13. Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Thirteen
Dusk stained the sky deep indigo by the time they stumbled up to Kieran’s cottage, laughing and kissing and fumbling at each other’s clothing.
When Kieran kicked the door open, Addy’s heart skittered. And when he swept her into his powerful arms, pressed her against the wall, and plundered her mouth, she forgot how to breathe.
Unconcerned with the humans’ gyrations, Snoot snuffled his way into the cottage, nose to the ground, tail wagging. From the corner of her eye, Addy saw him hop onto a loveseat by the fireplace and nestle into the cushions.
“Snoot, down,” she commanded. “You’re a sandy mess.” But the dog only stared, his brow contracted in a canine plea.
“Let him be,” Kieran murmured into her hair. “I’ll clean up later. Besides, the sofa’s too small for what I want to do with you.”
“Yikes!” she squealed when he tunneled his icy hands inside her jeans and gave her ass a squeeze. “Are you trying to stop my heart?”
“Quite the opposite, beauty.” But he obligingly removed his chilly digits and strode across the living room to light the fireplace.
As soon as flames licked the logs, he turned to her, desire smoldering in his gaze.
“Music, love?” He glanced at Snoot, sprawled and basking in the fire’s warmth.
“It might distract our friend here from any noises we make.”
Closing the distance between them, he settled his hands on her hips, and murmured into her ear, “Be warned, beauty. I plan to make some noise with you tonight.”
“Music would be great,” she whispered, leaning into his hold. What kind of music did a hunky Irish lighthouse keeper listen to? Celtic flutes? Irish fiddles?
Kieran tapped his phone, and bluesy piano notes filled the room as Annie Lennox crooned, “I put a spell on you…”
Addy gave a throaty laugh and wound her arms around his neck. “Not what I would have guessed.”
He slid his broad hand between her shoulder blades and swayed her to the lazy, sensual beat. “I like the way we surprise each other.”
“Amen.” She raised her lips for another kiss.
Dancing her backwards, Kieran licked into her mouth, his tongue a velvety marvel that flooded her core with heat. Heavens above, this man! Instinctively, he knew exactly how to tease her higher, hotter, loosening her body until she flowed like honey in his arms.
Their slow tango ended when Addy’s back met the cool, smooth wood of his bedroom door.
“Addy,” he breathed, his forehead pressed to hers. “Do you know how I’ve dreamed and wished and prayed you’d end up here in my bed?”
He grasped her thigh and pulled it to his waist, angling his hips so the hard ridge of his erection scraped the seam of her jeans. Pleasure ricocheted through her, sizzling along her nerves.
And then her feet left the floor. Clutching her ass, he leaned into her, all firm muscle and hot skin and deep, rumbling moans. Hands clasped behind his neck, she held on tight as he rocked his hips in rhythm with his plundering tongue.
“Kieran,” she gasped, “if you don’t stop soon, I’m going to come right here.”
He chuckled into her mouth. “Would that be a bad thing, beauty?”
“But I want to feel you.” She tore at his flannel shirt. “All of you.”
With a sexy grunt, he released her, groaning when she slid down his front. He opened the door, but before she could get a proper look at his bedroom, he scooped her up and carried her to his bed, an old-fashioned four-poster affair sturdy enough for the roughest play.
A shiver ran through her as he gently set her down and tugged off her shoes and socks.
“Crap, sorry,” she said as sand pattered onto the wooden floor.
“We were both distracted. I’ll sweep up later.
” A wolfish grin lit his face as he made quick work of the rest of her clothes until she lay spread out naked on his soft patchwork quilt, her skin prickling with goosebumps.
His glittering eyes drank in her body as he swiftly shed his own clothing and stood before her, his stance wide, his fat, ruddy cock jutting upward.
She reached for him, but he pushed her onto the mattress, then knelt between her splayed thighs to grip her knees and spread them wider. “Look at you,” he gritted out. “You’re magnificent.”
