She gave a gentle squeeze and tug. He made a rough sound of half-pleasure, half-pain. He clenched and started to pulse.
She jerked back her hand. “I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”
He shook his head, blood raging like an inferno in his ears. He wanted to come so badly he could barely think.
“God, no.” His eyes burned as he gazed into her worried face. “It feels perfect.”
She smiled, causing the heat in his blood to spread to his chest. She touched him again, and he sighed into her hand, the relief acute. He leaned back and closed his eyes, trying not to think about what she was doing to him, while savoring each dark sensation. The warmth. The tentative brush of her fingertip as she traced him from root to the top of his thick, sensitive head. And the exquisite pressure when she finally gripped him in her hand.
Her hand skimmed the waistband of his braies. His heart pounded with anticipation. He held his breath, praying to those gods again.
They must have been listening.
“Do I …?”
He nodded, his body clenched in a vise, waiting. She fumbled with the ties. Christ, how could someone so bloody efficient take so long?
At last she succeeded in releasing him and his erection bobbed free.
Her eyes widened. He grew even harder under the heavy weight of her stare. Finally she ventured a glance at him. “You are far more powerful-looking than other men I’ve seen before.”
He managed a strained smile. This was one stick where he wasn’t going to come up short. “And you have a good basis for comparison?”
She blushed so furiously, he would have laughed if he wasn’t in such pain. “Of course not! But I have brothers, and I’ve seen enough men relieve themselves outdoors.”
He was too aroused to tease her anymore. “Put your hand on me, Ellie.”
She eyed him cautiously and tentatively reached out to touch him. He groaned at the skin-to-skin contact, and then at the wonder in her eyes.
“You’re so soft.”
Hardly. But he didn’t have the strength to quibble about semantics.
She explored him again, her maidenly gasps and little observations driving him mad. He had to grit his teeth against the urge to thrust up in her hand and give over to the powerful lust raging inside him.
When she rubbed her thumb over his tip, easing a thick drop from the sensitive head, and instinctively moistened her lips, it was all he could take. Exploring time was over.
He grabbed her wrist and looked into her eyes. “You’re killing me.”
She looked a little too pleased. “I am?”
Vixen. He covered her hand with his. “Stroke me, Ellie.”
He showed her how to milk him with her hand, to apply just the right amount of pressure, and to find his rhythm.
He could say one thing for her, she was a damned quick learner.
A few hard pumps and he felt the pressure intensifying at the base of his spine. His bollocks pulled up tight. His stomach muscles clenched. He strained against the release, not wanting it to be over too quickly, wanting to drag out every moment of pleasure.
But he was right there. “That’s it,” he ground out through clenched teeth. Christ.
He tensed. He was going to come, releasing his lust the way he’d done countless times before. Then he made a mistake. He looked into her eyes and felt himself caught in a current far stronger than any he’d ever faced at sea. It dragged him under. He was drowning in a whirlpool of emotion too strong to resist.
He felt connected to her in a way he’d never felt before. It was primal. Intense. And more powerful than he thought possible.
It was too much. He felt exposed. As if she’d just seen a part of him that he’d never revealed before. He wanted to turn away, but he couldn’t.
His heart pounded. His chest squeezed. He gave a hoarse cry and thrust deep into her hand as the pressure exploded and the deep, pulsing spasms tore from his loins.
She held him, holding his gaze the entire time, not letting go, draining every last ounce of pleasure from him. He collapsed in a spent, boneless heap, feeling as if he’d just finished one of MacLeod’s training exercises. When his breathing and heartbeat returned to normal, he lifted his head to find her watching him with an adorable expression of wonder on her face. She looked as if she’d just unlocked an exciting mystery.
His chest swelled with tenderness. He tipped her chin and looked deep into her luminous, green-flecked hazel eyes, dropping a soft kiss on her lips. “Thank you.”
She blushed with pleasure. “I never realized …”
She didn’t finish her thought, but he knew what she was going to say. That it could be like that.
It wasn’t. Not for him. He’d hadn’t been that aroused in … hell, he couldn’t recall ever being that aroused. His little nursemaid was turning out to be a very pleasant surprise.
And she wasn’t done yet.
“Can I do that again?” she asked with all the bright-eyed exuberance of a bairn at Yule.
He groaned. Was she trying to kill him? “A man needs a little bit of time to rest, lass.”
But when he pulled her in his arms and started to kiss her again, sliding his hand between her legs and stroking her to another climax, it turned out he didn’t need nearly as much time as he’d thought.
It had to be the sauna.
Fifteen
The next day, Ellie lay curled in Hawk’s arms, her head resting against the warm, hard wall of his leather-clad chest, awash in the delirious afterglow of their shared release. She listened to the fierce pounding of his heart and thought it the most wonderful sound she’d ever heard.
She did this to him. Yesterday hadn’t been her imagination. That a girl like her could hold a man like him in the palm of her hand—literally—and make him wild with passion was a heady discovery. She’d become almost drunk on her first taste of sensual power. Drunk enough to sneak away like a trollop in the middle of the day to the barn for another illicit liaison.
