Authors: Kathy Morgan
Chapter Twenty-three
T
here it was again, Arianna thought sleepily. That annoying tap, tap, tapping sound. Pushing up in her bed, she squinted at the luminous dial on her travel clock. “Who the heck hangs pictures at three in the morning?” she grumbled, burying her face in her pillow. When the sound came again, her sleep-fogged brain registered that it was actually someone knocking on her door.
She propped herself up on one elbow. “Just a minute,” she called out, her voice raspy.
As she slid out from under the covers, she noticed how much cooler it was than usual. Shivering, she lumbered over to the door and opened it a crack, peeking around the edge.
“Caleb.” She kept her voice low so as not to disturb anyone. “Is everything okay?”
“’Tis, yes.” The mischievous grin he offered gave her a rare glimpse of the precious little boy who had once roamed these medieval halls. “And you don’t have to be whispering. You’re the only one in residence on this floor.”
“Thanks for sharing,” Arianna quipped, stifling a yawn. “So what’s up?”
His eyes twinkled, that smile that never failed to take her breath away tugging again at his lips. “Thought I’d call up to see you if you fancied going out to play.”
Arianna stared at him.
He was kidding, right?
“Out to play? At three in the morning?”
“Wasn’t it you yourself just after mentioning how you’d be missing the snow this season? And aren’t we having a virtual blizzard out in the courtyard this very minute.”
“No way!” She bounded over to the window with a whoop of delight. “Wow, I didn’t hear anything about snow on the weather forecast.”
Buffeted by the strong sea winds, snowflakes twirled above the restless waves in a frantic ballet. A sparkling layer of crystal powder coated the curtain walls and battlements rising off in the distance. Arianna had never seen anything so beautiful…or so strange, she decided, gazing upward. In Maine, the sky would have been low and claustrophobic with snow clouds. But here in Ireland, the glistening flakes of snow seemed to be falling directly from the winking stars above.
Realizing Caleb hadn’t joined her at the window, she looked back. His arms crossed, one shoulder holding up the doorjamb, his eyes smiled in enjoyment of her light-hearted reaction.
As she returned to the door, she felt his gaze drift over her in a heated caress. Her night garb consisted of boxers and a thin, cotton tank top, revealing nipples puckered by the cold. “Excuse me,” she murmured and dashed over to the foot of the bed to retrieve her white fluffy bathrobe. Looping the belt loosely around her waist, she rejoined him at the door.
Familiar late-night stubble roughened his jaw. And he was still in the same clothes he had been wearing the day before. Their quarrel must have left him unsettled, unable to sleep.
Good.
Though it might not have been particularly nice, Arianna was happy she hadn’t been the only one so affected.
She gave an internal sigh. God, he looked good, all rough and rumpled, his black hair disheveled as though he had been plowing his fingers through it. She caught a mild waft of whisky coupled with the scents of sandlewood and Caleb’s own unique male fragrance.
She felt such love for this impossible man, “Thanks for waking me up, Caleb. I would have hated to miss this.”
As she stretched up to brush her lips across his cheek, he turned his head and captured her mouth in a hot, greedy kiss. But before the erotic spark could explode into something unquenchable, he set her firmly away from him. “What d’ya reckon we build a snowman before it all melts away? Dress warm now and hurry. I’ll meet you down below.”
“Down in two ticks.”
The towering front door opened onto a veritable winter wonderland. A frigid rush of air scattered light powdery snow across the gray marble floor. Caleb held her hand as they climbed down the slippery stone steps into the courtyard. She turned in a slow circle, silent snowflakes falling all around her. “Oh, Caleb. It’s enchanting.”
Tonight the ancient gray stone of the mighty fortress sparkled a pristine white. The wall walk and battlements along the curtain wall to her right, the round towers and outbuildings in the distance, were all shrouded in a snowy blanket. Naked trees rose above them like behemoth skeletons, snowdrifts bowing their bony arms.
“It’s absolutely magical,” she sighed.
Caleb lips turned up in a secret smile as he fished a pair of man-sized gloves out of his pocket. “Best put these on. They’re too big, but they’ll keep your hands toasty.”
Needles of intense cold had already been pricking her fingertips. “Thanks.”
