, no matter where he was.

So, Lacey tried to imitate their seeming nonchalance, though inside she was burning with confusion. She wasn't ashamed and she refused to be embarrassed.

She worked with Moiré in the gardens, she went fishing with the children, she picked berries with Shelagh. She even cut hay with Michael and Daire and met the small menagerie of animals they kept. She called Katie, took her berating with a calmness that only pissed her sister off even more. Checked on her car, which was waiting in Limerick, on parts that hadn't come in yet. A fact that hardly surprised her at this point. And generally tried to go with the flow.

Like she always had. But it was getting harder.

Every night she dreamed of Ronan. Dreams that had her waking up shivering in terror...or aching with need. After she'd toss and turn for hours, or just sit on the bed trying to make sense of everything he had told her. With each passing night, the dreams grew more intense and Lacey's slow temper began to rise.

She took the daytimes to grill his family about the details of living fifteen hundred years. It fascinated her how they had managed.

"Well, we canna stay in one place too long. Three years is pushing it, really, with the children and all." Moiré leaned on her spade, on her hands and knees in one of the front flower beds and looked up at Lacey, who was supposed to be dead-heading flowers, but had stopped in consternation.

"Three years? That means you've moved...", but her brain refused to do the math. "That's awful." 

"'Tis a bit," Moiré nodded, before returning to her work. "We lived almost everywhere a body can on Eire, even spent time on the Isle of Man and the Arans. Though never the big cities. We canna abide Dublin, Belfast or even Shannon. At least to live in. Daire and Ronan both went to Trinity, though."

"Ronan's been to college?" Lacey's tone was incredulous. Moiré laughed as she turned the moist earth gently, aerating her dahlias. "Aye, lass. He's no' quite as barbaric as he no' doubt appears to ye. He had at least ten at last count, under different names o' course."             

"Degrees?" Lacey asked. Her eyes were wide.

"Doctorates." Moiré corrected gently.

Over dinner that evening, Daire overrode his mother. "Nae, himself's only got nine. Now,
I've
got a more respectable number, eleven." He wagged his eyebrows at her from down the table and Lacey laughed. She found Daire as comfortable as she found Ronan...well, not. It was stunning information. She paused with a forkful of Shepard's pie halfway to her mouth.

"But what are they all in?" Lacey asked. She felt outclassed with her B.S. in communications, and her journalism and business minors. She couldn't even think of ten different
doctorates
.

"In Daire's case, mostly nonsense." Michael offered, ignoring his brother's raised eyebrows and turning to strongly encourage Colin to stop carving patterns in his mashed potatoes and actually eat them, before continuing, "but Ronan goes for medical and engineering fields and hard sciences, though he did try philosophy once, remember, Daire?”

Daire snorted. "Aye, he said he thought it might help him understand the gods. But in the end he gave it up as a lost cause.
Impossibilium nulla obligatio est.
"

At Lacey's inquiring look, Daire opened his mouth to translate, but Colin beat him to it.

“Nobody
has
to try the impossible." He said, around his mouthful of potatoes.

Lacey stared for a moment, now feeling
really
outclassed. Then shrugged into the sudden quiet. "Maybe you should help me brush up on my Latin, Colin, I'm afraid I only remember carpe diem."

Everyone laughed, Colin grinned as his dad ruffled his hair and the tension dissipated. But another thought had occurred to Lacey and she frowned, opening her mouth, then shutting it again. Shelagh elbowed her. "Go on, then. We'll nae be angry."

Lacey bit her lip, looking at all the curious faces turned her way. "Well, this really
is
rude, but...how did you pay for all that education? And, for that matter, how do you pay for anything else? How do you hold a job, or possibly manage to get ahead if you're on the move all the time?”

"Ah, I wondered when ye'd think of tha'." Daire put down his beer and grinned at her. "It was harder at first. But over time… well, it's a pretty sorry lot we'd be if we hadn't managed to develop our talents by now! Michael is a great wood carver and metal smith, ye can see his work all over the house. Mam does lace and other needlework. Shelagh is an artist, even has a gallery over to Limerick. And it's gotten
a lot
easier the last few decades. We all have websites now to sell our work. Shelagh even has a blog."

"Websites, blogs?' Lacey said weakly.

"Aye," Moiré agreed. "We may like to live simple and close to nature, but we've kept with the times. Our Eamon is right clever at such things."

Eamon's freckled face flushed as Lacey glanced at him.

"And Daire's quite the writer, as I'm sure he was waiting for someone to say, you could take a page from his book," Moiré gave her son a knowing look, but he merely grinned at her. "He's had several successes over the long years, under different names, o’ course.”

"And Ronan?" Lacey couldn't help but ask, her voice soft.

"Well, he and Michael and Eamon take care of the finances and such. Ronan used to be a doctor, even did surgery for a fair bit, though mostly long ago. For the last hundred years or so, he's been trying his hand at architecture." Moiré's eyes were quiet and proud. "He has designs all over the world."

Lacey shook her head in wonder.

A doctor and an architect and a
werewolf
. It was so...
cool
. Very surreal and definitely head-spinning, but cool to think Ronan and his family had survived and made their way intact for nearly a millennium and a half. The things they must have seen...

But she remembered what Ronan had said about his family blanking out at times.
Sleepwalking through centuries
. She wondered about that, but kept her mouth shut, listening to the conversation continue without really following it. She'd been nosy enough. They were under no obligation to share their innermost secrets with her.

