Chapter Eight #3
From deep within him, she heard the rumblings of a satisfied groan.
Mhàiri twisted her fingers in his hair and held on for dear life.
Nothing had prepared her for what she was feeling.
She could feel the warmth of his hands splayed over her back through the material of her gown.
A strange heat burned low in her stomach as a rush of shivers ran from the top of her neck down her spine, his kiss feeding both of those glorious feelings at once.
Soon, hot ripples of pleasure slid down her thighs, and a moan of despair and desire, escaped her throat.
Mhàiri was not sure what she was asking for, but it was flooding her with an aching demand.
Mhàiri’s earnest and open response to each caress shocked Conan.
His pulse raced as she surged against him.
His lips left hers and found the soft, sensitive spot beneath her ear, then slid down her neck.
“God, you’re everything a man could want,” he whispered against her skin.
“Smart, fiery, and uncommonly sensuous.”
Conan’s mouth was soft and wet and firm, and the feel of his lips roaming her skin made her dizzy. When he nibbled at her earlobe, Mhàiri forgot to breathe. Her knees suddenly gave out, and if Conan’s arms hadn’t been around her, she would have dissolved into a little puddle of desire at his feet.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” Mhàiri heard herself mumble, surprised she could talk at all, for every fiber of her being was on fire, aroused into a bright burning flame. But still she wanted more.
Mhàiri’s soft confession was enough to remind Conan that he needed to regain his diminishing control. They were in her bedchambers, alone, and moments away from doing something that would change their lives forever. Self-perseverance forced him to release her lips.
He kept his arms circled about her, breathing in her scent. “Can you speak?” he murmured.
His face was buried in the side of Mhàiri’s neck as he struggled for control over his rampant, covetous emotions.
He wasn’t sure what would have happened if Mhàiri had asked him to stay with her.
A whole night with Mhàiri in his arms? He feared he would be lost .
. . addicted. And that he might never be able to let her go.
“You robbed me of words.” Her voice was muffled, her face buried against his chest as she inhaled his musky scent.
With all the women before, he had easily kept himself detached, using them for what he needed and then leaving soon after. He had become careful to bed only those who would not cling or ask for more, because he knew he would never commit himself to a woman. With Mhàiri, that still did not change.
Yet, a slowly growing voice deep inside him disagreed.
Conan lifted his hand, moving one of the dark wisps of hair from her forehead.
With only the tips of his fingers, he tenderly traced every hollow, every curve of her face he so longed to kiss and know more intimately, but knew he never would.
He stared down into her passion-filled eyes.
“I think I like the idea of being able to make you speechless.”
Mhàiri smiled. “I think I like that idea as well.” Then she placed her cheek back on his chest, basking in his warmth. “Good thing it is your turn to do all the talking.”
Conan lightly kissed the top of her head, unwilling to let her go just yet. “How so?”
Mhàiri giggled. “Well, I apologized. Now, it is your turn.”
Conan stiffened. “Apologize for what?”
Mhàiri leaned back to look up at him. Her brows arched in surprise. “Why, for all those things that you said.”
Conan was sorry. He had even planned on apologizing for them .
. . at some time . . . in his own way. But demanding contrition was too reminiscent of how his brothers’ wives acted after a fight.
Conan had always thought it manipulative and conniving, but had been even more disgusted that his brothers had always so easily fallen for the trap.
Now he understood, for he had almost become that very person.
Conan’s jaw tightened. He took a step back and let his gaze sweep over Mhàiri, taking her in from head to toe in one swift, heated glance.
“Do not turn a simple kiss into some imaginative love story where you suddenly feel emboldened with power to compel me to do your bidding just to make you happy.”
If Conan had reached out and slapped her, Mhàiri could not have been more shocked or hurt, but it did not matter, for that pain began to morph into white-hot anger.
“How dare you!” she hissed, pushing him away.
“The whole world knows no one compels the great Conan McTiernay to do anyone’s bidding but his own.
