The Last Bride in Ballymuir (17 page)

Kylie jumped as if kissed by fire. He touched
her as no man ever had.

No man.
Rough, terrifying images wavered in the shadows, then gathered
substance. For a moment they succeeded in becoming her reality even
though she knew they were ghosts.

Hurtful, evil ghosts. She
was stronger than this, and smarter, too. Kylie lifted her hands to
run her fingers through Michael’s thick hair. She held him
to
her, focusing on the feel of his wet
mouth against her
hot skin, on the drawing
pressure that brought an answering tug deep and low inside
her.

This was Michael, the man for whom she
yearned, the man who needed her as much as she needed him.
Tightening her fingers she urged his mouth upward to hers. Their
eyes met. The fierceness in his green eyes frightened her for an
instant, then elated her. His need was tempered with such
restraint.

Because she was safe with him, she was free
to kiss him the way she wanted to—passionately—as an aggressor.

Not a victim. Never
again.
She learned the smooth
feel of teeth and firm cushion of lips, the rough
stubble of beard and the strength of him. Lord, the strength. Half
passion, half something darker, she shivered yet tried to get
closer.

“
Your sweater... off,” she
managed to work free from a mind whirling with touch and texture
and scent He didn’t hesitate, and she could feel his arousal
pressing into her as he levered his weight up to rid himself of the
sweater.

This is Michael, and no
other man,
she reminded
her
self as the vestiges of old terror
again gathered strength. She closed her eyes and focused on the
desire Michael had built in her. When she looked up at him again,
he was tugging off his shirt, too. Her breath hitched harder at the
sight of his broad, muscled chest, at arms strong enough to force
her to his will.

“
Kylie, do you want me to
stop? All you need do is say it.”

With her fingers she tested the strength of
those arms, then trailed over his chest and followed a narrow line
of hair downward. His muscles tensed beneath her touch. She rested
her hand over his heart. It beat a mad rhythm, but in his eyes she
saw patience and kindness. She could do this. And she would.

“
No, don’t stop,” she
whispered, then gave herself over to the moment.

Michael took his time, treasuring the trust
that rested in his arms. He reveled in the soft fullness of her
breasts pressing against him. Skin to skin, it was glorious,
sacred. Like nothing he’d ever felt.

Moving so they both were on
their sides on that narrow little couch, left with scarcely enough
room to breathe before he’d roll off the edge, he let his hand skim
over the dip of her waist and around to the small of her back.
Sliding lower, he closed his
hand over her
bottom and pulled her even closer. She
started at the intimate contact, and truth be told, so did
he.

While he had a very clear image of what he
wanted to happen this night, he was somewhat vague on how to
accomplish it. Tenderness and caring were foreign to him. He knew
two things. He wanted Kylie, and he wanted their coming together to
bear no resemblance to times with Dervla. So he lingered over the
details and allowed some of the strangeness to drift away with the
minutes that they held each other.

When she had again softened in his arms and
begun to kiss, touch, and explore on her own, he gave in to
temptation. Hands splayed, he learned the sleek feel of her ribs,
the narrowness of her hips, and finally the slight curve of her
belly. Sliding his hand downward over her rumpled nightgown, he
rested his fingers against the mound at the vee of her thighs. And
with that touch everything changed.

Kylie sat upright so quickly that Michael
tumbled to the floor. “Stop. I’m telling you to stop now.” She
scarcely sounded like herself, her voice high, thin, and quavery.
Bracing himself on his palms, he watched speechless as she buttoned
her nightgown, then tried to fight her hair into a hasty braid.

“
I’m sorry,” she said with
the flash of something
not very much like a
smile. “It’s all been too much for
me, I
suppose. The talk, you walking out...” She trailed off, then
dragged in a ragged breath. “I’m just feeling
overwhelmed.”

God help him, she was going
to cry. He swallowed
hard and thought fast
for words to stem her tears. “I was clumsy with you, but you see,
it’s been a long
time since I’ve been with
a woman.”
Like never.

The words didn’t help. Tears spilled over her
lashes. She brushed at them with one shaking hand. With the other,
she gathered up the blanket that had been shoved to the end of the
couch and clutched it like a shield.

“
I’m sorry,” he said. “I
won’t touch you again. Not unless you ask.”

She sat, knees pressed to
chest, rocking like a child
trying to
comfort herself when no one else would. Or could. “I’m just tired,
so tired.” Her face strained and pale, she said in a low voice,
“Morning will be here soon. Stay with me, for what’s left of the
night. I’ve
been alone too much, and you,
too. Let’s not be alone
anymore.”

Confused, still hurting with unappeased need,
Michael scrubbed a hand over his face. He understood what she asked
now, for a platonic companion to chase away the dark hours. What he
didn’t understand was how they had ended up here. Or how to
extricate himself from what his body clearly felt was an
unreasonable demand.

It was his own bloody,
boorish fault, though, scar
ing her as he
had. And if comfort was what Kylie wanted, comfort she would have.
Even if it killed him. Which, judging by the hard knot in his blood
supply, it just might.

He moved back onto the couch and drew her
closer, taking care not to bring her into contact with such obvious
evidence of his untrustworthiness. “I’ll stay with you.”

“
So much... too much,” she
murmured, then turned her face into his shoulder. Trusting. So
damned trusting. And he was to be her hero?

Giving his discarded shirt
and sweater no more than a passing glance, he stood and scooped her
into his arms. Carrying her to the bedroom, he swung Kylie down to
her feet beside her fantasy of a bed, then tugged away the blanket
she still clutched in stiff fingers and tossed it to the bottom of
the bed. He pulled back
the
covers on her side. Her expression questioning,
she slipped into bed,
and he
tucked her in.

