Blood Magick (The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy #3)(52)

“I cleansed it so I wouldn’t feel I shared the bed with strangers from other times. So, no, I don’t dream of them. I’ve dreamed of you when I’ve slept here.”

“I know it, as I had a moment in that bed with you in dreams.”

“Not just then. A thousand and a thousand times.”

She turned to him, looked at him in the light and shadow of dancing flames. The heart she’d lost to him so many years before swelled inside her. “We won’t dream tonight,” she said, and opening her arms, went to him.

The nerves that had hummed just under her skin dissolved. Body to body with him, mouth to mouth with him, her world simply righted.

This, of course, the single missing link in the chain of her life.

For tonight, if it could only be tonight, she would give herself a gift. She would only feel. She would open herself, heart, body, mind, and feel what she’d struggled against for so long.

Tomorrow, if need be, she’d tell herself it was only the physical, only a way to relieve the tension and strain between them for the greater good. But tonight, she embraced the truth.

She loved. Had always loved, would always love.

“I’ve missed you,” she murmured. “Ah, Finbar, I’ve missed you.”

“Ached for you.” He brushed his lips over her cheeks, brought them back to hers.

She clung as they lifted inches off the floor, then a foot, circling. With a laugh, she flung her arms up, scattered stars above them.

“By firelight and starlight, by candle flame, tonight, what I am, is yours.”

“And what you are, is cherished.”

He lowered them to the bed, sank into the kiss.

With her, at last with her, free to drink deep and deep from her lips, free to feel her body under his, to see her hair spread out.

The gift she gave them both, too magnificent to rush. So he would savor her gift, and give all he had in return.

He took his hands slowly up her body, gently captured her breasts. No longer the budding girl etched in his memory, but the bloom.

New memories here to layer over what had been.

He pressed his lips to her throat, lingered over the scent of her caught there, just there, that had haunted his days and nights. His again, to take in like breath.

As he slid the dress down her shoulders, she arched to ease his way. Her skin, white as milk, caught the gold of his firelight, the silver of her stars. He undressed her as if uncovering the most precious of jewels.

Her heart fluttered under his touch. Only he had ever been able to bring her that sensation, one of both nerves and pleasure. Each time he kissed her, it was slow and deep, as if worlds could spin away and back again while he savored.

“You’ve more patience than you did,” she managed as her blood began to sing under her skin.

“You’re more beautiful than you were. I never thought it possible.”

She caught his face in her hands a moment, fingers skimming up into his hair, then she shifted to rise above him with stars sparkling over her head.

“And you.” She drew his sweater up, off. “Witch and warrior. Stronger than the boy I loved.” She spread her hands over his chest. “Wounded, but ever loyal. Valiant.”

When he shook his head, she brought his hands up, pressed them to her own heart. “It matters to me, Fin, more than I can tell you. It matters.” She lowered to press her lips to his lips, to press her lips to his heart.

She’d broken his heart, as he’d broken hers. She didn’t know what fate would grant them, even if those hearts could be truly mended. But tonight she wanted him to know she knew his heart, and valued it.

To change the mood she danced her fingers along his left ribs. Fin jumped like a rabbit.

“Bloody hell.”

“Ah, still a weakness there, I see. That one small spot.” She reached for it again, and he caught her wrist.

“Mind yourself, as I recall a weakness or two of yours.”

“None that make me squeal like a girl, Finbar Burke.” She shifted again as he reared up, wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck. “Still would rather a fist in the face than a tickle along the ribs.”

“The one’s less humiliating.”

She shook back her hair, laughed up at the ceiling.

“Do you remember—”

She looked back at him, met his eyes. It was all there, in that instant, looking out at her. His craving for her, and the love wrapped around it. Past and present collided, rushed through her like a hot wind, sparking her own terrible, burning need.

“Oh God, Fin.”

No more patience, no more careful explorations. They came together in a fury, all wild need and desperation. Rough hands rushed over her, took greedily while her own yanked and pulled to free him of the rest of his clothes.

Nothing between them, she thought now. She couldn’t bear even air between them. Their mouths came together in heat and hunger as they rolled over the bed to find more of each other.

She closed her teeth over his shoulder, dug her fingers into his hips.

“Come inside me. I want you inside me.”

When he drove into her, the world stopped. No breath, no sound, no movement. Then came thunder, a hoarse roar of it, charging like a beast from the hills. And lightning, a flash that lit the room like noon.

With her eyes locked on his, she gripped his hands.