I was not demanding an apology, but assuming you felt some regret for your role in what happened.
And while I will not deny being attracted to you, it is not like I am alone.
Any sane woman would find you physically tempting.
But enjoying a simple kiss is a far cry from a love story.
My heart could only be stolen by someone who is honorable, honest, kind and . . . and heroic.”
Mhàiri marched to her bedchamber door and swung it open, gesturing for him to leave. “And you most certainly are none of those things.”
* * *
Bonny and Brenna listened in misery as Mhàiri and Conan broke away followed by the clunk of her bedroom door. Knowing there was nothing left to hear, Brenna tugged on Bonny’s sleeve, indicating that she was leaving.
Bonny followed Brenna all the way back to their chambers in silence, waiting until they were inside and alone before she spoke. “I think Conan just lost for good this time.”
Brenna used her toes to pull off her slippers and then slumped into one of the two chairs that were by the fireplace in their room.
It was nothing as nice and grand as the great hall chairs everyone liked to steal for their rooms, but they were padded and comfortable and no one ever got mad when she sat in her preferred position of sideways.
“I wonder what made Uncle Conan say that?”
Bonny flopped into the chair next to Brenna. “Probably fear. I heard Mama say that about Uncle Craig once. Or maybe it was Uncle Crevan,” she mused. “She said he was afraid of love and that was why he pushed it away.”
Brenna swung her legs back and forth over the chair’s sidearm. “You’re right. Uncle Conan loves Mhàiri, but I’m not sure she loves him anymore.”
“Why?” Bonny asked. “Uncle Conan is all those things she said.”
Brenna grimaced. “Well, he’s honest, but I’m not sure about kind. And did you notice how he refused to apologize?” She took a deep breath and sighed as she dropped her head back to let her blond hair swing over the other sidearm. “Boys are so silly. Why is ‘I’m sorry’ so hard to say?”
Bonny shrugged. “I don’t know. We say it all the time.”
Brenna nodded upside down. “I think it’s because we’re girls. Braeden and Gideon won’t apologize, not even to each other.”
Bonny nodded. “But Uncle Conan is honorable. Papa says that’s when someone is honest, trustworthy, and loyal, and keeps his word. So Uncle Conan definitely is honorable.”
“Maybe,” Brenna acknowledged. “But what about kind?”
“Uncle Conan is when he wants to be,” Bonny refuted, stretching to pick up the brush on the table next to her where she had left it in her mad rush earlier. “He’s always nice to me.”
“True,” Brenna said, drawing out the word as she thought over all the qualifications Mhàiri had listed for the person with whom she could fall in love.
Honorable, honest, kind and . . . and heroic.
She lifted her head and looked at her younger sister.
“So let’s say we were able to show Mhàiri that Uncle Conan’s honorable, honest, and kind.
What about the last one? How are we going to prove he’s a hero? ”
Bonny began to toss her brush in the air and catch it. “That is the easiest one. Uncle Conan is a hero practically every day.”
Brenna snorted and let her head flop back down. “I don’t think anyone but you thinks so.”
“What about making those shelves?”
“That’s not heroic.”
“Would be to me. And Mhàiri thinks so as well. Did you see her touching the design he carved in them?” Bonny threw the brush up, but this time missed catching it.
Brenna sat up and retrieved the brush. “A hero is someone who saves someone. Like when Papa saved Mama from the ice storm,” she asserted, using the brush to gesture and emphasize her point. “Or when Uncle Cole saved Aunt Ellenor from the bad men.”
Bonny snatched her brush back. “You think Uncle Conan needs to save Mhàiri?”
Brenna pursed her lips together and arched her brows. “If he is going to win, he will.”
Bonny studied her sister, trying to see if she was being serious. “Do you still think he can?”
Brenna nodded. “He just needs help.”
Bonny’s eyes widened. “Mama won’t help, and I don’t think Maegan will because she is Mhàiri’s friend.”
“Uncle Conan needs someone who wants him to win.” A large smile grew across Brenna’s face. “He needs us.”