Moira wasn’t sure why, but she was still worried about Seamus, despite the fact that he had been drinking more moderately that night. Her brother was next to her behind the bar when the place finally wound down for the night. Liam had long gone, as had most everyone else, but Seamus was still there.
“Patrick?”
“Yeah?”
“Do me a favor.”
“What?”
“Walk Seamus home.”
“Why? He only lives a couple of blocks from here.”
“Please? Just humor me.”
“Oh, sure, let me just run out into the bitter cold in the middle of the night to humor you.”
“I’ll ask someone else.”
“No, Moira, damn, I’ll do it. I was teasing you. Remember what teasing is? But why are you worried about the old coot?”
“I don’t know.” She walked past her brother to the end of the bar, facing Seamus. “Patrick is going to walk you home tonight.”
“Now, Moira, I switched between the real stuff and the unleaded all night.”
“And how many did you have in all?”
“Just a few.”
“About ten, I believe.” Colleen piped up from the floor. She was gathering bottles and glasses from the tables.
“Ten? It’s amazing you have kidneys left, Seamus,” Moira said.
“Irish kidneys. The best to be had,” Seamus said.
“I’m proud of you for switching. Next time, just not quite so many altogether. I wouldn’t have served you so many.”
“Ah, but that’s the trick, lass. You get the real stuff from a different bartender each time.”
“Shame on you, Seamus,” she said firmly.
“Now, I don’t drive, Moira.”
“You’d be cut off after the first one if you did.”
“All right, girl. I’m going home.”
“With Patrick.”
“Sorry, Patrick,” Seamus said sheepishly.
“No bother,” Patrick said cheerfully, grimacing over his head at Moira. “Come on, then.”
Kyle Browne had departed at about one. It was nearly two now.
Saint Patrick’s Day made for a long week.
“Get Dad to go on up,” Patrick told Moira in a soft whisper as he followed Seamus.
“Right,” she said, but Colleen was already chastising their father, urging him up the steps.
“I guess I should get out, too, let the family close up,” Michael said quietly to Moira. She looked at him, saw the gentle concern in his eyes.
“One of these nights I will get over there.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
“My dad is gone. Kiss me goodbye?” she said, walking him to the door.
He curled his arms around her, then lifted her chin with his thumb and forefinger. He kissed her lips lightly, but she clung to him, demanding more. She turned it into a long, wet, openmouthed kiss, the kind that would have stirred her had she any energy left in her body whatsoever.
Michael withdrew when her sister cleared her throat and asked, “Shall we all leave the room?”
Michael’s eyes were on her, intense, curious. “Was that a kiss?” he whispered. “Or a performance?”
She felt a shiver snake through her. “A kiss,” she said firmly. “And maybe a performance. I’m just establishing a few things. Is...that all right?”
“Oh, yeah.”
He touched her lips briefly with his. “It’s after two. We’ll all be as tired as you look in the morning.”
“Thanks,” she murmured.
He grinned. “Good night. I’m out of here.”
Cold wind swept in as he departed. She closed and locked the door and turned. Colleen and Danny were staring at her.
Danny applauded, clapping his hands slowly.
“You could have gone with him. I can clean up with Danny,” Colleen said.
“I—Great. You two clean up. I’m going to get some sleep.”
She started around the bar and through to the office, then remembered her purse in the well. She came back in, but couldn’t find it where she had thrown it.
“Hey, Colleen, did you move my purse?”
“Nope. Haven’t seen it.”
“Did you leave it at the restaurant?” Danny asked.
“No, I’m certain. I came in, the place was wild, I walked behind the bar and threw my purse in the well.”
“Maybe Dad picked it up. Or Patrick,” Colleen suggested.
“Maybe,” Moira said, frowning and haphazardly moving bottles around to see if she had stuck it somewhere else. “Damn, I can’t find it.”
“It’s got to be there somewhere,” Danny said. “I didn’t see any customers hop the bar to make off with it.”
“Moira, calm down. That’s Dad’s best aged whis-key you’re pushing around there. What’s in your purse that—”
“Just my identification, my credentials, everything!” Moira said.
“I was about to ask what was in it that you needed before the morning,” Colleen said. “I’m sure someone merely moved it.”
