Unwrapped (16 page)

It was a discovery he didn’t mind making in the least.

“And, what of my, erm, bits and pieces?” he asked, wanting to be playful for her, with her . . . but not entirely sure how. His hunger was still an almost savage, commanding thing. It was all he could do to lie still.

“I don’t know,” she said, then pressed another kiss, then yet another, until she was close enough to surprise him with a quick, soft nip of her lips over his nipple.

The little sizzle of pleasure that gave him was a distinct surprise, but before he could say, or do, anything about it, she began a trail of soft little kisses along the narrow line of hair that arrowed down the center of his abdomen, and murmured, “but I daresay I plan to find out.”

“Kira, ye dinnae have to—oh . . . God . . . almighty . . .” The words trickled off to a long, strangled growl, right before he slammed his head back against the mattress, and closed his eyes. Her tongue, brushing the very tip of him . . . “Och, luv, but I dinnae think I—I canno’—”

And, oh, aye, though he was quite wanting to let her, he gritted his teeth and resisted the need to simply let go. “This is no’ how I plan for things to go.” He reached down for her, pulling her up, then rolling her under him. “No’ this time.”

“This time?” she queried, smiling merrily up at him.

“Aye,” he said, certain, at least, of that much. “This time.”

And, with that, he laid claim to her mouth again, glorying in teasing, tasting, dueling tongue to tongue. It was both urgent and languid. He kissed her with absolute intent . . . and yet felt he had all the time in the world to get there.

He splayed his fingers into her hair, raking through the silky strands as they continued to kiss, ardently, thoroughly, as if that mating alone was their only goal. And though their bodies were in full contact, and he wanted desperately to slide inside her . . . at the moment, he found the longer they took, just kissing, the more intimate he felt with her, the more he felt he began to know her, feel what made her arch against him, what made her gasp, what made her growl . . . what made her soften, and what made her turn aggressor.

And by the time she wrapped her legs around his hips and lifted herself to him, it was as if a lifetime had passed, unspoken between them. He pushed into her, slowly, deeply, and she took him, oh so fully and completely, but it was her gaze on his that told him she was taking far more into her body than just his own. She wove her fingers into his hair, and turned his mouth back to hers . . . and never once, in his entire life, had he had such a pure sense of what it was to finally come home.

Chapter Five

T
his time, when he opened his eyes, it was to find the late afternoon sun spearing gold daggers of light through the slit in the bedroom curtains.

They’d dozed after that first time, partly he thought from their exertions, but mostly because both were sleep deprived. She’d fed him a late breakfast of bangers and mash, and it had felt remarkably normal and not even the least bit awkward, sitting in her tiny kitchen in nothing more than his trousers, watching her fuss at the stove wearing nothing more than his striped shirt. As if his entire life hadn’t just taken a very abrupt, utterly fantastical turn. They’d talked of nothing important, more interested in feeding themselves and each other. Then he’d taken her to the shower . . . and taken her there, as well.

Damp and a bit giddy with such saturation of pleasure, they’d tumbled straight back into her bed, and taken a very long, languorous time exploring each other . . . and he’d learned exactly how it would feel to let her finish what she’d begun that first time.

In fact, he was thinking now that it was certainly only fair that he return the favor, when he felt her stir next to him. He tipped his chin down to find her looking up at him, that same, steady smile on her face, and in her eyes. And that’s when it struck him, what it was about her that made him feel so distinctly at ease, so . . . at home. She looked at him with complete faith and trust, that he’d be exactly what she thought he would be. And rather than make him want to run for the hills, as she’d said earlier . . . her trust made him very much want to be that man.

Because she had an ability to love that he absolutely did not question. A man would be the luckiest on earth to have all of that given to him, and so freely, without artifice or guile.

The only thing he questioned was being able to give her all of those things in return. Because it would be the worst kind of travesty if he took from her, and could not equally give.

Her smile grew, and he sincerely doubted it was because she could read his thoughts. “What’s amusing?” he said, feeling as if he had sandpaper for a voice.

