Cates, Kimberly (36 page)

Deep
and sure, his tongue thrust in a rhythm that matched the movements of his hips
against her, the friction of his breeches against her skin making her want to
tear away the elegant fabric, until there was nothing between that throbbing,
hard length of Aidan's manhood and her own fevered flesh.

She
tugged ineffectually at the skin-tight garment, unable to budge it, yet able to
feel the flexing of powerful muscles, the heat of him, tempting her fingers.

With
a muttered oath, Aidan gained enough room between them to reach his breech
flap, but instead of undoing it, he grasped Norah's hand and flattened it
there, against straining fabric and rigid male arousal.

"Is
this what you want, sweeting?" he murmured, arching into her hand.
"To touch me? Hold me? I want it too. Your fingers tracing me, so soft.
Open my breeches, angel."

She
struggled with the fastenings, scarce believing her own boldness—no, not hers,
but Aidan's boldness— goading her, enticing her to hazard things she never
would have, try things she'd not have dared even consider. The fastenings
popped free, and the straining fabric peeled back. Norah burrowed beneath it,
touching velvet-sheathed steel, the length of him astonishingly hard and
dauntingly large.

She
had wanted to curse him a dozen times for his subtle goading, but now she had
her vengeance as her fingers curled delicately around his shaft.

His
hips bucked, his head arched back, his lips twisting in a grimace as if trying
to control sensations sweeping through him. His jaw knotted as she stroked him,
learned the feel of his most intimate mystery.

A
harsh animal sound hissed between his gritted teeth as she cupped him with
exquisite gentleness. Then he swore, levering himself away from her, shedding
the tight garment with almost savage haste and casting it upon the floor. When
he turned back to Norah he was magnificently naked, the candlelight
illuminating every sinewy plane; the powerful length of thigh, impressive width
of his gleaming shoulders, his hips narrow and taut, and that part of him
straining, swollen, where her fingers had just explored.

Her
husband... Norah thought, still dazed by all that had happened. This
magnificent, rugged, reckless man, with his intense green eyes and his devil's
smile, would come to her bed whenever he willed it, possess her body whenever
he desired it, plant his seed in her womb with fierce, dizzying sensuality that
made her wild and wanton, helpless and yet more powerful than she'd ever felt
in her life.

It
was terrifying. Miraculous. It left her feeling raw and vulnerable, and aching
with need for him. She opened her arms, and Aidan covered her body with the
steely hardness of his own. She had overheard horrible tales of wedding nights
before—tales of excruciating pain, when the husband turned into some rutting
beast, possessed by animal urges he could not control.

But
as Aidan's mouth closed on hers for a hungry, melting kiss, his thighs parting
the trembling columns of her own, Norah's own eagerness for the consummation
raged so fiercely she arched and writhed against him, her hands clutching at
him, her own tongue making increasingly bold forays to tangle with his in his
mouth.

He
pulled away, gasping, his eyes devouring her, his breath rasping, as he hooked
his hard hands under her knees and spread them farther apart, opening her like
an exotic flower. His fingers quested downward, to the most tender part of her,
that part that was damp and throbbing, nearly wild to be caressed by those
long, bronzed fingers. Three times he circled the throbbing nub, then dipped
into the entryway that was afire with the need to be pierced by him. Three
times Norah quaked and gasped, arching into his hand. Dear God, what was he
doing to her? Torturing her? Teasing her?

"Please,
Aidan..." she said breathlessly, desperately. "I... oh,
please..."

"Tell
me, Norah," he grated, the words a throaty rasp, those green devil's eyes
dancing like twin flames of desire. "What do you want me to do?"

"I
want you to—to finish it. I want you..." She swallowed hard, but she
didn't care anymore. She didn't care if he thought her wanton. He was the one
who had made her this way. "I want you to come inside me. Fill me, Aidan. I
want—"

With
a snarl of pure triumph, he bracketed her hips in his hands and fastened his
mouth on hers in a kiss so deep, so savagely possessive, she was certain she
would never be the same. At that instant, his hips settled deep in the cradle
between her thighs.