Moira sighed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
Danny caught her by the shoulders. “Hey, go up to bed. You really do look worn out. Go up and get some sleep.”
“You’re right.”
“And don’t be going back out at night.”
She looked at him warily.
“Really. Please,” he said softly.
“I wasn’t going back out tonight.”
“Good.”
“That’s not going to keep me from sleeping with him, Danny.”
“I don’t think I need to be in on this conversation,” Colleen said, humming, trying to make a racket as she picked up the tables.
“Maybe you’re not really so sure you want to,” Danny said, his hand on her arm. “Maybe that’s why you gave that Academy Award-winning performance at the door.”
“And maybe I’m just really, really tired.”
“There is no such thing as really, really, tired, not if you’re really, really certain and if you’ve been with your family this much time.”
“How do you know where I’ve been all this time?” she demanded.
“Trust me. I know.”
“Great. You’re spying on me? Watching me?”
“Circumstances, Moira, nothing more.”
Colleen started singing “The Irish Washwoman.” Loudly.
“Look, just for now, don’t be on the streets at night alone, okay? A sensible woman wouldn’t go wandering out alone in the wee hours of the morning anyway. Right?”
“I carry Mace.”
“In the purse you can’t find. And Mace is no defense against a gun.”
“Why would someone use a gun against me?”
He sighed with impatience. “Moira, Boston is a big city. Remember the dead prostitute? And God knows how many murders there are here a year. That’s the way of the world. Please, don’t go out alone late at night.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Danny, except to bed.”
He released her at last. Tawny eyes met hers. She wished she didn’t like his face so much. An interesting face. She wished fervently that Danny had been called to Timbuktu to give a speech that particular Saint Patrick’s Day.
“Night. Night, Colleen,” she called, and turned her back, going upstairs.
* * *
“Hey, Patrick?” Seamus said sheepishly as they walked down the street.
“Yeah, Seamus?”
“You don’t have to do this. I don’t know what got your sister going, but you know I’m a man who can hold me ale.”
“Seamus, it never hurts to have company on the walk home. Besides,” he said with a shrug and a smile, “it gives me another chance to slip away.”
“To slip away to do what, at this hour of the night?” Seamus asked.
“Well, I really have had business here. I haven’t been around as much as I should have been these past few days. I’d like to head downtown. And stare at my boat.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“Sounds weird, huh?”
“Sounds like an excuse for something else,” Seamus told him.
“Oh, yeah?” Patrick said, stopping and staring at Seamus.
“But then,” Seamus said quickly, “that’s what you were doing. Something else. Everyone knows a man can stay in a pub till all hours, not even drinking, just talking. Talking. There’s the crux,” he suddenly muttered. “I shouldn’t have talked so much. Or maybe I should have talked some more.”
“What are you going on about, Seamus?”
“Nothing, nothing.” Seamus looked sideways at his escort. Patrick Kelly was a tall man, lean, but solid. He had a fine face. All of Eamon Kelly’s children had fine faces, probably thanks to Katy Kelly. Hard to tell, though; he and Eamon had aged and wrinkled and grizzled together, but Eamon Kelly had been a fine-looking man in his prime.
“Are you all right?” Patrick asked.
“Oh, I’m fine. I’m a big fellow. Did you know I used to box?”
“I’m sure you were a hard hitter.”
“Aye, that I was. And only a wee bit of me ale has gone to me belly.”
“You’re still a heartthrob, Seamus, I’m sure.”
“I’m tired and worried, that’s what I am,” Seamus muttered.
“Worried? About what?”
Seamus shook his head, wondering if he should pour his heart out or muzzle his lips. “Those orphans you’ve been looking into, Patrick. What’s the deal with that? You need money? I can donate a bit. I’m not a charity case, you know. In the old days, we needed sponsors and jobs to get into the United States. Me uncle sponsored me, and I worked hard in the fishing business for over twenty years. I made some good investments, too.”
“Seamus, I’ve just gotten involved, but as soon as I know a little more myself, you’ll be the first man I hit up, how’s that?”
Seamus thought Patrick was looking at him a bit strangely. “Sure, sure,” he said quickly. “Well, now, there’s me house, just along the street. Old man Kowalski lives on the first floor. Polish fellow. Nice enough. Has his kids in all the time, always lots of people around. You don’t have to see me in, Patrick.”
