“I see.” Kneeling before her, he looked up with a feral grin. “I’m sure I can manage to be inarticulate.”
He then employed his mouth to render her so thoroughly wordless herself, she could not even recall the witty rejoinder she had intended to make. Her legs trembled to such a degree, he had to hold them steady with his hands. Her voice floated away on a cloud of warm, blissful breath. As she watched the rose-gold sunset shimmer and blur in her dazed vision, she realized he was doing again what he’d done all through their relationship—silencing her with pleasure. Using intimacy like a barrier against the truths neither of them dared to articulate.
“Stop,” she gasped.
He obediently abandoned his endeavors and instead kissed his way up her body, as if racing toward her mouth before she could say another thing.
“No, I mean stop altogether, if you please.”
He sat back, and both of them took a moment to breathe. Then he stood, all six feet of him moving like a weapon even in his nakedness, casting a heavy shadow against the wall. He cupped a calloused, scarred hand against her face.
“Are you all right?”
But Charlotte found she could not speak again, spellbound by the concern so apparent in his eyes. The house shook on a sudden updrafteven as her pulse was shaking, and they stumbled, falling in a tangle on the bed that Charlotte had come to love for its lush, comfortable messiness (although she planned to fumigate the entire room around it). Alex gathered her to him, steadying her softness against all his hard places. For a moment it looked as if he might start kissing her again, so she laid a hand against his heart.
“I want to talk.”
“Talk?” he said, as if he did not understand the concept.
“Yes. There is much of importance we should discuss, now that we have eloped.” She gathered a list of well-considered topics in her mind, lined them up neatly, and was about to announce the first when suddenly she found her voice tumbling out ahead of her...
“I imagine when Cecilia Bassingthwaite ran away with a pirate,shewas entirely dignified?”
Alex frowned slightly. “Why are we talking about Cecilia in this moment?”
“And she has proper red hair.”
“Um?”
“On the other hand, it takes a witch to fly a bicycle.”
Alex’s mouth twitched as if he was trying to repress a smile. “Charlotte, are you afraid of Cecilia Bassingthwaite?”
Charlotte scoffed. “What a ridiculous question. That’s enough talking; let’s kiss.” She moved toward him, but he leaned back, touching a finger to her lips.
“It is safe to be frightened, you know.”
“Ha.” She almost bit his finger. “So says the deadly pirate.”
“Oh, I am afraid all the time,” he answered, and then winced as if immediately regretting the words.
Charlotte looked at him soberly. He was smiling in the wry, sharp manner she recognized as a defense, and she abruptly forgot all herown vulnerability in response to his. “Because of your childhood?” she asked as softly as she could after a lifetime of speaking feral magic.
“I suppose,” he said, and his gaze slid from hers into a darkness she realized not even love had yet banished.
She clutched his bare arms, holding him from sliding too far. “Tell me what frightens you, so I can break it into pieces and sweep it away.”
He gave a brusque laugh. “Not even you could manage that, Lottie my love.”
“Oh?” She hooked a leg over his, the silk of her stocking slipping up and down his skin. “Are you underestimating me, Captain O’Riley?”
His smile trembled as he looked back at her. “Never. And really, it’s nothing. Poverty. Love. Memory. God. Go ahead and scoff at me, I deserve it.”
Charlotte’s eyes filled with a darkness of her own as she returned his gaze. “I would never scoff at that, or deny the courage it takes to live a fierce, fun, piratic life despite such a shadow on the heart. Iamafraid of Cecilia Bassingthwaite. Not that she will hurt me, but that she might not like me. I am afraid constantly of doing the wrong thing. Saying the wrong thing. Being burned alive for witchcraft. Loneliness. Myself.”
“Ouch.” He kissed her temple, her brow, the corner of her mouth. “Those are some heavy fears.”
“As are yours. And yet still you smuggle food into Ireland to feed the poor, even though you were hurt so badly there, you’ve repressed your natural accent.”