“I was just thinking that last night I fully believed you didnae want me. Wouldn’t even dance with me. Wouldna even look at me.”

He pulled her to his side and half under him again. He buried his face in her neck and nipped the lobe of her ear. He’d become someone entirely different with her. There was nothing refined about any part of him now. Nothing held back, nothing reserved. “I want nothing so much as I want you,” he said, his thoughts still lingering where they’d been a moment ago.

She shivered then, and he reveled in her instinctive response. It made him want to pull her closer still, into the protection of his body. The feelings coursing through him grew more primal, the more time he spent with her. In fact, in that moment, he’d have taken down with his bare hands anyone who dared to harm her or threaten to take her from him.

It was complete insanity, the intensity of his feelings, this drive to want, to have, to possess.

And yet, he didn’t wish to escape the asylum.

He lifted his head to look down into her eyes, questioning everything he thought he wanted from love . . . quite well aware that all that had changed.

“I want nothing more than I want you, Shay Callaghan,” she said, stroking his cheek.

He was sure that the depth of his rioting needs was reflected in his eyes. And yet, she looked into them, unflinching, baring those same needs and desires to him.

“How have we come to this place?” he asked her, quite sincerely. “I’ve only just made it known I fancied you. It’s been less than a single day that I’ve known your thoughts ran on similar lines. Had I pursued it, I’d have thought of dinner, perhaps. A drive. Maybe taking the ferry over to Castlebay. I’d have courted you, and hoped for . . .”

“This?”

He shook his head.

She frowned, just briefly. “No?”

“I don’t know that I could have ever hoped for anything like this. I didn’t know this existed. No’ for me.”

She smiled then. “And now?” She pushed his hair from where it fell in heavy hanks across his forehead, the gesture an absent one, as if she’d been doing it out of long practice.

“And now it’s like this.”

“Like what?”

He propped his weight on one elbow and captured her hand as she was about to smooth the hair on his neck. “This.”

“I don’t get your meaning.”

“You opened your door to me mere hours ago, knowing me, but no’ truly knowing me. And for me, the same. Now, hours later, it’s as if we’ve spent many days, months, years perhaps, in just this way. There’s an ease and comfort with you, Kira, that . . .”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“No, it’s a magical thing.”

“But?”

He pulled her hand around and kissed her knuckles, then opened her hand and pressed a long kiss to her palm, before curling her fingers closed over it. “How long is it possible to believe in magic?”

“As long as you want to believe,” she said, without hesitation.

When he said nothing, she added, “It’s rather like my grandmamma used to tell me when I found, just before leaving for boarding school, that St. Nicholas didn’t truly exist. I was crushed. I’d always quite fancied the idea of him, the promise that someone was watching over me, caring that I behaved well, and would reward me with a twinkle in his sage, wise eyes. She told me that if I didn’t believe in him, then he’d surely never pay me another visit. But as long as I believed, the possibilities were endless.”

“And did St. Nick keep up his annual visits?”

She nudged at him. “That wasn’t the point. She was just telling me that a closed mind is like a closed door. Good things can’t enter through a door that’s firmly shut. But an open door is a welcome portal.”

“It’s also an undefended one. Anything—or anyone—can stroll in, and not always with the best intentions.”

“True. But a closed door is rather like creating a jail, with you the willing prisoner. No one can get at you, but the solitude makes for poor company after a time, I would think.”

“There’s always visitation,” he said, in an effort to lighten the suddenly somber mood. For which he only had himself to blame.

He earned another nudge for that, but her smile broadened to a grin. “Aye, something else ye can control. Who ye let in. And how long they’ll stay.”

He rolled to his side then and carried her with him, so she was half sprawled across his chest, her face just above his. Now he toyed with her hair. “And how long would you wish to stay?”

“As long as you’d have me by your side,” she said, just like that, without hesitation.

His heart bumped hard in his chest. He wanted, like mad, to believe it could be true. He had no doubt she meant it. In that moment. “Even after all I’ve revealed to ye?” he asked.

“Aye.” She nodded.

“Why?”

