Fated for Sacrifice Read online

  Dáire would have laughed at the prospect of his siblings missing them, if it weren’t for the way Reese’s honesty sent fire surging through his blood. Fitting his hands on her hips, he lifted her up, turned her around, and set her on the edge of the wide desk. “No,” he whispered against the corner of her mouth. He released her to give her sweater a tug and drag it over her head. As it hit the ground, he held her gaze. “Not at all.”

  Her eyelashes fluttered against her high cheekbones, veiling those glorious eyes of soft brown. She leaned back on her hands, a position that thrust her breasts forward. Dáire swallowed hard and edged his way between her slightly spread knees. He dipped his head and traced the soft swell of flesh that rose above the lace of her bra.

  Point of no return.

  The thought flitted through his brain an instant before he nudged the lace aside and closed his lips around her dusky nipple. The muted cry that tumbled out of her throat made that silent acknowledgement impossible to deny. His soul shuddered with the fierce rise of need she aroused. He gave it free reign, losing himself to the incredible pleasure she offered.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Reese couldn’t find satisfaction fast enough. Her body felt afire, her thoughts a jumbled mess of conflicting needs. She wanted Dáire’s mouth, his hands, the weight of his body trapping her in place, all at the same time. And yet, none of it came anywhere close to filling the gaping maw of sensation that threatened to tear her into pieces.

  As he bent over her, she leaned back to her elbows. His body followed, his muscular chest cushioning her breasts as his hands worked at the button to her jeans. Dimly, she realized that she’d been wearing the same outfit for two days now. Tom wouldn’t have come within five feet of touching her. Dáire though…

  Once again, he amazed her with his simple acceptance. His complete lack of superficial judgment. Her heart tripped a beat, and she breathed in a sharp breath. How could she have been so foolish for so long?

  Dáire’s hair scraped over her skin, a delightful tickle as he skated his mouth down the centerline of her body to her abdomen. His breath fell at her waist, his tongue tracing teasing circles at her bottom rib, while he pushed her jeans down her hips, over her knees. Her underwear went with the denim, leaving her exposed to his hungry perusal.

  His gaze lifted to hers, dark and electrifying. “Lean back.”

  Reese reclined onto a red desk blotter and let out a blissful sigh. She closed her eyes, shivering as Dáire’s warm palm molded around the curve of her hip to the underside of her thigh. Taunting fingers pressed into the sensitive inner flesh of her knee and guided her legs further apart.

  Her breath lodged in her throat. She knew what was coming, knew where that intoxicating mouth would land. And God help her, the anticipation that built as his breath hovered at the juncture of her thigh was a torment unlike any she’d ever encountered. She turned her head, curled her hands against the smooth wood finish. Shifted her hips.

  Time moved in slow motion as he guided one leg over his strong shoulder and lowered himself to his knees. His lips fluttered against the inside of her knee. The whisper of his breath broke goose bumps across her skin, and she shifted again, unable to endure much more of the waiting.

  But Dáire took his time, despite his earlier demanding insistence. He trailed open-mouthed kisses up first one leg, then the other, teasing her each time his breath dusted across her most sensitive place. She lifted her hips in search of the contact she needed. In answer, he ran the tip of his tongue down her thigh once more.

  It was too much. Reese bit down on her lower lip as a plaintive mewl broke through her tight throat.

  “Like that, sweetheart?” Dáire asked against her knee.

  Like it? Was he insane? She was going to come apart at the seams here if he kept up the slow, agonizing bliss. “Oh, for the love of God, touch me,” she pleaded on a ragged whisper.

  A long moment of nothing hung between them. Reese’s jagged breathing rang in her ears. Dáire’s stillness left her nerves standing on end, her body straining for his touch.

  Then, his hair tickled the tops of her thighs. His mouth fluttered at the hollow of her leg and abdomen. Her womb clamped down hard, and Reese arched her hips.

  The tip of his tongue slid deftly through her moist folds, drawing a throaty groan from the depths of her soul. Rising into the intimate caress, she lifted one hand to his hair and twined the long auburn locks between her fingers. Her body moved of its own designs, countering the masterful stroke of his tongue.

  Pleasure blistered through her veins. She bit it back, determined not to yield until Dáire was at that point of ecstasy as well. She wanted him there with her when she tumbled off the edge of sanity into the cavern of sensation. Wanted him every bit as lost and fractured.

