The Charm Stone (21 page)

“My future isn't here, Connal,” she said, if somewhat shakily, as he shifted his touch to the tips of her curls.

He heard the words, her denial… but the truth was she hadn't stepped away, had made not one single move to end his contact with her. Her words told one story… her eyes told another. Did it truly matter if he simply seduced her into giving him what he wanted?

Right now his body was shouting at him to push forward, take what he knew he could have. It was hard to hear any other logic. “You are here now, are ye no’?”

“But—”

He placed his finger across her lips, his body tightening to the hardness of forged steel when her trembling sigh caressed his roughened skin. “But that is all I ask for, lass. This moment. Now.” He wound his fingers into her hair and pulled her close, tipping her head back as he did, maintaining his direct gaze into her rapidly darkening eyes. “Give me this night, Josie, and I'll allow you to decide where to spend the next.”

She'd bristled slightly at his use of the word
allow.
He dismantled her attempt to pull back by taking her
mouth with his. He'd intended a decisive victory, an instantaneous capitulation from her the moment he claimed her. But her fingertips skated hesitantly across his shoulders even as he pushed her lips apart to allow his invasion, she moaned softly as her body began to yield… and yet those fingertips curled inward, still indecisive.

It shouldn't matter. Her body would lead her and he could convince her to follow its urgings, he was certain of it. And yet, now, a victory won this way seemed wrong to him. Unworthy.

He broke off with a vicious, self-directed epithet and stumbled away from her, leaving her reeling unsteadily in the middle of the room.
Damn Bagan for all his emotional mumbo jumbo!
This was his handiwork, this worm of doubt that he'd so insidiously planted within him. He should have her half-naked right now, panting for him, begging for the release he himself was all but begging for as well. What possible care could the gods have as to how he managed to conceive an heir, as long as the consummation took place?

He whirled around, intending to stalk directly back over to her and begin again where he'd left off. But one look at her stopped him dead.

Her body swayed, the very slightest of movements, but he was keen to it anyhow. She could be his, still. But it was her eyes, a bit wild, still unfocused, and mostly confused, that had halted his action.

“What is it ye want from me?” he demanded hoarsely.

That brought the clarity back to her expression, the temper back to her cheeks. “Sex,” she said, holding his gaze directly now. “What else?”

Damn if she didn't make him want to grin and shout with frustration all at once. “I believe I was willing to provide that for you.”

She'd folded her arms over her chest, a shield of
sorts and the only outward indication that she was still uncertain of taking what she so boldly claimed she wanted. “I didn't stop you.”

“Ah, but you did.”

Her eyes widened in denial, then narrowed as temper moved dangerously close to routing desire. “What exactly do you want from
me
?” She lifted her hands in a helpless gesture, then dropped them to her side. “To hear me say I want you? That the sex we had was the best, the most mind-blowing thing I've ever experienced? Do your gods require more from me? After all, it isn't like you want me for anything more than a vacant uterus to fill.”

Her words, so bold and crude, shocked him. Yet, hadn't he just said the very same thing to Bagan? Wasn't this precisely what he wanted to hear? Absolution for any and all guilt he might have for her unaccepted role in this?

And yet it only made him feel a hundred times worse.

This was idiocy! If Bagan didn't succeed in driving him to madness, Josie would. He wanted to tip his face to the heavens and ask if the gods were enjoying their little melodrama. Instead he took in a deep breath, then released it all at once. Somehow through all this he had to be the one to think clearly, to understand the path he was to take.

He raked his fingers through his hair, loosening the leather thong he'd tied it back with, not caring when it fell to the floor. “Had I no’ stopped,” he said finally, quietly, “ye would have given yerself to me. Is that true?” He looked to her then, unsure of what he wanted to hear.

She waited, then sighed and nodded. “I think that was a safe bet.”

“Why?” He waved off a response. “I mean to say, despite whatever sympathy Bagan managed to inspire
in you, ye obviously have no real desire for this fate that has been thrust upon you. You say you would give in for the pleasure I can give you.” Even he shivered slightly at that, the air between them still that dense with unfulfilled need. “I agree that what we shared the other night was an experience unequaled for me. If we're swapping truths, then I'll confess I've thought of little else since. And yet… the compromise ye were willing to make simply to experience that again doesna ring true for me, from what I know of ye.”

