The Last Bride in Ballymuir Page 17

  “I’m a bit frightened,” Kylie whispered.

  He supposed it would do neither of them any good to admit that he was, too. “Just let me hold you,” he said instead. And for a while, he managed to do just that. He held her until the uncertainty faded, until they both trembled with excitement, not fear. As one, they began a slow dance.

  Hands gliding over sleek curves, finding spots he had dreamt of but never touched. Mouths seeking and holding until the need to follow hands grew too strong. Her cry as she arched beneath him. Hours, minutes, a lifetime.

  Reaching over to the nightstand and the waiting condom, he readied himself, then moved back between her thighs. In that instant before union, he looked into blue eyes, wide, smoky with need, and so trusting. God, so trusting.

  “It’s all right, Michael.”

  Slow, now. Slow, now, he told himself. Tight, wet heat closed around him. Perfect, so incredibly perfect that he couldn’t imagine anything finer. Once, twice, he rocked his hips into hers. She gasped and wrapped her legs about him. Michael’s head dropped as he fought for control.

  Slow, now. He repeated the internal chant in time to his slamming heart. It was no bloody use, for he’d found oblivion. Pure, perfect oblivion.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Do it as if there was fire in your skin.

  —Irish Proverb

  Kylie tried to wriggle from beneath the dead weight that was her love. “Michael, you’re smothering me ... I can’t breathe.” Face-down in the pillow he said something that sounded like “Mmrphll,” then shifted his weight and rolled onto his back.

  She was able to draw air into her lungs, but missed the intimate contact. Then one long arm wrapped around her waist and drew her close. Kylie sighed and snuggled in. Being held this way eased some of the tension still shooting through her veins. Some, but decidedly not all of it. Just when she’d worked up the courage to ask a few questions about what had happened between them, he brushed a kiss on top of her head.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said as he swung his legs over the side of the bed, then sat there a moment as if gathering the strength to stand.

  After he left the room, Kylie reached down and pulled the covers up to her chin. She heard the sound of running water from the bathroom and immediately cozied up to the idea of having another soul in the house. Smiling, she reached over to switch off the light—something they’d never gotten around to doing. Her gaze settled on the empty condom packet on the nightstand.

  Forgetting the idea of settling in, she scooted closer to the edge of the bed. Two more packets peeked out of Michael’s wallet. It seemed bad form to be poking around in his billfold, but... Curiosity won. She took one of the little packages, turning it over and flexing it between her fingers. Interesting, really, and something she’d never had the opportunity to inspect. Just as there had been no time to revel in lovemaking before it—actually, Michael—was done.

  Kylie sighed. It simply hadn’t been what she’d expected. She knew she carried a large burden when it came to these matters, and she shouldn’t expect perfection from the first. Still, she had been close, so very close to feeling something brilliant. Something that she knew was as right and natural as her love for Michael. And it was love, or she wouldn’t have found the courage to put aside her fears. To give herself to him, body and soul.

  “I thought maybe you’d like some dinner,” Michael said from the doorway. “That is, unless you have something else in mind.” He gave a pointed look at the forgotten condom packet still between her fingers. Kylie quickly tossed it back to the nightstand and focused on him.

  “Ah—” Whatever brilliant response she’d planned to give disappeared. He was naked. Beautifully naked. The ache low in her belly that had never quite been satisfied returned with a vengeance. As her gaze traveled over his broad chest, then downward to narrow hips and strong, muscled thighs, it became apparent to her that neither of them was interested in food.

  She turned back the covers to welcome him. Michael eased in next to her. The feel of his warm skin, coarse with its dusting of dark hair, sent a hungry thrill through her. Embarrassed by its intensity, she tried to hide her reaction. It was no use, though.

  Leaning over, Michael cupped her chin in his hand. “I’m sorry about earlier, love. This time... this time it will be slow,” he said, pausing between words to kiss her temples and the tip of her nose. “And no matter how much begging you do—or I do, for that matter—I promise I’m taking my time with you. Very... thoroughly... slow,” he finished in a whisper that sent an erotic thrill chasing through her.

