Chapter Nineteen #2
It was true. Alec stared down at her, deriving pleasure from her pleasure.
She moaned. “Alec…I want—”
“This?” He slipped his finger inside her.
Her eyes squeezed shut. Her hips were twisting. Writhing. Churning around his finger…around her own.
She cried out her protest when he left her. She opened her eyes just as Alec levered himself over her. His arms were bulging, his eyes glittering blue fire.
Drenched in arousal, drenched with heat, she moaned when he plunged hard and deep. This was desire unleashed. Desire unchecked.
One single thrust and she spasmed around his rod.
And then it began anew. With every searing plunge, every heartbeat, shivers raced inside her. Her whimper of need kindled the rise of his. His kiss was greedy, his body hungry. Sensing the rise of his climax, she clutched at his shoulders as he erupted inside her again and again.
Spent, he slid to his back and gathered her against him.
Maura buried her cheek against the hollow of his shoulder. She couldn’t look at him. Right now she wasn’t sure she could ever look anyone in the eye again. “Alec,” she moaned, “I cannot believe that I—”
He gave a soft laugh and wrapped her closer still.
Maura woke, stretching slowly. In the haze of her mind she was aware that she’d spent the night in Alec’s bed.
A vague memory lingered. A memory of a kiss light as air pressed upon her lips, along with throaty, male laughter.
She remembered screwing her mouth tightly closed, for she was in the midst of a wonderful, lovely dream from which she protested awakening.
Alec was there, in her dream. Why, where else would he be?
chided a most preemptory voice in the dream.
They were on the beach in Ireland; Castle McDonough crowned the cliff top above.
Alec was laughing. Laughing at a small, wiry figure she tried to see but could not.
In some wispy corner of her dreamworld, she wondered why Alec would be carrying a stick, wielding it as if it were a mighty sword.
But she was happy. Oh, happy as never before.
That same husky male laughter echoed through her dream state.
She felt herself rising through it, yet she hated to leave it, for it was so very, very perfect and she knew she would never tire of that husky male laugh.
And when it was gone, with a wispy breath she lapsed back into her dream with a sigh of wonder anew.
When she appeared in the dining room where breakfast was laid out on the sideboard, Mrs. Yates informed her that Alec had gone out with his estate manager.
She was both grateful and disappointed. In the wake of the eroticism they had shared, a part of her wondered how she might face him.
Yet another part of her longed for him, to throw herself into his arms as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
Which was rather silly, really. So it was that frustration gnawed at her.
Her presence was not needed anywhere. Not knowing what else to do—she was at a loss as to where she might search for the Circle next—she pored over the family annals once more.
Alas, a futile effort that only brought more frustration.
Closing the leather-bound book that contained the family records, she left the library.
Her path through the house carried Maura past the family portraits.
She paused, turned back. Her gaze immediately swung to the portrait of James, seventh Duke of Gleneden.
Even as she smothered an oath, she prayed that his portrait might provoke some great revelation.
As always before, shivers plied along her nerves. That strange sense that the Circle was here at Gleneden returned in full measure. Here was the Black Scotsman, the Black Scotsman that no one else knew, jeering at her.
Turning her back to him, she wandered outside. The day was warm. There was no need to tug a shawl about her shoulders. Almost without conscious awareness, her steps guided her to the loch.
She sat down and slid her arms around her upraised knees.
In the morning sun, the loch was a brilliant blue, with pale patterns that trembled on it in silvery paths. Across the shore were densely wooded hills.
With a sigh, she lay back on the grass. Palms up, her hands rested beside her head as she stared at a few cloudy wisps high above.
All around lay peace. Serenity.
But her soul, her very being, was anything but tranquil. Doubt crowded her. Everything inside her cried out. Locked in her breast was a world of torment.
She was weary and bleak. Her search for the Circle had proved fruitless. Was she on a mission of triumph or was Alec right? Was she on a fool’s quest?
She’d promised her father she would find the Circle—promised him on his deathbed. But now, doubt crowded her. How could she possibly find the Circle? Something she had never seen…that no one in two hundred years had ever seen?
Despair wrenched at her. Hope was meager.
It wasn’t just her family lands that were at stake.
Her heart was in jeopardy as well.
From the very beginning she’d felt he was far too dangerous for peace of mind. Far too dangerous to her heart. Oh, Lord, who did she fool?
She’d surrendered to Alec McBride from the very first time she’d laid eyes on him at the masquerade, garbed as a pirate.
He’d stolen her heart.
Captured her, body and soul.
She couldn’t love him. She didn’t dare. He’d scoffed at the existence of the Circle. Aye, he had helped her search, but it wasn’t because he believed…Yet if she didn’t find it, he would die.
He would die.
She couldn’t bear to lose him. She couldn’t bear to think he might suffer a long, painful death as his father had.
And he would, if she didn’t find the Circle of Light.
It was but one more curse—her own curse to bear.
Thus were her thoughts when Alec found her.
He stretched out beside her. “Spinning daydreams?” he murmured.
Maura gazed up into the sky. Gazed up at him.
He traced the crease between her brows.
“What troubles you, Irish?”
Her eyes filled with tears. She shook her head, her throat clogged with emotion.
“I think you need a sprinkling of fairy dust.” He clapped his hands and waggled his fingers.
The sound Maura made was half laugh, half sob. His eyes were so pure and blue, filled with tiny silver lights, his expression so tender everything inside her knotted. Her fingers came up, grazing the hollow of his cheek, a wordless caress.
He gave a mock sigh. “I lack your finesse, don’t I?”
With a cry, Maura clutched at him, burying her face against the column of his neck. “Alec,” she choked out. “Oh, Alec.”
All Alec could do was hold her. Her expression cut him to the quick. It was as if she was bruised inside. And in the sound of his name, he heard the anguish in her soul.
His arms tightened. He gathered her against him. She clung to him, as if her heart were breaking.
While his was cleaved in two. He couldn’t keep her here. But her course was already set. How, he wondered, could he ever let her go?