The
blunt tip of him probed the entrance moistened by his loving, and Norah caught
her breath in anticipation.

"You're
mine, Norah. Mine. May God damn me to hell if I ever let you forget it."
He rasped the words as his hips surged forward. A cry of pain escaped Norah's
lips as he embedded himself deep inside her body, but the pain shimmered into
glittering wonder at the feel of him—hard, hot, proud, gloved by the very
essence of her woman's body.

She
expected skilled seduction, the teasing he must have perfected in countless
other beds. She expected him to continue whatever game he'd been playing since
he'd entered her bedroom an hour before.

But
there was no dark amusement in Aidan's eyes now. No mockery—of himself, nor of
the wildfire he'd created between them.

Fury—stark,
wild, terrifying in its power—shone in every line in his face. Fury and
dizzying passion. Desperation and an unexpected darting of what could have been
fear.

As
if he could see the reflections of his own emotions in Norah's passion-flushed
face, Aidan's jaw knotted. He set himself against her with steely
determination, thrusting deep, hard, every muscle in his body whipcord taut, as
rough-edged sounds of pleasure and of pain escaped between his clenched teeth.

Sweat
dampened his skin, fusing them together. She had not expected gentleness from
this man, no tender words of loving. But it was as if something had changed,
shifted in the moment he drove his sex deep into her body. As if everything had
changed.

Carnal
mastery disappeared in the wake of feral need, teasing gave way to
astonishment. Wariness seeped into that fallen-angel face. It was as if he had
suddenly stared into an enchanted mirror and seen something that had shaken him
to the last hidden corners of his soul.

Aidan
delved deeper, stroked harder, as if by force of will alone he could drive away
whatever had so unnerved him. Norah kissed him, touched him, reveling in the
stark contrast between feminine silk and throbbing male steel. She closed her
eyes, dreaming of possessing not only Aidan's surging passion but his heart.
And when the wave of pleasure broke over her, crashing through her in
shuddering pulses of madness, she cried, her tears dampening Aidan's shoulder
as he thrust into her once, twice, then gave a hoarse groan of surrender as he
filled her with his seed.

Norah
trembled, listening to the sudden stillness, broken only by the soft rasping of
their breath in their lungs, the marrow-deep shudders of fulfillment that still
coursed their bodies. He was still joined to her, buried deep, and Norah wished
that she could hold him there forever.

She
didn't know what to say to him, this man who now knew her body so intimately,
this man who had shattered every rein she'd held on the unexpected well of
sensuality deep inside her and turned her into a maddened, desperate creature
of the flesh with his kisses and his caresses.

Instead
she kissed him, infusing that caress with all the tenderness, all the wonder,
all the love that still vibrated in her soul.

When
he pulled away from her, Norah felt as if he'd torn her heart from her breast
and carried it with him. His eyes were shuttered, green pools of secrets
beneath the dark hair her fingers had tousled; that mouth that had devoured
every inch of her with such wild hunger was tight now, curled into a frown.
Why? Had she disappointed him somehow? Disgusted him with the magnitude of the
response he'd drawn from her? Or was there something else that had so disturbed
him?

Norah
caught her lips between her teeth and groped for the coverlets to draw over her
body, now so ruthlessly exposed to his glare. His eyes grew even darker.

"Aidan?"
His name was the softest query. It was all she could manage to squeeze between
her kiss-reddened lips. "What—what are you thinking?"

"Thinking?"
A brittle smile flashed across his face, one of seething recklessness and
danger. Yet it didn't reach his eyes. "That if all my gambling losses were
so... pleasurable, I would be the most fortunate man in Christendom."

The
cool words hurt the fragile places in Norah's spirit he had just opened.