She couldn't figure out why they were so willing to do so. The Fitzpatricks were addicting, in their own way. Lacey loved the way they'd accepted her, loved being surrounded by all their noise, warmth and charm, but she knew she could never really belong here.

As soon as she got her car back, she was leaving. It may be cool—in the way a good book was cool—but it was also too much.

Much too much. She could never be as strong as they had been, as they
were
. She never had been, so why should that change now?

Lacey assumed Ronan wouldn't object to her leaving. He seemed sure there was some dark purpose in her being here, so if she left he should be relieved. Maybe her car would be ready before he deigned to return and she wouldn't even have to see him again.

Lacey ignored the small twinge she felt at the thought of leaving without saying goodbye. She was being ridiculous, they barely knew each other when it came down to it. The sooner she got away from here, the better, for everyone.  

The next day she had a visitor that quite changed her mind about attempting to leave the Fitzpatricks, at least for the near future.

Aine showed up while she was fishing with the boys and the twins. Chloe had stuck up her nose at joining such a messy business, but Lacey was an adept fisherwoman. Fishing was practically a birthright for any Minnesota native. They were casting flies in a delightful little stream about a mile from the house. Lacey was barefoot in the water, her feet nearly froze, but having fun for all that. Nice, normal fun.

Then a goddess appeared.

She didn't make a godlike entrance. In fact, Lacey didn't even notice her at first. Until Colin dropped his pole in the water.

"Colin!" Lacey chided as she waded into the water to fetch it for him before it got swept down river. When she turned around, she saw Aine sitting beneath an ash tree, the goose nestled in her lap.              

Lacey froze, staring at the childlike woman with the dark ultra-modern hair. Even though she knew now that she was looking at a Celtic goddess—one who was capable of terrible, vicious things—it was still hard to fathom. Aine was wearing black leggings and a blue halter top, looking as twenty-first century normal as it was possible to look. Aside from the goose, of course...

"What's the deal with the bird, anyway?" Lacey blurted out in a fit of nerves. The children, who had all been staring at Aine, swiveled their heads to look at Lacey, their eyes wide.

Aine seemed amused at her rudeness. "Well, I'm sure the children know the story, eh, Eamon?"

Eamon went brick red at being addressed by the goddess, but he answered her immediately. "He's her son. Tha's why no one will shoot geese 'round the lough. He got turned into a goose because his human father showed surprise when he did magic."

“And that was such a bad thing, why?" Lacey wondered how she could be the only one baffled by this logic.

"Because his father had sworn not to show surprise at anything he did. It was the only way she would leave him in the human world, she dinna want him feeling as if he were odd… As if he dinna belong." Eamon's young voice cracked on the last word.

"But he dinna belong." Aine said softly, caressing the bird with a pale hand. "I warned Gerald, but he didn't listen. So, our son came back to me, in a form at home on my lough.
People need to belong
, don't they, Solace Jean Ryan?"

Her blue eyes glittered into Lacey's.

With a shiver Lacey realized the children had gone as still as statues, a stillness that had extended to the stream and the light breeze that should have rattled the tress, but didn't. The unnatural silence enveloped her and Aine, it was like being in a film with all the sound cut out.

"I have a home." Despite her fear, Lacey felt a surge of temper at the insinuation.

"Aye, and ye've love, too. But ye've never
belonged
. Ye
can
belong here. 'Tis yer choice. I wanted to give ye the option."             

"You...wanted…" Lacey stumbled over the words, trying to wrest meaning from them. Then she thought of her reservation getting lost, then getting lost for real —on what should have been a simple highway journey from point A to point B. Breaking her cell phone. Getting a cracked axle and three flat tires. Not one, or two, but
three
...

Aine smiled at the comprehension dawning on Lacey's face. "It was overkill, I admit. But 'twas fun."

"Fun!' Lacey said, her eyes hard. "Fun to mess with people's lives?!"             

"O’ course! 'Tis one of the perks of godhood." Aine gave her a condescending look. "Now listen closely, Lacey from Minnesota. I am trying to help, but ye're awfully slow. Ye can belong here, but ye have to
choose
to. Ye have to choose him." There was no mistaken the goddess’s meaning.

Ronan.

"Choose him? Choose
him
? Are you out of your mind?"

"Ye can save him." Aine's words were so soft, Lacey barely heard them. The thought of what Aine was insinuating unexpectedly twisted Lacey's heart. But she refused to be manipulated. Especially for such an impossible dream. One she didn’t want—that she
couldn’t
want. Not to mention Ronan could
never—

"Really? He doesn't want me—or my help! Or yours, for that matter! Especially yours...he hates you."

"Nae, he doesn't, no' anymore. He finally wants..." Aine gave her an almost smug look but didn't complete that thought. She continued as if she had. "But he would n'ver trust me. And we need him—" Aine again cut off her next words at Lacey's scathing look.

"—you
need
him? From what I can tell, you gods have just played with him …and his family for the past thousand years or so! All in good
fun
, I'm sure. But I doubt he'd consent to used by you anymore and
I
certainly won't! As soon as I get my car back I am so out of here." She glared at Aine, her arms crossed over her chest to stop herself from shaking.

Aine laughed and looked up at Lacey. "I guess I could try for a water pump next time then, or maybe just blow the whole engine."              

Lacey's jaw dropped. "You can't...you… Would, wouldn't you?" She said weakly.

"If ye try to leave before the full moon, ye'll find me very unhappy indeed. I'm no' very nice when I'm unhappy." The look in Aine's eyes sent chills down Lacey's spine. All of a sudden, she didn't think it had been such a hot idea to yell at her.