There was sweat on his upper lip, Seamus realized.
“You don’t want help walking up the stairs?” Patrick asked doubtfully.
“No, no. The day I can’t make it up one flight of stairs...well, I’ll move to a ground floor somewhere, that’s what I’ll do.”
He slipped his key into the lock, opened the door and waved to Patrick, who waved back, then turned to go.
Seamus went up the steps two at a time. “There,” he told himself. “I’m spry as a young rooster still, when need be.”
At the top of the stairs, he realized that he hadn’t locked the lower door. He’d been so eager to rid himself of his escort and find the safety of solitude. Now he worried and started down the stairs.
As he did, the downstairs door opened. He heard the creaking. He squinted, looking out. The streetlights outside made his visitor no more than a dark image, a silhouette. A man in a hat and a coat. That was all he knew.
“Seamus, Seamus, Seamus. Shame on you, Seamus,” a voice said. Deep, rich, throaty, menacing, with the soft cadence of the Old Country.
He knew instinctively that, indeed, he knew too much. Had said too much.
He turned, his heart thundering. His door was not so far away. And he was spry, spry as a young rooster.
He missed the first step he tried to take. He wavered briefly, then fell.
He hit his head. Hard. Every bone in his old body ached.
“Sorry, me old man. Sorry,” that Irish-inflected voice said. Seamus was vaguely aware of footfalls landing lightly on the stairs, coming toward him. “Indeed, sorry, old man. But I can’t take the chance of you giving me away. Nothing, you see, must stand in my way.”
Seamus wanted to scream. He’d lied. Old Kowalski was deaf as a stone, and he’d never had a wife, much less children. Seamus wanted to scream anyway.
He couldn’t. He felt the powerful grip that seized him. Then he was falling. Flying first, then falling, falling, falling.
When he landed that time, there was an instant of agony.
The sound of something snapping.
Then no pain. No pain at all.
* * *
On her way through the house to her bedroom, Moira noticed a small box sitting at the edge of the kitchen table. Inspecting it, she saw that it was a videotape. Frowning to see the title in the dim light, she saw that it had been recorded by someone off TV. Her brother’s handwriting on the cover announced his title for whatever he had taped: The Results of the Troubles in Ireland. She started to put the tape down, then hesitated. They had shared things all their lives, and Patrick had left the tape out where anyone could see it. She took it to her room.
Was she prying? Too bad. She wanted to know what Patrick was up to.
She slid the tape into the VCR in her room and watched for a minute, but the tape seemed to be little more than a travelogue. Yawning, she went into the bathroom, listening as she washed her face and brushed her teeth. She heard music with a voice-over talking about traditional Irish music and dance.
Nothing too evil so far.
Letting it run, she hopped quickly in and out of the shower. Wrapped in a towel, she walked from the bathroom to the bedroom, where she slipped into a T-shirt with a yawning, frazzled cat on the front, saying, “Got coffee?” The Irish music and dance were finished; the narrator had gone on to talk about The Troubles, the thirty years of violence that had gripped Northern Ireland at the end of the twentieth century. Then-President Clinton was on the screen saying, “I don’t think reversal is an option.” She rewound the tape. The narrator spoke about Clinton’s visit, his meetings with Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness of the Sinn Fein. It went on to discuss his journey to Dundalk, a town just south of the Northern Ireland border long known as a recruiting station for the Real IRA, a left-wing faction, that had claimed responsibility for the 1998 car bombing that killed twenty-nine people in the town of Omagh and threatened the fragile Good Friday Agreement, providing for a joint Catholic-Protestant government and approved in April of 1998. Clinton’s face appeared on the screen again as he pointed out how past violence had destroyed the lives not just of those killed, but of those left behind. The important issue of tourism and American business dollars was brought up. Another speaker appeared on the screen, pleading for reason and the value of every human life to both the Unionists, mainly Protestants who worked for continued unification with Great Britain, and the Nationalists, mainly Catholics longing for a united Ireland. The tape went on with shots of Clinton visiting David Trimble, Protestant first minister in the new Northern Ireland government, and Seamus Mallon, the senior Catholic in the government. The tape moved on to interviews with children, orphaned or left with one struggling surviving parent due to the violence. They all talked about the future, about turning Ireland around, making her as prosperous and welcoming as her age-old adage promising hospitality. One attractive teenager, raised by nuns after the deaths of her parents, walked the photographer around the county of Armagh and Tara, the beautiful site made royal by the ancient kings. Northern Ireland, often shunned by tourists because of The Troubles, offered wonderful archeological locations, striking Norman fortifications, haunted castles, magical vistas and more. The girl was charming and sincere, ending her speech with a longing for the kind of education that would allow her generation to offer the world an Ireland at peace. She ended with the words, “There are more Irish in the United States now than there are in Ireland. This is still your home. Please help us, and the land that remains in your heart.”
