CHAPTER NINETEEN

She tasted like fear and need and a thousand other things too complicated, and MacGowan didn’t care. He needed to be inside her, holding her, fucking her. But it took more self-control than he would have thought he possessed to keep moving at this pace when he wanted to do nothing more than yank down his jeans and thrust inside her, over and over again until he was lost in the bone-shaking orgasm her reluctant flesh promised.

That accident in the apartment only made the need more powerful. He felt an almost atavistic need to claim her. As if, having gotten through the desperate measures of the last few days she was now his trophy of war, to wallow in, to take, over and over again, until he could finally slake his overwhelming hunger.

He wanted her hands on him, he wanted her mouth on him, he wanted to take her from behind, leaning over the bunk, he wanted her to go down on him, he wanted everything he could possibly think of and more. He wanted it hard and nasty, gentle and sweet. But most of all he wanted it now.

He moved off her, stripping off his jeans and kicking them off the berth. He would have thought she would be closing her eyes and trying to run away again, but instead she looked at him, and impossibly he could feel his cock swell at her calm regard.

“That’s not going to fit,” she said.

He laughed. God, how could she keep making him laugh when things were so intense? How could the laughter not lighten the darkness between them, around them? “Bet you another hundred thousand,” he said.

He would have liked to linger on the elegant offering of her body, a little bruised but still lithe and beautiful, but his patience was wearing thin, and he knew how to get her ready, fast.

He nudged her legs apart, and she let him, which surprised him. The underwear was more delicate then he would have expected, and it was easy enough to slide his hands beneath the lace bands on her hips and rip, pulling it off. Shocking her with the sudden violence of the move. But she didn’t pull away.

“Show time, Sister Beth,” he said, pushing her legs apart. He put his mouth on her.

She bucked in surprise, but he’d taken the precaution of holding her hips steady as he slid his tongue down, tasting the sweetness of her, the need of her. “Don’t,” she said in a choked cry. “I don’t like this.”

He didn’t lift his head. He was very good at this – he loved women, loved the taste and the touch and the smell of them, and he knew how to bring exquisite pleasure to the shyest of flesh. If she really didn’t want this she wouldn’t be threading her fingers into his hair, mindlessly stroking him, her hips arching toward him.

He brought her up slowly, teasing her, feeling the first reluctant tremors of response, the shiver as he slid his fingers inside her, the wetness of her that called to him. Her fingers tightened on his hair, and then released him as she clutched the sheet, but this time she wasn’t searching for control, this time she was simply trying to hold on as he tongued her, kissed her, bit her. And her body went rigid as an orgasm riveted through her, making her tight as a bowstring before she flung herself free, dissolving into shocked, choking cries.

He had moved up between her legs, resting against her, his arms on either side of her, shaking at the effort. “Hell, Sister Beth, haven’t you ever used a vibrator?” he asked with a soft laugh.

“That … that was better.”

He let the head of his cock press against her, sliding against the wetness, teasing her, teasing himself until he thought he’d explode. “Double or nothing?”

She was still having trouble catching her breath, and the hard intensity of her response was another bolt of pleasure shooting through him. He pushed, just a bit, feeling her body open to accommodate him, and he froze for a moment, to bring himself back under control. He couldn’t lose it now. Not until he was deep inside her, not until she came again, could he let loose and have her as hard and as fast as his body demanded. She deserved a gentle lover. Tonight she was going to have to make do with him.

She groaned, shifting, taking him inside. Her eyes were half-closed, but he didn’t chide her. She knew exactly who was between her legs, who was inside her, and he didn’t need to play games to prove it. He paused, his muscles so tight they might snap. “Are you all right?” His voice was raw, and he cursed. She couldn’t know how much it cost him to ask. If she said no he’d have to pull out, and it would kill him. But he’d do it.

“Yes.” It was the merest breath of a word.

He pushed in more, and she moved again, and he was afraid he was hurting her. She looked beautiful in the moonlight, her white silk hair, unwrapped finally and spread over the pillow. Out of the blue he remembered the old joke, that a Dublin man’s idea of foreplay was “Brace yerself, Bridget.”

