Sea Lord (7 page)

But her lips wouldn’t release the lie. She did. Oh, she did. She felt a contraction deep inside, powerful as

a fist. It had been so long since she’d allowed herself the freedom to feel. To take. And in this moment,

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faced with the temptation of his firm, unsmiling mouth, the challenge of those cool gray eyes, she had

trouble remembering why.

His gaze dropped to her mouth. His nostrils flared. Her nipples beaded. She sensed the wildness in him,

churning deep below the surface, and an answering hunger uncurled in her belly, whetted by loneliness

and lust. She leaned in, drawn beyond caution, beyond reason, pulled irresistibly closer by the promise of

his kiss.

He bent his head and paused, his breath on her lips.

She felt a spark, a current arcing between them. His lips touched hers, and her heart gave a startled jump

and flew up behind her teeth. He coaxed her mouth open with his mouth, pressing his tongue inside. He

tasted wild and salty as the sea. She surged to meet him, meeting his tongue eagerly with her own,

sucking it deeper, twining her arms around his neck. She was starving for the taste of him, for the feel of

his man’s hard body against her body, for the touch of skin on skin.

She wanted . . . She rose on tiptoe, straining to get closer. She needed . . .

He broke the kiss, leaning his forehead against hers. His breath was hot on her lips, his skin warm and

damp. She wanted to burrow under his shirt to touch him, his flesh. His erection was long and thick,

pressed against her.

His fingertips brushed her cheek, her jaw, her throat. “Come away with me.”

Yes.

No.

“Where?” A silly, breathless sound.

“Does it matter?” He sounded impatient. Amused.

No.

Yes.

She wanted to pull him down among the broken corn rows, open his pants and straddle him. She

swallowed hard. “It might. I don’t know you.”

“What better way to learn?”

He had the trick of answering a question with another question. Like a cop. Like Caleb. Like a man with

something to hide.

“We could try talking.”

“Come with me,” he urged. “Away.”

The possibility pulled at her like an undertow. She almost staggered. “I can’t
leave
.”

“Why not?”

“I have . . .” She searched for solid ground, reasons that would stand against the tug of his temptation,

the demand clamoring through her blood. “Obligations. School. My father.”

“This is no place for you.” His voice beat at her like the sea on the rocks at night, whispering along her

nerves, eroding her control. “This is no life for the woman you have become.”

She pressed her hands to her temples. Her body throbbed like a bruise. “You don’t know anything about

what kind of woman I am.”

And he couldn’t.

No one must ever know.

“Tell me.”

Oh, God, she wanted to.

She stared at him, tempted, appalled, dismayed. Her heart pounded in her chest.
This
was what came of

asking questions.

His eyes darkened and expanded until they filled her vision. Twin black whirlpools, drawing her in,

dragging her under.

She could barely hear over the rushing in her ears. Her head buzzed. Her blood itched and crackled. She

worked her tongue, trying to lick her words into shape. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

He smiled slowly, the first time she had seen him smile. “Then we will not talk.”

“I should . . .”
What?
“Go home,” she managed.

“I will take you where you need to go.”

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Take me. Yes.

His mouth possessed hers in a long, deep, drugging kiss that blanketed her brain like fog rolling in from

the sea. She was lost in it, in him, in her rising need. His lips followed the trail blazed by his fingertips, the

curve of her cheek, the hollow of her jaw, her throat. His hands pushed under her shirt to close on her

breasts, and her knees folded like wet string. He shifted her, pulling her sweatshirt over her head,

throwing it to the ground. Sliding his hands to her hips, he turned her against his body. His chest was

fitted to her back, his erection pressed her buttocks. She panted with excitement, liquid heat running

through her veins, surging through her body, melting her insides. She could not see his face. She could

only feel, his breath hot at her ear, his arm hard around her waist, his solid body pulsing, rocking against

her. His free hand unbuttoned her jeans, tugged on her zipper.

“Uh,” she said. Assent? Or warning?

Then it didn’t matter because his hand was there, in her panties, between her legs. His long fingers

stroked her, pressing firmly and then delicately, making her hot, making her wet, making her shudder and

cry out. It wasn’t enough. His beard rasped the side of her face. His hand was busy, making her

mindless. She arched against him, frantic, pushing her hips into his hand, fighting the constricting denim.

“I need . . .”

More.

“Yes. Trust me,” he said.

She struggled to turn, to face him, and he used the break in her balance to sweep her off her feet and

onto the ground. The sun dazzled her eyes, silhouetting his head. He came down hard on top of her, still

fully clothed. Her hair spilled among the leaves and vines. The smell of rich, ripe, growing things

enveloped them.

Hooking his thumb into the neckline of her tank top, he dragged it down, exposing her to the cool air and

his heated gaze. The stretchy fabric caught beneath her breasts, pushing them upward like an offering.

The sun glinted on her navel ring.

He paused. With one finger, he touched the tiny aquamarine sparkling like a tear against her belly.

“Beautiful.”

