Reaper's Revenge (25 page)

She watched a single silver tear slide down his cheek and she pressed between his legs, slipping her other hand from his to put her arms around his waist and lay her cheek against his broad chest. She felt his manhood leap against her and smiled.

“This feels right,” she said again. “You feel right. I am totally at ease with you, Reaper.”

His arms were around her, holding her tightly to him, vowing never again to allow her out of his sight. He had nearly lost her, had put her in danger, had not taken the care of her he had pledged on the night they were Joined. Never again would he let anything come between them.

“I lost our child,” she said, holding her breath for his reply.

“I know,” he said, his voice breaking. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Aingeal heard the grief in his voice and felt her heart melting. There were many things she needed to relearn, but already the great affection she had for the man holding her was coming to the surface, pushing aside everything that had happened while they had been apart. Instinctively she knew he would be patient with her, gentle, allowing her the time she would need to reacquaint herself with their life together. Already she had met people she knew she had known before, though their names escaped her. Bits and pieces of her life in Haines City had come back as she hurried from the stable to the jail. She just needed time to fit the pieces together. 135

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

He was trembling and she pushed away from him to look up into his face. She could see the strain, the pain and the strong desire to make her homecoming as easy as possible. She got to her feet and pressed him to the side, bidding him to lie down.

“You look so uncomfortable,
mo tiarna
,” she said, and she saw his eyes flare at her use of the word.

Cynyr did as she asked but his eyes were narrowed with hurt. He knew she had lost a great deal of her memory for he had slipped deftly into her mind to find jagged pieces of recollections flitting about, striving to come together. The last thing he wanted was for her to be uneasy in his presence, to call him her lord instead of her love.

“I Transitioned,” she told him, sitting down beside him on the bunk. “I truly enjoyed that.”

His smile was quick in coming. “You enjoyed it the first time you did it,” he told her.

She tilted her head to one side. “Have we Transitioned together?”

“Not yet,” he acknowledged. “But I was there when you shape-shifted for the first time.”

“I have the prettiest tail,” she said, her eyes crinkling with laughter.

“And are very proud of it,” he agreed.

The cot wasn’t really big enough to accommodate both their bodies but she lowered herself beside him and he scooted over as far as he could go without falling off. She put her head on his pillow and looked at him.

“I knew he wasn’t my mate though he told me he was,” she said. She lifted her hand to his face and caressed him. “I kept seeing your eyes.”

Sorrow drove straight through Cynyr’s heart. “He raped you,” he said. “I will never forgive myself for letting that happen. I—”

She put her fingers over his lips. “How could you have stopped it?” she asked.

“You were ill.”

He kissed the pads of her fingers and reached up to drag her hand to his chest. “I should have taken better care of you,
mo shearc
.”

“You were doing your duty,” she reminded him.

He couldn’t answer that for his throat clogged with tears. His Aingeal was a forgiving soul. He knew that about her.

“We’ll not discuss my time away from you ever again,” she stated.

“I will avenge you,” he swore.

“Aye,” she said on a long sigh. “I know you will.” She lowered her hand to his groin. “I want to erase all trace of him from me.” She locked her gaze with his. “Will you do that for me?”

Cynyr’s head was pounding viciously but he could no more deny her than stop breathing. “If that is what you wish,” he answered.

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Reaper’s Revenge

She caressed him through the leather. “Are you up to it?”

His cock stirred beneath her hand. “What do you think?” he asked. She sat up and eased from the cot. Sensing his weakness, slipping gently into his mind only to find he was blocking her attempt to read him, she knelt there on the floor, her face puckered with concern. “If you are in pain…”

“The pain is in my heart,” he said. “If you have need of me, milady, I am here to provide.”

“No,” she whispered. “I need to provide for you.”

She unbuttoned the cuffs then the front of his silk shirt and laid it aside, running her hands over the wiry thatch of dark hair on his chest. She sighed with pleasure as her palms slid over the crisp curls. “This, I remember,” she said as she helped him to sit up so she could remove the shirt, pushing it sensually over his shoulders. Cynyr was trembling as she splayed her hand in the center of his chest and bade him to lie back down.

