Sticks and Stone (5 page)

With a hoarse cry, he exploded within her. She clung to
him, shaking, as her orgasm ripped through her, a second one following
immediately afterwards. And still his hot seed spurted into her, filling her
completely and spilling out to pool beneath her hips.

They were crying
,
sobbing with
the glory of their final release, holding each other as the tearful shudders
finally subsided. Still locked in an intimate embrace, they rolled beneath the
covers and slid into exhausted sleep.

* * * * *

Eileen woke to a confused sense of being trapped. She
opened her eyes to see the man she’d rescued during the night sprawled beside
her, the tangled bedclothes pulled over her and around him, pinning her to the
bed. Cautiously, not wanting to wake the exhausted man, she inched out from
under the cocooning covers.

As soon as her arms were free, she pulled herself into a
seated position. She reached to push the covers off of her legs,
then
saw the rusty stain flaking off of her palms.
Blood.
The man’s blood.

“By the sacred circle,” she whispered. “What have I
done?”

She buried her face in her hands, unable to look at the
evidence of her shame. That she, not just a practitioner of the light but a
guide to thousands of others through her books and lectures, should have
behaved so! She had struck him, again and again, for her own selfish pleasure.
She was no better than the dryad, beating him until he bled.

She felt him stir beside her, but could not bear to look
at him, not after what she had done.

“Good morning,” he said softly, his American accent
strangely sharp to her ears. Was he angry at her for using him so?

Taking a deep breath, Eileen lowered her hands and
looked at the man. He was smiling.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” he said.
“For rescuing me from that hideous tree creature, and for what you
did afterward.”

She shook her head, amazed at his foolishness. “I struck
you.”

Rather than showing justifiable anger, his smile
deepened. “Yes.”

He was remarkably dense, even for an American. She held
out her hand, still streaked with his blood, and waved it in front of his face.
“You were hurt.
Bleeding.
And I struck you.”

Now he did frown, but not in anger. His brow furrowed,
and he glanced from her hand to her face.

The warmth faded from his expression. He could have been
carved from stone. “I should not have asked you to. I apologize. Thank you for
your assistance, and I won’t trouble you again.”

He turned as if to leave, and she grabbed his shoulder,
wrenching him back to face her.

“Are all Americans as thick as week old pudding? You
apologize, when it is I who
have
injured you?
And I a priestess!”

He blinked.
“A priestess?
Of…what, exactly?”

“Of the light, of course.
Did you think
Ireland just happened to be filled with stones that glowed of their own will
and power?”

“I don’t understand.”

Eileen took a deep breath. “No, of course you’d not. I’m
a priestess of the light, what you would call a witch. One of our most sacred
tenets is ‘Do what thou wilt,
an
it
harm none.’ And I have harmed you. Now, are you seeing
my wrong?”

He shook his head. “Honestly, no. I don’t see anything
of the kind. You saved my life. And I asked you to give me an ass-slapping.
Begged you, if I recall correctly.”

Heat blazed in her cheeks and she looked away. She
recalled begging him for a few things, too. But in her case, they’d brought
only pleasure, not pain.

She smoothed her hand over the coverlet, flattening the
wrinkles, wishing she could restore order to everything so easily.

“It’s filled with the dryad’s magic, you were.” Hearing
herself falling back into the lilting brogue of her youth, Eileen shook her
head. “You were not to have known. But I knew. The wrong is mine.”

The man blew out his breath in a sharp huff.
“Fine.
If your religion says you were wrong, you were wrong.
I assume there’s a penalty?”

She nodded, and gathered her tattered composure. When
she spoke again, she had once again mastered her tongue.
“The
law of three.
All that we do, for good or ill, returns
to us threefold.”

“So you’re saying if I slap your ass three times as many
times as you hit mine, we’ll be even and everything will be all right again?”

Eileen groaned.
Americans.
“Then you would have caused harm to me, and that harm would be visited
threefold upon you.”

His arm snaked its way beneath the covers to find and
caress her hip. Startled, she finally looked at him. He was smiling.

“I can live with that.”

Dermot grinned at the woman’s wide-eyed expression. He
shouldn’t tease her, not when she was so obviously distressed over what she
perceived as a fatal flaw in her character. But he seemed unable to convince
her that, far from hurting him, she’d helped him.

Maybe his words couldn’t convince her. But he could show
her.

Gliding his fingertips in soft circles over her hip, he
coaxed, “If you’re so convinced you’ve done something wrong, I know how you
could apologize.”

“But I have—”

“No. We have a saying, actions speak louder than words.”

Slowly, she nodded.
“
Ní
bheathaíonn
na
briathra
na
braíthre
.
Words do not feed the
friars.”

He pulled her back beneath the rumpled covers, until she
was stretched out beside him. His fingers danced over her ribcage to stroke and
fondle her breast. Dermot scraped a light circle around her aureole with his
fingernail, smiling at her sudden intake of breath. Palming her soft mound of
flesh, he rotated his hand slowly, then faster, then slowly again.

Her nipple hardened against his palm. Lifting his hand,
he flicked the tight bud with his fingertip.

She moaned, and he smelled the sudden musky scent of her
desire. This was going to be even easier than he thought.

Slowly, carefully, he lifted himself up and moved over
her, kneeling between her legs. All the while, his fingers continued to flick
and stroke her breast.

Leaning down, he replaced his hand with his mouth. She
sighed as he swallowed half her breast, his tongue alternately swirling around
it and rasping across the sensitive tip.

