Page 40 of Bargaining with the Devil

“No, I . . .” She scooted forward on her knees, and before he knew what she was about, she was straddling one of his thighs. She was still wet between her legs from his mouth and her own climax. “I want to be right here for it. I can’t— It’s too dark to . . . see you, so I . . . I want to feel it when you . . .”

“Christ, a stór.” He wasn’t going to be able to talk to her after all, not with her settled on him, saying things like that.

He gripped himself harder and started the fast, hard strokes that would get him there quickly. Trembling already, panting, because he’d already been close before he’d taken himself in hand. She was rocking against him, her own breathing starting to come in little gasps. If he’d known she had such a quick trigger like that, he’d have stayed between her thighs longer. She’d come off again soon, just mayhap not before he did.

He stopped what he was doing long enough to work the other hand between her legs. “Let me—” But she’d already understood what he was about and lifted herself, parting her legs so he could work two fingers inside and pump them just a bit.

She moaned, resettling her hands on his shoulders to take his fingers deeper.

“Now you ride me, a mhuirnín, and make yourself happy,” he said a little desperately because the feel of her rocking on his thigh and fingers for her own pleasure, body clenching him, had him close enough to the edge he’d be over it with no trouble at all. “And I’ll be taking care of myself. Kiss me, a stór.”

There was no finesse to it, more of a mashing of mouths while they both panted, tongues desperately tangling, but ’twas enough. She came off, crying out against him, and he was right with her; he just barely managed to point himself elsewhere so as not to spend on her.

She’d gone limp against him, hands still on his shoulders but her forehead leaned on him. He held her a moment, a bit boneless himself, but ’twas cold in the room. They weren’t feeling it just yet, but they would be, and the whole point of sharing the pallet and blanket was to keep warm. Originally anyway.

“Lie down, a mhuirnín, so we can get warm,” he murmured when he had breath enough to be coherent.

“I’m quite warm at the moment,” she replied, a smile in the words.

“Well, you won’t be for long, not without the blanket.” He tugged her down prone. “Come most of the way atop me. I’ll be your bed tonight, as best I can.” He was used to sleeping rough. ’Twasn’t that he enjoyed it, but he was more used to it than she was.

She wriggled her way close, twisting herself a bit on her side so that most of her was resting on him. One of the only things she’d ever done without first arguing. ’Twas gratifying to think it might be because both of them were naked and she was limp from two climaxes.

He wanted to just hold her, to bask in the satisfaction of a pleasurable physical encounter, but threads of discontent were creeping in. He’d asked her beforehand if she was sure. Had asked her multiple times throughout. He’d have stopped in a heartbeat had she said so.

Didn’t mean her mind wouldn’t try talking her out of what they’d done as the natural and healthy conclusion to mutual attraction.

Mayhap he shouldn’t have gone to bed with her. What they’d done was a great leap more intimate than kissing, and kissing had set her to drinking and walking the cliff path. And it didn’t much matter that he was relatively certain he’d done for her some things that shitehawk Teddy had never done.

“How are you, a mhuirnín?” He hoped as satisfied as he was, but ’twas her mind that might be more the issue than her physical self now that neither of them were caught up in the moment.

His own mind might be an issue, for that matter.

“Very well,” she said softly. “And I have no regrets, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m much clearer now about matters than I was when we kissed.”

“’Tis grand then.” He pulled her closer. Almost, he believed his own words—and hers.

“Much clearer.” Her tone on the last was dry, reinforced by her hand sliding along his thigh and hip. His cock half-heartedly twitched, trying to respond to that invitation, but ’twould be a little while yet before he could do anything else with it. And he wasn’t going to push his luck or risk running past whatever boundaries she had yet—including any ones she didn’t know she still had.

He caught her hand in his, closing his fingers around hers.

She dropped off to sleep quick, snug in his arms, but he lay awake listening as the storm gained strength. ’Twasn’t much, this hut, but the room and walls would hold and ’twas a good sight better than sleeping out in the weather. He’d become well used to it as a Rifleman. Some of the divisions, regular infantry and artillery mainly, moved into position slow enough that they were allotted a fair number of tents. Not so for the Riflemen, poised to engage the enemy at a moment’s notice, bivouacking on any old hill.

Sometimes not even that. Often they slept already to arms, all of it in the elements. Hail, icy fog, and snow at the summits of the Serra da Estrela, torrential rain for days with horrendous heat and humidity in the summer on the Guadiana plain. He’d been out in all weather. His current existence was in its way equally nomadic as that of a Rifleman, but generally at least he slept somewhere with a bit of shelter.

He’d always liked listening to rain, most of all when he wasn’t getting dripped on at the same time. Tonight the roar of wind off the sea was soothing in its own way. Reminded him a bit of home, growing up near Dún Laoghaire on the coast of Muir Éireann.

Adding to his current contentment was holding Lucy in his arms. ’Twas something cozy about being tangled up nude with someone while a storm raged.

Ordinarily all of that might have lulled him quickly to sleep himself, but not tonight. ’Twas too much to ponder.

He’d not set out to seduce Lucy. She’d been off-limits for seduction, always had been from before he’d first laid eyes on her. And he hadn’t seduced her, sure, when it came to that—’twas her making the first moves, seeking him out. He’d not protested a bit though, not when he found her attractive.

And ’twas a bit more than that. He wanted to . . . not make up for her past, because ’twas not a power in him or anyone else. The past was gone. But she’d been treated badly at the hands of more than one man, he suspected in very different ways, and there’d been an urge deep in him, right alongside his bodily desire, to show her that it didn’t have to be like that. That sometimes two people could come together purely to bring each other pleasure without demanding anything.

Just so long as he stuck to his own code of doing things.

’Twas no doubt an oddity that he never engaged in intercourse. ’Twasn’t that it had no appeal to him—it surely did. And ’twasn’t that he hadn’t in the past, because as a younger man he’d done that, sure, when opportunity arose. But ’twas before he was old enough to think through just what it had done to Mam, having him alone when his sire abandoned her. Dónall was a good man who’d loved her regardless and tolerated him, but many women weren’t so lucky.