Mick waited, listening to the retreating footsteps, then stayed many minutes longer, trying to get his anger under control. He didn’t want her to see him this way. She wouldn’t understand. She came from a foreign land where people could forgive one another, where it wasn’t weakness to let live the boy you’d taught to be a man.
Mick threw back his head and stared blindly at the dusty rafters of the stable. He couldn’t change who he was. He’d been bred from the loins of a demon in human form and there was only so much humanity in him.
“Michael?”
Her voice was soft and sweet in the stable’s still air. For a moment he wanted to hide. To not let the disease of his soul touch her. He felt filthy with sin.
But she was ever relentless was his Silence. She poked her head around the stall door. “There you are.”
He straightened from the wall. “Aye, here I am.”
She hesitated by the doorway as if aware of the blackness in his soul. Perhaps the truly good had a sort of inner compass that swiveled around when in the presence of evil.
“What did Harry come to say?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing ye need worry about.”
He started for the stall door, but she didn’t move aside. Instead she hugged her arms across her chest and looked at him with those damned beautiful eyes. “What if I want to worry about it? What if I want to share your troubles?”
He stared at her nonplussed and couldn’t help thinking that he’d never had this sort of problem with any of the whores he’d taken to bed. He wanted to brush past her and leave her and her damned questions, but he had a feeling in his gut that to do so would somehow be an act not easily mended.
Mick sighed. “Harry brought Bran to see me.”
She stood immoveable and simply raised her eyebrows.
“Damn ye,” he hissed, taking her by her slim shoulders. “Why can’t ye leave it alone? ’Tis a man’s business and none o’ yer own.”
“I think it is,” she replied, bravely tilting her face to look him in the eye, stubborn thing. “I’ve given you my body and more. I think in return you can give me some small confidence.”
“It that what this is? A test?” He felt the anger rise in him again, seeking a victim even if she might be innocent of any outrage against him.
“Perhaps it is,” she said slowly. “I need to know that I’m more to you than a woman in your bed, Michael.”
“Ye know full well yer more than that,” he growled in outrage. “What d’ye want from me?”
“Truth,” she whispered, powerful in her softness. “Honesty. Friendship. And perhaps love.”
The words sent icy fear through his belly. He could storm a ship, could knife a man, could lead a gang of near-feral pirates, but the things she asked of him were impossible for him to do. He was the son of Charlie Grady, a man who’d never felt compassion, let alone love in his entire life. What softness Mick had had in him had been burned away sixteen years ago as surely as Charlie Grady’s face had melted. He’d had to armor himself in layers of granite to survive, to fight to where he was now in the world. And she? She wanted him to simply strip his armor away—let it fall and stand naked and vulnerable in the sunlight.
Her gaze was clear and direct and too terrible for words as she waited for something from him—something he wasn’t sure he had in him.
“Damn ye,” he hissed again, and brought his mouth down on hers.
He’d been bedding women since the age of fourteen. He knew well their sweet parts, their soft sighs. This he could do. She would have to learn to be content with it. He knew no other way to keep her.
MICHAEL’S KISS WAS overpowering. Silence struggled to remember that he’d not answered her questions. But her body had become attuned to his mastery overnight it seemed. She found herself curving toward him, opening her mouth, running her hands through his lovely hair. Already she was quickening, anticipating whatever he might want to do to her.
But he hadn’t told her what Bran had come for. He’d refused to share that information and more importantly some small part of his everyday life. If she was to be more to him than merely a body in his bed, he must learn to open himself, he must—
Michael began gathering her skirts in great handfuls and her thoughts scattered.
She tore her mouth away. “Oh! What if someone comes?”
“Hush,” he murmured, his voice lowered to a deep rasp. “No one will interrupt.”
He’d bared her legs now and was backing her into the stall wall. She leaned there and watched, dazed, as he dropped to his knees.
“Michael!”
He ignored her urgent hiss. “Hold yer skirts.”
“Oh, dear Lord.” She obediently took the material in her hands even as she craned her neck to watch for intruders. What if Harry came back? Or Bran? Did Michael keep a groom?
He laid both hands on her now, stroking up over her calves, smoothing over her knees, and delicately tracing her thighs.
She shivered. What did he intend to do? She could feel heat gathering at the apex of her thighs and if he reached up there—
She squeaked as he bent to kiss the inside of her thigh.
“Raise yer skirts higher, love,” he whispered.
She groaned under her breath. If she pulled up her skirts any farther, her most intimate parts would be exposed. It was one thing to frolic nude in the dark, quite another to do so in the light of day.
But his voice was like liquid sin, dark and dangerously seductive. She did his bidding, her fingers trembling with want, and felt the cool air caress the juncture of her thighs.
“That’s it,” he said approvingly. “Hold it there, love, and spread yer thighs jus’ a wee bit wider.”
She swallowed and did as he bid.
“That’s me girl.” He whispered against her skin, his hot breath making her shiver.
His mouth trailed up beside her mound, licking and kissing, but very leisurely, as if he had all the time in the world. She tilted back her head, impatient, nervous, on edge from suspense. He drew closer to her center and tongued the crease next to her thigh.
Silence bit her lip, trying to make no noise—surely they would be discovered if she did.
She felt him run his thumbs through her maidenhair and down to the plump outer lips of her sex. He thumbed them apart, exposing her wet inner folds.
“Michael!” she whispered, as loud as she dared.
But he ignored her. He blew on her wet curls and she shivered—more from the sensation than the chill. Then he leaned forward and touched his hot tongue to her center.