Page 24 of Bargaining with the Devil

He pushed himself to his feet. His hair was wet—he’d just washed, it looked like, shirt neck unbuttoned and an expanse of chest showing. The linen clung damply to his frame. He’d also shaved and looked less the ruffian for it, not that one would ever mistake him for anything other than who and what he was just because he had a clean-shaven face. Not that she minded the ruffian anyway—in truth, she found it quite appealing. She found him quite appealing.

Perhaps too appealing. Far more than she’d realized, anyway, if last night was any indication. She had him to thank for converting the door to her chamber from an innocuous feature of her cottage that she’d never thought twice about into something capable of making her cheeks go hot every time she so much as looked at it. A door, for goodness’ sake. One she must walk through multiple times every day.

Then there was the night she’d drunk whisky by the fire as he sharpened his knives. He’d said, ’Tis not that I’d mind it, you touching me, and although she’d been annoyed with him at the time, she’d thought about that comment afterwards—far more than she should have, because she believed him.

That memory had hold of her just now because he was looking at her like he’d meant every word of it.

She stepped through the doorway.

He came slowly towards her. A body’s width from her, he stopped. Holding her eyes, he reached past her to catch the door handle, pushing it closed.

She leaned back, shoulders resting against the door, and tipped her head up to look at him. Probably she was looking at him like she had that night too. The energy in the slight, empty space between them crackled, tangible as static arcing.

“What is it you’re wanting right now, a stór?” he asked, his voice low.

She wasn’t sure of everything she wanted, but she knew what to say. “I haven’t had any whisky today.”

He smiled, his devil’s smile, and leaned in, closing most of the gap between their bodies. “Well, ’tis a fortunate thing then.” He braced a forearm on the doorframe above her head and leaned in farther still, not quite touching her. “Neither have I.”

Blood rushed hot in her veins, and her heartbeat was loud in her ears, but she wasn’t a witless green girl, for all that her heart was hammering like one. She drew a deep breath and set a hand—the one not still clutching the basket of shellfish—on his chest. His body heat radiated through the damp shirt, warming her chilled hand. She slid it up his chest to just below where his pulse visibly leapt and rested her fingers there. He shivered.

“Oh, my hand must be quite cold.” She started to withdraw it. “I⁠—”

He trapped her hand against his skin. “’Twasn’t why I shivered.” His voice had more gravel than usual. “You leave it there, a mhuirnín, while I do this.” He pressed his lips to her throat. “But we’re not going to do anything but kiss and touch a little, aye?” He nuzzled under her jaw as his hands bracketed her waist.

Slightly affronted, she asked, “Why not?” Not that she’d been thinking about doing anything at all with him five minutes ago. Fine. She’d been thinking about it since he’d sat shirtless at her table and certainly since last night. But she hadn’t planned to act on those thoughts till she walked in the door and his eyes nearly set her aflame.

He laughed, low. “Not that I don’t want more, just ’tisn’t the right time for it. But I can promise you, a mhuirnín, that I’ll give you everything I’ve got for kissing, for as long as you want it.”

“What does⁠—”

His mouth came down on hers, silencing her.

Ridiculous. There’s a basket of shellfish between us. What sort of man found that the ideal circumstance for kissing?

Ciarán Quinn, apparently.

The shellfish rapidly became entirely unimportant.

Who knew that such a hard man could have such soft lips? And who knew that he would be so gentle? She didn’t feel especially gentle herself. She opened her mouth, inviting more, wanting more, but he wasn’t in a hurry. Exploring, like he was learning the shape of her lips with his own. Catching her lower lip and nibbling at it. Tasting the corner of her mouth. She was restless, twitching, by the time his tongue touched hers. The relief of more, at last followed by the instant ratcheting up of hunger for even more demanded she pull him closer—except she was still holding the blasted basket.

He seemed to become aware of it too. His breathing was rapid, matching her own, when he pulled back slightly. “If I stop long enough to set your basket down,” he murmured against her ear, “will you take fright and run off?”

“No.” She ought to run off, probably. If she still had any sense at all, she would. “No, I won’t run off.”

“Well, that’s fine then.” His hands slid from her waist, slowly along her arms, and over her hands to catch the basket from her. He stepped back, just far enough to set it down, before caging her against the door again. “You touch me anywhere you want right now, a mhuirnín.”

Her hands no doubt smelled of shellfish. “My hands will make you smell of sea life, and you’ve just washed.”

He laughed. “Do you think I care one bit about the bleedin’ cockles right now? ’Twill wash out later, the sea smell, and I assure you, I’ve smelled of far worse for far less worthy causes.”

There were many things he could have meant by that. Perhaps she’d consider the implications later, but the only part that mattered at the moment was that she could cup his jaw in her hands and slide her fingers into his hair. The strands were silky, another thing that was soft on a man who was anything but.

She’d tucked a heavy old woollen shawl into her waistband to keep warm by the bay. He tugged at the fabric, slowly freeing it from her skirt, still not in any hurry. For a brief moment unwelcome memories intruded, memories of shyly waiting for a man to undress her for the first time, of the butterflies in her stomach then, imagining what might be coming.

She shoved the memories away. They had no place here. Quinn wasn’t Teddy, and thank God for that.

As soon as he had the shawl free, she grabbed a fistful of his shirt, pulling him to her and tugging it loose from his trousers so she could get at what lay beneath. When her hands roamed, finding heated skin and firm muscle, he shivered again.