Wild Burn (20 page)

“Sometimes—not often, mind you, but there are these pitch-black moments at night, every once in a while—I wonder how
I
can stand touching me. My body feels almost…detached. At least, it did until you. And you’re touching me, right now.”

“I am,” he agreed roughly.

She bobbed her head in a jerky nod, not ready to look at his face yet, uncertain what she’d find there and terrified of what might be lacking. “After the rape, when I knew I was leaving, I thought, ‘Well, being a nun didn’t prevent me from becoming unchaste, so I should probably go ahead and embrace being bold.’ I bought stylish dresses with money I had saved up before becoming a nun, and fancy underthings too. I didn’t think anyone would ever see my underthings again, of course, but I bought them. For me.”

“Good for you.”

Taking his hand in both of hers, she turned it over so his palm, wide and worn, faced up. She began to trace the lines she found with a trembling fingertip. “He flirted with me first.” She had to swallow around the lump in her throat, blink against the stinging in her eyes. “I wasn’t wearing a habit, so I looked like a…a normal girl. Just a normal girl out running errands, and he offered to carry my basket. He introduced himself, but I didn’t tell him my name, not at first, and he flirted with me and was handsome and wearing a nice uniform, and I was used to the soldiers in the hospital who were so thankful but didn’t exactly
see
that I was a woman. Because I always had my wimple on. Because I was a nun.”

Her throat closed suddenly, leaving her gasping around the words she needed to say but couldn’t bring herself to.

Del, the wonderful man, waited in silence, not pushing her, letting her regain her composure and her courage. But she felt the whisper-soft brush of his fingers as they stroked gently into the curve of her palm, and it gave her courage.

“It was almost dark out, and he’d been drinking. Celebrating, because John Wilkes Booth had died, and when I eventually admitted what I was, he grew angry. He accused me of leading him by the nose, but it was…” She sighed, her jaw working around the hated memories. “No one had ever flirted with me before. I liked it. He made me feel pretty and…and desirable, until he didn’t. And then he pulled me into an alleyway near the church, so close I could see the steeple, and he raped me.”

A furtive glance at Del revealed his free hand clenched into a fist at his side, his breathing overloud in the cloistered space of the cabin. His cheekbones were flagged with hot color, and the look in his glinting eyes could only be described as bloodthirsty. But he didn’t say a word.

She went back to learning the contours of his hand, letting her fingers wander toward his arm, to play over the tendon and bone of the underside of his wrist. Her thumb painted circles on the soft skin there. “After he left, I went home, and one of the sisters called the watch and police. I was interviewed, gave a statement, was thanked for my time and apologized to. They told me not to expect anything. And then I decided to leave.”

“What about…?” He had to clear his throat, so hoarse was his voice when he spoke. “What about your family?”

“We hadn’t spoken in almost six years. There wasn’t a place for me with my family, and Sheriff Nelson had mentioned in a recent letter to his aunt that there was an immediate need for a schoolteacher in Red Creek.”

“His aunt?”

“The Mother Superior. It’s how I came to be here.”

“So that’s the story of how you came to leave Boston.”

Her lips twitched in a wry semblance of a smile. “That it is.” She breathed out a quasi-relieved sigh. “So.”

“So.” He flipped his hand over to capture hers. “You gonna look me in the eye now?”

Unable to resist the cajoling tone in his quiet voice, Moira raised her head. Her lips compressed when she saw his calm expression, so different than it had been moments before. There was something there, lurking beneath those dark lashes of his, something that looked an awful lot like
pride
.

His grip on her hand tightened. “You’re one helluva woman, Moira Tully. You know that, don’t you?”

She blushed. “I—”

He shook his head and tugged on her hand, until she was unfolding her legs from beneath her and standing in front of him, between his legs as he sat in her chair and stared up at her. “Were you thinking this would put me off? Learning about your past?”

She lifted her shoulders in a self-conscious shrug. “I would understand if it did.”

“But is that what you wanted, to put me off?” He settled his hands on her waist, and she liked the weight of them there. She liked feeling as though he would catch her if she stumbled.

So she reached out a hand and lost her fingers in the cool strands of dark hair at his temple. “No, Delaney. I don’t want that at all. But that doesn’t stop me from being afraid it’ll happen.”