  Bracing on both hands, he settled his open mouth over the hollow at the base of her throat. His tongue played against her sensitive skin, and Kylie moaned— both with the pleasure of what he was doing, and with her imaginings of where else his talented mouth might travel.

  Michael proved to be a veritable artist in promise keeping. Her hair was damp and clinging with perspiration by the time he turned his attention from her mouth to her breasts.

  Later—much later—when he slipped lower in the bed and traced her hipbones with his lips, she clenched the sheet in knotted hands, feeling as though she were about to go spinning into the night. Unable to help herself, she cried his name. His answering chuckle held an edge of pure male satisfaction.

  “You’re not begging yet,” he said as he ran his fingers up the insides of her thighs, stopping just short of the deep caress her body demanded.

  A brush of his mouth here, a stroke there... Kylie wanted to beg, and would have, too, if she had been able to put words together. Since that was impossible, she took a page from Michael’s book and gave him the same attention he’d been giving her. His body was a grand new world. She smiled at the crisp texture of his hair beneath her fingers, relished the faintly salty taste of his skin as she flicked her tongue against his hard male nipple.

  And she felt great satisfaction when he was the first to beg. Kneeling above him, Kylie reached for one of the two little packets waiting on the nightstand.

  “Put this on,” she said, wanting to sound all smart and take-charge.

  The look he shot her way brought to mind a pasha with one of his favored women. “You do it for me.”

  She’d been bested at her own game. Tugging at her lower lip with her teeth, working to still trembling fingers, she gave a valiant try, but Michael’s hands quickly replaced her own.

  When he was deep within her and skillfully teasing her to the edge of sanity, she gasped, “I’m glad one of us has some idea what they’re doing.”

  He paused and an odd smile crossed his face. “But you’re my very first, love.”

  Just like that, Kylie reached the edge of the world she knew and arched into the hot, dancing starlight beyond.

  Leaving Kylie and returning to his own lonely bed struck Michael as madness. Madness, but also very necessary. Rubbing his hands together to fight off the cold, he took one last look at her bedroom light, still shining golden and inviting. Kylie, wrapped in her threadbare robe, appeared in the opening between the sagging drapes. She shouldered aside the hangings and pressed her palm flat to the window. Her smile, rich with lovers’ shared secrets, drew him to a stop.

  An icy wind hammered at him, the beginnings of rain needled his exposed skin, yet he was wrapped in warmth from the inside out. He returned her smile even though he doubted that she could make out his features in the inky darkness. She was the most beautiful thing he could imagine, and he wanted her more than he did his next breath. He watched her smile grow to a laugh as she shooed him in the direction of his car.

  He gave one last wave, then dug his keys from his pocket and climbed into the mile-weary sedan. As he drove down the narrow lane, an incredible thought settled on him: For the first time in his bleak, god-and-family-forsaken life, he was truly welcome and wanted. Michael smiled, then sobered as he imagined the reaction of his old prison padmates to this new, soft and needy Michael Kilbride.

  They’d laughed enough at t
he reading he’d done and the studies he’d pursued while they spent their days doing as close to nothing as they could. Well, damn them all. Damn Brian Rourke and the rest of those driven, devious bastards who had put hatred above human life. And damn himself for letting them steal so much as a second of his thoughts. He had finer things to think about. Much finer, now.

  Soon after he pulled onto the main road, another car’s lights shone behind him. It would have meant nothing, except that just there, he knew of no drive, not even the smallest track for the car to have come from. He slowed, and the follower did, too. He slowed more. The car lagged enough to be conspicuous.

  “Flynn, of course,” he muttered. “A slow learner, that one.” Any other time, Michael would have been angry to see the man creeping along behind him. But this wasn’t any other time; he’d just finished loving Kylie. He could afford generosity of spirit, something he wagered Flynn knew nothing about.

  “If it’s a morning’s drive you’re wanting, that’s what you’ll be getting, me boy.”