She worked the buttons of his fly, tugging at the waistband until he lifted his hips, allowing her to slide the breeches down his taut thighs. It would have been easier simply to wish away the garment but he did not want to waste the strength he had. He lay there until she worked the breeches from his legs and laid them aside.

“You have uncommonly handsome feet for a man,” she said, caressing his bare toes.

Her words drove a spear of lust through his loins and he ached to reach down and grab her, bring her up until her body was pressed tightly to his. The memory of her suckling his toes on the train ride there made his mouth water. “Do you,” he asked, hearing his blood pounding through his ears, “remember the train ride here?”

She flexed his foot, looking up at him from beneath her lashes. “Have I ever been on a train?”

“Twice,” he answered. “With me.”

“I don’t remember it,” she said.

“You will.”

She smiled and stood up, coming to stretch out beside him once more.

“You’re being unfair, wench,” he said. “I’m in my birthday suit and you’re completely dressed.”

“And at my mercy,” she said with a giggle.

He locked eyes with her. “You like that, huh?”

“I feel very powerful,” she admitted, running her hand over his chest. She seemed not to be able to get enough of the feel of his chest hair. His hand unsteady, he lifted it and placed it gently on her breast. He smiled when she sucked in her breath. “You like that?”

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

“I believe I do,” she said, covering his hand with hers and pressing it harder against her. The hellion in her back shifted but it wasn’t an uncomfortable feeling. “I think Caraid does too.”

“Caraid?” he questioned.

“My parasite,” she informed him.

He blinked. “You named it?”

“Just now,” she replied smugly. “I can’t keep calling her beast. It means friend in Gaelach.”

He blinked again. “I know that. How do
you
know that?”

“You told me, silly,” she said. “Once when we were talking about Moira, you said—” She stopped, her eyes going wide. “Moira!”

“Aye,” he said, drawing the word out, watching her face as clouds of memory swept over it. “What of her?”

“She’s our friend. You were going to cure her of her arthritis!” she answered, her hand tightening around his. “I remember her, Reaper! Things are coming back to me!”

“Don’t rush them,” he advised. “Let them come as they will. You can—”

She didn’t give him a chance to finish for she leaned over him and latched her mouth to his, drawing on his lips as though she were starving. He could feel the point of her breast hardening beneath his palm through the material of her dress and realized she had nothing on beneath that dress.

“Not even a stupid camisole,” she said as she drew back. “I know how you hate camisoles.”

“And gowns that don’t give me enough contact with your sweet body,” he said gruffly, and waved his hand over her, ridding her of the offending garment.

“You’ve got to teach me how to do that,” she said, and rolled over on top of him, settling her lower body between his legs.

“I like providing your clothes for you, wench,” he said.

“Aye, well, having that ability would have been real good when Liam O’Rourke found me naked as a jaybird in his barn this morn.”

Thunderclouds gathered on the Reaper’s face. “Liam who?” he growled.

“The farmer who brought me here,” she said, giving him a kiss on his chin, his cheek, the tip of his nose. “He and his wife Peg and their two daughters.”

“He saw you naked?” Amber eyes were molten with anger.

“As a jaybird,” she repeated, grinning.

“I’ll teach you how to fashion clothes, wench,” he stated. “Just as soon as I can stand up without wanting to pitch over.”

She laid her head on his chest, spiking her fingers through the crisp hair there. “I’m remembering all kinds of things,
mo shearc
,” she said. She lifted her head. “How’s Harold?”

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Reaper’s Revenge

Cynyr groaned. “Why’d you bring him up?”

“Has he been taking care of you since you’ve been sick?”

“He came once,” Cynyr said. “Today. He left soup.”

Her eyes lit up. “What kind of soup?”

“I don’t know. Vegetable, I think.”

“Did you eat all of it?”

“I haven’t had any of it,” he said, having a hard time following her whiplash thoughts. “Why?”

“I’m starving,” she announced, and started to wriggle off him. “Where is it?”