“And now, we’ll go exploring.” Wrapping his gloved hand around hers, Caleb dragged her off in the direction of the frozen woodlands.
They sprinted down the path toward the formal gardens like two errant children playing hooky from school. Skirting the paddocks and stables, Arianna could hear the crunch of the ice-hardened ground beneath her booted feet. Vapor puffed from their mouths as they picked their way across a gorse-fringed gully, then circled a fishpond on the other side.
Arianna dropped Caleb’s hand and broke away. “Race you to that clump of trees on top of the hill,” she challenged. “Last one there’s a rotten egg!” As she slipped and slid through the open meadow, her throat began to ache from the laughter and the cold.
“No,
Arianna
….”
His hesitation in calling out to her gave Arianna a head start. Making quick work of the advantage, she dashed toward a frozen maze of trees cresting the brow of the hill. Ducking past a couple of gnarled old Hawthorne bushes that guarded its entrance, she played hide-and-seek amongst the rows of ancient Oak and Ash, Thorn and Rowan trees, her rasping breath loud in the snow-muffled silence.
After a few minutes, she stopped moving. Afraid that she was getting herself hopelessly lost, she turned in a circle, trying to locate the path she had taken on her way in. But her footprints in the snow crossed and re-crossed themselves, and there was nothing distinctive about any of the trees. Trees, she thought with a shiver, that seemed to be closing in on her, bending over her, their great, drooping limbs reaching….
There was a flash of movement to her left. A titter of laughter from behind. Arianna spun around, chills of dread skittering up her spine. She remembered Caleb calling out to her as she began to run. Had he been meaning to warn her off this place? Had she inadvertently stumbled across one of Ireland’s fabled faerie groves? According to legend, mortals foolish enough to intrude upon these magical forts risked becoming lost in them forever. For such, as the story goes, was the gravity of the penalty exacted by the faerie folk for daring to disturb their timeless solitude.
“Faeries!” Arianna grunted. “Yeah, right.” But a second otherworldly giggle echoed from amongst the trees at her comment.
Her heart pounding, she began to run. But each turn only led her deeper into the wooded labyrinth. “Caleb!”
“Where are you,
a ghrá
?” His muffled voice came from a distance. Did he sound anxious? Fearful for her safety?
“I’m lost in this…this faerie rath.” Her words reverberated eerily, as if she had entered another dimension. “Caleb, did you hear me?”
“I’m coming to bring you out of there.” His tone was gruff, and, yes, apprehensive. “Stop moving. Just stay where you are.”
Seconds later, he was turning the corner on a row of solidly interlaced trees. Arianna darted over to him and leaped into his arms, squealing as he nuzzled her neck with a cold nose. “Sshh, mustn’t mention the faeries,” he warned in a low whisper.
Was he kidding? If so, then why the surreptitious glance around them? His hand clasped her wrist and he led her up and down the lines of trees until they finally stepped back out into the open meadow.
He shook his head and chuckled, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “You need a keeper.”
“You think it’s funny? Me getting lost and scared half out of my mind?” Her momentary terror forgotten, she grinned up at him. Scooping up a handful of snow, she patted it into a ball.
“You wouldn’t dare—”
Splat
, a snowball hit him smack in the face. With a mock snarl, Caleb brushed himself off, then scraped up a fistful of the fluffy white stuff himself.
With a shriek, Arianna dashed down the slippery path. At the outskirts of a dense section of woodland, she detoured off the trail and ducked behind a tree. She was peeking out to look for him, when he pounced, grabbing her from behind. Her cries resounded shrilly off the frosty hills.
As he was dragging her back onto the trail, his foot connected squarely with the root of a giant oak. They both went sprawling headlong into a shimmering bank of newly fallen snow. Giggling breathlessly, Arianna scrambled to her feet. As she tried to flee, Caleb tackled her to the ground. Rolling her over, he straddled her hips and, while holding her pinned helplessly between his thighs, he scraped up another huge handful of snow.
With a merciless grin on his face, he held the prize-winning snowball threateningly over her head. “Now you pay for your impertinence.”
“No! Let me go!” Wriggling and bucking, she shifted her weight, attempting to topple him sideways.
“I think not, you bold brat.” With a low, sexy chuckle, he captured her wrists in one hand and dragged them over her head. “You’ve left me no choice but to punish you.” His voice dripped seduction, hot candle wax on moist, cool skin.