  So on he drove with no purpose other than giving Flynn his day’s exercise. Eventually the rising sun washed the dark from the sky. As it did, Michael got a bit of a surprise. Gerry wasn’t in his official-issue white vehicle, but an older, pale-tan one. Off duty, was he?

  Keeping a decorous pace, Michael crept past tumbled fences, stone skeletons of long-dead farms, craggy earth, and blank-eyed sheep, their rumps painted bright blue with their owner’s mark. He reached the top of a narrow pass. A small gravel car park sat next to a stream that tumbled down the mountainside before disappearing beneath the road. He pulled over, switched off the car, and climbed out.

  “Just stretching the legs, Gerry,” he called to Flynn, who hadn’t bothered to pull onto the gravel. “And I thought I’d freshen up, y’know?” He grinned, then finished with another one of his grandmother’s favorite curses, pure Irish and anatomically accurate.

  Flynn’s brows shot together, and his mouth pulled tight. A slow learner, but not a bad lip-reader, Michael thought.

  Michael followed the rain-heavy stream uphill, then bent down. Cupping his hands, he filled them with a shock of icy water. He splashed his face, used his tee to sluice himself dry, and checked on Flynn. Engine idling, the officer waited.

  Before returning to his car, Michael picked up a bottle that had been left roadside. He hated the mess someone would leave in the midst of pure beauty, hated the feeling that his land was becoming crowded. He glanced back at Flynn. Too crowded.

  He walked to Flynn’s window and rapped on it. After hesitating just long enough to give Michael pleasure in knowing he had the boy rattled, Gerry rolled down the window.

  “Grand one, isn’t it?” Michael said as he tossed the bottle among the food wrappers and other detritus taking root in the back of Flynn’s car.

  “Grand what?”

  “Why, day, of course. But then again, you might not be thinking that,” Michael commented. “After all, a night spent sleeping in a car—which you must have done in order to follow me—doesn’t put a man in the mind to enjoy a day like this.

  “Now, me, I’ve had sleep enough to be feeling generous, so here’s what I’m going to do for you. My schedule, Gerry, in dull, deadly boring detail is this.... I’ll be taking myself back to my sister’s house for a real cleanup and a bite to eat. Then I’m off to work at Muir House, out Slea Head Road, though you’ve followed me there before, I’m sure. Tonight, I’ll be going back to Kylie’s—and here’s the part I want you to listen to very carefully.”

  He leaned in the car window. “If, when I’m looking out Miss O’Shea’s windows, I catch sight of you in either this piece of shit or your official vehicle, I won’t be a nice man, Gerry. You might say hostile, even. And since I’m beginning to see you have no idea where your official duties leave off, I’ll be happy to show you. And I won’t be rolling over and playing dead for you like I did in the pub that night. Understand?”

  Flynn’s knuckles shone bony white where he gripped the steering wheel. “You were with her all night.”

  Guilt arrowed through Michael. It wasn’t wrong being with Kylie, but it wasn’t precisely right, either. He shook off the feeling and reminded himself that none of this was snot-nosed Flynn’s business. “And what of it?”

  “If—” He swallowed convulsively. “If you—”

  “If I what?” Michael spat. “Don’t send your thoughts or your imagination creeping past Kylie O’Shea’s front door.”

  Flynn stared out the front window of his car. Something primal in his expression, in the way his chest heaved as though he’d run up the mountain rather than drove, startled Michael. He’d seen that set of face a dozen times and more in prison—sometimes in his own mirror. Hatred layered over frenzy, a murderous rage.

  Flynn turned his glare to Michael, then his hand shot out and grabbed hold of Michael’s jacket. Gerry’s voice was low, hoarse. The words weren’t coming clearly ... until the last.

  “If you’ve dirtied her,” Flynn forced through a clenched jaw, “if you’ve touched her, I’ll kill you for it. This time, I swear I will.”

  This time? An image—or was it someone’s half-memory?—seared Michael’s brain. Kylie’s cries, and a sick, seizing panic.

  He wrenched out of Flynn’s grasp and staggered back from the car. An angry buzzing sounded in his ears, and the metallic taste of shock and anger sat on his tongue. Eyes half-closed, he tried to draw in a clean breath and find his bearings. It was still morning, they were still miles from town, but the landscape had grown confusing, threatening. He looked back at Flynn.