He shifted and inched her closer, until her knees knocked into the chair seat. “There ain’t never gonna be a time when I don’t want you, honey. Not a minute, not an hour. Not a day.” Lifting a hand, he palmed her nape and pulled her down into a kiss.

She immediately melted into him, falling into his lap as relief and excitement spiraled up inside her chest. Gripping his hair in both hands, she angled his head and pressed her mouth, open and searching, to his again, and again, and again.

He banded his arms around her torso, his hold shouting his possession, and let her explore him. Her lips made demands, and he answered with tongue and teeth, until she was squirming atop his muscled thighs, needy and desperate.

Her hip brushed against his very obvious erection, and they both moaned, his broken and guttural. “God, Moira, I can’t…” He practically vibrated with tense arousal.

“Please tell me we’re not stopping this time.” Her hands slid from his hair to cup his jaw, fingers curling into the rough bristle of his beard. She didn’t want to stop again. She knew it would be different than before, knew Delaney was different.

She
knew
him.

“No,” he muttered, vehement. “No, we’re not stopping.” He stood abruptly, lifting her around the waist as he nipped at her chin. “But I gotta close the door first.”

“Mm, fine.” She had looped her arms around his neck when he picked her up, leaving her toes to dangle against his shins, and now she dotted his temple and forehead with playful little pecks, when all she wanted was for him to claim her mouth again in a consuming kiss that told her exactly how much he wanted, needed her. “Go close the door, then.”

Laughing as he nuzzled into her neck, he walked them over to the cabin door and kicked it closed with one booted foot. “Bossy thing. Tell me, what do you expect here, honey? Because I already know…” he moved to sit on the bed, hands drifting down to her thighs as he positioned her to straddle him, “…you wanna be in charge.”

“I do?” Funny, she hadn’t assumed she’d have any real control over their encounter, figuring he would do whatever it was people did when willingly making love. Yet here he was, smiling sensually up at her as his hands roved over the cinched-in curves of her upper body. And oh, God, his touch felt good, but it wasn’t enough.

He nodded as his lips found her pulse, just beneath her jaw. “Yeah, you do. I want you to have that.”

“You want me to…to be in charge.” His mouth did dangerous things to her sensitive throat, and she drove her fingers into his shaggy hair to hold him in place, even as her hips instinctively pulsed forward to connect with his.

He groaned as he grabbed her hips with strong, unyielding fingers, pulling her down more firmly against the hard thrust of his erection. “Fuck. Yeah. Please, Moira, tell me what you need me to do for you,” he panted into the side of her neck.

When his tongue darted out to taste her skin, she shuddered. “Just make it good.”

“I can. I will.”

But it was as though he hadn’t spoken. Gripping the collar of his shirt, she pushed him away from her throat, away from her, until he fell back on the bed. She scooted forward and straddled his waist. “I know it’s supposed to be good.” She matter-of-factly began to unbutton his shirt, unable to keep from smiling as she murmured, “If it weren’t, there would be far more nuns in this world.”

She leaned down to capture his open mouth in a heated kiss when he laughed with her.

Chapter Twenty-Two

He opened his mouth to her, letting her tongue slip slowly between his teeth to meet his. He loved the surety with which she kissed him, as though this—his lips, his body, his utterly willing participation because he would never, ever deny Moira—were simply her due.

And perhaps it
was
her due, in a way. The woman deserved the pleasure he wanted to give her, after what she’d been through. The seething anger roiling inside him since reading the letter from Boston wanted to warp into something violent and deadly, putting to use the skills he’d gained since leaving his youth behind, first in warring, then in the hunting of Indians. But there was no outlet for his fury at the faceless bastard who’d raped her, though his limbs twitched with the need to fight, to kill, to
torture
.

Instead, he channeled the dark energy into his hands, letting it mutate and transform into something better, purer. Hotter. His fingers gripped the wilting fabric of her blouse and tugged, until it pulled free of her skirt to reveal her corset. Unperturbed by the disturbance to her clothing, she clutched at his hair, her fingertips a sweet pressure against his scalp that sent pinpricks of arousal shooting down his spine.