“Because of this,” she said, and he knew she was referencing the same thing he had a moment ago. She smiled again. “This may come as a shock to ye, but I’ve never once dragged a man into my cottage and had my way with him.”

“No?” he said, and wished like hell his heart would slow down, just enough so that he could get it back under control. “Not even auld Dougal, then?” he said, who, at ninety-seven, was the oldest, and quite possibly the most toothless, of the McAuley clan.

She barked a laugh. “Well, only because he hasn’t come ’round, of course.”

“Of course.”

She laughed at his deadpan delivery and it delighted him that she understood and appreciated his understated form of humor.

“In the meantime, I have you.”

“A puir substitute to be sure.”

She sighed, but smiled into his eyes as she leaned down to kiss him, lingeringly. “What is it I’ll have to do,” she said as she lifted her head, “to ease your worries?”

“I dinnae think it’s about words being spoken, Kira. I dinnae doubt that you mean what you say, any more than I question the strength of the want I have for you. What’s between us doesn’t have to follow logic to exist. If we both believe it does, then it does.” His lips quirked a little. “You see, I do have a wee bit of a crack in my door.”

“So ye do at that.” She smiled into his eyes again. “Where does that leave us then?”

“We give it time, do with each other what we both wish to do. There’s no’ much else to do, is there?”

“So, you’re no’ running then.”

“I couldna, nor do I want to.”

“And what of the pain and disappointment you’re so sure is to come?”

“Well, there’s no avoiding that now, is there?”

Her eyes widened and she pushed herself up on his chest. “Really, then? Well, perhaps we should just say our parting words now, Mr. Gloom and Doom.”

He tugged her back down. “That’s no’ what I meant.”

She settled on his chest, but for the first time he saw wariness in her eyes. And despite his knowing that a bit of wariness would be a wise thing for her to adopt if she was going to tangle herself up with him, that didn’t set well at all with him, as it turned out. Not well at all.

“Go on,” she said, “explain yourself.”

“All I meant,” he said, cupping the back of her head, “was that I’m already well and truly tangled. So if bad is going to happen, there’s already no avoiding the hurt and disappointment. Stopping now won’t change it.”

“Then all we need to do is make sure we stay tangled,” she said, trying to tease, despite the thread of wariness still there.

“Aye,” he said. “ ’Tis simple as that.”

She gave him a gauging look. “There’s nothing simple about it. Though, to me, it’s joyful work. However,” she said, “if you’re already convinced it canno’ survive the tests that time will surely deliver, then you’ll most certainly fulfill that prophecy.”

“I know that, too.”

She smiled now, but it was more rueful this time. “So, I should jump off the ship now, then, is what you’re saying. While the waters are still relatively shallow and the shoreline close.”

“In the end, it would likely be the easier course, aye.”

“Do you want me to jump, make it easier for you to steer back to the deep waters alone?”

“I want you right where I have you.”

“Even with no guarantee that I’ll stay there? No life preservers, if you will?”

“Even then.”

“Then I only ask one thing.”

“Which is?”

“No more maudlin talk of how we’re all doomed to fail in our commitments to one another. You might see it play out at court, over and over, but when you come to me, I want you to see me for who I am . . . not who you fear I might turn into. And, perhaps more challenging still, but equally important, I want you to be the man you want to be with me, the man you’ve been today. No’ waste what time we give ourselves worrying about the man you fear you’ll turn into.”

He looked into her eyes, so steady. So true. “You’re right,” he said, at length. “No more maudlin talk.” He rolled her under him and kissed her, and when she tried to talk, he kissed her some more. “I’m being the man I want to be with you,” he murmured, trailing kisses along her jaw, then down to her collarbone, then, as he slid his body down, between her breasts, lingering on first one nipple, then the other. “And what this man wants, is to taste you.” He slid down farther still, and was exactly that man.

And when she arched beneath his tongue and hands, when he felt her build toward yet another shuddering climax, fully reveling in the joy of knowing he was the one delivering her so much pleasure . . . he hoped she’d overlook the fact that he hadn’t exactly agreed to her other demands.