The soundtrack ended, and a loud buzzing filled the room. Moira quickly hopped up and hit the reverse button, rewinding the tape. As she did so, she thought she heard a strange thumping sound. She stopped the tape, listening. She heard nothing, but remained certain that she had heard a noise coming from the pub below.
“Danny,” she murmured aloud. It had to be Danny. But what was he up to?
She exited her room, closing the door quietly behind her. She didn’t bother with slippers or a robe, just tiptoed along the hall, listening. She thought she heard movement downstairs again. Was he going for a beer? It was nearly half past three in the morning.
Maybe her brother had returned, and he and Danny were talking.
Whatever was going on, she wanted the truth.
She opened the door at the top of the spiral stairway, closing it behind her very quietly. She waited there a moment, listening. Voices. Droning voices. People talking? Or a television or radio left on?
Silently and slowly, she moved down the winding stairway, inwardly damning the fact that a night-light was on in the office, while the bar beyond lay in darkness. Still, she moved downward, step by step, trying to discern just what she was hearing and from where the sound was coming. She came to the ground floor and held very still. She couldn’t make out the words being said. It had to be a radio or television. After a minute, she stepped forward carefully, realizing only then that the floor was very cold, the wooden boards covering concrete, and her feet were freezing. Goose bumps were breaking out on her arms, as well.
She left the office area, creeping behind the bar. The noise, she thought, was coming from the rear of the bar. Probably from Danny’s room. The bar was empty. At least Danny and her brother weren’t sitting around conspiring together.
She started very carefully through the tables in the darkened room toward the guest room door. She wasn’t going to knock or anything like that. She just wanted to assure herself that she was hearing the droning of a television.
Halfway to the rear of the pub, she realized that she was feeling a cold draft. She paused, looking around. It was so dark, both inside and outside, that she couldn’t make out the door. She should have been able to; there were streetlights just outside. But they didn’t seem to be bright enough that night. Finally her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, and she could see the door. It appeared to be closed, but it might be ajar. It had to be ajar. Cold air was coming in. A deep, bone-chilling cold. How the heck could the door be open? Patrick would never be so careless as to forget to lock up when he came in.
Hugging her arms around herself, she started weaving her way through the tables and around the bar. When she reached the end of the bar, still staring at the front door, she suddenly felt an entirely new sensation, as if a ghost were whispering at the nape of her neck, warning her to stop, to turn back. She did so, coming to a dead halt and turning.
The door to Danny’s room seemed to be ajar, a faint ray of light spilling from it. That door had not been open before. She was certain. She would have noticed the light. It suddenly seemed imperative that she reach the front door, make sure it was closed and locked.
She turned back. The darkness seemed to thicken before her, as if a cloud had converged on the room. Groping blindly, she slid her feet forward. There was something in her path. She tripped, stumbling. She reached out, trying to find something to break her fall. Cloth...a body? Something...someone...blocking the light.
But there was nothing for her to grip. She flailed helplessly, then went down, her feet entangled in something. She crashed to the floor, hands ahead of her to break her fall.
She hit the ground face forward, her forehead connecting with the green linoleum behind the bar. Pain suddenly shot through her head. Odd, it seemed to come from the back of her skull rather than the front. Sharp...then fading. The room became blacker than ever.
She closed her eyes.
* * *
“Moira, now what the hell are you up to?”
She blinked, then realized that she must have passed out, if only for a few minutes. There was a light on behind the bar, and she was being held in a man’s arms. Danny’s. She was still on the floor, but he had lifted her up and was studying her face.
“Danny,” she breathed. She stared at him, not sure whether to fling herself against him or find the strength to leap away in terror.