His hands found her waist again. “I want this off,” he muttered into her mouth as he felt for the closures of her corset.

“You said…” she nipped aggressively at his bottom lip, “…that I was in charge. So doesn’t that mean
I
get to decide when this comes off?”

Del wanted to regret his earlier words, but her sly tone, coupled with her tight grip on his hair, left him painfully hard. “Yeah. Yes.” He couldn’t keep from fingering the stiffened hem of the garment with longing, he wanted her that one step closer to naked so badly. “But can you decide it should come off soon, please?” His hands skimmed the tapering of her rib cage, and he faintly shook with suppressed need. Not to take control, but just to have her.

Christ, he wanted to have her.

She laughed against his lips. “I don’t want this to be over quickly,” she whispered as she moved to palm either side of his face. Her thumbs found his cheekbones and stroked.

His skin heated under her caress. “And you think we’ll be done, soon as you lose the corset?”

“Maybe.” She sipped at him so calmly and leisurely it was as if she’d done this—done him—a thousand times before. “Or maybe I simply want
you
to feel thwarted for once.”

“You think I haven’t?” Wrapping his arms around her, he sat them both upright and sank his teeth into the sharp curve of her jaw just below her ear. “You think I don’t hurt every time I walk away from you?” His lips found her pulse, beating frantically beneath the soft skin of her throat.

“Stop walking away from me, then.”

“Believe me, I don’t intend to, ever again.” He was starting to feel dizzy from the nearness of her, her scent and her heat winding around him, as strong as waves off the sea as the essence of her crashed into him again, and again, and again. “Moira, I—” The words he could’ve said, wanted to say, stuck in his throat, so he slid his hand up to the back of her skull, fingers tangling in her messy hair, quickly escaping its loose braid. “Kiss me,” he demanded on a strained exhalation, his eyes locking with her sparking blue ones.

She licked her lips, her gaze dropping to his mouth, and her bent knees tightened where they rested at his hips. “Now who’s bossy?”

“Desperate,” he corrected, just before her mouth covered his in an open, heated caress of lips and tongue and teeth. So desperate, in fact, that he couldn’t wait for her to plunge down into the spiraling abyss with him—so he gripped the front of her blouse in both hands and ripped.

Buttons flew in every direction, and she gasped, pulling away abruptly to stare down at her bared, heaving chest. And he worried he’d been too aggressive. Had her rapist torn her clothing? Damn it, he was thoughtless, unfeeling—

“I think I like desperate,” she murmured softly, giving him a sultry look from beneath her lashes.

Thank God. “Good.” He could give her desperate, and he could—would—drive her to desperation. Lifting both hands, he cupped her small, round, goddamn
perfect
breasts in his palms, weighing her, wanting her. She hissed in a harsh breath as he brushed first one soft kiss, then another, over the plumped flesh. Firelight danced over her skin, making the freckles, glorious in their profusion, glow amber and cinnamon.

His mouth watered when he breathed in her warm scent, and he closed his eyes, kneading her gently. “Moira.” He scored the top of one breast with his teeth, felt her shudder as she clutched at his forearms. “I want to do so many things to you.”

Her fingernails raked him through his sleeves, and her thighs tightened around him. “Like what?” she murmured, nervous excitement tingeing her tone.

Gripping the ruffled edge of her chemise between his teeth, Del tugged down, a swift jerk that bared her to his greedy gaze. “Like this.” He drew her dark raspberry nipple into his mouth. She was sweet, hot and oh so responsive as his tongue laved the taut peak.

She arched against him, thrusting her slender fingers into his hair to hold him to her, and moaned. “Del, I…” She shivered.

He slid a hand down to her lower back, guiding her lithe body while she writhed on his lap. He suckled her, holding her to his mouth as he tightened his lips around her sweet breast. He heard her breath catch in her throat, then switched to shower slavish attention on her other nipple, but he wasn’t about to slow down. Desperation was still the goal—he wanted her insensible with lust, for him.

Del only hoped he remembered how to get a woman to that point. He was slightly afraid he may never have known in the first place. When a man didn’t bother to care about his bed partners in the past, how could he be expected to learn the right way to touch a woman to give
her
the most pleasure? That was the problem with whores—their entire job was to fake it.