The O'Madden: A Novella (The Celtic Legends Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

the fresh, sweet taste of her, virgin and innocent and hot-blooded. The fullness of her hips in his hands, and the fierce, undeniable yearning that only comes to a man once in a lifetime, if he has the luck.
    She struggled in his grip and pulled away. “Don’t.”
    “You want this as much as I do.”
    “It d oesn’t matter what I want. It was best, leaving you. I never thought you’d come after me.”
    “A man is never satisfied with one taste of heaven, a stór .”
    “A man is supposed to want a woman to leave.” She paced unevenly in the dimness, running her fingers through her hair. “Men dream about such women who leave them willingly after such a night.”
    “There are nights, lass, and then there are nights .”
    “ Don’t talk like that.” She dropped her hands and wrung them in her apron. “This cannot be.”
    “You shouldn’t have run away from me.”
    “Isn’t it time that a woman ran away from a man?” She backed away, stumbling over an empty pail set by a milking stall. “It’s always the man running away from a woman after he’s had his way.”
    “You must have heard that rubbish from the same person who told you men grunt and have done with it.”
    She hung the pail on a peg and then leaned her forehead against the wood. “Why couldn’t you be like other men?”
    “Why couldn’t y ou be a woman who clings and demands more than a man could give? I searched for you for two days. I thought I’d lost you for good.”
    “You don’t know me.”
    “I might know more about you than any other, lass.”
    “M aybe you know who I’d like to be, if I had been born into a different life.”  She turned her back to him. “But you know nothing of me or of my place here in this castle.”
    “ We’ll have time enough for that.”
    He wrapped his arms around her. This time she did not resist. Her hair smelled of sweet summer grass. The memory caused the blood to rush out of his head. He’d had plenty of women in his life. He’d enjoyed whores who worked the quays of Wexford, some hard-bitten by life, others soft-hearted despite the wear of their work. He’d kept one of his own for a while, a mite of a girl with big brown eyes, but the warmth he’d felt for her was like that of a distant young cousin. The time came when he stopped frolicking with her and set her up instead in a laundress’s establishment, so she wouldn’t have to ply her wares on the docks where a woman aged too swiftly. So, yes, his experiences were with work-hardened women, pleased to be having a man who took some pleasure in pleasing them. Not with a sensuous innocent who touched him with wonder in her eyes. Not with an Irishwoman of such soft hair, of such sweet scent, of such mystery.
    He’d wanted her the minute he’d spied her across the heat of that All Hallows’ Eve fire. It was if she’d been standing there waiting for him for a lifetime. Now he found her on his own lands. If he hadn’t seen the surprise in her own eyes, if he didn’t sense her resisting him, even now, he would think the whole thing was a ruse. But he was never a man to question an unexpected gift.
    He murmured, “We were fated, Maeve.”
    “Don’t talk to me of fate.” She curled her fingers over his fo rearms. “We had an evening. A moment in the time between the times. But the world goes on.”
    “Are you married?”
    “You know that I am not.”
    “Then all that matters is that you are free.”
    “Marriage is not the only thing that can bind a woman.”
    “I’m the lord of this place now. I can destroy any ties that bind you.”
    “ You’re talking foolishness, crazy foolishness.” She pushed out of the circle of his arms and edged away from him. “You’ve flattered me, Garrick, and for that I’m grateful more than you can possibly know. But this is a dangerous game you play. You must be moving on. At the breath of a whim the earl could decide to send another of his wretched sons-in-law to suck the life out of this