He was shaking, sweating, determined not to hurt her, keeping his weight on his elbows, slow, slow, careful not to hurt her, gentle, easy now … He felt her hands on his face, gentle, cool hands, and he opened his eyes to look down at her, and she was in the grip of the same blinding need He was wrong, she didn’t need easy, she didn’t need gentle. She needed hard, and she needed now.

“Finn,” she said in a hoarse voice, a plea, but not for mercy. “Do it. For God’s sake, do it.”

He stared into her eyes, not breaking the connection, and then flexing his hips, he thrust home, deep and hard, so sweet, so tight, and she cried out.

He froze, certain he’d hurt her, and he started to pull away, but she clutched him, her fingers digging in with the same desperation he felt. “No,” she said. “Don’t stop. God, don’t stop.”

It broke the last of his self-control. He pulled her under him, tighter, and she shifted, taking him, and he was lost. There was no way he could make it slow, make it build, he needed to lose himself in her sweetness, in her mouth, in her cunt, he needed to die there, and he thrust, hard, again and again, into the clinging warmth of her, feeling her rise to meet him, her breath strangled. He wanted to make her come, fast, so he could let go and finish this thing that had held him prisoner for so long, but he didn’t want it to end, he wanted to stay inside her forever, deep, hard.

He could feel the last remnants of his control begin to shred. She was trembling, her body arching, convulsing, and finally he let go, the semen bursting from him as her body clamped tight around his cock, and she sank her teeth onto his shoulder to muffle her scream of pleasure.

She was crying. It took him a while to realize it, a while to come back from that blissful nirvana that was better than anything he’d ever felt before. If three years’ abstinence gave him that kind of orgasm he might almost consider making a practice of it.

But he didn’t lie to himself. It wasn’t the three years. He could have found relief with anyone. It was Beth. Sister Beth. No virgin, but close to it.

He was heavy on her, but he didn’t want to release her. He rolled onto his side, taking her with him, still inside her, simply because he was still hard. Impossible as it seemed, he was ready for more.

He stroked the silken hair away from her face. Holding her seemed to break the last bit of serenity she had, and she was hiccupping, shaking, crying in his arms, and all he could do was hold her, helpless. Had he hurt her? He’d felt her orgasm through the haze of his own powerful release.

He tried to lift her face to look at her, but she simply buried her head against his shoulder. He realized absently that she’d bitten him, and he almost grinned at the memory, his cock getting even harder inside her. He couldn’t do anything until she calmed down, but right now she needed to cry, though he wasn’t sure why. He knew women well enough that he accepted sometimes they needed to cry.

The sobs were lessening, falling into silence, then a hiccup, then a short burst of tears, then a longer stretch of calm. She was pulling herself together, or trying to, and she hadn’t seemed to notice that he still wanted, still needed her.

He kept stroking her, his hands gentle, soothing, as he murmured words he thought he’d forgotten, words his mother had used, in the Gaelic, calling her his darling, his sweetness, his love. When he realized what he was doing he couldn’t stop – it was calming her, soothing her. She wouldn’t know what he was saying. He could even mean it.

Her voice was so low he could barely hear it. “Three times,” she said.

“Three times?” He had no idea what she was talking about. Had he managed to make her come three times? In fact, it had felt like more than that, but who was counting? Apparently she was.

“I’ve had sex three times before,” she said in a choked voice. “And I hated it.”

“Far from a virgin,” he said, hating the tenderness in his voice. She was seducing him far more effectively than he’d seduced her. “So have I ruined you?”

God, yes, he’d ruined her, Beth thought, struggling to keep her tenuous self-control. Ruined her for any other man, she expected. How could something be so different? Was it simply because he was good in bed? The aphrodisiac of facing death and surviving? The fact that he’d kept her safe, protected her, and for all his talk, had never made demands she hadn’t wanted to meet.

If she were young and impressionable she might think she’d fallen in love with him, but she was too mature to fall into that kind of absurd fantasy. It was … the intensity of the last few days that made her confuse gratitude with something more long-lasting.

She should pull away from him, but she couldn’t. She didn’t want to leave him. He was hot and hard and warm against her skin, and her entire world seemed filled with him. The world that was encompassed by the narrow berth and his body still wrapped tightly around hers as his voice murmured soft, incomprehensible things in her ear. She should try to pull herself together, but she couldn’t. She still felt shaken by the aftermath of her release, and yet, strangely enough, there was still a low thrum of desire pulsing through her. How could there be?