She looked at him, squarely and without rancor, and very simply asked, “Since when does that matter to you?”

Since the moment I felt the doubt in your touch,
he wanted to say. Yet her question was far more the point. Was it not?

“It shouldn't. But I find it does.”

“So you shouldn't care about whether there should be happiness or joy or any other kind of fulfillment between us, as long as the basic tenet of reproduction is met?”

“This is no’ about happiness, mine or yours, but about giving Glenmuir a chance for a future. I can only do that by leaving behind someone who will carry on for me. That is all that matters. All that can matter.”

“Then your parents, your grandparents, even your great-grandparents, were simply extraordinarily lucky with their charm stone matches? Only you are to be denied?”

Bagan had already hit him with this, and yet hearing it from her didn't affect him any less significantly. In fact, if anything, it affected him more. “I'm no’ in the same position as they were.”

“You expect nothing for yourself, then.”

“Ye forget, lass. My life is already over. There is nothing else left for me.”

She fell silent for a moment, then said, “What of your clansmen's obligation to fulfilling their own happiness?”

“I was their laird,” he said simply. “It was my responsibility to do for them whatever I could.”

“Connal,” she said quietly, “there is no clan left to be responsible for.”

“Do ye think I dinna ken that?” he said just as quietly. “Do ye think it's been easy sittin’ here in this tower, watching those that remained upon my death, few as they were, fall to the control of others? Watching everything I've been raised to revere pillaged and torn asunder?”

“That was centuries ago. They're all free now. Those that are here now anyway. I think they're pretty happy. Sure, they know they could have gone commercial, gone for the tourist buck, but they chose to stay to themselves and live their lives quietly.”

“They know not what could be theirs, know not the happiness of this isle when it rings with the laughter of children, the promise of that laughter ringing for centuries to come.” Connal held her gaze. “Glenmuir is dying, Josie. I've watched its death throes quite closely for three hundred years. Ye've been here all of one week. Ye see them making peace with the inevitable. They know the children are gone, yet make no gestures to change things. When they themselves are gone… there will be nothing left. Maybe they can accept that, but I know what Glenmuir can be because I've seen it, lived it. This Glenmuir is no’ the legacy my mother and father raised me to accept… much less leave behind.”

“And you think one child will change all that?” He stepped closer then. “He will be The MacNeil. Blessed by the gods, with the will of the charm stone behind him. Aye, I believe he will change everything. I have to.”

J
osie was moved to silence by Connal's intensity. She found herself wishing the right woman had found the stone, the woman who could give him what he so desperately wanted. “I'm sorry,” she said softly, and meant it.

He cocked an eyebrow in question and she was unsure what to say. “You know I want you, I can't deny that,” she began, then faltered when his eyes flashed to life and she felt it clear down to her toes. Her voice wobbled a bit. “But I don't want to have a baby. I'm not saying I never do, but when I do, it will be with a man I plan to build a life with.” She looked at him earnestly. “Connal, what kind of life do you think this child will have? It's hard enough with two mortal parents.” She shook her head and laughed humorlessly. “This entire thing is insane.”

Connal moved close to her again, cupped her face, and stroked her lips with the pads of his thumbs. That focused intensity of his all but beamed from his eyes. “Ye'll make a fine mother, Josie. Yer strong of mind, of body, and of will.” He drew his thumb across her bottom lip again, pressing slightly at the center, allowing the smallest of sighs to escape.

She shuddered with pleasure, knowing she should back away, from his touch, his look, his words. But she couldn't. Or wouldn't. She'd told him she only
wanted him for sex, partly in anger and frustration, but mostly because it should have been the truth. And yet, when she'd said it, it had felt like a lie. She no longer understood all the reasons why she was drawn to this man, but the fact remained she was. Indelibly so.

“Come to bed with me, Josie,” he murmured as he lowered his mouth to hers, letting his hands drift to her shoulders, then pulling her tightly against his body.

“It won't change anything,” she whispered.

