Dawns Everlastin' (former title: Dusk Before Dawn) Book 2 (11 page)

His idea of making love had
soured her needs after that night. Dan had been crudely oblivious
to satisfying her, and later had left her feeling completely empty,
little more than a vehicle that he'd used to grunt his way to a
climax.

Tears misted her eyes as she
unexpectedly became angry with Roan. Without a thought as to the
consequence, she whipped the towel up and lashed a corner portion
of it across his back.

His gasp rang out amid a
blur of motion. Stunned, Laura felt something cinch her wrist and
yank her down onto the mattress. She found herself pinned beneath
Roan, staring into his anger-darkened face. Cursing in Gaelic, he
planted his elbows to each side of her upper arms, and leveled
himself threateningly above her.

"Wha' the bloody hell is
wrong wi' you?" he asked harshly.

Dazed, she pondered the
scent of toothpaste on his breath. Her brand of
toothpaste.

"Answer me, womon! Have you
no sense than to bugger a mon in his cups?"

"You're drunk," she accused,
a telltale quaver in her tone.

"No'
tha'
drunk!"

She became aware of his
cool, muscular, inner thighs pressing against the outer sides of
her knees. "I-I dropped the towel."

"You did, eh?" he growled.
"Weel, it had a mean sting to it, Laura-lass."

"I'm sorry. I don’t know why
I...I— Get off me."

His bloodshot eyes narrowed
suspiciously. "Don't want you to catch a chill."

"I'm warm enough, thank
you."

A sardonic grin ticked at
one corner of his mouth. "Aye. I'm feelin' a bit warm maself. Wha'
could be the reason, I wonder?"

"Get off me!"

To her immense relief, he
rolled onto his side and allowed her to scramble from the
bed.

"There is nothing more
disgusting than a drunk!" she flung, trembling as she glared down
at him.

"Aye, there is," he
glowered. "A womon colder than a winter's night."

"Cold?
Cold!"

"I take tha' back." The
sardonic grin returned. "Frigid best describes you!"

"Pathetic best describes
you! You leave me cold!"

Roan appeared to sober, a
wounded look in his eyes. "Wha' are you afraid o',
Laura?"

She stormed several paces
toward the door then turned, her fists clenched at her sides, and
glared at him through tear-glazed eyes. "Certainly not you! When I
accused you of being 'pathetic', I was being kind! You're a
blustering, ill-tempered drunk!"

"Am I, now?" he murmured.
Unsteadily sitting up, he ran a hand down his face. Pain drummed
against his temples. His skin felt hot, despite the chill in the
room. "Come to bed, Laura."

Shock swept through her,
stiffening her posture.

"We'll talk. Nothin'
mair."

Crimson flooded her face.
Anger brightened her eyes. "I've no doubt you're incapable of
anything but talk," she jeered, raking a condemning look over
him.

Blinded by fresh tears, she
ran into the hall and headed in the direction of her room. An inner
voice lashed out at her mind with harsh recriminations. She
shouldn't have attacked him with the towel. It was as if she gave
in to every impulsive thought that traipsed through her
mind.

But then, he had no right to
accuse her of being frigid, either!

Sobs caught in her
throat.

Did he really expect her to
fall into his arms like a love-starved schoolgirl?

Men. Their pursuit of
pleasure goaded their every waking moment. Yet when a woman desired
physical contact, any given number of derogatory names branded
her.

Talk!

That was a new
one.

Damn him. Damn
him!

From the moment she'd laid
eyes on him, he'd been making her crazy!

A breath of freezing air
unexpectedly passed through her. Dazed by the deathlike kiss of it
over her skin, she staggered to a halt, bracing herself against a
wall with a straightened arm. Her breaths came in gasps as she
inwardly struggled to understand what had just occurred. It had
been by no means a mere draft, and yet she couldn't begin to
speculate what else it could have been.

Taking a moment to gather
her wits, she placed a hand over her heart. She closed her eyes
just long enough to miss a flicker of blue light glow beneath the
hand.

A tide of calm washed over
her. The anger, stress, and frustration she'd been juggling the
past two days, melted away beneath a blanketing state of euphoria.
She didn't want to question what was going on, not when she felt so
lighthearted and free of spirit.

A spring to her gait now,
she went on.

She would apologize to Roan
in the morning. It wasn't fair to chastise him for drinking, not
when it was actually her father's alcoholism problem that spurred
her resentment of libations taken in excess. Were she to be fair,
Roan had bent over backward to make her and the boys as comfortable
as possible. She had to remember that he was also under a great
deal of stress.

She was nearly to the
bedroom when something grabbed her by the arm, swung her around,
and pinned her against the wall. Through rapidly blinking eyelids,
she focused on Roan's scowling face looming in front of
her.

"I'm no' a drunk, womon!" he
said harshly.

"Then stop acting like
one."

Anger emanated from his
every pore. His eyes bored into her own, condemning her challenge.
At that moment, Laura feared his ability to check his dark mood
while in his inebriated state. Labored breaths pumped through her
weighty lungs. She was about to offer an apology when she saw a
blue aura appear on the center of his massive chest. Her gaze
flitted up to study the bewilderment in his eyes. She realized he
wasn't aware of the phenomena. Before she could draw his attention
to it, the glow retreated to its heartland. Trembling in awe, she
stared into his expressive eyes.

"Laura," he murmured, "I
feel...verra strange all o' a sudden."

She nodded, although she
didn't understand what was going on, either. He was an attractive
man. She'd been aware of that from the beginning. But now she was
so vitally aware of the chemistry between them and it was almost
frightening. Their hearts were being pulled together as if by a
powerful magnetic force. And somehow, she knew he was aware of it,
too.

"You are...so lovely," he
said, as though amazed at his courage to say the words
aloud.