He dove in, sealing his mouth to her sex in a deep, suckling kiss. Addy squirmed away from sensations almost too sharp to bear, but he pursued her relentlessly, the two of them thrashing across the mattress until her head collided with the carved headboard.
Kieran rose on his knees, captured her wrists in a firm grip, and crouched above her, his eyes blazing. “Stay right here.”
His commanding tone stoked her arousal even higher. This man was full of delicious surprises. Come what may, she had to find a way to hold on to this dizzying ride until its inevitable end.
“Be here now,” she muttered under her breath. This was not the time to think about endings, not with her body thrumming with need and Kieran returning from his antique wardrobe clutching a fistful of…
“Neckties?”
“Best I can do on short notice.” Eyes blazing, he stroked the silk over her bare skin, a whispery sensation that contrasted deliciously with his rough growl. “Since my lady has a hard time holding still…” He cocked an eyebrow and flashed a wicked grin.
For a moment, she stared, baffled, and then his meaning landed like a heat bomb between her legs. She’d never done this before, but the thought of lying wide open, completely at his mercy, shot a throb of searing heat through her core.
She nodded her consent.
The mattress dipped as he climbed aboard and, as skillfully as any seasoned sailor, knotted them together, and fastened her spread-eagled to the bedposts.
“That’s better, my squirmy love. No more trying to escape before I’ve given you all the pleasure you can take.
” Eyes lust-dark, swollen cock crowned with a crystalline tear, he lowered his head to her belly and circled her navel with the tip of his tongue.
“What will you tell me if you want me to stop?”
“Umm…” She’d never in her life been asked for a safe word. “How about ‘Nebraska’?”
His laughter tickled her skin, making her squirm—but not far. She lay helpless before his merciless mouth and hands and glorious cock. Pleasure flowed through her, knowing she was Kieran’s to play with until they were both satisfied.
His hot, wet mouth made a complete tour of her body, teasing her just to the edge before he rose again to claim another drugging kiss.
While his lips and tongue worked magic on her nipples, she heard a drawer open, then the crackle of a foil packet.
Just when she thought she’d ignite from anticipation, he lowered his hips to hers.
The plump, wide head of his cock probed her tingling folds, and she nearly levitated off the bed, eyes shut tight against the delirious intensity.
“Addy, love, look at me.”
She obeyed, sinking into his fiery gaze.
“I need to feel you coming around my cock. Are you ready for me?”
Biting her lip hard, she nodded and canted her hips, chasing the fullness she craved.
That first slow glide melted her bones. The world beyond Kieran’s bed faded and blurred until all she knew was his touch, his breath, his weight driving her into the mattress.
Overpowering pleasure unfurled, licking her skin like flame with each thrust until her climax detonated in brilliant waves of joy.
With a ragged roar, Kieran slammed into her once, twice, then froze as his own release seized him.
He collapsed atop her, panting and slick with sweat, and Addy was filled with so much tenderness, her eyes stung with happy tears.
But Kieran was a big man, and soon her lungs protested his weight.
“Nebraska,” she whispered.
He immediately rolled off her, taking his half-erect cock with him. She sighed at the loss.
“Did I hurt you?” He ran his hand over her skin, searching for injuries.
“Not at all. But you’re kind of heavy.” She tugged at her silken restraints. “And I’d like my hands back, please.”
“Of course, love.” He quickly untied the knots and gently massaged her wrists.
Grabbing a silk necktie, she looped it around his neck and pulled him down for a kiss. “I like this game. My turn next time?”
His smile glowed with satisfaction. “There’ll be a next time, then?”
“Several, if I have my way.”
“Oh, Addy.” He wrapped his arms around her and rolled onto his back, draping her limp, sated body over him like a blanket. His voice rumbled against her cheek. “Can an accomplished beauty like you ever learn to love a wreck of a man like me?”
“Hey.” She rose on her elbow and fixed him with a stern glare. “You are not broken.”
