Gathering her up, he laid her on the nest of mantle he'd made for her. "Do you know how much I wanted you while you danced? It all but drove me mad—the music pounding, your body swaying, swirling, taunting me."
"I wanted to drive you mad—make you crave my touch the way I craved yours. I was dancing for you, Ciaran. Just for you."
With a low growl of need, he trailed kisses down her throat, found the burning point of her nipple and took it in his mouth, suckling, nipping, soothing the tiny sting with the sweep of his tongue. His fingers charted a path downward, along the faint ridges of her ribs, into the tiny dimple of her navel, then down, into the silken lace of auburn curls. She parted her thighs, and the callused tips of his fingers found silken petals. When he dipped into her core, she arched, cried out.
"Ah, Fallon... so hot, so damp... needing me..." he groaned.
She tugged at his bare shoulders, trying to squirm under his body, craving the hard contours of muscle and bone and sinew melding with her own yielding softness. "Please, Ciaran," she begged. "Fill me... I need you to fill me..."
But he resisted her—hateful man. His voice was low and rough and ragged. "Patience... Don't want it to be over... so soon. Your Ciaran of the Mist had... eternity. Never thought to envy him... until now. Fallon. Ah, Fallon. Want this... to last forever."
Then he was kissing her—the vulnerable underside of her breast, the sensitive skin of her belly, and then lower. Moist warmth stirred her secret curls. A tiny cry of surprise breached her lips as he pressed a hot kiss there, in the place that was nearly wild with wanting him.
Pleasure broke over her body in crashing waves that tossed her higher, ever higher, until she felt as if she would shatter. Until she wanted to shatter—craved it, as Ciaran worked his spell upon her with his forbidden kiss. She tossed her head, her hands clutching at the midnight silk of his hair, but just as the crest nearly carried her away, he rose over her, his shaft plunging deep. A cry tore from Fallon as he buried himself inside her, filling her with thrusts that seemed to pound at the very gates of her heart. Again and again, he came into her body, murmuring hot words of love, of passion, of need against her throat.
She could feel it building between them—quicksilver, a storm to sweep them both away. But it was his words that shattered her, hurtled her into a world beyond mist, beyond magic, beyond believing.
"Fallon, I love you." He plunged deep, spilling his seed into her body, and his heart into her hands.
He collapsed atop her, breath rasping, heart thundering, then rolled to one side, carrying her with him. Tenderly, he drew the folds of the mantle about her.
So precious, the gift she'd given him—not only her passion, the bounty of her lovely body, but far more than that. Something that glittered in unbearable beauty just beyond his grasp. A future to replace a past he no longer cared about. A love powerful enough to banish any ghosts. A chance to begin again.
He stroked her hair, his gaze on the sky. Thunderclouds scudded toward them from the sea. He would make one last effort to discover who he was—journey into the labyrinth that wound its way beneath this enchanted castle. He'd find out whether he was the smuggler Silver Hand. And if he was, he'd put an end to it, once and for all.
After Tuesday, he would stop searching for his past. Instead, he would look to the future. A future with Fallon, a future of believing in the happily-ever-after she'd dreamed of. He'd grasp the gift the fates had given him—a chance to be born anew in the love that graced his lady's eyes.
Chapter 17
Ciaran watched the candlelight trickle in shimmering rivulets down Fallon's hair to pool on the velvety bank of her collarbone. Her brow was creased with concentration, her gaze earnest as she stitched at the shirt in her hands. It was for him, Ciaran knew, his heart squeezing.
There was no logical reason why she needed to prick her fingers until they bled, laboring over the fine piece of linen.
A small army of seamstresses had been employed to make him a decent wardrobe at Hugh's behest. And Fallon was as ill suited to the task of stitching as a woman could be. He couldn't help but smile. He'd never know how she'd learned to sew in the first place, restless as she was. But he'd never forget the shy gleam in her eyes when she'd confided to him that she wanted to make him something with her own hands, a gift of love from a wife to a husband.
Precious. So infinitely precious was every moment he'd spent with her these past few days.
Nights filled with lovemaking so fierce and tender, as if both he and Fallon had been trying to make up for too many years alone.
Days when his hungry gaze couldn't get enough of watching her, eagerly drinking in every nuance of emotion that crossed her animated face, the lilt of her voice as she read to him from her treasured books of legends. The sparkle of her humor as she gave him riding lessons that ended most often in both of them tumbling to the heather, where they schooled each other in lessons of another, more primal kind—a kind that ended in the beauty of his name on her lips when she cried out in fulfillment.
His throat tightened. From the moment he'd staggered into awareness in the shadow ofCaislean ag Dahmsa Ceo, time had slipped through his fingers at an alarming pace, no matter how desperately he'd tried to hold it And since the night he'd found the smuggler's note, time had flown.
The joy of loving Fallon, the possibility that he might be able to love her for all time, filled his every waking moment, and he wasn't certain if that fierce pleasure was tainted or if it was made even more intoxicating by the knowledge that when Tuesday came, he risked losing her forever.
Fallon, who had gifted him with her generosity, illuminated his mind with her treasured imaginings, and trusted him with her grief and loneliness. A woman so confident in his honor, she didn't care that he didn't even remember his name. Such courage, such faith deserved a happy ending, didn't it? And yet so many of the tales of great love she'd spun out for him—Deirdre and Naosi, Diarmad and Grainne, Tristan and Isolde—had ended in heartbreak. What if their own love was swallowed up by tragedy as well?
No. He shoved the thought away, along with the shadowy sense of foreboding that had tormented him since he left the smuggler's cave. He would do everything in his power to make certain Fallon would have joy instead of grief, a lifetime of love, his kisses, warm with life instead of cold with death.
Time and time again, he'd lain beside her, sated with lovemaking, cradling her so close it was a wonder she could breathe. He'd watched her sprawl over him like a drowsy kitten, tousled, naked and warm, and he'd told himself he was a fool. Why even make the trip to the labyrinth and Silver Hand's lair? Why tempt fate to snatch everything away? She didn't care who he'd been in that life before.
But he did.
He'd searched through every fragment of memory, sifted through the images that had come back to him, plumbed for emotions—love, hate, fear and valor, things he must have felt. There had been pathetically little to grasp: being wrenched from his mother's arms by a father he loathed, grief when he'd returned to find her dead.
Honor. Respect. And loneliness. No love to pull him back. He wondered who he had been. He felt curiosity, but no driving need to plunge backward anymore. Yet he was warrior enough to know the harsh realities of life. You didn't have to reach back into your past to have it overtake you. Sometimes your past could surprise you, catch you from behind when you least expected it and drag you under a current of danger, of old hates and betrayals, greedy to snatch up anyone you dared to love as well.
A shiver of unease trickled down his spine, the need to protect this woman he loved savage inside him. No, Ciaran resolved. He couldn't risk that Fallon might be endangered any further than she already had been because of her love for him. Nor could he bear that Hugh Delaney might be at risk for offering a stranger safe haven, endangering everything he owned for no other reason than generosity and a code of hospitality that stretched back a thousand years.
