Sea Lord (27 page)

He brushed his lips over hers. His body was hot and broad and close. “I had the rug delivered for you.

To keep your feet warm against the stone. But it serves me as well.”

“Um. Great.” Why was he still talking?

“For example, when I do this,” he said, and knelt in front of her.

He slid open her robe, breathed her in through her gown, nuzzled between her thighs. His breath seared

her through the fabric. Her knees trembled as he drew up the hem.

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Long minutes later, her hands fisted in his hair, warm, damp silk beneath her fingers. She was panting,

twisting, breathless, blind.

“Oh, God,” she choked out.

He licked into her again, making her moan, and then pressed a kiss low on her stomach.

“Don’t stop,” she begged.

“You haven’t told me if you like it.”

“I love it.”

“The rug.”

She stared at him wildly.

“It’s blue.” His gaze fixed briefly on the aquamarine at her belly before traveling up to her face, his

expression pure male and smugly satisfied. “Your favorite color.”

“I’m crazy about it,” she said, shaking with laughter and need. Crazy about him. “Would you fuck me,

please?”

His face was suddenly serious. “I want to make love to you.”

Her breath went. Her heart stopped. “Yes. Now.”

“On this rug,” he said.

“Anywhere.”

He pulled her down and loved her, rode her, until she cried out and came apart in his arms.

That night the sun went down over the sea in banners of scarlet and gold.

Conn rose on one elbow, watching Lucy’s profile in the pale light of morning. His other arm draped

across her waist. His hand curved over her thigh. Even in sleep, her face never relaxed completely. Her

long, mobile mouth was closed and composed. Faint lines scored the wide space between her brows.

Only in sex, only with him, did she release her customary control.

The thought swelled his morning cockstand, nestled against the sweet curves of her bottom. He bent his

head to sniff her thick, fair hair rioting across their pillows. She smelled of sweat and sex. Musky scents,

earthy and arousing.

A wave of gratitude and lust washed over him.

He nuzzled her neck. She murmured and hunched her shoulder, making the covers slip, exposing the

strong, smooth curve of her arm, the upper slope of her breast. Her skin was so smooth, so soft and

damp and lovely to him. His cock twitched impatiently. He had to have her again. He had to have her.

Last night he had used her well and ridden her hard. It did not seem right to wake her.

He grinned against her tickling hair. So he wouldn’t.

He bent her forward, so he could see the delicate bumps of her spine, and lifted her leg over his thigh. He

cupped her small ripe breasts, brushed her velvety firm nipples, explored the curve of her belly and the

dangling jewel at her navel before stroking down, down, to where she was still warm, wet, and swollen

from their play.

He sucked in his breath. Perfect. She was perfect for him. She shivered and stirred as he slid a finger

through her slick folds, swirling, sliding, making her wetter, hotter still. She moaned his name. He kissed

her shoulder. She pushed back against him, eager, reaching. He nudged her forward, bending her over

his arm. Her hand flexed, digging into his thigh. And then he slid home, sheathing himself in smooth, sleek

heat. He felt her jolt as he thrust, heard her soft, panting breaths as he ground and rocked against her,

hot, perfect, his
.

“
Conn.
”

“I have you,” he assured her.

He would never let her go.

Her contractions took her, shook her, seized them both. He gripped her hips as she convulsed, absorbing

her sweet shudders as she bit the pillow and came over and over again. He wrung her orgasm from her

before he groaned and slammed himself all the way inside her, emptying himself inside her, hotly, deeply

inside her.

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Slowly the room settled. His breathing returned.

He stroked her hip, his heart expanding in his chest. “Ask me for something.”

She yawned and smiled all at once. “You mean something else?” Her voice was slurred.

He smiled fiercely over her head. “Anything you want.”

She wriggled to face him, her hair catching under her. “Do you mean it?” She sounded almost awake

now. Alert.

“Yes,” he said certainly.

She had given him everything. Her body. Her affection. Hope for his people. There was nothing he would

not give her in return.

She fixed those great green-and-gray eyes on him and said, “I want to go home.”

Conn’s face wiped clean of expression, becoming dark and flat as a chalkboard.

Lucy felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold draft prying through the stones.

“Not to stay,” she added hastily. “Just for a visit.”

“I cannot let you go,” Conn said.

Which sounded good, except he immediately released her and climbed out of bed. She made a grab for

the covers as he stalked to the fireplace.

Lucy eyed the smooth, strong lines of his back with frustration. “I want you to come with me. To meet

my family.”

