Haunting Beauty (13 page)

And then it seemed that the floor opened beneath her. There was no free will in her falling. No choice to obey or defy. She was simply there in the blackness, air and sound rushing past her. She clutched at Sean, both reassured and horrified to find him still with her. She couldn’t bring someone into a vision, couldn’t take them through the turning air with her.

But Sean wasn’t like anyone she’d known before, was he?

Her own panic followed her down, down deeper into a darkness that seeped and spread. She accepted that this was not a vision. She couldn’t isolate the reasons why it was different, but she felt them and she knew she was right. And still she fell—wildly pinwheel ing as she plunged through impenetrable darkness. She couldn’t feel Sean anymore and she wanted to cry at the loss.

Then someone grasped her flailing hand. The grip was warm, strong, the hand holding hers big and rough. He pulled her into the circle of his arms, holding her tight as they plummeted. She couldn’t see him, but she could feel the breadth of him and it reassured her.
Sean.

She wasn’t alone. She didn’t understand it, but she wasn’t alone.

The falling became something more jarring, more aggressive than gravity. It siphoned the air from her lungs, tugged at her shoes, sucking them off, flinging them away as it stripped her down to her skin. The wind whipped her, flayed her skin, burned even as the chill crept into her bones. She clenched her eyes, burying her face against Sean’s bare chest, hearing Bean barking somewhere in the confusion. She couldn’t catch her breath and her head felt light. She felt light.

There was no slowing. No stopping. No fear of the bottom.

There was simply—suddenly—nothing at all.

Chapter Ten

I
T
wasn’t dream; it wasn’t vision. It was some hybrid of both that held her captive. Danni rolled over and snuggled beneath soft covers, unsure of where she was or how she’d come to be there. She was warm, though, and content.

She tried to open her eyes, but her lids were too heavy and the feeling of comfort too fine to disturb. Her pillow smelled of lavender and the sheets were smooth against her bare body. She was naked. The realization lit the first tiny flicker of apprehension. She never slept naked.

In bed beside her, something—someone—moved. She felt hot skin brushing hers as he rolled and spooned behind her. He was big. She could sense the weight of him, the length of the body pressed to her own. An arm circled her waist and pulled her tighter against him. His hand spread over her stomach and then slowly moved up.

Sean.
She didn’t question how she knew.

Again she tried to open her eyes, tried to surface, but it was no use. Was it a vision, then? Something only in her mind?

His hand cupped her breast, his thumb moving in slow, languid circles over the nipple. He seemed to come awake in the act, slowly, sensuously, like a giant cat stretching out the tightly coiled muscles of his body. She felt awareness travel through him, and he made a sound that teased her nerve endings and made her skin feel hypersensitive.

Slowly, slowly he began to kiss her back and shoulders, moving her hair aside to reach her neck. His hands slid possessively over the edge of her hip to the slope of her spine, up to her nape and around to the curve of her throat. She felt the swollen heat of him hard against her bottom and she pressed into it, wanton, urgent.

He shifted, rolling her onto her back, and gently pinning her with his weight. His touch became demanding. He pressed his mouth to hers, hard and soft, like hot silk binding an unyielding force. She wanted to wrap her body in his kisses, wear them beneath her clothes during the hours of day when this would all be just a memory—a fantasy that hadn’t really happened. His hands roamed over her as if she was his to have and to hold, the span of his fingers reached from hip bone to hip bone, his lips following every intimate stroke.

“Touch me,” he said into her mouth as he caressed the flat of her belly, moving ever down to torment her with the seductive flick of his fingers. Boneless and compliant, she did as she was told.

She stroked him, eyes still sealed, inhibitions somehow locked away with her sight. A shadowy part of her mind knew this wasn’t right, it couldn’t be happening. But the rest of her didn’t care as he dipped and circled, rubbed and toyed with her, all the while drugging her with deep, slow kisses.

When she thought she might scream from the building tension inside her, he shifted, spreading her thighs with the slide of his hips. His body was hard and muscular, gloriously defined. She felt what she couldn’t see, exploring ridges over his abdomen, the tight bulge of his chest, the hard bunching of his arms.

