Stormfire (14 page)

When it suited him, Culhane left her breasts and teasingly licked her ribs, moved down to her belly, then nuzzled the flesh along the inside of her thighs. As she lay weak and innocent, without warning the soft roughness of his tongue slipped into her. She arched and cried out, tears of humiliation spangling her lashes. "Oh, God, no!" Sobbing, she wrenched at his hair as she tried desperately to evade tremors of pleasure that swiftly mounted in intensity. She moaned, hating the sound, believing she would die if his torturing caresses did not stop, yet not wanting them to stop. With a soft laugh, he lifted himself from her and tugged her hands away. Vaguely disappointed, she lay slack. Sprawled. And open. She shuddered weakly as he entered her. There was no pain now, only ease and the powerful rhythm of his body, until finally he buried himself in the heart of her and from a long way off she heard his muted groan. Then, after a moment, she felt empty and strangely melancholy. A cover lightly settled over her. Hazily she knew she did not want to stay in Sean Culhane's bed, but she was drifting into sleep even as he extinguished the candle.

The moon was high when the Irishman was startled awake by Catherine's cry. She was sleeping on her back with a hand outflung, the other curled beside her head. In sleep, she was childlike, vulnerable. Her lips were parted slightly, the tender underlip begging for kisses, but as he started to answer their invitation, her face contorted as if in agony, her hands closed into fists, and her body convulsed. "No, please." The cry ended in a whimper.
"Non, Maman . . . je ne peux pas. Je t'en pris
. . ."
Perspiration broke out on her brow as she went rigid, then just as mysteriously relaxed. He thought she had fallen into deep sleep again, when she crooned sadly,
"Lh. . .
lit C'est tout Qa va ma.intena.nL"
Brokenly, she began to sing a disjointed French lullaby.

Careful not to awaken her, Sean smoothed back Catherine's damp hair and wiped the perspiration from her face with a corner of the bedsheet. All the while, he considered her speculatively. So the gibberish Peg mentioned is French and I'm not the girl's only ogre, he mused. Perhaps the key to these nightmares is also the key to her resis
tance. And if you use the key? another part of him asked. What will she be then? Nothing, he answered coldly. She'll be nothing to me. But the strange lullaby haunted him into sleep.

Silken Irons

Awakened the next morning by a sullen downpour, Culhane opened his bloodshot eyes. His head pounded as if Mephisto had kicked it. Irritable and fur-mouthed, he sourly eyed his split knuckles inches from his face. He flexed them; they were stiff and sore. Yawning, he started to stretch, then felt something warm against his back. Turning gingerly, he found Catherine snuggled against him, soft hair tickling his shoulder. With a sigh, she burrowed closer and he scowled. The little wench hadn't the sense of a lamb sidling up to a wolf. Suddenly, as if she were aware of danger, her eyes opened, startling him with their blue, starlike intensity. They widened when her proximity to his naked body seeped into her consciousness. "Don't worry," he assured her grimly. "You wouldn't make more than a mouthful. And nothing appeals to me less than food at the moment." Taking no chances, she wriggled away. The smoothness of her body against his triggered an even less welcome reaction in his groin. He sat up abruptly, then grunted as his hangover detonated. He shot her a scowl. "Damn it, cover yourself if you don't want to spend the day on your backside!" Hastily she snatched up the bedclothes. Taunted by her breasts still impudently prodding at the sheets, Sean swore and hauled himself out of bed.

A cool voice came from behind him. "If I cure that headache, will you leave me alone?"

"Bargains, baggage? I thought you understood we were beyond that." Cheeky little witch, he thought sardonically. Hot as flame last night; an icicle in the morning. He knew she had not reached complete fulfillment the night before, but he doubted if she realized that.

Catherine watched the Irishman warily, disliking his calculating smile. Was he thinking how easily he could cheat on any agreement? He was nothing if not unpredictable.

By hard daylight, it was less difficult to understand how her body had turned traitor. Sean Culhane was physically magnificent and beautifully proportioned. As he paced, the symmetry of hard muscle moving under his smooth brown hide hinted at dangerous strength her frail power had not even tested. Certainly he was an expert lover; otherwise he could not have aroused an unwilling partner- literally, she thought disgustedly, without lifting a finger. She must find a way to hold him at bay!

"Would you be thinking of hemlock for the headache, minx?"
     
.

She started with a guilty flush, then retorted sarcastically, "My mother had effective remedies for drunkards. I'll give directions to Peg, so you should be utterly safe unless you've also given her a reason to poison you."

"Your viper tongue serves well enough. What a fang in your father's heel you must be!" From her gasp of pain and rage, he knew he had inadvertently scored a hit.

"Ohh, I'd like to remedy that headache of yours with a hangrope! Poison's too quick for you, too decent. . . too . . ."

"Quiet?" he suggested ominously, grabbing his head. "Call Peg before I sail you out of the window like the harpy you are!"