Her chest and throat
painfully filled with psychological tears. What was wrong with her?
She'd never been this out of control! At least in her fantasies he
would always be a wonderful lover, attentive, gentle, soaring her
to fulfillment as no actual man had ever done. She wanted him, but
she knew when it was over, she'd have nothing but regrets. The wake
of emptiness hurt too much, far more than the occasional awakenings
of her physical needs.

"Don't be afraid," he
whispered, his hands caressing the outer bare thighs beneath her
short, cotton nightgown.

"No," she choked, his
scorching touch awakening fiercer stirrings low in her abdomen.
"Please, no."

His hands stopped at the
elastic leg bands of her underpants. After a moment, he pressed
himself against her, and she bewilderedly peered into the hypnotic
depths of his eyes. The silence between them gave birth to a span
of introspection. Laura, despite her will to try, could not recall
ever feeling so lost to desire. It wasn't lust. She was perfectly
rational now. Too rational for her liking. And she wasn't feeling
lonely or in need of an emotional fix to verify her feminine
existence.

It was simply
Roan.

An instinctual, primal
yearning to share the ultimate intimacy with him, unmercifully
felled her inhibitions.

Roan, meanwhile, was
thinking back on the early years of his marriage to Adaina. It
baffled him that he'd never felt breathless at the prospect of
making love to her. His hands had never felt afire to touch
her.

How had he ever considered
Laura a clone of her?

The features in front of him
bespoke of an innocence that he'd never seen in Adaina's face. And
Adaina had never possessed the—although outright frustrating at
times—fiery spirit of this woman.

"Do you really want me to
stop?" he asked in a low, husky tone, his gaze sweeping over every
contour of her face.

She focused on the blue
toothpaste visible at the corners of his mouth then her attention
was drawn to his lower lip.

His mouth made her crazy.
Sensual. Sometimes brooding, and sometimes teasing. Lips designed
to weaken a woman's control.

She swallowed once, then
again when a haze of undeniable desire yawned in her brain.
Straining on tiptoe, she pressed her lips to one corner of his
mouth. He remained perfectly still while she ran the tip of her
tongue over the sweetened spot.

A shudder passed through
him, and he lifted his anguish-filled gaze to the
heavens.

"Laura...."

His erection pressed against
her abdomen, prompting her to graze the tip of her tongue to the
other corner of his mouth. With seductive determination, she used
the inner lining of her lower lip to melt away the rest of the
toothpaste.

Roan groaned deep in his
chest.

His arms encircling her
shoulders, he drew her slender body flush against the rock hard
wall of his. His gaze searched her features as he slowly lowered
his head. The instant his mouth closed over her lips, he shut his
eyes and lost himself within the sensations building to an inferno
behind his chest and in his groin. He became aware of her fingers
pressing into the small of his back, urging him closer, as if that
was at all possible.

He deepened his kiss,
caressing the soft inner lining of her lower lip with the tip of
his tongue. She moaned. Internal fires seized his genitals, causing
a shudder to course through him once again. In a bid to rein in his
control, he lifted his head and pressed his pursed lips to the soft
skin between her eyes.

"Roan," she breathed
unsteadily.

"Come to ma room." He kissed
a trail down her cheek, lingered at one corner of her mouth, then
lifted his head and looked longingly into her eyes. "I want you,
Laura. So much so, ma brain's on fire."

She lifted her hands and
smoothed them over the soft mat of hair on his chest. Desire tinted
her cheeks a rosy pink, and brightened the deep green of her eyes.
It had occurred to her when he'd first begun kissing her that the
guesstimated amount of whiskey he'd consumed—enough to render him
unconscious—would have made the possibility of lovemaking very
slim. But the evidence of his attraction, the hardness pressed
against her abdomen and thigh, dispelled any doubts she had as to
his ability to consummate a union between them.

He began to nibble her left
earlobe, his hands cupping and squeezing her rounded backside. "You
smell so good." His teeth nipped the lobe then he trailed kisses
along her temple. "You taste so good." He kissed her mouth long and
hard, weakening her knees. "Damn me, lass, you feel so bloody
good!" he added, his inordinately deep tone sending chills of
delight through her.

"Why are we..." Laura
swallowed hard to quell her breathlessness. "Roan, why are we still
in the hall?"

Lifting his head, he stared
into her passion-glazed eyes and grinned almost shyly. "I'm afraid
if I move, all this will vanish before ma eyes. Can you feel ma
heart, Laura?" Taking her hand, he laid her palm over the center of
his chest. "It’s pumpin' wild."

"Yes...yes...it
is."

"It’s been a long time,
Laura-lass." He brushed the back of the fingers of his right hand
along her cheek. "I'm a wee nervous. I don't want you disappointed,
come morn."

A look of utter elation
glowed on Laura's face. "No one's ever really cared how I felt
about anything." Trembling with happiness, she lightly kissed the
dimple on his chin.
Thank you. Oh, God,
thank you!
"Make love to me,
Roan."

A tremor passed through him.
His gaze languidly searched her face, and a sad smile played on his
lips. "Ye're so bruised, lass." Gingerly, he touched the
discolorations on her features. "Do they hurt?"

"Not really. I forgot about
them." She lowered her gaze. "I must look terrible."

"No." He chuckled deep
within his chest. "Bruises and all, ye're the prettiest womon I've
ever laid these sorry eyes on."

"Gotta pee," came a whimper
from close by.

Laura and Roan guiltily cut
their gazes toward the boys' room. Kahl stood unsteadily on spread
feet, rubbing one eye with a fist, the other hand clutching the
front of his underwear.

"Gotta pee
bad."

Ducking beneath Roan's arm,
Laura deliberately blocked the boy's view of the man's state of
undress. "Go back in the room, hon. I'll be right in."