And then she realized he was still hard inside her. He’d pulled her into his arms, holding her against his body, and he’d pulled one of her legs around his hip, keeping the connection tight. She looked up, startled, and he must have read the knowledge in her eyes.

“Yeah, I’m hard again,” he said ruefully. “You don’t want …” He was starting to pull away from her, but she quickly tightened her hold.

“I do.”

Without another word he rolled onto his back, taking her with him, so that she was on top, straddling him, his cock lodged so deep inside her that she felt a frisson of shock. A shaft of moonlit lay across his face, and she could see him clearly, the hooded eyes, the remote expression on his face as he slid his hands down her body to hold her hips.

“Have you done this before?”

She shook her head, her hair falling down around her face, hiding the heat that suffused her. She felt vulnerable, awkward, and yet … and yet …

“I’ll show you.” With gentle pressure he rocked her, up slightly, then back down. “Like that. There’s no hurry. Just do what feels good.”

What felt good was to lie beneath him and let him take charge, she wanted to cry, but she kept her face hidden, letting him guide the slow movements, obedient, wanting to please him, feeling the hard push of him deep within her, rocking, moving. And then it changed, as if slumbering coals had finally blazed into a conflagration, and she moved, sliding on him, feeling his hard cock rub against places she wouldn’t have thought mattered, and she shivered, arching, throwing her head back as sensation rocked through her. She could feel her hair ripple down her back, his hands hard on her hips. She wanted more of him, more of that blissful, wicked, startling feeling, and she rocked, finding a rhythm that burned through her, made her tremble.

His hands slid up her body to cup her breasts and she moved her hips, taking him, reveling in the power of it, of using him for her pleasure. All of his strength was at the command of her body. The crazy, mad explosion of heat and strength, vulnerability and wicked control finally flared into mindless acceptance, as he caught her hips once more, his fingers digging into them, his body arching up into hers, and she was shivering, struggling, fighting.

“I can’t …” she gasped, wanting to weep. “It’s too much. I can’t.”

“You can,” he whispered, his voice dark and insistent, and she moved faster then, searching for something she knew she couldn’t find, something that eluded her.

He moved his hand and touched her between her legs, and her reaction was so abrupt it shocked her. She was catapulted into a spasm of such unrelenting power that she was barely aware of him spilling inside her, and she climaxed, open and vulnerable, no place to hide as the powerful contractions clamped around her body.

She collapsed against him, feeling his arms come around her, and she wanted to weep, but she’d already shed all her tears. She felt boneless, lost, empty now that he’d finally left her, and she wanted to hold him, to kiss him, to beg him to love her, to …

But all the things she wanted vanished, and like any selfish lover, she felt into a deep, endless sleep, sprawled on top of him like a limp doll.

MacGowan waited until he was sure she was deeply asleep. He liked her spread over him like a lazy cat – she was light enough that he could barely feel her except along his knife wound, and even that he didn’t mind, but he moved her anyway, rolling onto his side again and tucking her against him.

He saw the blood on her pale skin, and he froze, then realized it was from his hand. It was a mess – he was lucky he hadn’t broken it, but he’d still managed to bleed all over her. He touched his shoulder with tentative fingers, and felt wetness there as well. She’d bitten him hard enough to draw blood, and to his amazement he could feel his cock stir again.

Damnable piece of male equipment – it never did what he told it to. She needed sleep, and he could do with a few hours himself. Not with her, of course. He didn’t sleep with the woman he fucked, no matter what.

Of course, he’d already slept with her, in that hut in the mountains, on this very cot when she’d been sick. And at the moment he’d wanted to curl around her, keeping her against him , and stay that way.

But that would bring nothing but trouble, and pain when he left her, and if he had any sense of self-preservation he would pull away. He’d told her it was a one-night stand, an event, not a relationship. They were done. It was over, and he needed to go back to his room.

As soon as he could muster the energy. As soon as he was certain she was deeply asleep. For now just holding her seemed the wisest thing to do.

And so he did.