She spread herself for him, trusting him completely as he pushed deep inside her and held. He filled her with every inch of himself, leaving no room for doubts or fears, no place for identity. She no longer knew where he ended and she began. She no longer cared. Loneliness, something that had been a part of her forever, ceased to exist.

Then he began to move—measured, sensuous strokes that brought friction and heat and a rising excitement she couldn’t contain. She was making sounds, ragged, erotic sounds that she’d never known herself to make before.

He whispered in her ear, words of encouragement, dirty words that made her hotter, wilder. Yes, she told him, yes she’d do whatever he wanted. And she would. In her blindness, she was willing to give up the control she always fought so hard to maintain. She was a vessel, begging to be filled with whatever he chose to give her.

His tongue brushed against her lips, mimicking the deliberate slide of his body. She wrapped her arms tight, not satisfied with merely the weight of him. She wanted to flatten herself until she was part of him. Her ankles locked at his back and she met him thrust for thrust. Doors to the hollow places she’d kept sheltered vanished, letting in the heat and building need he created. Like sunshine through open shutters, Sean chased back her fears, her isolation, and illuminated her darkest corners.

Still she was blind, depending on her heightened senses to guide her. Depending on Sean and his wicked touch, his demands, his rhythm. He caught her earlobe between his teeth and gently nipped before whispering a command that unleashed the pent-up excitement inside her. She climaxed with a force that rocked her body, pushing her hips up to meet his. Her fingers clutched the hard muscles of his shoulders as he braced himself above her and drove into her. And then he came along with a powerful thrust and a groan that filled her with triumph and sent her over the edge once again.

She kept him tight in her hold as his stiff body relaxed against her. He collapsed, rolling her with him so they were still connected, still linked by the hardness inside her. Unbelievably she was moving again, rousing him before he’d even yielded.

“I don’t want to wake up,” he said in her ear as he kissed her once more.

Neither did she. Not ever.

Chapter Eleven

“
S
EAN, I’ll be coming with my switch if you make me call you once more. I swear it, man or no’, I’ll be after your arse with it.
^»

The shrill voice penetrated the dark cocoon that held Danni tight. She frowned and tried to block it out. Some part of her knew that to acknowledge it would be disaster; some part of her never wanted to acknowledge anything again but the comforting blank of her slumbering mind. She burrowed deeper in the covers, entranced by the languorous feel of her limbs, the sated weight of her body.

“So it’s royalty you think you are. Well, that’s it then,” the voice warned. “I’m off to find me switch.” The dire words were punctuated by forceful steps pounding down the hall.

Down the hall?

Danni’s eyes flew open and she was awake in an instant. Someone was walking down her hall? Who? Who was in her house? From behind her, a deep voice said, “Pay her no mind. She’s always threatening me with the switch.”

Danni sat bolt upright, aware of too many things at once. The room she slept in was unfamiliar. Small and sparse, the walls were painted a dull white that was relieved only by the large and gruesome crucifixion hanging over the bed. A window on the far wall had pale gray curtains that showed glimmers of a dawning and overcast sky through the gaps at the middle.

A rough wood chest of drawers with a mirror hanging above it stood directly opposite. On its surface, a small framed picture perched atop a lacy doily. And there was Jesus again, this time with a halo and long, flowing golden brown hair. The bed she lay on was in the center of the third wall. It was narrow, with four posts and a down comforter that felt heavy and warm. Bean lay curled at her feet, watching her with alert eyes that belied the dog’s stillness.

And beside Danni, looking years younger in sleep, was Sean Ballagh.

She bounded out of the bed, realizing only as the cold air hit her skin that she wasn’t wearing anything—not a stitch. A yelp burst from her lips as she snatched the comforter off the bed, rolling the little dog to her feet in a barking ball of fur as she pulled the length free. Sean jumped at the sounds and the sudden action, and was instantly standing, facing her from the other side of the bed. He wasn’t wearing anything either.