"Don't
look so downcast, my love. Perhaps this marriage bargain we have reached won't
be so painful after all," he said, climbing from the bed. He grabbed up
his breeches, putting them on with a laziness that sizzled along Norah's
nerves. "In fact, any time you... desire me, you need only tell me you
want me, and I shall be happy to accommodate you."

Mockery?
After what they had just shared? It was a subtle sting of cruelty, as if he
were attempting to drive her away. Norah reeled from it, her cheeks burning
with humiliation. Her eyes stung. But she would not let him see her cry.

Why
was it that, despite the insensitivity of his words, her gaze clung to wide
masculine shoulders suddenly stiffened as if they had been dealt some kind of
blow, a face filled with swirling clouds of some emotion she couldn't name.

"Why,
Aidan? Why are you saying such things to me? Acting this way?"

"What
way is that?"

"As
if you—you want to hurt me?" She met his gaze levelly.

Something
flickered in his gaze for a heartbeat—regret and bitter self-contempt. Then it
was gone.

"On
the contrary, it was my intention to congratulate you," he observed,
tugging on his rumpled shirt. The fleeting regret shifted, a grim satisfaction
clinging to those lips that had kissed her to madness.

"You
have a decidedly well-loved look about you, Norah mine. Every kiss, every
touch, every cry of pleasure we shared is now captured in your face. Not a person
at the ball tomorrow night will doubt that you surrendered everything to me.
No, not even your champion, Montgomery."

The
words were like a dagger thrust, wounding Norah, piercing that fragile sense of
wonder, that delicate wisp of hope his kisses and caresses had brought to life
inside her. Philip. This was about Philip. Aidan's visit to her room, his
passion-hazed caresses, his kisses. His voice had been so loud when he'd
tormented her, his laughter rumbling out during the card game. Even when he'd entered
her bedchamber, he had knocked loud enough to alert every servant in Rathcannon
that he had come to bed his new bride.

To
possess her. To mark her as his own. Not because he loved her, but because of
the unreasonable enmity that had sprung up between her new husband and the man
she had once fancied herself in love with.

The
certainty was more painful than anything she'd ever known. She raised her chin,
casting Aidan a glare filled with outrage and with pain.

"Perhaps
you would like me to share this night's experience with Lord Montgomery?
Expound upon your prowess?"

Those
broad shoulders stiffened, that rugged face stilled. "What the
devil?"

"I'm
your bride. You have bedded me. Consummated the marriage. From what you say, it
is important that the world be made aware that I am now your... your what, Sir
Aidan? Possession?"

"My
wife," he bit out. "You'll have to forgive me for wanting to make
that clear to Montgomery. The man seemed most disbelieving of my claim to you,
despite the ring on your finger. But you can be certain I won't leave any room
for further misunderstandings. You are mine, Norah. Now. Forever. There will
never be another man in your heart....
Or
in your bed."

With
those words the rage flowed out of Norah, leaving only a yawning emptiness
where all her dreams had been.

No,
she thought with wrenching pain, there would never be another man in her heart.
Being wed to Aidan Kane, loving him, when he could never return that love,
would be more painful than any trial she had ever known.

It
was ten years since the ballroom at Rathcannon had been alive with the chatter
of guests. Ten years since Delia Kane had reigned here like a beautiful
sorceress.

Hundreds
of candles cast light through crystal, turning the chandeliers into sculptures
of fire and ice. The music of a string quartet wafted across Rathcannon's
ballroom, while the scent of rhododendrons banked in beribboned baskets about
the floor filled the air.

Thirty-some
members of Irish rural society—squires and country gentlemen, landholders and a
smattering of nobility—had brought their wives and daughters to be introduced
to the new Lady Kane.

Aidan
should have been at Norah's side, introducing her, drawing her into
conversation with the gaggle of gawking fools. He should have danced with her,
and told her she looked like a fairy queen garbed in green satin, with a
delicate silver netting draped like gossamer wings about her.