AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He couldn’t stop himself. His gaze traveled over her like a caress, sliding down the column of her slender throat to dip into the curve of her ripe round breasts before lazily retracing its slow, delicious course. “That’s your only incentive for marriage to
me? How lowering to my self-esteem.”
A spark of either anger or desire flickered in the depths of her eyes. Impossible to determine, though the hitch in her breathing gave him a clue. “Somehow I think your self-esteem manages quite well.”
Lost in the playing and his own salacious thoughts, he didn’t notice her growing discomfort until she snapped, banging her fingers upon the keys in a crash of jarring notes. “Must you play that horrid piece of music? I’m sick to death of it.”
He arched a brow. “Something against old Amadeus?”
“It . . . that is . . . of course not,” she blundered. “I just don’t like that particular piece. Play something else.”
He thought for a moment before dropping into the simple, sweet notes of an old folk song. One that always reminded him of foggy cliffs, the growl of the ocean, and home.
Coming back to Ireland had unchained demons it had taken him years to shackle.
People he’d loved.
People he’d hurt.
The shades of his past moved freely now through the chambers of his mind.
When he’d fled Belfoyle, he’d tried armoring himself in cold, mocking contempt; his only weapon against the agony of having his life ripped out from under him. Scorn an easier emotion to swallow than bitter despair. And even that he’d only managed to choke down with copious amounts of alcohol and then opium in all its destructive forms.
He’d not choose that path again. Yet what release was left to him? How else to drown the voices?
He looked up from the keys to meet the dark heat of Elisabeth’s eyes, a stray curl of burnished red hair loosed to fall invitingly against her neck. Did she know what she asked of him? Did she understand what he was? Would she be one more name on that bloody list of those he’d hurt? One more face haunting his dreams?
He stumbled to his feet and away from the piano. No, he wouldn’t let that happen. He might have failed everyone else, but he’d at least keep her safe. If aught else blew up in his face, that was one thing he could do right.
“What’s wrong?” She touched him, barely a brush of her fingers, but his nerves jumped, his heart pounding in his chest as if he’d been running. “Is it your shoulder?”
If only it were so simple.
This was Elisabeth. Freckles and curls. Hunting blennies in the shallows below Belfoyle and wild gallops across the high fields. He sought to cling to that vision he held in his head, but it was a memory fast fading beneath the glow of the woman standing in front of him. The long curves, the stubborn chin, the tangle of hair in a thousand shades of red.
Would she cringe from him if she knew the truth? Would she change her mind about marrying him if she understood who he was? What he was? What he’d done?
“This marriage, Lissa. Are you sure you want to go through with it?”
She stiffened. “Trying to wriggle off the hook? I’m not sure of anything, but you’ve left me no choice.”
He opened his mouth to argue, the words hovering unspoken on a breath. The moment spinning out to a gossamer thinness of expectation.
Run, Lissa. Run as fast and as far as you can away from me.
That’s what he meant to say. Instead, he lowered his mouth to hers, the warmth of her lips easing the ache beneath his ribs. The heat of her body soothing the steel grip of desperation.
She stiffened in his arms, her mew of protest becoming a whimper of surrender as his tongue skimmed her lower lip before dipping within. As he inhaled her gasped shock, arousal arced through him, the taste of her like the sweetest wine. The fragrance of her desire rising to mingle with the floral scent of her perfume.
She should be screaming bloody murder. Struggling. It was Elisabeth. He half expected a set of fives to the jaw. Not this enticing witches’ brew of innocence and eagerness as she looped her hands behind his neck, the long soft weight of her pressed the length of him.
Had he called Elisabeth unpredictable? She was bloody irrational.
He should stop. Step away. End this before it went any further.
Instead, he kissed her cheek, the tender spot behind her ear, down her neck. Her hands were in his hair as she pressed closer. As she answered his assault with her own attack.
Inhaling the heady mingled scents of skin and perfume, he cupped the fullness of her breasts, rubbing the dark aureoles through the thin lawn of her chemise, her breath coming shallow and fast. Ribbons loosed. Fabric parting. His tongue teased the slope of her collarbone before dropping lower.