As she stared in shock at his rumpled hair, his sleepy green eyes, his sculpted body, naked and beautiful—memories flooded in. The dream . . . the vision . . .

“My God, was that
real
?”

The changing expressions on his face told her he’d followed the same train of thought to the same, unbelievable end. They stared at one another for a stunned moment before once more, footsteps sounded in the hall. An instant later the door burst open. Sean reached for the sheet and tugged it around his waist as they faced the tiny woman standing on the threshold.

She had skin the color of bleached bone and eyes like blazing black fires. Her narrow shoulders were stiff and square above crossed arms and the line of her back was ramrod straight. She appeared to be anywhere between forty-five and sixty-five, but Danni couldn’t have said which birthday loomed the closest. Her stance was somehow regal, but the lines bracketing her eyes and mouth spoke of a tired worldliness and tragic burdens. As promised, she clutched a thin, stripped branch in her hand.

“And sure look at the two of you acting like a wedding gives you leave to sleep the whole day through. Is it Buckingham Palace you’re thinking I live?” She flicked a glance at Danni and then turned the full glare on Sean. “Now get some clothes on so you can eat. Yer uncle will not wait for you to dally with your woman. He’d just as soon throw you over with the hook and line.”

Two things registered at once with Danni. First was Sean’s expression. He stared at the tiny thunderbolt of a woman open-mouthed, neither responding nor moving. If it hadn’t been so ironic, Danni would have said he looked like he’d seen a ghost. The second was the woman herself.
She
stared right back at him.

She
saw
him.

“Do you think I’m talking to hear myself?” she demanded. The black eyes swung to Danni. She eyed her from head to toe, taking in every detail in between. Self-consciously, Danni tucked the blanket tighter around her.

“And sure you’ve the look of one of our own.” It sounded more accusation than compliment, but she didn’t give Danni a chance to find out which was its intent. Bean jumped down from the bed and unbelievably, wagged her stubby tail right up to the woman’s feet.

“A dog?” she exclaimed disdainfully. “Is that what this thing is trying to be? And hungry by my judgment. Another mouth to feed. Do you think I’m a fecking American with food bursting out my cupboards just for the having?” But she bent down and scratched Bean behind the ear. Bean tilted her head to give better access.

Straightening, the woman shook the switch in Sean’s direction. “Are you not going to introduce me to your bride, then? Where are your manners, Sean? You were raised better than that.”

Sean’s mouth shut with a snap.

Lifting her chin, the woman gave Danni a sudden, beaming smile that transformed her wizened face. “I am this eejit’s great-aunt Colleen Ballagh. And you would be?”

“Danni,” she said, dry mouthed. “Danni Jones.”

“Danni Ballagh now, so it is. You’re marked as well as the rest of us, aren’t you, then?”

There was no explanation for that comment either, but her eyes softened for just a moment and Danni saw something of lost splendor in them. Not too many years ago, this woman had been a beauty.

“Get dressed. Your things have yet to arrive, but from the sound of your travel, I imagine the bloody Protestants up north are tossin’ them in the bogs by now. It’s good the charity of the Sacred Heart lives in Ballyfionúir. Father Lawlor has provided some things to tide you over. You’ll find them in the chest.” She gave a sharp nod to the chest of drawers and mirror and then shot Bean a quick glance. “You come with me and I’ll see what I’ve got to feed you.”

Bean obeyed without question, stepping out as Colleen Ballagh shut the door with a force that rattled the picture of Jesus on the chest. Neither Sean nor Danni spoke as she strode down the hall.

In the shuddering silence, Danni tried to form a coherent question from the knot of confusion in her head. But all she managed was a choked, “What the hell?”

She stared at Sean, demanding he give her an answer she could comprehend, an explanation that would make this writhing chaos orderly. He hadn’t moved a muscle since the door flung open, and he looked as if he’d been skewered by a hot poker. As she watched him, any hope that he’d explain this insanity vanished. He appeared at once hurt and bewildered. The second she understood, but the first was as perplexing as the situation.

“That was my grandmother,” he murmured at last.