Her fingers crept up, as if moving without her conscious
volition, and buried themselves in his hair, pressing his head tight to her
breast. She wanted him to suckle her, but that wasn’t what he had in mind.

No longer needing his hand to play with her breast,
Dermot reached down between her legs to find a new playground. His fingers
slipped easily through the wet folds, already spread in welcome, and found the
swollen bud of her desire.

His tongue swirled around her nipple, as his thumb
circled her bud. Then he flicked his tongue across her nipple, at the same time
flicking her heated bud.

She gasped, her hips rising, and warm liquid flowed
across his fingers. His hardened cock jumped, eager to enter her willing
warmth.

A low growl of frustration escaped him. He’d been trying
to ignore his cock, focusing on the woman beneath him and her reactions. Now
was not the time to search for
his own
satisfaction.
He was trying to show her something.

Again, he flicked both nipple and bud. Again, she gasped
and opened more for him. He wasn’t going to be able to resist her body’s mute
entreaty much longer.

His cock hummed like a high tension wire, heavy and hot
and aching to slide into her wet depths. And he would, he promised himself.
Later.
First, he had a lesson to teach her.

Lifting his head, he stroked her breast with his lips,
until only her pebbled nipple remained in his mouth. She moaned, and whispered
an incomprehensible Gaelic entreaty. Her hips lifted and fell, seeking
fulfillment, trying to drive her swollen flesh against his fingers. But his
hand moved with her, riding her, so that her only relief was the teasing flick
of his fingers timed with the flick of his tongue.
That only
enflamed her more.

Her head whipped restlessly from side to side, and her
fingers convulsed in his hair. She began to whimper softly, her cries growing
steadily in volume. His fingers slipped, unable to keep his grip on the pulsing
bud in the flood of eager liquid flowing from her.

She lifted her hips, seeking to follow up on her brief
advantage. It was the perfect moment.

Finding the swollen bud again, Dermot pinched it
lightly, just as his teeth closed around her nipple in a love bite.

She screamed, lifting her hips nearly a foot off of the
bed, and the hot flood of her satisfaction bathed his hand. She held the pose,
her body bent into a quivering arch, for ten long seconds. Then she collapsed.
Tremors continued to ripple through her limp body.

She blinked slowly, gradually opening her eyes and
focusing on his face. He tried not to look smug, but suspected his masculine
pride still showed upon his face.

“What did you do to me?” she whispered.

“Did you like it?”

“Aye.
It’s pudding I am.
Hot, happy pudding.”

Dermot schooled his features to show concern. “But I bit
you.
And pinched you.”

“Did you
now
?”

She was still too far gone in the aftereffects of her
orgasm to understand what he was trying to show her. He’d have to speak more
directly.

“I broke your law. I harmed you.”

“Oh and truth, there’s no harm done.
Quite
the opposite.”

“Even though I bit you?
And pinched you?
Both of those are painful, aren’t they?”

She blinked again, marshaling her scattered wits. Then
her eyes widened.

“I thank you for your teaching. There was no harm done
last night, was there?”

He smiled, and stroked her sweat dampened cheek.
“Quite the opposite.”

Dermot trailed his fingers around her ear, pushing her
honey gold hair away from her eyes. He hadn’t noticed last night, but it looked
like it would frame her alabaster face in soft curls—once it was brushed, that
is. Right now, it was flattened from where she’d slept on it and streaked with
sweat. The sight made him want to bury his face in her hair, inhaling the scent
of her, and teasing his cheek with a thousand soft caresses. Instead, he ran
his fingers through it, while he studied her face and eyes.

Wide and clear, her eyes were a peculiar shade midway
between blue and green. He wasn’t certain if they were really blue, and only
colored with a reflection of the emerald green pillow-case she lay on, or if
they were truly so unique. Her nose was small and gently rounded, above dark
red lips swollen with passion.

He remembered those lips, feathering his cock with
tender kisses as she slowly swallowed him. His cock jumped, aching at the
thought of entering the warm cave of her mouth again. Despite the exhausting
events of last night, just looking at this woman was enough to make him hard
again.

He trailed a fingertip across her lips, parting their
seam. Slipping his finger inside, he stroked the wet fullness of her lower lip,
and pictured the head of his cock teasing her this way. His cock pulsed with
swollen desire, a painful pleasure Dermot wanted to extend forever.

As if she knew what he was thinking,
the woman’s tongue wrapped around his finger, drawing it deeper into her mouth.
He groaned. Then
she began sucking on it.

His groin was on fire. The leaping flames were swelling
his cock like a cooked sausage. He was going to burst unless he cooled himself
in her flowing waters. The agony was unendurable. He hoped it never stopped.

He realized he was grunting softly, in time with the
seductive pull of her mouth.

Pulling his finger free, he silenced himself by closing
his mouth over hers. Their kiss was hard, savage, an openmouthed duel of teeth
and tongues. He tasted blood, but neither of them could stop now.

She pulled his tongue deeply into her mouth, sucking
hard, and Dermot’s eyes crossed as the pleasure tore through him.

He covered her body with his, her tender breasts crushed
beneath his chest, her stomach quivering against his hard, hot cock. Driving
one hand deeply into her hair, he held her head and thrust his tongue as far
into her throat as he could. With his other hand, he reached between their
bodies, searching for the swollen bud he’d so recently teased.