  Gerry gave an inarticulate cry, jammed his car into gear, and left. Gravel spit over the edge of the cliff in his wake.

  Michael wiped one shaking hand over his face. It came away wet with sweat and colder than the mountain water he’d washed in. Carefully placing each foot, still not really feeling the ground beneath him, he made his way back to the stream. There, he sat on the hard earth and fought to calm his roiling gut.

  Jesus, was this what Vi felt when she saw or sensed evil? This icy sickness, this empty, silent scream welling from somewhere just beneath conscious thought? If so, then God be with her. He’d rather be struck dead than feel it again.

  In time, he worked his way to his feet and stared at the water as it raced by. His thoughts raced, too. Had Gerry been with Kylie that night? Had he left her there to suffer? Michael’s muscles knotted at the unbearable thought. If so, it was a wonder she’d speak to any man, let alone honor him with her trust. Impossible. She couldn’t have survived so much, and come out of the fire so ... pure. So giving.

  Michael shook his head, clearing it of the last of that awful buzzing. Was he sensing a meaning to Gerry’s words where there was none to be found? He wasn’t Vi, praise the saints. He didn’t sense, or feel, or whatever the hell it was his sister did.

  Did Gerry and Kylie have more of a past than Kylie had told him? He might well never know the truth. Unless she told him willingly, it was none of his business—even if it was his concern. But if Flynn had been there...

  Michael looked at his clenched fists. He was better off never knowing. And Flynn was safer that way, too. Much safer.

  Kylie allowed herself the luxury of an extra cup of tea before dressing for work. After settling at the kitchen table, she thought of the night before. She felt deliriously tired, and so very pleased with herself. Smug, almost... if that weren’t such an arrogant thing to be. She smiled at the way she was cloaking herself in humility when she’d done a smashing fine job of tossing it into the ashbin last night.

  A humble woman wouldn’t have demanded the way she had, wouldn’t have reveled in the things she and Michael had done together. A humble woman wouldn’t want to do it all again. Now.

  Kylie looked at her watch, then stood. Muscles she didn’t even know she owned protested the quick action. She stretched, slow and easy, happy for the reminder of last night’s passion. Well, then, she thought in answer to the linge
ring ache, perhaps she wouldn’t do it all again this instant, but soon. Very soon.

  She walked to the cluttered kitchen counter. For never actually having sat down to dinner, Michael and she had managed to make a very impressive mess. She gave a sorry shake of her head at the remains of the salad Michael had brought. She’d been carried away with herself, indeed, to let good food sit out all night. Pushing aside plates and half-finished glasses of wine, she came upon an envelope addressed to her.

  Kylie opened it and unfolded the note inside. In a bold, angular scrawl Vi Kilbride had written that she’d secured the Village Hall for the art festival. Kylie’s smile grew to a jubilant laugh. It was a fine pleasure, bringing her students the chance to shine in front of the village. Joy sifted down like glittering fairy dust upon all of the other pleasures—great and small, lasting and not—that she’d experienced over the last several days.

  She hummed as she tidied the kitchen, sang as she made her bed, then buried her nose in the blankets for one last bit of Michael’s scent. For so long she’d pretended to be conducting her life out of the shadows, pretended that the ugliness with her da—and with Gerry—had little bearing on her present. Perhaps finally now, that game had grown into the truth.

  As she showered, energy seeped back into her bones and marvelous plans came to her. Why just a children’s art show? Why not dance and food and celebration? By the time she’d dried and dressed, she had mentally dissected the affair into committees, subcommittees and decided whom to approach for what. She felt as though she could take on the world and win.

  Still with a few minutes to spare, she stopped to share her new plans with Breege, and enlist her help in prodding the notoriously slow-moving village council into a quick decision. Standing on Breege’s tidy whitewashed stoop, Kylie rapped at the door. Her friend’s hearing wasn’t what it had once been, though she’d never say that loudly enough for Breege to hear.