But she was too far gone for compliments. Or delays. Grabbing his head, she guided it to her breasts. He

suckled her strongly, his mouth hot and wet. She tangled her fingers in his sleek, warm hair, feeling the

pull all the way to her womb. The earth exhaled as the sun poured down like honey, sealing her eyelids. It

still was not enough. Never enough. Something had seized her, a hunger, a fever. She rose to meet him,

her heels pressing the earth, feeling the clods cool between her shoulders, the soil damp beneath her

buttocks, and then—
yesss
—his erection, hot and hard against her thighs, against her entrance. He had

yanked his pants open. Her jeans and panties were down around her knees. She strained upward, her

body taut and ready as a bow. He reached between their bodies to the place where she was slick and

wet and aching for him.
Now.
He pushed, and she sucked in her breath at the sudden invasion, the

startling fullness.

It was too much. It was not enough.

His weight pinned her, trapping her firmly in her body, fully in the moment. She was swimming in

sensation, swept away by desire. He hunched into her, working her with long, firm strokes, thrusting into

her again. And again. The musk of earth, sweat, and sex rose around them, the slap of flesh on flesh, wet

and raw. He pounded into her, deep, deeper. She clenched around him.

His hand gripped her jaw.

Startled, she opened her eyes. His face was dark and intent above her, haloed by the blue, blue sky.

“Come with me,” he commanded. “Come.”

She was helpless to resist. The tide rose in her body, drowning will, swamping thought. The ground rolled

under her like a wave as her crest took her. Above her, within her, Conn’s body plunged. Shuddered.

And the dark carried her away.

Conn levered himself from the girl’s long body, lying among the green vines and dry husks. Her palm lay

curled half-open like a flower. Her scent—sun-warmed skin, soap-washed hair—mingled with the smell

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of crushed stalks and turned soil.

Gazing down at her pale face and thick, fair lashes, he allowed himself a moment’s regret. He would have

preferred her cognizant.

And walking, he acknowledged ruefully.

But he had already been gone too long from Sanctuary. He needed her to propagate her mother’s line

and secure his people’s fate. He did not choose to become mired in days of delay and endless

explanations, with the risk of her family’s interference and perhaps her own refusal at the end.

So.

He had bound her to him by the simplest, strongest means at his disposal. She had not been unwilling. He

had experience enough to achieve her seduction, skill enough to compel her response. Magic enough to

throw her brothers off the scent should they feel obliged to follow.

Everything had gone according to plan.

Except his own reaction.

Conn frowned. She had moved him. He did not know why. He had enjoyed other partners who were

more beautiful and certainly more inventive. Eager partners. Selkie partners.

Not recently, though. He adjusted his clothing, tucking himself away. Perhaps the girl’s charm lay in her

novelty. Perhaps what he was experiencing was merely relief after a long abstinence.

And yet . . . He glanced down at her quiet face, her fair hair rioting over the ground. When he was in her,

when her body rose to meet his, he had felt a power, a control, a hunger to match his own.

Absurd, of course. She was only human, no matter who her mother was.

He slipped off her shoes; reached under her to remove her jeans. Beneath her garments, she was lovely,

clean-limbed and strong, pale and smooth as willow with the bark peeled away.

He laid her back down among the pumpkins, his hands skimming her ribs as he tugged her skimpy top to

cover her pink-tipped breasts. Unexpected hunger tightened his belly. Stiffened his cock.

Grimly, he returned his gaze to her face. The children of the sea lived in the moment, following their

whims and desires like the pull of the tides. But Conn had ruled for nine hundred years in human form

from the tower of Caer Subai. He had learned—painfully—to control his nature, to weigh and calculate

and decide. He would not be distracted from his purpose.

He slid his knife from the sheath at his knee.

Corn stood around them in patches, skeletons of summer among the stakes and twine. Conn gathered a

sheaf in one arm and, bending, sliced it through in a single stroke close to the ground. He bound the dried

stalks together with twine, tying them to form a waist, a neck, legs. The shock at the top he left loose like

long, stiff hair.

He laid the corn maiden on the ground beside Lucy, measuring its length with his eyes. They were almost

the same size. He dressed the sheaf in the girl’s clothing, forcing the jeans over the stalks of its legs,

bundling its body into the shirt. He was sweating when he finished. Bits of dust and broken chaff clung to

his skin.

Kneeling beside Lucy, he gathered her hair in one hand the way he’d gathered the corn, counting the

strands across his palm,
one, two, three . . . seven
. Her face was still, her skin cold and pale.

An unexpected twinge caught him beneath the ribs. He used sex as a tool, a weapon. He did not expect

it to turn like a knife in his hand. But his feelings, her feelings, could not be allowed to matter. He did

what he must do.

Fisting his hand around the strands of her hair, he yanked it out by the roots.

Her breath escaped her lips in a silent cry. A drop of blood beaded at her scalp, but his magic compelled

her to continue sleeping.

He set his teeth, touching his finger to the blood and then to the center of the bundled corn, the
claidheag

, where the corn maiden’s heart would beat. If such a creature had a heart. His fingertip burned. He felt

the heat flow upward through his arm, power building and pulsing like a headache. He tied the seven

strands of hair over the twine at the top.

“Know,” he commanded. The pressure hammered at his temples.

He blew into the featureless face. “Breathe.”

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