“Who else were you expecting down here?”
“Were you out?” she asked.
His eyes narrowed. “For a bit. Why? What are you doing down here? Judging by the way you’re dressed, I don’t imagine you trekked down the stairs to seduce me.”
“Danny, damn it, did you just conk me on the head?”
“Are you daft?”
“Who was in your room?”
“No one I know about.” He seemed tense. “Why?”
“There were sounds. Voices.”
“From my room?”
“Yes.”
“The television?”
She hesitated, staring into his eyes. In the murky light, they seemed a pure gold. His features were in shadow, which seemed to emphasize the lean planes and rugged angles of his bone structure. She had been so frightened. Here, in her family business. In a room where she had spent half her life, in a place where she had never been afraid before.
She’d heard voices, seen shadows, touched...something. She’d sensed the danger, felt it at her nape, known it in her bones...
And it might well have been him.
But the fear was ebbing from her, just as the darkness had ebbed from the area around the bar.
“Moira, what’s up? You said you heard voices.”
She sighed, sitting up, rubbing the back of her head. There didn’t seem to be a bump there.
“It might have been a television,” she admitted. “I thought the front door was open...then it seemed your door was open. It was cold, and I thought Patrick had come back and forgotten to lock up properly...” Her voice trailed off.
“You weren’t on your way out to lover boy’s hotel room, eh?” he teased.
“Shoeless and in a T-shirt?” she retorted.
“Ah. You save the bare feet and T-shirts for me. How sweet.”
She frowned. “I really hit my head. I think I blacked out.”
He leaned toward her. “You hit your forehead. Poor baby. Hang on.”
He rose, walking behind the bar, finding a clean towel and filling it with ice. As he came back to her, she tried to rise. “No, no, you might be dizzy, don’t try to stand. Hey, were you drinking tonight?”
“No!” she said indignantly. “Two glasses of wine at dinner. Danny, I could have sworn there was someone in front of me when I fell. Were—were you there all along?”
“No, I wasn’t, and the front door was locked when I came in.” He hunkered down by her, pressing the ice to her temple. She shivered.
“That floor is probably cold. Grab the ice.”
She did so automatically. She was cold, and the ice, though it felt good against her head, sent rivers of frost racing through her.
She realized he had given her the command so he could scoop her up. “Danny,” she murmured, still holding the ice but slipping her free arm around his neck so she wouldn’t fall.
“You’re like an ice cube yourself,” he said huskily. He strode with her in his arms toward the back, making his way through the tables much more fluidly than she had. Of course, he had light to guide him.
He juggled her weight so he could open the door to his room, which was also closed, though not locked.
“Hey!” she protested.
“I’m not going to attack you or anything. Just warm you up,” he assured her.
He paused in the doorway with her in his arms. He smelled good. The underlying scent of the aftershave she had always known and loved so much.
She realized that he was studying his room—his guest suite, as her father called it. Not really a suite. Her father had always imagined that in the old days, the room might have been a secret little harbor where the American Founding Fathers had met to ponder the question of separation from the mother country. Sam Adams might have written some of his stirring rhetoric here. Now it held a queen-size bed, two dressers, a mahogany entertainment center and a modern bath.
The doors to the entertainment center were open. The television was on. CNN. Headlines on the hour.
“Nothing seems out of place,” he murmured.
“I guess I heard the television,” she replied.
He remained still, looking around. He didn’t seem to notice her weight. She had forgotten that although Danny appeared slim, he was built like rock. A lean machine, pure, supple muscle. He turned, still not seeming to notice that he was carrying her.
“Danny, you can put me down.”
“Yeah. Let’s get you under a blanket.”
Still holding her with seemingly little effort in one arm, he stripped the throw and comforter from the bed, then placed her against the pillows and immediately covered her up.
“Danny—”
“Are you any warmer?”
“A little. I’ve got to go upstairs. I must have been imagining things.”
“Let me take a look around out there. Keep that ice on your forehead.”
He left her in the bed. She stared at the television. The volume was low, but she could hear every word clearly. She wondered why the sound had been so strange and garbled before. Because she had been listening through a closed door?
Danny seemed to be gone awhile. She turned from the television to see that he had returned and was standing in the doorway to the bedroom with something in his hands. Her black knit purse.