“
I’ll be sleeping on top of
the covers,” he said as he
walked around
the foot of the bed. Sitting, he reached across her to switch off
the light. Trying his hardest not to react to the way she had
practically cringed as he leaned over her, Michael stretched out
and covered himself with the spare blanket.

Kylie stirred. In the
starlight passing through the
thin curtains
he could see her turn to look at him. She
still didn’t speak. It was as if she waited for him to ease
them past this discomfort, and he could think of no worse person
for the job.

At a loss, he reached out and fingered the
billowy material pulled back from the bed’s canopy. “Tell me about
this bed of yours.”

Settling in with a sigh, she
answered, “My father always said it once belonged to a beautiful
Princess
of Tara. When I was a child, I’d
imagine a daughter of
Brian Boru asleep in
here, dreaming of the future.” She paused, and he could feel her
gaze rest on him. “When I was older, I learned that it had been my
mother’s bed when she was young. And my mother, she was always Da’s
beautiful princess. After she died, things started falling apart.
Knowing the mouths in town, you’ve probably heard the story by
now,” Kylie added in a tentative voice.

“
Pieces,” he
answered.

“
Well, for tonight, I think
pieces are just enough.” She yawned and curled up. After a long
silence she
whispered, “Thank you, Michael,
for understanding.”

He nodded into the darkness, and lay there
listening as Kylie’s breathing slipped into the regular pattern of
sleep. His last thought before he, too, slept was that he
understood nothing at all.

It was before sun-up when Michael realized
that even when asleep, the two of them had turned to each other.
Still beneath her covers, Kylie had moved to fit herself to his
longer frame. And his arm was wrapped over her as though he
intended to never let her go. He satisfied himself with holding her
that way, with the hope that once he’d learned to lose the
roughness, she would come to him willingly.

Watery morning light was just beginning to
push its way in when she stirred. “Where is she now, that Dervla
woman?” she asked as though half the night—his running and her
pushing him away—had never happened.

“
She died that night,” he
said, offering nothing more.

Kylie raised herself up on
one elbow to look down
at him. “And the
brother?”

It took a moment to understand that she meant
Brian Rourke.

“
I don’t know where he is.
He escaped before trial,
and as my nan used
to say, ‘Another stone on his cairn.’“

Her eyes widened a fraction. “You wish him
dead?”

Michael couldn’t stem the bitterness. “Given
the chance, I’d see him dead.”

Together, silent, they waited for the sun to
rise.

Chapter Eleven

There is no strength like unity.

—
Irish Proverb

Kylie crumpled her father’s
letter and threw it in the general vicinity of the hearth. Then,
not quite done inflicting torture on herself, she retrieved
the
paper and let the last
few daggers find their mark. “‘Looking forward to a fresh start in
Ballymuir,’” she angrily quoted. “‘Peace and solitude with my
daughter.’ That’s grand, Johnny, expecting peace in the middle of
the people you did your level best to ruin.”

It was too much, the way the
past was creeping forward to poison her present. Too much the way
one awful event over six years gone had come back last night to
claim her. Months spent with priests and counselors seeking
healing, seeking closure, and for
what? To
see it all slip away the first time she moved
toward intimacy with a man.

“
Don’t you think it’s time
you let it go?”
she had
asked Michael. A fine piece of advice coming from her. She
absentmindedly tucked her father’s letter in the small box filled
with others containing his schemes and excuses. Nothing was ever
Johnny O’Shea’s fault. And sometimes it felt like everything was
his daughter’s.

“
Live what you preach,”
Kylie told herself with a disgusted shake of her head. “Let it
go.”

But what had
happened six years before wouldn’t be shaken free
quite so easily. One night when a simple “yes” might have purchased
her father’s freedom. One night when
a
hard-fought “no” had instead made
her unable to accept a man’s
touch.
Even
a
man she cared for very deeply.

She had let Michael believe
that her emotional collapse last night had been his fault. Another
wrong, another measure of guilt to be borne, for truly, he’d been
gentle and patient. His tense body
and
ragged breathing had told her what
it cost him, too. In repayment for that kindness she had turned
from him again.

Twice now, she thought. Once
in the pub when
she
might have salvaged his reputation, and again last night when
she might have saved ...
them.
Well, it wouldn’t happen again.

She wouldn’t wait for
his
call,
either.
She’d wasted too much time letting others determine her fate. With
trembling fingers, Kylie paged through the phone directory until
she came to the number she sought.

Vi stood with her hand cupped over the
phone’s mouthpiece and a peculiar look of glee on her face.
“Michael, it’s Kylie O’Shea, and she’s sounding for all the world
like she’s never rung up a boy before.”

Michael’s mouth quirked at the idea of being
a boy. Putting aside the materials list he’d been jotting down, he
rose and took the phone from Vi.

“
Do you have somewhere you
could go?” he asked, hand safely over the mouthpiece as he gestured
at their close quarters.

“
Why, right here in front of
my own fireplace, as I
do every evening.”
At his growl she added, “Unless you’re suggesting I move the
fire.”

Stretching the phone’s cord
around the corner as
far as it would go,
Michael reflected on the particular
pains
of being kept on a short leash.

“
It must be true love,” Vi
called from her perch. More like unrequited lust from his side of
the affair, Michael thought.

Keeping his voice low enough, he hoped, to
escape his sister’s acute hearing, he said hello and asked Kylie
how she was feeling.