“Too fucking bad,” he said, his arms locking around her like steel bands. “I’m starving too, but it isn’t for Harry’s soup.”

“Harold,” she corrected. She stared down into his eyes and saw the hunger building there. “I gotta feed you first, eh?”

“Aye, wench,” he said in a gruff voice. “That you do.”

She could feel the prod of his rod riding along the crease of her rump and wiggled her bottom against it. “You do seem to have a problem with that thing of yours.”

“A problem you started,” he reminded her.

“As I recall, we did a lot of problem solving on the way to and from the Citadel,”

she said, and grinned at his look of surprise. “On the train.”

“You remember riding on the train, do you?” he asked softly.

“I remember you riding
me
on the train,” she said with a giggle.

“Brazen hussy,” he pronounced, but he could sense memories flashing through her mind, fitting together the jagged pieces that were rapidly falling into place. “I may regret you getting your memory back.”

“’Twas your toes that started it,” she said, using her own to duel with his.

“Uncommonly handsome toes, I believe you labeled them,” he said. She lifted her butt, shifted her legs so that they were outside his thighs then settled down upon his cock, letting his rigid member slid along her hot, wet folds until he was settled within her creamy channel.

“You take my breath away, Aingeal,” her husband whispered. She ground against him, her eyes mischievous as she swooped down to claim his mouth once more, her tongue darting inside to brand him. Beneath them, the cot made a popping noise, groaning against their combined weights.

“Perhaps we should wait until we’re in our room at Moira’s,” Cynyr suggested, pulling his mouth free.

Aingeal deliberately clenched her vaginal muscles around his thick cock, drawing him even deeper inside her. “You think so?”

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Lust rippled instantly through the Reaper’s loins. “Hell no. Just ignore what I said, wench.”

“I usually do,
mo shearc
,” she agreed.

Memories were returning at a fast clip as she undulated upon his hard staff. Faces floated by, smells surfaced, sounds registered. Her heart was bursting with happiness even as a hollow feeling of grief at the loss of their child welled up inside her. She gently tamped that feeling down.

His headache was raging and he had to tighten his jaw to keep it at bay, but the joy of having his woman, his mate, merged with him helped to push the agony into a corner of his mind.

“You are hurting,” she said, deftly plucking that knowledge from his momentarily unguarded mind. Before he could stop her, she was off him, standing beside the cot, hands on her hips, her eyes filled with tears. “You would have gone on with this when you’re in that much pain?”

Cynyr’s rod was a hard, thick, pulsing torment standing straight up in the air, begging for attention. His head might feel as though it were about to explode, but another part of him required immediate care. He opened his mouth to plead with her but didn’t get the chance for she crouched down and took him in her mouth, drawing on his rod as though she were trying to suck it down her throat. Aingeal felt his hands fisting in her hair, her long braid wrapped around his wrist. His hips were pistoning upward, driving against her but she doubted he even knew what he was doing. She could hear his labored breathing and as she suckled him hard, sweeping her tongue over the bulbous head, she felt him stiffen. The groan that escaped him as he came made her sigh with pleasure. She let his hot cum flow down her throat and when the last spasm had claimed him, tongued him dry as he lay there shivering.

“By the gods, wench,” he said with a gasp. “You nearly drained me dry.”

“No nearly about it, Reaper,” she bragged as she got to her feet. His headache was completely gone and that stunned him as he pushed himself up on his elbows. Had she sucked it out of him when she’d drawn out his essence? He was quivering from head to toe, the intense pleasure she’d given him making his legs tremble.

“I’ve got to find me something to wear,” she said.

“Why do you need to get dressed?” her lover asked, devouring her with his eyes.

“I am not walking to Moira’s in this state, Reaper,” she told him. “And until we’re in our room, you can’t do for me what I just did for you.”

Weakly, Cynyr lifted his hand and swept it down Aingeal’s body. Her beloved Reaper uniform settled into place to cover her nakedness and she smiled happily.

“That’s more like it!” she said, running her hands up and down her black jeans-clad ass.

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