The Ground She Walks Upon (27 page)

She closed her eyes, allowing him to take of her mouth what he would while she cursed him with all her might. Countless times she had told herself she hated him; now her hatred had betrayed her. It had left her weakened where she should have found strength. But his hold was more than she could fight because it was not just physical. He kissed her with an anger and passion that she had never felt in her life, and it only made her ache for his love. Ache to see the gentle side of him hinted at beneath his roughness.

She didn't want to believe that there were powers beyond her control making her feel things she didn't want to, but as he took her face in his palms and kissed her again and again until her back met roughly with the stones of the stair wall, until her lips seemed to yearn for him of their own free will, she knew there was no denying it. Surrender was an impossible choice, but it happened anyway. Because the lies were sweet and the emotion overwhelming. Especially when his mouth, his lips, his touch, seemed to reach into her soul until her mind whispered, "At last. At last. I have found you."

He broke from the kiss and began to drag her up the stairs. Her lips were raw and her mouth felt empty. Hating herself, she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, as if holding the feel of his lips; a poor substitute for the kiss she really wanted.

He pulled her up the stairs to his bedchamber above, and she offered no protest. Somehow he'd spun a web around her that took away her abilities to defend herself. The pitfalls were all too evident; he was an older man, wise in the ways of seduction, and she was merely an innocent girl, too naive to completely understand the danger, too entranced to stop him. And there seemed no way to stop. It seemed destined that they be in his bedchamber. Inescapable that he be kissing her again, by the chairs in the antechamber, against the carved oaken bedpost, on the satin counterpane that covered his mattress. And she couldn't lie to herself. She wanted his kisses. They were long and sweet and erotic. More than that, they were water for the desert of her lonely soul. She had no one in her life; no lovers, no friends. Grania was old and not long to remain in this world. There were no real prospects for marriage, and the future was just a dark maw where nothing seemed destined to grow.

Indeed, she yearned for his kisses. For the false promises they fooled her into believing. He was of the Ascendency and she was nobody, someone even shunned by her fellow villagers. Trevallyan would never stoop to her social level to make a lady of her. Men of his stature didn't marry women like her, not even with a
geis
and all the county praying for that marriage.

His hand cupped the back of her head as if he were drinking from her mouth, releasing a brilliant joy within her even as doom shadowed her path. She would have him. Even though alarms were sounding when all she wanted to hear was music. Even though he had yet to speak of love. He was carnally obsessed with her, she knew that, and that was all it was. But when he unhooked the old blue woolen dress for the last time, she offered no more protests. She only stared at him in longing and pain, tortured by the impossibility of a strong-willed, powerful man such as he surrendering so completely to a low-born woman that he would beg for her love.

"I'm a virgin," she whispered as he kissed her bare shoulder, the woolen dress this time slipping ever so softly off the heavy silk of the bedcoverings.

He paused, her words seeming to barely sink in. "A virgin," he murmured, scorching the hollows of her throat with his all too warm tongue. "Good, good," he grunted, continuing the hot path with his tongue.

"Are you listening? Have you heard?" Her voice was thick with repressed passion. She didn't know what part of her was still fighting him, still clinging to sanity, but perhaps her self-preservation was stronger than she realized. She was convinced she should feel more gratitude for it, but her thoughts were clouded, and, strangely, she felt only resentment.

He pulled her onto his lap and his hand captured a chemise-covered breast, sending a fire of sensation through her loins. "I've heard you," he said softly in her ear. "I'll believe you soon."

"Are you...?" She could barely form the words. His mouth found her nipple even through the fabric of her clothing. She moaned and said almost drunkenly, "Are... you... so much a devil as to... make me prove it?" The argument was weak. He'd never had any trouble admitting he was a devil.

"You were meant to be with me." His breath came quick and hot. "Being a virgin is irrelevant; it's just a function of your body. I don't want your body." His voice grew tight as he shoved away the straps of her corset and chemise and uncovered one plump bare breast. "I want your soul," he whispered before his lips covered her nipple.

