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But he held back. Instead his head lowered to her breasts. Laved the sensitive flesh until her nipples hardened to dark pearls. Until she arched, wanting him to take more into his mouth. Wanting him to feast where until now all he’d done was sample.
He withdrew, but only to rake her again with another hellion’s gaze. To adjust his grip upon her wrists. To let the sweet friction ratchet up another full notch. Every muscle taut and waiting. Every breath quick and sharp with arousal.
His mouth found hers again, his tongue plunging into hers. Forcing her head back. Forcing her to answer with an assault of her own. A war of tongues and lips and teeth that left them both breathless.
One wrist came free, but only for a moment, and then he’d captured both in one hand. His other skimming her side. Brushing the hair between her legs. Finding, then teasing the nub hidden within.
She bucked against his touch, whimpers of near climax coming from deep in her throat. Was this his way of punishing her? Hold her captive in a web of spiraling need with no release in sight?
To hell with that.
The twist of her torso, the throw of a well-placed leg, and Cam found himself blinking up at her from his back, his expression inscrutable even if his body told its own tale. But before she could answer his desperate hunger with her own, he tore away. His gaze hard as flint, his chest heaving. “You’ve seen my crimes. You know the evil I’m capable of. The madness that lies just beneath the surface.”
She shook her head, trying to focus on his words and not on the bodywide throb that threatened to consume her. “I stole only one memory from you, Cam. There was a sailboat. And a storm. Hugh and Euna were there.”
He went still as if considering her words. Sifting through memory. “I remember. It was the last week before the new school term. The last week of freedom before I was sent south. Away from Strathconon.”
“And the storm?”
Pride lit his face for a moment and the faded edges of an ancient grief. “We beached on the rocks. Smashed by the waves and the wind. But I got us safe there before she broke apart. Wet, bedraggled as drowned rats, and more terrified of Uncle Josh than the storm.”
“Then what? I saw no more.”
“I could tell you. But mayhap, you’d rather see what happened with your own eyes?”
Before she could refuse, he forced her palm open. Forced it closed again over the sharp points of the jet cross.
The power within the stone dragged her under in mere seconds, tumbled her into the midst of lashing rain, shrieking winds, the jink and lurch of the little yacht as Cam fought it to shore. Cliffs rose sheer before her. All but for a shale-strewn beach, a thin slice of safety between the jagged rocks. Cam made for that narrow gap. He could do it. He knew he could. Hadn’t Father always told him he had the devil’s own skill? He’d prove it now.
Slapping his hair out of his eyes, he screamed at Hugh and Euna to hold to the railing. Twine the ropes around their hands for a surer grip.
The crunch of staved-in wood, the crack of a splintered mast, and the boat came to rest, heaved on its side, pieces strewn across the beach. Cam bent double over the broken tiller dangling useless in his hand.
The three of them shaking and laughing and faking a disregard for Uncle Josh’s upcoming discipline as they climbed the path to the house. Met Gran-da coming down. Braving the storm and the plummeting path to find them and bring them to Uncle Josh.
Cam caught Gran-da’s gaze. A gray-faced mix of sympathy and anguish. That’s when the awful realization dawned. Father and Mother weren’t coming back. Not today. Not ever. Dead of fever. No time to even say good-bye.
As if a stray piece of wood had impaled itself within his breast, he felt something hard and numbing sever him in half. The part of him before he knew. The part of him after.
Even as his heart grew leaden, he caught the telltale wailing of the caoineag from the rocks below. Or was that Euna’s sobbing? Hugh’s stifled blubbering? He couldn’t tell and then the sound was gone. Blown away by the wind.
Morgan’s fingers fell away. The memory spun out to its end. The strength of the moment finally understood.
“There’s more if you care to watch.” His voice came harsh. His expression serious. “Much more.”
Morgan shook her head, still off-kilter from what she’d already witnessed. “I told you once that all you’ve done is just a part of who you are now.” She brushed the hair from his face. “The man I love.”
Love. Had she really said that out loud? The word felt strange on her tongue, but not as distasteful as she once thought it might. She tried again. “I want you, Cam. Even as I shrink from stepping into that cage eyes-open.”
“Must it be a cage?”
“There’s no way the warring sides of myself can coexist. To have you is to turn my back on the Amhas-draoi.” She tried not to let her grief show through. She’d grow accustomed in time to the hollow sense of loss as if a part of her had been cut away. “But since I must choose, I choose you.”
Cam caught her chin. Made her face him. “I don’t ask for that kind of sacrifice. I don’t want that kind of sacrifice.”
“But I—”
“Damn it, Morgan, don’t force that responsibility on me. If there’s any future for us here, it’s not over the grave of your buried dreams.”