“My purse.” She rose from the pillows. “Where was it?”
“By the end of the bar. It’s what you must have tripped over.”
She frowned as he brought it to her. “Danny, I know damn well I didn’t set it there. And if it was there, why didn’t you and Colleen see it when you were cleaning up?”
He shrugged. “Maybe it was wedged beneath the bar.”
He slipped out of his coat, hanging it on the hook by the door, then pulled his sweater over his head and took a seat by her on the bed. “Check it out,” he told her. “See if anything seems to be missing.”
“You think someone stole my purse and put it back?” she queried.
He shook his head, eyes on the purse, his slow, rueful smile slipping into place. “I think someone moved it from the well, meant to give it to you, walked around with it, set it down by the bar and forgot it. But since it seems to have mysteriously moved of its own volition, perhaps you should check it out. Besides, I want to see if you’ve got a bump on your forehead.” He reached out, taking the ice-laden towel from her hand and her head, studying her seriously.
“No bump. Not even a bruise.”
“Good,” she murmured.
“Headache?”
“Not really.”
“Want an aspirin?”
“For my imagined injury?”
“I never suggested you had an imagined injury.” He rose, disappearing into the bathroom, returning with two aspirin and a paper cup of water.
She took the pills from him. “I really don’t feel bad,” she murmured. “I should. I’m sure I blacked out.”
He wasn’t listening to her. He was watching the television. The reporter was explaining the route the parade would follow on Saint Patrick’s Day.
Then suddenly he was looking at her. He reached out, smoothing a tangle from her hair.
He was close. Warm. His fingertips were like magic. “You know, you’re really beautiful.”
“You’re not supposed to be attacking me,” she murmured.
“I’m not attacking you. I’m trying to smooth out your hair.”
“How romantic.”
“I’m not supposed to be romantic, since I’m not allowed to attack you, remember? Of course, the devastating negligee is a real turn-on. Are you sure you didn’t come down here with the express thought of attacking me?”
“Attacking you?”
“Seducing me?”
“Danny...”
“You know, the lovely heroine in distress, fallen on the floor. The strong, silent hero sweeping her up and all that?”
“When the hell were you ever the silent type?”
“You have a point there.”
His fingers were still moving through her hair. And somewhere along the way he’d stretched out beside her. When she closed her eyes, she breathed him. She seemed overwhelmed by a sea of physical memory. Sight, touch, the sound of his voice, the huskiness, the slight touch of a brogue. She could even remember the taste of his lips on hers, his flesh beneath the pressure of her whisper-soft kisses, and more. How long had it been? How in God’s name could she feel so natural, lying here with him, wanting to reach out and touch and taste and breathe and more again?
“You know, even dressed that way, you’re absolutely beautiful,” he said softly.
“That’s a stock line.”
“I mean it.”
“You’re prejudiced. Being an old family friend and all.”
“Longtime friend, not old. You’re not going to marry him.”
“Michael?”
“You have to ask?”
“Maybe I am.”
He shook his head. “You’re here with me. You never risked the night to run out and be with him.”
“Honestly, Danny, if I don’t marry him, I’m a fool. He’s doing everything in his power to get close to my family. He knows what’s important to me. And he cares. He isn’t trying to save the world, or destroy it, whichever you’re after. I’ve never been sure. He’s an American.” Danny’s fingers were still moving through her hair. He seemed to have settled more comfortably beside her, radiating a startling heat. “Grounded,” she continued, wishing it didn’t seem quite so hard to keep her focus on what she was saying. He was smiling at her, apparently listening. His face was close. His scent and warmth seemed to seep into her, sweep through her. Irish magic. “Good-looking,” she managed. “Damned good-looking. Dependable. Reliable.”
He curled a tendril of her hair in his fingers, amused. “Dependable. Reliable. What words to describe a passionate relationship.”
“You should listen to a few of my friends who have been divorced. They’d go for dependable over exciting any day.”
He shook his head. “Some of your friends probably do need reliable and dependable. But you need reliable, dependable—and exciting.”
“Michael is—” she began.
His lips touched hers, very gentle. Then he moved his face a fraction of an inch away. “Touch of friendship, not an attack,” he swore, his whisper brushing her cheek. “Michael is...?”