He crouched to make up the fire. The soft gray morning light slid lovingly over the curve of his muscled

haunches, the flex of his arm. “We have met,” he said in a damping voice. “I know your brother better

than you do yourself.”

“You know Dylan. Caleb is the one who raised me.”

Yellow flames shot upward on the hearth. Conn stood and faced her, magnificently naked, superbly

unselfconscious. “So?”

She jerked her gaze from his penis to his face. Awareness of her reaction glinted in his eyes. It was

another weapon in this quiet battle they waged, his experience, knowledge, and sensuality pitted against

her will.

She raised her chin. “So, where I was brought up, when you love someone, you bring them home to your

family.”

Her heart banged against her ribs.

“Sweetheart.” Something softened in Conn’s posture and in his eyes. He looked almost . . . shaken.

Abandoning his post by the fire, he sat beside her on the bed, his weight depressing the thick, soft feather

mattress. He took her hands, this selkie male who never touched except as a prelude to sex. His gaze, his

hands, enveloped her. “You must see I cannot leave Sanctuary now. Even to please you.”

She did see.

“Because of Gau,” she said.

Yet an unreasonable disappointment hollowed her chest. Like any girl in love, she wanted the people she

loved together around her.

I want Conn to say he loves me back.
She swallowed hard against the realization.

He was nodding, agreeing with her for once. Maybe because she was agreeing with him.

Funny, how that thought didn’t make her feel any better.

“I cannot leave my people leaderless,” he said.

As his own father had done.

She admired Conn’s devotion to his duty and his people. But the empty feeling in her chest did not go

away.

“I could go myself,” she suggested.

“No.”

She knew that look. Every woman with a brother knew that look. “Just to let them know I’m all right,”

she said.

“They have not even noticed you are gone. Stay,” he urged, his gaze warm, his hands steady on hers.

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“You will be safe here.”

She wanted to believe him. But his assurances hadn’t kept her safe yesterday, and her presence had put

both Madadh and Iestyn in danger.

“What if the demons come back?”

“They will not. They cannot. We seal the springs today.”

Lucy frowned. Not over the loss of hot water, but because she couldn’t imagine the power it must take

to close a rift in the earth’s crust. “You can do that?”

“We must,” he said grimly, releasing her hands. “Gau’s trespass cannot go unanswered.”

She watched him cross to the hip bath on the hearth. He rang a rag over his face, his armpits, his genitals,

his gaze abstracted, his movements brisk and automatic.

Like Caleb’s, before he deployed.

In Conn’s mind, he was gone from her already. She recognized the signs.

Her heart sank. She was sick of being left out, tired of being left behind.

Already she couldn’t leave the island or go beyond the castle walls. Was she going to sit by quietly,

passively until her world narrowed to this tower? This room? This bed?

“I could help,” she offered.

Conn dropped the washrag into the bath water. “It is a warden’s job.”

Her brother was a warden.

Lucy remembered the day after Regina’s attack, when Dylan had been desperate to protect her. Lucy

had stumbled upon her brother kneeling in the alley behind the restaurant, his hands splayed on the bricks

and his face taut with concentration. She recalled the slow seep of power like water gathering

underground, collecting in the cool, quiet chambers of her heart, pouring forth in response to his need.

She met Conn’s gaze again. “I could help,” she repeated, and this time she was sure.

Conn’s eyes narrowed. “It could be dangerous. If Gau senses your presence—”

“Yesterday I blasted a bunch of his wolves,” Lucy said as dryly as she could. “I think I already have his

attention.”

Conn’s brows rose in surprise.

Lucy sat very still, her pulse beating in her throat.

Please
, she thought. She knew he would not go home with her. He could not leave his responsibilities

here. Not now. Perhaps not ever. But they had to find equal footing somewhere.

He could not enter into her old life. Would he accept her into his?

He stood naked before her, tall, dark, and formidable as always. A corner of his mouth curved in his

slow, rare smile. “Then we will face him,” he said, “together.”

Her heart trembled. “You’re sure?”

“Sure,” he said and raised her by their joined hands and kissed her.

Caleb Hunter curled his fingers over his wife’s smooth, flat belly. She didn’t feel any different. Here or . .

. He stroked upward toward her lush, full breasts. “You’re sure.”

Maggie chuckled and stretched like a cat, almost purring under his touch. “Yes.”

“So soon.”

“Yes.”

Joy, concern, fear crowded his chest. He inhaled carefully. “Don’t you need to take a test or something?”

“Darling Caleb.” Her hand cupped his cheek. “I know how much you policemen like proof. But I know

this in my heart. We are having a baby.”