She helplessly entwined her fingers in his hair and prayed for a bucketful of cold reason to fall down upon them. She should run, she should reject this madness, but she knew she wouldn't. He drew her to him by an inexplicable magnetism. The need to be with him pulled on her like an otherworldly force, as if fate and the universe had deemed it inescapable.
Inevitable.

"Please..." she whispered, unsure of what she even wanted, her eyes growing dark with female arousal.

His boots made a doomed sound as they each dropped to the rug. His shirt and trousers lay in a pile on the floor, and his black cravat was draped over the bedpost like a mourning armband.

Please.
The word echoed through her mind as he covered her, taking away the last bit of clothing she wore. She couldn't even articulate what she wanted. Did she want him to let her go? Or did she want him to kiss her and again use his tongue in that wicked way he had just demonstrated?

His mouth covered hers in a searing kiss, and she knew she wanted impossibility of both. She wanted safety and yet, ecstasy. And she would never have both, because Niall, Lord Trevallyan, only offered danger and imminent heartache.

He pressed against her in the intimate way of men. Rolling her fully beneath him, he finally came to rest between the softness of her thighs.

Their gazes locked.

He lay on top of her, staring at her, his eyes glazed with the sheen of lust. Yet, she saw hesitance. Against her better judgment, she caressed the bandage on his arm, fighting the wild urge to kiss it and prove her contrition.

"Why do you look at me so?" she whispered, her gaze flickering shyly.

He kissed her breast. His tongue circled her nipple and dragged across the sensitive nub until she ached to cry out. But to stop or go further, she didn't know.

"I never thought I would want a woman like I want you..." His teeth grazed her smooth skin and nipped at the underside of one breast. "This feeling... 'tis eating me alive...."

She closed her eyes, agreeing, but hating to think of separation. "Then... perhaps we shouldn't—"

"No." He kissed her, jamming his tongue into her mouth.

She shuddered with longing and surrender.

" 'Tis meant to be. You know it. I know it." He suddenly seemed to move like an animal after prey, intent on one thing only: capture. With a savagery, he pushed her knee up toward her hip; with anguish, he entered her, muffling her cries of surprise and incoherent protest with a kiss.

She went rigid. He thrust again and again, and she fought the sensation, causing herself even more agony. He watched her, and she knew he understood her plight. She was a virgin, but even willing as she was, it was still foreign to have a man inside her, particularly a man as eager and well-endowed as he. Without really even wanting to, she crushed her fists against him to make him stop.

But then he began to whisper in her ear.

"Touch me," he demanded, his voice hard and breathless.

She shook her head. Touching a man was as foreign to her as making love and she was clearly an amateur at both. "Hold me," he whispered.

"Nay," she moaned, inexplicably anxious, but for what she didn't know.

He slowed to an excruciating pace. She cried out softly, her physical wants warring with her head.

"Touch me, or we'll end it right here." His voice was barely a groan above her.

Desperate to understand why she needed it so, she hesitated, then forced her hands to slide along his back. She found his skin smooth and the muscle pleasingly thick and well-toned. The years had been kind to him. His waist was still trim, and his chest that covered hers was still hard and firm, in erotic contrast to the lushness of her feminine bosom.

"That's right...." he whispered when her wanton hands came to rest on his bare buttocks. Gripping them, savoring them, she found that she, too, was beginning to succumb to the ancient rhythm between them. And with every kiss, every strong thrust, she relented, more and more, until her body seemed to go liquid and the sensation he was giving her bloomed.

She released a sound deep in her throat and mindlessly threw back her head. Above her, she could hear him laugh in a deep, animal growl. He bent and took the tip of her breast in his mouth and she felt herself skirt a precipice.

The feeling intensified and she could see how wicked it was. It was so aching and powerful, she could understand those who fell into damnation to have it.