“Um...exciting and dependable...”
This time his lips touched hers with a greater force. His kiss parted her lips, brought a wealth of wet, sweeping heat. She was wrapped in his arms, tangled in her T-shirt and the comforter, and the kiss went on and on, wet, ragged, his plunging tongue seeming to reach inside to her womb, caressing every erotic zone in her body. She didn’t protest. The amazing thing was that she didn’t protest. Every ethic, every tenet of right and wrong, seemed to slip away. Her fingertips moved against his face, threaded into his hair. His lips broke from hers. “That’s an actual kiss,” he murmured.
“What? Um...no more so than what I shared with...”
“Michael,” he supplied.
Somehow he was over her. She felt the T-shirt tangled around her waist.
“Michael,” she agreed.
“No, no. With Michael, it was a performance. With me, it was a kiss. Allow me. I’ll show you the difference again.”
“You’re not supposed to be attacking me,” she reminded him.
“This isn’t an attack,” he whispered. “You’re free to go, you know.”
“With you draped over me?”
“Well, I don’t actually want to make it easy for you to leave.”
She could have pushed him away, but it was easier to convince herself that he was blocking her exit. She lay perfectly still, staring into his eyes. When he kissed her again, she brought her hands between them but still made no move to push him away. As they rolled to the side, mouths still fused together, she found her fingers curling around the buttons of his shirt. She touched his bare flesh. So familiar. The mat of tawny hair that teased her fingertips, the taut muscle beneath. A second later he was halfway up, struggling out of his shirt. Then his hands were on her and her shirt was on the floor. When he wrapped her in his arms again, she was instantly aware of the length of him. Wired muscle, tension, heat. She loved his chest, the feel of her lips against his throat and collarbone, the cradling way he cupped the back of her head. He used one foot against the other to shove off his boots, and she felt his foot move along her calf. The stroke of his hand was on her thighs, fingering the delicate panties she wore. His mouth closed over her breast, and he worked his body down the length of her. He knew how to do things with his tongue that defied silk and mesh. If there had ever been a time to protest, this was it. She spoke his name, but it was nothing more than a whisper. Her hips were moving, arching to his erotic, liquid manipulation. Lava seemed to burn deep inside her, then erupt and flow like a cascade. She nearly screamed aloud at the force of her climax, bit her lip, shuddered in his hold and allowed the volatile climax to sweep through her.
She was barely aware of his movement, his jeans joining the rest of their clothes on the floor, the force of his body between her thighs when he settled over her and into her. Her fingers laced together against his back; her legs locked around his hips. She had forgotten this; she had never forgotten this. Danny made love like he lived, passionately, vehemently, with electric force. He filled her with his physical presence, aroused her anew where she had been shaken and sated, pulsing slowly, giving, taking away, then finding a beat that raced like thunder, building a need within her that was a sweet agony until she bit lightly against his shoulder, feeling her climax seize hold of her again, euphoric pleasure like a blanket of honey streaming through her system. Danny eased to her side, flesh bathed in a fine sheen of perspiration. He had a way of holding a woman after sex that kept the warmth glowing. Fingers in her hair, smoothing dampened strands. Sated, catching her breath, she felt the wave of thoughts bombarding her mind, thoughts that the previous moments had not allowed. She was an evil human being. If there had been any chance of this happening, she should have been honest with Michael. But there shouldn’t have been a chance of this happening. She was an adult, she was mature, she was...not as much in love as she had tried to convince herself she was. But what she had done was still wrong. Really wrong.
“I have to go,” she murmured.
“That’s all you have to say?”
“I have to go now.”
He drew his arms away. Shadows hid his amber eyes.
“What did you expect?” she whispered.
“Oh, I don’t know. Something like, ‘What was I thinking, even pretending to be so totally in love with another man, when here’s Danny, and together we’re just so damned good.’”
“Obviously you’re good,” she murmured with a trace of bitterness. “I’m here.”
“Well, you know me. I don’t just want to be good. I want to be the best there is.”
She didn’t tell him that he’d certainly managed that. “And I should have spent my life waiting for those moments when you chose to be in the country?”
“You’re right,” he said. “I’m being unfair.”
She had said she needed to go, yet she was still lying beside him, loath to leave. Her knuckles brushed over his abdomen.