His lips quirked in a wry grin. “I notice you didn’t answer the question.”
Damn. He wasn’t going to let her evade this time.
She traced spirals through his russet chest hair. “I told you before, I’m not good at making quick decisions. We’ve only known each other a few days, and—”
His expression flattened. “I get it. I’m asking for too much.”
He rolled away and sat on the edge of the bed, his back to her—his scar-slashed back, broad and strong and bowed under the pain she’d caused. “Guess I got carried away. Forget I asked.”
She popped onto her knees and wrapped her arms around him, her chin on his shoulder.
“No, I won’t forget. Because what I feel for you is stronger than anything I’ve felt since my life fell apart.
Our worlds are so different, Kieran, but this I do know—I care for you deeply, and I’m not ready to say goodbye. ”
He turned into her embrace, his eyes glassy-bright. “Well, that’s a start, anyway.” He kissed the top of her head and gestured to his glistening, latex-covered cock. “I’ll go clean up and make us some tea. You rest.”
She sank onto the pillows. “This could be my home,” she whispered, daring to speak aloud the thought that had danced on the edge of her imagination since their first night together.
After leaving Nebraska for college, then medical school, then seven different postings in sixteen years, not to mention her two tours in Afghanistan, home was a a slippery feeling she tried to capture by hanging the same few photos on new walls, putting new wildflowers in her grandmother’s milk-glass vase.
But over the years, the sense of home became more and more elusive, replaced by an aching, empty space inside her.
What would it be like to really sink roots? To hang up those photos knowing she wouldn’t be taking them down anytime soon?
An electric kettle hissed in the kitchen. Kieran would be back in a moment, and he deserved an honest answer. If only she knew what that was. Zora the fortuneteller spoke of a new perspective, of learning from the past…
Addy’s eyes drifted closed, then opened again when the mattress dipped. She pushed up onto her elbows. “Kieran, I—”
The next words stuck in her throat. Kieran wasn’t there, but someone was—a vague, pale outline that solidified as Addy gawked, her heart thundering.
“Mary?” she whispered.
The specter tilted her head and regarded Addy with dark, soulful eyes. But instead of the aching sadness she’d felt at their last encounter, the ghost radiated calm—and perhaps interest?
“Can you see me, Mary?”
The ghost drifted forward and wrapped her transparent hand around the bedpost at Addy’s feet. Her voice seemed to come from far away. “We were happy here.”
When the bedroom door opened to Kieran, dressed in flannel pajama pants and carrying a tray, Mary vanished.
“Addy? You all right?”
She could only splutter incoherently and point to the foot of the bed.
He set the tray on the nightstand, sat beside her, and took her hand. “Your fingers are like ice, love. Here.” He drew the quilt over her goosebump-pebbled skin.
“She was here,” Addy choked out. “Did you see her?”
Brow rumpled, he tilted his head. “Who was here?”
“Mary. The ghost. The White Widow. She was standing right there.” She gulped hard. “She spoke to me.”
Kieran slung his arm around her shoulders and drew her against his bare chest. “I’ve never seen her in the cottage. Makes sense, though, since her home was here.” He cupped her jaw in both hands. “Did she upset you?”
Shivering, she shook her head. “I don’t think she meant me any harm.”
“What did she say?”
“I…I’m not sure. Maybe I was just dreaming and didn’t realize it.” She didn’t quite understand her reluctance to share, except for a nagging sense the message was for her alone.
Kieran poured her a mug of fragrant tea and pressed it into her hands. “Drink up. If you want, I’ll drive you home.”
She sipped and breathed in apple-spice scented steam, cozy and sweet.
Perhaps their lovemaking had stirred up Mary’s spirit. The poor soul was trapped here, eternally searching for her lost love. And Addy had found what Mary lost—the love of a good man who understood her more deeply than any man ever had. But Kieran was hurting, and her hesitation added to his pain.
She set down her mug and touched his cheek. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay.”