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His voice shuddered on the plea. He swallowed back another. She would agree, or she would leave.
Long seconds passed as he held her gaze. He counted them in his head, even as the shallowest breath she drew acted like a spur to his growing excitement. He desired her. Ached to bury himself inside her. Ride the frenzied heat of their joining to orgasm, knowing she would always be his. If she pulled away—if she looked away—it would be over.
A smile spread slowly over features gilded by breaking sun. Her arms lifted to his neck. Her kiss, hot and sweet and eager. Her body welcoming him.
“Well, when you say it all out like that.” She laughed. “Aye, Aidan Douglas. I must be mad, but I shall marry you,” she answered.
He closed his eyes, sent up a silent prayer of thanksgiving even as his hand skimmed her side, caressed the exposed curve of her breasts. Seduction a few popped buttons and a raised petticoat away.
“Out here? Now you’re the one who’s lost his senses,” she squeaked, casting a hesitant glance around her, though the wicked gleam in her eyes gave her away.
He laughed. Clamped his arms around her. Rolled them both over so she lay upon his chest, her hair falling from its pins. Curtaining them in a black, silken river. “May as well be hanged for an old sheep than a young lamb. And if we’re going to cause a scandal anyway—”
She dropped a kiss upon his chin. His nose. His forehead. Grinned a sparkling invitation. “As you say,” she purred in that sexy, smoky murmur of hers, guaranteed to shoot him over the moon. “To hell with them all.
Turn the page for a sneak peek at
Lady of Shadows
The next book in Alix Rickloff’s
thrilling Heirs of Kilronan series
Off the Southwest Coast of Ireland
November 1815
He’d prayed the storm would kill him. One solid lightning strike to splinter his body into so many pieces no amount of mage energy could fit him back together.
A vain prayer. He’d moved far beyond the reach of any god’s aid.
The ocean had calmed from the froth of hurricane swells to a slick of black, rolling water. Good for inducing nausea, but not death. Clouds passed eastward, taking their lightning with them, leaving a sky shimmering with frozen stars, full moon hanging low on the horizon. Picturesque, yet his mood longed for a cyclone’s destruction to match the chaotic madness infecting his mind.
The storm had pushed them off course. He’d heard the sailors mutter and witnessed the captain’s frown as he prowled the quarterdeck. Behind schedule. Battered and in need of repairs. And Cobh harbor another day and a half away if the winds held.
So if the gods had deserted him, it fell to his own devices to find oblivion.
> He’d been denied a split second’s painless annihilation. But there were other paths to Annwn. Trackless dark ways that led just as surely to the land of the dead.
He only needed to discover them.
Leaning against the rail, he scanned the sea, his answer written upon every wave. But could he go through with it? Would the wards keeping him alive and untouchable unravel within Lir’s cold fathoms, bringing the solace he craved? Or would the attempt result in endless suffering of a different kind within the clawing pull of the ocean tides?
The stars above rippled gold and silver upon the surface of the sea. Curled and eddied as if a hand drew shapes with light and water. Turned moonlight to a woman’s pale face. The ocean’s foam drifting across her features like a spill of dark hair, she breathed her love across the separating veil. Shone luminous in a world blanketed by shadows.
Had she been conjured from his tattered memories or was she mere dream? Impossible to distinguish. Names and faces drifted through his consciousness like ghosts. Sometimes as vivid as the existence he found himself trapped within. At others times, only emptiness met his probing efforts to remember. And he was left alone to fight the demonic rage that burned through him like acid. The fury of the damned.
He expected her to dissolve back into the waves at any second, but she remained. Her eyes gleamed blue as cornflowers. Her smile brightening for a moment the hopelessness pressing against his heart, and he knew he must take the course offered. Now. Here. Before she vanished. Before she was beaten back by the howling viciousness, and he was once again left bereft of memories or even the comfort of memories. At least this way he wouldn’t face the uncertainty of death alone.
Slinging a leg over the gunwale, he glanced to be sure none watched. But no, the deck remained quiet. He’d not get a better chance.
With a hard shove to propel him out of the ship’s shadow, he plunged into the water. Arrowed far down below the waves.
The water jolted him alert. A stomach punch of icy pain, stabbing needles of agony through every nerve. Releasing his breath on a cloud of bubbles, he dropped deeper. Lungs burning and muscles cramping as he fought the instinctual need to breathe. To live.
He struggled against the claustrophobic crush of water, but the seeping drugged cold of the sea made every movement excruciating. And then impossible.
The woman’s smile urged him deeper.
