The Parting Glass (Caitlin Ross Book 4) (10 page)

We turned on Ninth Street heading for Spruce. The sidewalk narrowed, forcing us still closer. The scant foot of air between us crackled.

Business
, I told myself again, but the thought was fading.

After what seemed an eternity, we reached Beljoxa’s Eye. Timber opened the gate for me and stood aside to let me pass. He followed me up the path to the porch and waited while I unlocked the door. I stuffed my keys back in my fanny pack and faced him. Safe. Soon I would be safe.

“Thank you.”

“Aye.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“Aye.”

I turned around and started to open the door. His hand closed on my wrist. I dropped the rowan wand and heard it land with a soft “plop” on the mat. Timber pulled on my arm, not gently, until I faced him again.

“Fate be damned,” he said, and planted his mouth on mine.

Chapter Nine

T
imber’s embrace held no tenderness, only desperate need. For a bare second, I resisted. Then my lips opened under his. He tasted of the outdoors. My hand came up and caught his hair; it was soft, so soft.

We stumbled through the half-open door into the shop, careening into a small table bearing a load of class flyers and knocking it over; its burden of papers fluttered all over the floor. Timber glanced up to see what had happened. I pulled his face down again. Our lips locked and our tongues probed each other, first with inquisitive flickers, languorously tasting, then plunging together as if we meant to strangle each other. He wrapped his arms around me and I grasped his buttocks, pulling his hips hard against mine. An animal grunt escaped from his throat. I felt his arousal and wondered how long he’d been walking around like that. He ground his pelvis into me, lost his balance and staggered forward, carrying us both into the greeting card rack; as my back slammed into it, it toppled with a crash.

I was melting. Timber’s hands roved over my body as if he wanted to consume every inch of it with his fingertips, and his touch left fire in its wake. My knees gave out and I swayed; he seized me about the waist and lifted me up just before I fell, swinging me around the jewelry case. We banged into the pedestal holding my rune display, and the carved stones flew every which way. I tugged up Timber’s shirt to get at his skin; the heat in it burned my hands, and he groaned as my nails raked his back. Together, we tripped over McGuyver’s cat bed and lurched into the wall, bashing the Tarot shelf in passing and sending the decks flying. Sample cards rained down around us.

Timber pinned me against the wall with his body, one big hand clamping my wrists together. When he released my mouth, I moaned and tried to reach for him, but he held me off without any effort. His lips traveled across my face and down my neck, soft at first as the wings of butterflies but growing more and more insistent. His tongue delved luxuriously into the hollow of my throat, sending unbearable shivers through me. Then he knelt and took my breast in his mouth, suckling me through the soft cotton of my camisole. I couldn’t stand it; I flailed out with my free hand, ripping a poster of the seven chakras down from the wall. I squirmed and gasped under his attentions, and I felt his breath through the damp cloth as he chuckled against my breast. Then he went on. And on. He slid his hand under the waistband of my skirt and into my silk bikini; his fingers played over the sensitive skin of my buttocks, thighs and belly until I leaned on him, almost sobbing with desire. When his touch retreated, I fought against the hand restraining my wrists. He gave me a shake and commenced to work his way back up my body, igniting slow flames with his mouth. Up my stomach, over my breasts. On the soft skin of my neck.

On his feet once more, he sought my lips and kissed me again, long and deep. And stopped.

His blue eyes bored into mine, very serious. When he spoke, his voice was husky and grave.

“If you want me to end this, say so now.”

“Could you?” My own voice seemed to stick in my throat.

“Aye. I’d go and not trouble you again.”

I reached for his belt and unbuckled it with hands that shook. Slowly, I unbuttoned his jeans and tugged the zipper down. Under the denim, there was nothing but him. His cock sprang free; I grasped it and felt its hardness. He caught his breath at my touch.

“Don’t go,” I said, and pushed his jeans down over his hips.

He shoved my skirt up and tugged at my bikini, ripping the thin silk away. “Hang on to me.”

I wrapped both legs and arms around Timber as he lifted me.  For a brief second I felt the wall against my back as he adjusted my weight. Then he thrust into me, and I didn’t feel anything else at all for what seemed like a very long time.

Afterward, we collapsed, panting, into the shambles that had been my showroom.

“Gods,” he groaned. “It’s still there.” He raised himself on an elbow and gazed intently at my face. “I canna get enough o’ ye.”

He gathered me into his arms and carried me upstairs.

We came together three, maybe four more times that shortest of nights, and I learned a thing or two about Timber MacDuff. After our first, frantic coupling, he turned out to be a skilled and generous lover, who seemed to take as much delight in my pleasure as he did in his own. His enormous reserves of energy never flagged, and he brought me again and again to peaks I had never before imagined, until I lay limp and shuddering and had to beg him to let me rest.

He liked to be touched all over more than most men I had known. His belly and thighs were the most sensitive parts of him, and a feather-light touch or flick of my tongue there made him squirm. But anywhere pleased him. It surprised me to find him so willing to give up control at times and let me enjoy him and his responses, as I had expected him to be as arrogant and commanding in bed as out of it. But then, maybe I had misjudged him there, too.

