The Irish Bride (23 page)

“
Oh, mercy, I’m sorry,” she
said, laughing too. “I didn’t mean it to sound that
way.”

“
So maybe what ye meant was
that being my wife is better than you expected.”

She smiled at him and dropped her
gaze. “Yes, maybe that was it.”

It was true. Liam had never made her
feel giddy with her heart thumping in her chest. He’d never made
her breath come fast. Liam, dear as he’d been to her, was a man of
few words and she’d always felt as if she were interrupting his
lofty thoughts. If he’d had any. She’d never really known what he
was thinking. She only known that he wasn’t at all like her father,
and she’d assumed he was the man for her.

With Aidan, she found she could be his
equal with words. And, as he was proving to her right now, they
could laugh together. Over the last many months, they’d had
precious little time to simply have fun, but judging by the
laughter in his eyes, he wasn’t a man to count himself too proud to
have a frolic now and then. That was a great gift considering the
hard life they’d known.

Aidan reached across the small table
and took her left hand again, fingering her wedding ring. He knew
she didn’t love him. But her clumsy words gave him hope that maybe
one day, he would drive his brother out of her heart and make room
there for himself. She’d told him what attracted her to Liam, and
for the life of him, he still couldn’t understand it. A woman
needed a man who would put a roof over her head and make something
of what fate and God handed them, no matter what it was. And Aidan
was determined to give her every luxury, every possible thing he
could, to make her life better than it had been before.

He kissed her knuckles, then
turned her hand over to press his mouth to her wrist. Beneath his
lips, he felt her pulse in the vein throbbing beneath her creamy
skin, strong and quickening. “Maybe,” he murmured over her wrist,
“being my wife is
a lot
better than ye expected.”

He touched his lips to the soft,
tender flesh inside her arm, unbuttoning her cuff as he went to
give him access. Was that her hand he felt brush over his hair? he
wondered.

At last he looked up at her, at her
eyes, faintly luminous in the gathering darkness, her mouth,
full-lipped and trembling, asking—no, needing to be kissed. He had
denied himself for months, holding back, taking small tastes of her
that only made his abstinence much more torturous. But abstained he
had. For what if she became pregnant and he lost her, just as
Deirdre Connagher had been lost?

Now no such obstacle stood in his way.
No obstacle but her acceptance of him.

“
Will ye have me, then,
Farrell?” This he’d not asked her that night in Tommy’s cottage,
although he knew she would have refused. He and the others had
simply herded her along like a lamb, and though circumstances were
dire and he’d done what needed doing, he regretted it. “Will you
take me as your husband?” His second question left no doubt as to
his meaning.

“
Yes,” she uttered in a
small voice. “Yes, please.”

At those words, a snap of electricity
arced through his body and desire overtook him. He left his chair
and pulled her into his arms in a swift, fluid movement. When he
took her mouth with his, he was gentle, not wanting her to think he
was nothing but a swinish lout. He teased open her lips with his
tongue and touched it to the roof of her mouth. She responded,
shyly at first, and then with more eagerness.

Picking her up, he carried her to the
bedroom where she’d already made up the bed. The sheet and blanket
were turned back, as if in invitation.

Putting her on her feet, he kissed her
again, small nibbles at the temple, at her jaw, on each side of her
mouth where the dimples hid when she wasn’t smiling. Her hair
smelled sweet, of lavender, he thought, and her slender throat was
as smooth as a rose petal.

With an impatient moan, she reached up
and wrapped her hands in the lapels of his coat and pulled his
mouth to hers. That single action ignited his urgent need, and it
licked through his body like the flames of whiskey set ablaze. He
fumbled with the buttons on her bodice, working hard to keep from
ripping them open in his eagerness to once again touch her fair
softness. His own fly buttons strained against his rising
desire.

Finally, she stood before him in her
simple white underwear, and he was certain he’d never seen any
creature so beautiful. Reaching out, he pulled the carved ivory
pins from her hair and it came down in a shimmering fall of dark
cinnamon that caught the last light of the day in its luxurious
strands. She unbuttoned her camisole and let it fall from her
shoulders, revealing smooth, sweetly rounded breasts. She was
innocent, but not coy or shy, and that only turned up the fire
under his own need. When she began to untie the tape drawstring of
her drawers, he stayed her hand.

“
Wait, let me,” he
whispered. She stopped and he pulled on the end of the tape.
Slipping his hands just inside the waist of the garment, he savored
the warmth of her skin beneath his touch before sliding her last
covering over her hips. His heart thundered so hard against his
ribs, he was sure that she could hear it.

She stepped out of the drawers and for
a moment, she stood before him in the twilit room, allowing him to
see what he’d had only a glimpse of in New Orleans. Emotion warred
with his own raging hunger and formed a knot in his throat. He was
glad for the whiskey—he’d never been afraid of making love to a
woman, but now he was more nervous than he had been his first
time.

“
You’re beautiful, ye know.
I don’t think—” He swallowed hard. “I’ve never seen anything or
anyone as lovely as you, Farrell Kirwan O’Rourke.”

She sat on the edge of the bed, and
watched as he pulled off his clothes. He’d never undressed so
quickly in his life. He joined her on the bed and pulled her into
his arms, raining soft, urgent kisses over her body.

Farrell tried to grasp and hold one of
the sensations that flowed through her, but she couldn’t catch any
particular one. Aidan’s ministrations left her unable to even catch
her own breath. His mouth, demanding yet gentle on her breast made
her twine her fingers in his dark hair to hold him there. But when
he tugged on her nipple with his lips and tongue, bolts of
sensation she’d never experienced shot straight to her belly to
begin a demanding, insistent ache between her legs.