Trevallyan whispered once more in her ear. He told her naughty things, sweet things, that she shouldn't want but now craved. A man of fewer years might grunt over her like a pig and revel in the physical experience like a hog in slop. Not Trevallyan. The physical wasn't enough. He wanted all of her, and as he whispered, she realized he had won. The sensation building in her loins was sweet torture, and as he spoke more hotly, she knew she must either go with it, or die denying it. In agony, she cried out and gripped his back.

His words sent her over the edge.

Trevallyan arose and left the sleeping girl behind in the large four-poster bed. Ravenna had fallen asleep sometime after midnight, but rest had eluded him. Seamus's death still weighed heavy upon him. Too, his consummation with Ravenna.

He touched his bandaged arm and cursed the soreness. It only reminded him of Seamus. Slipping into his trousers, he glanced at the black-haired beauty nestled beneath the heavy counterpane. She slept restlessly, and there was a tiny furrow above her tightly shut eyes as if her dreams did not soothe her. He could understand why. He, too, was unsettled by what they had just done. He really hadn't planned it. If he hadn't caught her with Malachi, things might have turned out differently. Perhaps he would have remained a gentleman forever.

He watched as she rolled to her stomach. Beneath her raised arm was the side of one breast, a generous, creamy half-moon of feminine charm. He stared at her, his jaw growing taut at the remembrance. Indeed, he might have remained a gentleman. But not forever. She had gotten into his blood. Her soul and body had tempted him past the point of no return. She was his now, and nothing short of a gun to the head was going to make him give her up.

He poured himself a whiskey and sat in his chair in the antechamber. As was his habit when he was pensive, he rubbed his jaw. Aggravated, he found it rough with beard.

Everything seemed to be unraveling. Seamus's death still numbed him. The man had been in his employ for as long as he could remember, and the fact that Seamus had been gunned down in a botched attempt to murder him left a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. He'd almost believe in a
geis
now. Blight had arrived in Lir, and it was only a matter of time before whoever had killed Seamus would have another go at him.

He took a gulp from his glass, swallowing the burning liquid as if it were his anger. She shouldn't have been with Malachi. For all he knew, despite her denials, she might have been in on the plot to kill him, too. After all, did he really know her politics?

He stared at the cold hearth, unable to believe she would hurt him, yet cursed by the fact that she'd protected Malachi twice now from punishment. The lad meant something to her. There was no getting around it. And there was no telling what she might do for MacCumhal if the situation was dire enough.

Jealousy squeezed his heart like a thick green vine. At least MacCumhal hadn't gotten to her first. She'd been a virgin, he knew that now. But did that change anything? Not much. He'd still found her with Malachi. Time and again, she was always with MacCumhal, protecting him, meeting him, comforting him. The boy was no fool. Malachi MacCumhal would have gotten her into his bed eventually. And then she would have been out of his hands forever.

" 'Tis late."

The whisper startled him. He turned around and found Ravenna standing in the doorway, wrapped in his dressing gown, her tousled hair falling across one shoulder in sensual disarray, her eyes heavy-lidded and weary. With a feeling of unease, he noted the reddish burn mark in the vulnerable hollow of her throat and realized he had made it.

He met her gaze. In the depths of her dark violet eyes, he saw worry and an emotion that lay somewhere between fear and hope. It was difficult to look at.

"You must tell me about my father now." Each word seemed to pain her as if she didn't want to talk to him. "The cottage... Grania—"

"Grania will know you're here." He took the generous portion of whiskey still in his glass in one blessed gulp.

"Tell me about my father." Her voice held pain. "I've earned it."

He grew silent, unsure how to talk to her. Their intimacy left a strange wall between them now he couldn't seem to scale. He didn't like the distrust in her eyes, yet he was sure it matched his own. "I'll take you to Antrim in the morning," he said. "You understand that you've no other way to get there without my help."