But she didn't care if she had to spend the rest of forever sorrowing as Deirdre had when Naosi was hunted down, or as the princess Isolde had when she'd been separated from her beloved Tristan. It would be worth any price to be loved by this man tonight.
Fallon grasped the edge of the delicate muslin, and started to slide it down her shoulder, to bare herself to that hungry gaze.
"No," he rasped, catching her fingers tight in his, stopping her. And shame flooded through her, regret clenching about her throat. Rejection. She should have expected it. Should have known he would turn her away in the end.
She should go back to her own bedchamber. She had to do it before the tears came. But before she could move, he whispered.
"Let me do it."
Hunger sang through her, passion drumming to an ancient rhythm in her blood. She arched her head back, giving him access, felt his fingers awkwardly fumbling with the garment. He eased the cloth off her shoulders and halfway down her upper arms, but the edge snagged on the burning tips of her nipples. With unsteady fingers, Ciaran dipped between the cloth and her skin, drawing her breast out from beneath the gown. Something warm, slightly rough abraded the point of her nipple. His finger. He traced the circle of her aureole in a wonder of discovery.
"Like peaches. So pretty. So sweet," he murmured, gliding the fabric beneath her other breast. The nightgown bunched beneath the velvety mounds, held in place by his big hand.
"Let the gown fall," she whispered. "I want you to... to see me."
"No. We've both waited so long, Fallon. I want to savor every inch of you—slowly, so slowly. Too precious to rush." It seemed to take an eternity as he revealed her, a sliver at a time, marveling, murmuring praise, caressing her with his hands and his eyes and his voice. He discovered her body an inch at a time, awakened every nerve and stirred it to life with the lightest brush of his fingers until she was burning with desire for him. And when at last he let the nightgown drift like fallen petals about her feet, Fallon could scarcely breathe, she needed him so.
Scooping her into his arms, he started to carry her to the big bed that was supposed to be his. But she stopped him, remembering Sorcha's promise: the bed sprinkled with flower petals and rare herbs that promised devotion, the scent of the water she'd bathed in, a magic elixir that would drive a man mad with love.
And she wanted Ciaran mad with love of her—wanted it more than she'd ever wanted anything in her life. "Please... my bed. I want us to be in my bed tonight."
Wordlessly, he turned, and carried her into her chamber. A bridal chamber alight with banks of white wax candles, bundles of wildflowers, the coverlet turned back. Gently he laid her down on the sheets. Her body crushed the velvety petals, her warmth releasing their essence.
He kissed her mouth. Then stood, unfastening the breeches that strained over the hard ridge of his arousal. She'd seen him before, naked in all his glorious masculinity. But this time was different.
She tried to memorize the width of his shoulders, the cords of sinew, the dusting of dark hair that formed a perfect vee on his chest. His stomach was ridged with hard muscle above a soft line of dark down that arrowed from his navel into the shadows where his clumsy fingers worked the fastenings. It was as if he'd never seen buttons before. And maybe he never had. Embarrassment stained his cheekbones as he struggled.
Fallon smiled and caught his wrist, not wanting him to feel anything but thick, honeyed pleasure. "Let me do it," she echoed the words he'd said to her. "I want to savor you, the way you did me. Make you feel delicious."
"I don't know if I can... can stand much more. I want you too much."
She knelt before him, her hair a shimmering curtain about her shoulders, and stripped the breeches down his hips, past his straining erection, then down the length of his legs. She kissed him. His thigh, the inside of his knee. Awed by the beauty, the rightness of it all. Ciaran's lady. Ciaran's wife. Bride of the mist and the magic. But like the mist, this was so fleeting. The burning sun of reality threatened to snatch it away.
She circled her arms about his thighs, wanting to hold him forever, knowing she never could. The tousled silk of her hair swirled in a veil about his legs in the most intimate of caresses, and she pressed her cheek against him—the flat plane of his stomach, the hard ridge of his shaft. A low groan tore from Ciaran's throat at the intimate contact.
He gathered the mass of coppery curls in his hands and let them fall in a cascade of liquid flame. Then he stepped out of the breeches and drew her up—up the long, granite-honed landscape of his body, to where his mouth was waiting, fierce with hunger.
"Mary Fallon... beautiful... so beautiful. My wild fairy maid," he breathed, gathering her against him, soft, feminine swells and hollows pressed to a wall of muscle as rugged and primitive as the sea cliffs where she had found him.
Even now, the ancient tales she'd loved spun silken rainbows about her. Was this what Deirdre of the Sorrows had felt when her forbidden lover Naosi had taken her in his arms? This wild need, this power beyond the earth and sky and sea? If so, Fallon could understand why the Celtic beauty had turned her back on Connor MacNessa, the king of Ulster, to run away with her love.
For this was a feeling beyond right or wrong. Two souls crashing against each other like the waves below the Castle of the Dancing Mist, battling for an instant then blending into one in a glorious flash of shimmer and foam.
Every part of her trembled as she smoothed her palms up the thick caps of muscle that formed his shoulders, then along the cords of his throat to the thick waves of his hair, dark as the night in which he'd come to her.
She thought she'd die of wanting before he lowered his mouth to hers, but then he took her lips in a kiss so hungry, a moan rose in her throat. His hands were everywhere, charting the delicate ridges of her spine, smoothing down the flare of her hips, cupping her bottom and pressing her tighter against that part of him that throbbed between them, hard as the shaft of Cuchulain's enchanted spear.
He eased her back down on the bed where she'd lain alone so many years, dreaming. Now she was alone no more. He followed her there, filling his palms with the creamy bounty of her breasts and feasting on the berry-red tips as if they were the cherries that had lured him to immortality. Hot, wet, eager, he tasted her, suckling her nipple in his mouth. A shower of sparks ignited beneath his lips, driving down into her woman's core, setting it burning.
And she wanted him. Her husband. Her lover. Her dream. Wanted him to be a part of her forever. For no matter what happened in the future, nothing—not Redmayne's plotting or reality's cold blaze, not fairy kings or memories reawakened—could ever steal away from her the beauty of this one night when Ciaran belonged to her. Only to her.
His fingers played her body with the awe of an ancient bard touching the harp strings for the first time, plucking at her nipples, strumming the delicate ridges of her ribs, circling the slight swell of her belly. Her breath caught as his fingertips stirred the dark auburn curls of her femininity.
"Open your thighs for me. I want to touch you, Fallon. Let me..."
Swallowing hard, cheeks burning, she eased her legs apart, knowing she'd open her soul for this man if he but asked it of her. In a way, she already had. She'd surrendered pieces of herself she'd never shared with another person. The surrendering of her body was far easier. She fitted her hand atop his, and pressed it, tight against the place that was afire for him.
She gasped as those strong fingers threaded through warm ringlets at her urging, then dipped deeper still to sleek satin. One callused tip brushed a tiny ember where all sensation seemed centered.