As snow flurries pirouetted in a silent ballet, Arianna’s smile melted slowly from the intense heat in his gaze. Eyes of endless green snapped and sizzled, evoked a magic that heated the air, set her blood to boiling, her body on fire.
He tossed the snowball away.
His suggestive male heat replaced the wintry freeze and warmed all the cold, empty places inside of her. A reckless passion seemed to overtake her then. All that she had longed for, that she had been craving for weeks, months, years, was suddenly and irrevocably within her reach. Arianna would seize this moment, not let it slip away.
“You’re going to punish me?” she whispered, reveling in the masculine weight of that long, hard body pressing her down into the soft-packed snow.
“I am indeed, you naughty girl.” His voice was gravelly, his eyes a living green flame.
“How?” Her own voice was so low and sultry she didn’t recognize it. “Caleb?”
His eyes never leaving hers, he tugged a glove off with his teeth. “With my hands,” he murmured, his deep, resonant voice taking her halfway there.
“Well, if you must.” She reached up and dusted the snow from his hair. “Do your worst then.” Gloved fingers trailing over the shadow of whiskers darkening his jaw, she lifted her head from the ground and touched the hammering pulse at the base of his throat with her lips, with the warm, moist tip of her tongue.
“
A ghrá
.”
My love.
He breathed the endearment, his voice hoarse with unbridled need.
Releasing her hands, he slipped his hand beneath her head as a barrier against the icy ground. Then his mouth angled downward. His lips claimed hers with a savage intensity that challenged the sanity of her plan to seduce a man so wildly experienced. One so primitively sexual. His mouth was avid, hot and demanding. His tongue darted past her teeth, a ruthless warrior invading every soft and subtle recess with the intensity of a conquering force.
Arianna could hear a clanging in her head. A flashing red alert warning that the shackles on this man’s ravenous hunger had finally snapped. A distant memory surfaced now, dragging through a thick, deep fog. It was another instance when he had lost control, when she had witnessed his eyes take on that glittering, otherworldly look. It had been at his friend’s restaurant in Clifden. The recollection made her heart lurch in her chest from some unnamed fear.
“I’m so sorry….” Caleb spoke deep and low. But whether he was about to apologize for his surly behavior of earlier, or was asking forgiveness for a sin he had yet to commit, Arianna did not know. Because, his ungloved hand, which was strangely warm, found its way inside her jacket, beneath her shirt. He unclasped the front of her bra. Her breast swelled into the palm of his hand.
Caleb swallowed her moan with his mouth as he rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. “Not enough,” he growled, his desperation fueled by the mounting frustration of having denied himself for so long. “No, not nearly enough.”
Breath matching heaving breath, he lifted his hips and shifted sideways. His hand left her breast, to splay across her concave belly; those long, roving fingers angled downward, reaching inside the low-rise waist of her jeans.
“I need your hands on me, Caleb,” she panted, her knees bent on either side of his arm. “I’ll die if you don’t touch me now.” Her words slid into a groan as his fingers slipped beneath the silken barrier and found their mark.
He found her wet, aching center, then dipped inside. His tongue thrust into her mouth, setting a rhythm in tandem with the dexterous movement of his finger. Unbearably erotic, a tantalizing harbinger of his body’s ultimate invasion to come. His touch drove her higher and higher, had her striving, reaching for the ultimate bliss.
“Mmm, so sweet,” he murmured in her ear, nipping her earlobe while keeping up the tormenting rhythm of his fingers. “I can’t make love to you fully, but I want to pleasure you, feel you shudder in my arms. I want to hear you scream with the release only I can give you.”
She was moaning, trembling, as those clever fingers circled, picked up the pace, brought her almost to peak, then slowed, and began the exquisite torture all over again. “Yes. Oh, yes. Please.” Her head thrashed mindlessly to and fro, as she clutched his broad shoulders. Her palms skimmed his ripped abs, then moved lower. She heard him groan deep in his throat as she began to fumble with his belt.
She thought she would scream with frustration when his hand left her, to catch her wrist. “No. This is for you,
a mhuirnín,”
he rasped. “If you touch me, I fear I’ll lose control.” Then he released her, his hand returning to the land of milk and honey.