Catherine scrambled across the bed for the bell rope, inadvertently treating the Irishman to a view of thigh and hip. As she tugged the pull, he sighed and grabbed for his robe.

"Well, and how are we this fine mornin'," bubbled Peg minutes later.

"Bloodthirsty," snarled Culhane, jerking his head at Catherine.

She ignored him. "Come closer, Peg. I've a recipe for you." When the woman curiously obeyed, Catherine began to whisper in her ear.

"What
's
she telling you?" demaiided Sean suspiciously.

Peg looked over her shoulder. "If ye knew, ye'd never hold it down."

Culhane gave her a black look, but in all his life he had never looked as forbidding as the brew that arrived. The color of long-spoiled milk, its stench brought sweat to his forehead. "This has more the look of revenge than remedy."

"You don't have to drink it," Catherine said sweetly. "Splitting headaches cure themselves . . . eventually."

"Bitch," he said shortly, and raised the mug.

"Drink it all at once," she prompted. Faintly green, he upended the mug and gulped. Turning a deeper shade of green, the Irishman expelled his breath. He gave them an anguished look and bolted for the terrace. Throwing himself half over the stone balustrade, he retched violently. Sometime later he reappeared. Though pale and wet with sweat and rain, his face lacked its sickly tinge. "Mary and Saint Michael, what deadly brew was that?" Suddenly, he frowned suspiciously at Catherine, then furiously at Peg. "That devil's apprentice has been helping in the kitchen. God knows what rot she's been slipping in the food with both grimy fists."

Remembering the dirty bread, Catherine could not suppress a wicked smile.

He glared at her as he poured a glass of water. "Smirk, will you? I'll wager you've never had a well-administered thrashing in your life, have you, brat?"

Hastily rearranging her expression, she backed away across the bed. "You promised you wouldn't touch me if I cured your headache! Well, you haven't a single twinge now!"

Culhane gargled and spat into a basin, then gulped the rest of the water. His glare over the rim of the glass became evil. "Oh, don't I though? Women create more headaches than liquor any day, and you're th6 prize pain of the lot!"

Slapping the glass down, he advanced determinedly on the bed. Bombarding him with pillows and bedding, Catherine hissed in panic, "You promised! Cheater. Villain. Liar!"

Through the hail of linen, he ordered, "Out, Peg!"

"Stay!" the assailed one pleaded.

"Out!"

As Peg vanished, so did Catherine's ammunition. Culhane's long reach grabbed her by the scruff and dragged her flailing body across his lap as his hand firmly descended on her buttocks.

Tears of rage and pain sprang to her eyes. In all her short life, no one had ever beaten her. Relentlessly, his hand came down harder. "Liar!" she shrieked. Every time he smacked her bottom she screamed, "Liar!" until her voice was stifled and filled with. sobs. Suddenly she was stretched on the bed, the sheets cool against her stinging backside. Through her tears she saw thick-lashed, storm green eyes close to hers.

"No," he said huskily, "no liar. I said I wouldn't touch you like
this."
And his mouth covered hers softly, warmly seeking, rousing a shimmering heat in her. Her lips parted helplessly and his tongue slipped between them, probing, teasing, then hungrily, fiercely, until she moaned. Then mercifully, he was no longer kissing her, though his eyes were dark and his breath ragged. "No more bargains, imp." His lips brushed hers in a whisper. "Remember."

Then his weight was gone and Catherine felt the same strange sense of loss as the night before when he had withdrawn from her body. Covertly watching him from under wet lashes, she was astonished when he turned his back and quickly pulled on his breeches. How could the brute extinguish his ardor at will and turn prudish when she knew perfectly well he had not the modesty of a savage? She sat bolt upright and, after a wince at the resulting pain, wiped harshly at her damp, cheeks. "Do you intend to molest me or not?"

His back still to her to shield the bulge at his crotch, Culhane dunked a brush in his shaving mug and grinned into the mirror. "Disappointed?"

Flushing, she snapped, "Hardly! I'd simply like to know whether I may dress without fear of having my only clothing shredded during one of your . . . fits."

"Any wretch would be driven to a fit of frenzy in the chill of your welcoming arma." He calmly began to lather his face. "Still, you'd do well to acquire a decent regard for my property, although if you begin a brawl each time I utilize the rest of it"—his eyes raked her deliberately—"you can blame no one but yourself when you end up without a scrap to your back, a state which will no doubt provide fascination for my men, and inconvenience to yourself. I'll not have Peg's meager coffer depleted to indulge your foolishness."

Catherine was momentarily dumbstruck, unable to find a sufficiently scathing remark to put the monster in his place. "What you call foolishness, I call honor; although you're too coarse to recognize it. If my arms ever open to you in welcome, it will be from the grave."

Culhane's reply was heavily tinged with sarcasm. "I wondered when you'd get around to speechmaking. You were meek enough the night I divested you of your possibly technical virginity, which would have gone at auction at any rate. Why no noble oratory then?"