He had a ticklish spot on his right side, down by his waist. When I brushed it by accident, he convulsed with helpless laughter, and I kept after him until he growled and wrestled me to the bed. He trapped me under his body then, and made me pay for tormenting him.

Altogether, he had fewer sexual hang-ups than anyone I had ever met before. The giving and receiving of pleasure was a game to him, and came as naturally as it would to any animal. Knowing what I did of his gifts, that shouldn’t have surprised me, either.

We didn’t speak much, other than of matters of the flesh.

“You’re so lovely,” he said once, stroking me. “Your skin is like silk. And you’re strong. Strong enough to take me. Take everything I have to give. Yet your bones are so small, I can grasp both of your wrists in one hand.” He suited actions to words, pinning me to the bed.

“I’ve wanted you since I first laid eyes on you,” I admitted, both to him and to myself.

“Ah.” Our lips met and we fell silent for a time. His free hand explored me; I gasped and tried to writhe, but couldn’t move much beneath his body. “Your breasts are goblets full of sweet wine.” His lazy fingers circled a nipple.

“They’re too small.”

“Hush. They’re perfect.” He bent his head, and all talk ceased again.

At last, though, even Timber tired and we drifted to sleep tangled together, in the middle of fondling each other, the sweat-stained sheets rucked about our hips. I surfaced from deep, blissful unconsciousness not many hours later to the sound of a robin singing outside the window. The first grey light of dawn filled the sky, and Timber and I had rolled apart. I pulled the sheet up around us and started to nestle into the warmth of his body, and stopped.

It had started as business between us. What was it now?

I had told Sage the truth; I was no good at casual sex. No matter that my gods decreed such spontaneous comings together natural and right for men and women, I always expected more. Maybe not a lasting love, but at least some kind of caring. I had already begun to care for Timber even before we talked on the creek path. After sharing my body with him, I couldn’t help but care more. I didn’t know if he could care for me.

So I did what I always did in such circumstances. I tried to shut down. To avoid the pain I was certain must come.

The night we had passed couldn’t mean anything to him, I told myself. Hadn’t I noticed that he took to the pleasures of the flesh as shamelessly as any animal? Surely that’s all it had been, an instinctive urge to couple driven by the high tides of the Lithe sun. Tomorrow—later today, when he woke—he would be intent on searching for Stonefeather again, and our time would be, if not forgotten, at a distance. A distraction he wouldn’t allow. I already knew he hated distractions.

I had to pull myself together.
Business
, I reminded myself.
Back to business
. But I couldn’t take my eyes from Timber as he sprawled, languid and dreaming in my bed, a slight smile of satisfaction curving on his lips, visible even in the dimness of the room.

The sun came up, turning Timber’s fair skin to gold. In a little while the bedroom door creaked open a few inches and McGuyver came in. My black cat jumped up on the bed, went straight to Timber, and curled up in the crook of the sleeping man’s arm, laying a furry head on his chest. McGuyver’s yellow eyes did not close, but stared up at Timber in an almost baleful way. Soon, he stretched out a paw and poked the Soul Catcher dangling among Timber’s chest hairs. Timber twitched, but didn’t wake. McGuyver snatched at the Soul Catcher again. This time, Timber’s eyes fluttered open, not all the way, but to half-mast. I decided he was still mostly asleep.

“Och, McGuyver,” he murmured. He stretched indolently. “You’re right. It’s a grand thing to wake beside a woman you…” He stopped, as if his brain had shut off all at once, and a little frown creased his brow. He rolled over, saw me, and a dazzling smile wiped the frown away. He reached a hand out, laid it on my hip…and snatched it back as if he had been scalded.

“Hell!” Timber whispered. His smile vanished all in an instant, and his face fell into an expression of blank shock. My heart, ready to leap at his first show of renewed intimacy, froze and shattered. I had been right in the first place. Right not to count on anything. Not to trust. He didn’t care about me. He didn’t even like me.

I saw him take hold of himself, as clearly as if he had physically grasped the edge of the bed to keep from springing headlong out of it. When he spoke again, his voice held great restraint.

“Caitlin.” For all the familiarity in his voice, he may as well have called me “Ms. Ross.” “What time is it?”

I glanced over my shoulder at the clock on my nightstand, glad to turn my face away. I answered with as much dignity as I could muster, choosing to pretend I hadn’t heard his whispered oath or noticed his change of expression. “About five. Almost morning.”

“I should go.” I felt him get out of bed, heard him begin to gather his scattered clothes. Without looking at him, I did the same.

“Can I make you breakfast? Coffee?”

“No, thank you.” The bed squeaked as he sat to put his boots on.

Naked and feigning unconcern, I picked up my discarded Solstice camisole and silk skirt and chucked them at the laundry basket in the corner. I crossed the room to my dresser, took out a fresh t-shirt, underwear and jeans and pulled them on. All the while, I felt his eyes on me, and wondered what he was thinking.