It was wicked. Wrong. A sin against God and a betrayal of the pledge she’d made to Ralph. She knew it, but when he’d come up behind her in the garden and whispered in her ear to meet him in the barn, her body had flooded with all those deliciously dark sensations. Her conscience had warred with desire for all of thirty seconds. The temptation was even stronger now that she’d had her first taste.
She assuaged her guilt by telling herself that she was doing no lasting harm, that after years of perfect propriety and attending to the needs of everyone else, she deserved these few selfish, stolen moments of happiness. But she knew she was only trying to justify something that could not be justified—no matter how right it felt.
And it did feel right. Looking into his eyes as he touched her—as she touched him—as they brought each other to the highest peak and then catapulted into a realm of unimaginable ecstasy, she knew she would never feel anything like it again. Perhaps this had been a mistake. For now she would have to live with the knowledge of what she was missing.
But she could not regret it.
She snuggled closer to him and sighed, wanting to hold on to this moment for as long as she could. Who would have thought that Lady Elyne de Burgh, one of the greatest heiresses in Ireland, could be content to lie in a dilapidated barn on a pile of hay, the musty scent of livestock filling her nose, bundled in the steely embrace of a pirate?
But never had she felt so cherished and protected—or so happy.
She could almost convince herself that this meant something. That these feelings they aroused when touching each other were not just lust. That when she looked into his eyes he felt the same intense, heart-tugging connection that she did.
Almost.
No matter how right it felt, she could not let herself forget that it was only temporary and nothing serious. Passion for passion’s sake. But it was getting harder and harder to remind herself of that, when her own feelings were in such turmoil.
She didn’t know how this could have happ
ened to her. She wasn’t supposed to let her emotions get tangled up in passion. She knew the type of man he was—he was wrong for her in every way—and that caring about him would lead only to heartbreak and disappointment. But she did care about him. More than she should.
If he were just a handsome face, he would be so much easier to resist. But she was drawn to him like she’d never been drawn to a man before. He lived life to the extreme, turning everything into an adventure. He made her remember all the things she’d been missing in life—the fun, the excitement, and the passion. Life with him would never be boring.
But his larger-than-life, living-life-on-the-edge personality didn’t inspire thoughts of constancy and stability. She wanted to think that he cared for her but wasn’t sure that he was capable of commitment—of letting someone in. As much as she admired his unflappability, it was also what gave her caution. Nothing seemed to get to him. Not danger, and not people, either.
Still, the more time they spent together, the more she was convinced that there was far more to Hawk than met the eye. She caught flashes of something deeper beneath the swaggering pirate with the devil-may-care smile—a man with more honor and nobility than he wanted to admit. He was an enigma. It was like looking at a puzzle without all the pieces.
She didn’t even know his real name.
And he didn’t know hers.
Part of her wanted to tell him, but she knew that the moment she did, this would all be over. That very un-pirate-like sense of nobility would put an end to cozy moments in the barn and private explorations around the island.
A wry smile turned her mouth. Maybe she should tell him so he could force her to marry him for her wealth.
The thought—even in jest—took her aback. Is that what she wanted, to marry him? She wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of the idea, but she couldn’t quite muster the humor.
So much for not getting serious.
He drew lazy circles on her back with his hand. “What are you thinking about?”
She hesitated, knowing she was about to test the unspoken boundary they’d erected between them. “That I don’t even know your real name.”
She felt him stiffen. For a moment, all she could hear was the steady beat of his heart. She anticipated the refusal before he spoke.
“I can’t tell you,” he said. “There are things …” His voice dropped off. “It’s complicated. Trust me when I say that you are better off not knowing.”
Complicated—which they were not. Her chest twisted. Nothing special. Nothing serious.
Ellie tried to hide her disappointment, but after what they had just shared and the turmoil of her own feelings, it was a bitter draught to swallow. “I understand,” she whispered against his chest.
He tilted her chin and forced her gaze to his. “This is all new to you, tè bheag. What you are feeling … it’s natural. But don’t confuse passion with something else.”
The kindness in his eyes cut like a dagger. Her cheeks flooded with heat. If she weren’t so mortified, she would recognize the irony. Hadn’t she once accused him of the same thing: confusing lust with love? In the face of her own turmoil, his warning felt like lye on a raw wound.
But the regret she read in his expression helped ease her hurt a little. “You don’t understand,” he said. “But it’s the way it must be for now.”
For now. She tried not to attach any significance to the words, but her foolish chest swelled all the same.
Her head kept reminding her of all the reasons it was impossible, but her heart didn’t seem to care. Even aside from the matter of her engagement, and that she was the daughter of an earl and he an outlaw—which were not insignificant barriers—there was the matter of his feelings for her. For him, this was a pleasant way of passing time, nothing more.
But it didn’t feel that way.