While he continued to pour warm, moist
kisses over her, he ran the flat of his hand down her side, over
her hip, and up the insides of her thighs, skimming the swollen
ache, but not really touching her there. The teasing graze was
sweet torture, and with no conscious effort on her part, her hips
began lifting slightly to make contact.

“
I think this is what ye
want,
a muirnín
,”
he whispered. He trapped her right leg between his and let his
fingertips delve the slick moistness of her.

A moan escaped her, one that she could
not have stopped if she’d wanted. She felt him smile against her
neck. “Was I right?”

She answered with a wordless
affirmation, and he stepped up the speed of the strokes to her
sensitive flesh. Against the leg he held between his own she felt
the hot hardness of him, throbbing and leaving a smear of wetness
on her skin. Instinctively, she reached down to touch him and he
sucked in a rasping breath. He pulled back while she held him fast
and an inarticulate noise sounded in his throat. Then he pushed
forward and pulled away again, his own hand upon her stilled.
“Jesus,” he groaned.

“
No,” she pleaded, “don’t
stop, please.” She wiggled beneath his hand and he began the
massage again, now faster and faster still. His own hips moved
against hers, while she kept her grip on his erect maleness. He
whispered in her ear, urging her on with words that she felt rather
than heard. Nearly sobbing with the fierceness of her need, she
plunged toward a breathless, knife point of exquisite torment. Then
wave upon wave of spasms crashed through her, consuming her, making
her buck in his embrace and weep against his shoulder.

He pulled her hand away from his
engorged flesh and parted her legs. Hovering over her in the
darkness, he muttered, “You’re my wife, aye? You’re Farrell
O’Rourke.”

“
I am,” she replied, dazed
and overwhelmed, with little tremors still shuddering through her.
At this moment, she couldn’t even remember why she had objected to
marrying him.

“
I swear I’ll be tender with
ye. Do I have your trust?”

“
And my heart.”

His emotions churning like the fires
in his body, Aidan eased himself between her thighs and bumped
against the sentinel of her innocence. Pushing a bit harder, he
heard her suck in a breath, and he maintained steady pressure until
he was completely sheathed within her warmth.

“
Are ye all
right?”

She nodded on the pillow, and with a
kiss on her lips, he began moving inside her.

He hoisted himself to the full length
of his arms and pressed into her, withdrew, and pushed forward
again. After a few strokes, she began to complement his movements
with her own. Aidan was certain that he would burst before this
sweet agony ended. Farrell wrapped her arms around his waist as if
trying to pull him deeper. His movements grew shorter and faster
until, oh God, he felt the convulsions build and at last, white
heat poured from him into her. He dropped to his elbows and pressed
his forehead to hers. His breath coming fast, he kissed her once
before letting out an exhausted sigh. She’d said he had her heart.
Had she really meant that? he wondered. Or had he only imagined it,
as he’d imagined making love to her so many times?

“
I have waited all my life
for this moment,” he said at last, and keeping them joined, rolled
them both to their sides.

“
All your life—but Aidan, ye
didn’t mean to marry me.”

“
Well, I didn’t think I
would. You’d been mooning after Liam since you were a lassie.” He
pulled her closer, tucking her forehead against his chin. “And yes,
I knew some women before you.”

He felt her shoulders shake
with a chuckle. “More than a
few
, according to the talk around
the
clachan
.”

“
But every one I kissed,
every one I, well, was with, I always imagined each was
you.”

She pulled back a bit, trying to see
his face in the low light. “Oh, go on with you.”

He touched her cheek with his
fingertips. “It’s true. I was so eaten up with jealousy when I
thought you would marry Liam, I didn’t think I could bear it any
longer. I was planning to leave Skibbereen.”

This confession was astounding. His
words were sincere in the darkness and revealed a side of Aidan
that Farrell never knew existed. After a pause she said, “I’m glad
ye didn’t.”

He interlaced her fingers with his.
“So am I.”

Then she pondered the question that
had been plaguing her curiosity since they’d landed in New Orleans.
“I was wondering . . . ”

“
What?”

“
Well, I was wondering why
you never, um—after all, we were alone in the hotel in New Orleans
and you didn’t, you could have—” She broke off, too embarrassed to
go on.

“
Ohh. Ye want to know why I
didn’t make love to you before tonight?”

She heard the smile in his words and
nodded against his chin.

“
I’d meant to. That was why
I talked Morton into wagering his cabin on the
Mary Fiona
, so I could be alone with
you and make you my wife. But then you were called away to tend
Deirdre. When she died and her babe with her, and I had to lift
them over the side to put them into the ocean, I made a promise to
myself. That I wouldn’t take the chance of getting you with child
until we were in a safe place.” He kissed her forehead. “Until we
were home.”

Tears filled her eyes. She was
beginning to realize that almost everything she thought she’d known
about Aidan had been wrong. She hadn’t known him at all. “And now
we’re home?”

“
Not quite yet. But close
enough.”

Outside, late summer rain began
falling, and under a roof ten thousand miles from the land of their
birth, Farrell O’Rourke fell asleep in her husband’s
arms.

* * *

Early the next afternoon, Farrell was
standing in the kitchen making soda bread for dinner. It was her
third try. Although she was thrilled to have a stove to cook on,
getting used to it was another matter. The first loaf turned out
with a golden crust but a gooey middle. The second was as charred
and black as a cannon ball.

Ordinarily, she would have felt a
grinding guilt over wasting the flour and buttermilk. In Ireland,
they would have eaten that bread, burned or raw, no matter what.
But today she felt only a twinge of remorse over the lost food,
hummed to herself, and thought about the night she had spent with
Aidan. They had dozed and awakened to make love until dawn. He’d
done things to her that should have embarrassed her just to
remember them, but the images that moved sweetly through her mind
didn’t bother her either. She hummed on, forming the soft dough
into a dome-shaped loaf.