“Now you’re being an evil woman,” he informed. “That’s truly unfair if you’re intending on leaving.”
His abdomen gave new meaning to the term “six-pack.”
“You’re in incredible shape,” she told him. “Curious, for a writer and lecturer.”
“The better to seduce you during those moments when I’m in the same country.”
“You’re being flippant. I’m talking about real life.”
“You shouldn’t marry Michael.”
“Apparently,” she murmured, “Michael shouldn’t marry me.”
“You’re on a misdirected guilt trip.”
“Oh, right. He’s in a hotel room where I keep saying I’ll appear, but I shouldn’t feel guilty for being in your bed instead.”
“He’s not right for you.”
“Because he happens to be here when you are?”
He shook his head, staring at her intently. “Because he has beady eyes.”
“Oh, God, Danny, stop with that.” She almost managed to rise at that point, but their legs were still tangled together. “Danny, I really should leave,” she said softly.
He shook his head stubbornly. “For what? So you can race upstairs, feed on your guilt and decide to make it up to the guy by running over there and throwing yourself into his arms? Either confessing—or not confessing—and trying to make it up with another performance?”
“No!” she protested angrily. “I would never do anything like that. It isn’t me, and you know it.”
“That’s right. You’re far too Catholic. You’d need a long hot shower, cleanse away the sin and all that.”
“Damn it, Danny, if we’d had any time at all together in the last several weeks—”
“Aha,” he murmured.
“Aha, what?”
“That’s not love,” he told her. “I mean, to come to me just because you haven’t had time with him... I’m sorry, but you’re not in love with him.”
“There’s love and then there’s sex,” she said primly.
“Yeah, and it’s a hell of a lot nicer when they go together.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, in all those years, it never actually occurred to me that you’d come back one day and declare that you actually loved me. To total distraction, above all else, et cetera, et cetera,” she murmured dryly.
“I never said that love should rule your every moment, or that it should make you behave insanely, or take precedence over everything else, like responsibilities, living, et cetera, et cetera.”
“I never know what you’re actually saying, Danny. Or what you mean. Maybe that’s half our problem.”
“There you go. You’re admitting we have a problem, which means we’re an us.”
“Danny, you are the problem.”
“I’m going to be a lot more of a problem if you keep tickling my ribs that way.”
She clenched her fingers into a fist.
“I didn’t really mean you should stop.”
“Danny, I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t have been here. I certainly shouldn’t stay.”
“But the sin has occurred already,” he said, shifting his weight so that he pinned her to the mattress. “And, you know, I really do love you.”
“Danny, I believe that you care about me.”
He groaned softly, lowering his head. His hair brushed against her breasts. She wondered how such a simple thing could feel so terribly erotic. “The sin has already been committed,” he repeated softly.
“I think it’s worse when you sin twice. Especially when you should have known better the first time.”
“That’s the point. You did know better the first time. And since you’ve already sinned, at least in your own mind, you should go with it. All the way. Everything in life should be done with passion, commitment, all the way.” His eyes rose to hers for a moment, glowing amber.
“Danny,” she murmured, “if I stay now, for a while, you can’t go thinking that...”
“That?”
“It means...”
“Don’t worry, I won’t go thinking anything. It’s simply easier, more convenient, to go for the guy in the house rather than the one outside it. Nothing personal. You need sex, just sex, hey, I’m happy to oblige.” He spoke sarcastically, but with an underlying note of bitterness that somehow dulled the anger she had felt at his words.
“No, Danny, I...”
She felt the pressure of his lips against her throat, her collarbone.
“That was rude. Uncalled for. I should...hit you,” she whispered.
“Never opt for violence,” he murmured against her breast. “And you can’t hit me, I mean, that would mean that one of us was taking this...personally.”
His hand sculpted the length of her body. Fingers caressed her flesh. Zeroed in. Moved with practice and subtle precision. He was her every breath, close, hot. Breathing Danny was too easy, too natural, as familiar and electric as life...
“Damn you, Danny,” she murmured.
“My name...how personal and intimate,” he said. “It’s only courteous to respond in kind.”
His caress traveled the length of her.
Very personally, very intimately.
“Danny...” It came out like a long moan when she said his name again.
“I’ve always believed in actions rather than words.”