“How about I let you call me something else?” The glint in his eye told her he was up to no good. “Maybe God? You seem fond of that when you’re about to—”
“You,” she swatted him, “are horrible.” She knew she should be upset that he’d lapsed back into teasing, but perhaps it was a good reminder not to let herself get carried away. She gave him her best nursemaid frown. “And you are endangering your immortal soul by uttering such blasphemies.”
His eyes danced. “My immortal soul was endangered a long time ago—by much worse.”
“I can imagine.”
He heaved a deep sigh and released his hold around her shoulder so they could both sit up. “I’m afraid I need to get back to my men, and you’d better return to the house before your watchdog comes looking for you.”
She blushed. Thomas, now almost fully recovered, had made no secret that he didn’t approve of her going off alone with Hawk the past few days. “He’s not my watchdog.”
He gave her a look that said he wouldn’t bother responding.
They stood up and adjusted their clothing, shaking off the dirt and straw. If Catherine and Edmond could see her now. How many times had she chased her young sister and brother out of the barn, chastising them for dirtying their clothes? Ellie looked as though she’d been rolling in dirt and straw—which she supposed she had.
To add to the illicitness, they were both fully clothed. They couldn’t risk someone walking in on them, and Hawk didn’t have much time. There’d been no time for exploring today. She suspected she knew why. Her fool’s paradise would soon be coming to an end.
He slung his sword over one shoulder and reached for his axe, sword, and targe, which he’d leaned against one of the wooden stalls. From the smell, she suspected it housed the sheep.
“How much longer before we leave?” she asked.
He winced. “Ah, lass, you don’t do much for a man’s confidence. Are you bored already?”
She smiled, but his teasing wasn’t going to distract her. “Your confidence is perfectly intact. When?”
He sighed. “Late tomorrow night.”
Her heart dropped with shock. Dear God, not even two full days. She realized how completely she’d fallen under his spell when the truth hit her: she didn’t want to go home, she wanted him. She bit her lip and gazed up at him, searching for an indication of his feelings, but his expression was unreadable. “So soon?”
He shrugged and gave her a mischievous grin. “I could always decide to keep you.”
Her heart took a sudden leap. But, of course, he wasn’t serious. She managed a wan smile to hide the dull ache in her chest. “I don’t think my family would like that.”
She thought she saw something flicker in his gaze, but it was gone before she could put a name on it.
“I could force you to stay,” he said playfully, though with a strange edge to his voice.
She didn’t believe he meant it for an instant. He was far too honorable to do something so brutish. She knew that now. “The pirate act doesn’t fool me, you know.”
He lifted a brow. “It doesn’t?”
She shook her head. “You know what I think?”
“I dare not guess.”
His sarcasm didn’t deter her. “I think this island was part of the lands stolen from your clan.” That was why he knew so much about it. He roamed over this island the way he’d been doing so for years. The caves. The sauna. And though he’d tried to keep her away from the islanders on their expeditions, those they did meet treated him with extreme deference—almost as if he were their king. “I think when that old villager called you taoiseach, it wasn’t a mistake.”
She watched for any reaction to suggest that she’d guessed correctly, but his expression was perfectly blank. “Back to that, are you?” He shook his head with mock disappointment. “I think you should let me stick to telling stories; I’m better at it than you. Whatever dreams you may have in your head, little one, I am an outlaw. Make no mistake of that.”
She heard the warning in his voice, yet she couldn’t help thinking there was more to it than he wanted her to know. But it was also clear that he wasn’t
going to tell her. She would never know whether it would make a difference.
Erik couldn’t believe it. How in the hell had she guessed the truth? He never should have told her about his clan losing their lands. He’d only done so because he didn’t like seeing her hurt. Exactly the way she looked right now.
He should have known she wouldn’t be able to not take it seriously. Ellie was the type of lass who took everything seriously.
He sensed the danger—knew she was getting too attached—but he couldn’t seem to stay away from her. One taste of her wasn’t nearly enough; it had only made him hungry for more. Much more.
As it turned out, it hadn’t been the sauna—his control had been every bit as tenuous today. He didn’t know what it was about the lass that made him lose his mind.
He should be with his men, preparing for the most important battle of their lives and planning for the journey back to Ireland across heavily patrolled waters, instead of sneaking away like a lad with his first maid for a few moments of stolen pleasure.
But damn if it wasn’t worth it. He’d gotten more pleasure from her hand than he’d experienced in a long time.
But the pleasure was becoming too complicated.
He sure as hell hoped he’d discouraged her romantic wanderings. Pirate or nay, he was an outlaw and in no position to offer her anything more, even if he wanted to—which he didn’t.
He’d only been joking about keeping her. The twinge he’d felt at her quick refusal had been pride, that’s all.
He watched as she finished adjusting her clothing. If her averted face was any indication, she’d gotten the warning.
They started to walk to the door of the barn, and he felt the strange pressure growing in his chest again. The overwhelming—maddening—urge to make her happy.