He flashed a smile at her then, and her body flashed hard in response. “Everything has changed, Josie Griffin. Nothing will ever be the same again. Ye must know that.”

She didn't know anything, she thought, her mind and body in turmoil. Then he kissed her, boldly, confidently, with the assurance of a man who knew exactly what he wanted and exactly how to get it. Normally she would be put off by that. At that moment, however, she found herself swept away by it. As if giving in to him absolved her of all responsibility. It didn't, and wouldn't. She knew that and realized she didn't care. She was in his arms, feeling the most amazing things, and nothing else seemed to matter.

His seduction wasn't smooth, or practiced. It was a wild thing, barely restrained. His lips and tongue didn't taste her, they consumed her. He plundered her mouth as a pirate would, taking what he wanted, certain it would be his. She felt weak and unbelievably strong at the same time. Never had she felt so desired, so wanted. Never had she desired or wanted so strongly in return.

“Connal,” she said, a hoarse whisper against the side of his throat.

“Aye, 'tis me.” He lifted his head, his fingers still-
ing from the devastatingly carnal path they'd been intent on following. Whatever he found in her eyes made him grin. “And glad I am to know you ken it.” His own eyes darkened, and he added, “For as the stone has cast you as mine… so has it cast me as yours.” He rolled onto his bed with her, pulling her on top of him. “Make me yours, Josie Griffin.”

Dear Lord. She was trembling, her heart pounding, as she looked at the man proclaiming himself hers. She badly wished she could make this merely another romp in the hay, a night of debauched revelry or whatever they'd have called it three hundred years ago… but there was far more in his eyes than the desire to get himself laid. And, being brutally honest with herself… she admitted this had already gone well beyond some kind of sexual fantasy fulfillment for her.

“Ye think too much,” he said, surprisingly gently for all the ferocity of need that had arced between them only moments before. “Can ye no’ just-how do you say it? Go with the flow?”

She smiled then, surprised and charmed by his attempt to lighten things up. Mostly because he'd pulled it off, and with such frightening ease. “You're supposed to be all rough and demanding,” she said, “ravishing me against my will until I no longer care what's right and what is wrong.”

He smiled, obviously willing to play this game. “I believe I can still manage a good ravish, if yer heart is set upon it.” He skimmed his hands up her sides, letting his thumbs skate across her breasts, brushing ever so deliciously across the tips of her nipples. His smile broadened to a bold grin when she trembled and her thighs clenched involuntarily against his waist. “But I do no’ care to force a woman.” He kept his gaze focused tightly on hers as he continued to brush his thumbs against her nipples.

She gasped and tried to keep from arching her back. It took amazing willpower.

“Nay,” he went on, his own voice a bit rougher, “I find I much prefer it when yer as demandin’ of what I can give ye as I am willing to give it.”

Her eyes drifted shut and she let the pleasure he was wreaking within her take over. She moved on him, his own stifled groan of pleasure only urging her on.

“That's it, Josie, take what ye want.” He pushed her top off even as she was already clawing at his own.

Her will to end this slipped from her fingers along with his shirt. She smoothed her hands across his warm chest, toying with him in the same manner he toyed with her, never so gratified as when he gasped in return.

“Ye think to ravish me?” he managed, rather hoarsely.

She'd have never guessed how much fun he could be to play with. Adrenaline pumped into her, along with ever-increasing need. “Aye. Aye, that I do,” she responded saucily, and bent down to circle his own nipple with her tongue. He bucked beneath her and gasped in surprise. Josie felt instantly drunk with sexual power. “Don't stop touching me,” she demanded.

He moved beneath her now, as she went back to tracing rings around him with her tongue. His fingers moved swiftly and amazingly deftly to her inner thighs. He slid his palms up and let his fingers move beneath the edge of her shorts. She cried impatiently against his rapidly heating skin when he stopped, just shy of his goal. His hands were so big, her shorts too tight.

“Connal, please.”

Then her world tumbled and she found herself
on her back, with Connal looming large and dangerously aroused above her. She could have come right then and there. Her shorts disappeared down her legs, panties with them, until she lay naked beneath him. And reveled in it. Her hips moved, knowing what they sought was oh so close.