  But her intentions were lost on Dáire. As if his singular thought centered on solely her pleasure, he braced an arm on her abdomen, holding her in place, forbidding her to retreat from the storm of sensation. Each press of his lips, each ever-so-slight nip of his teeth, each damning thrust of that silken tongue nudged her higher, until she could rise no more. Ecstasy crested, washing over her in unrelenting waves. She curled her nails into his scalp, consumed by the tide of feeling. His name slipped off her lips, and she hooked her leg around his shoulders, holding him in place while bliss enveloped her.

  Before Reese could fully descend from the heights he took her to, the warmth of his mouth disappeared. Dimly, she felt him move, recognized the lowering of her leg. Somewhere between the high-pitched ringing in her ears, she heard the sound of him undressing.

  His hands fitted around her hips, and he tipped them forward. She opened her eyes, meeting his gaze for a heart-stopping moment as pushed his hips forward and slid deep inside her over-sensitized flesh. A cry slipped free, then another, the feeling too much, too enormous for her brain to process. She writhed on the desk, torn between needing more and needing a moment to gather her senses.

  ****

  Dáire’s body shuddered with violent need as Reese’s hips twisted around him. His fingers bit into her hipbones, trying to hold her still, trying to temper the burning desire in his veins. He never should have indulged so thoroughly. Should have answered her subtle requests to bring her to fulfillment earlier, as opposed to drawing her climax out. He’d been so caught up in experiencing her bliss, that he had nearly spilled himself onto the carpet.

  Now, it was every thing he could do to hold on long enough for her to fight her way through the aftershocks and settle in his arms.

  “Easy, Reese,” he ground out through clenched teeth. Mentally, he counted prime numbers. Two, three, five, seven…

  Reese’s fingernails sank into his forearms and another spasm of pleasure gripped him tight. She twisted her head side to side, bucked her hips. Dáire let out a hiss.

  Eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-three…

  “Dáire, please…” She writhed again. “I can’t…”

  Unable to focus on anything but the raw quality of her voice and the swivel of her hips, Dáire pushed her body away, withdrawing almost completely from her feminine warmth. To hell with it. He couldn’t get past the prime number 37 on a good day, and certainly not with Reese coming apart beneath him. Somewhere she’d gone past the point of descending from climax and surged right into the rise of passion once again.

  She moved with him, countering his thrust with unspoken demand. Pushing him to let go, though she couldn’t possibly know what doing so might awaken. If he’d left their mental link intact, he might have been able to subliminally coerce her into slowing down. But he’d terminated that, and now, all he could do was surrender to the wild desire that ran rampant in his blood. Desire that was fueled to intolerable limits by the wicked calling of his dark soul.

  He gripped Reese’s hips tight and drove into her high and hard. She let out a soft, short moan, and her hold on his arms became painful. Short manicured nails bit into his skin. The strength of her grip surprised
him.

  It also spiraled him headlong into unabashed passion. As she lifted to meet his demanding thrusts, he gave over to nature’s most intimate dance. He glided in and out of her body, lost himself to the perfect way she gloved him tight, the way she brought him home as if they had been designed for this singular purpose.

  Ecstasy spiked, and he let it consume him. His hips spasmed, his fingers tightened to the point of cruelty. And yet, he couldn’t stop the clenching of everything he was as indescribable pleasure saturated the depths of his tormented soul. He barked her name, dropped his head to her dampened shoulder to prevent a louder cry from escaping.

  Tremor after tremor rippled down his spine as their bodies slowed. Hesitantly, he drew in a shallow breath, half afraid to discover that his lungs had ceased to function. When air crept in and filled the tight crevice behind his chest, his shoulders relaxed. Buried inside her warm heat, another spasm gripped him, and then, the tension left the base of his spine.

  With shaking limbs, he worked his hands beneath Reese’s back and held her tight. He had wanted the desk so he could witness her splayed out before him. Now, he wished he’d had the foresight to employ the leather couch. Exhaustion pressed down on his shoulders, and he could feel the same weariness in the absent caress of her hand as she smoothed it down his spine.

  He turned his head to her throat and whispered, “Loop your arms around my neck.”

  A lazy smile smoothed across her mouth as she obeyed. Dáire withdrew from her glorious warmth and cradled her close, maneuvering her into his arms. When her legs wrapped partly around his waist, he turned and carried her to the sofa to lay her down on the supple cushions.

  So vulnerable. She would be so easy to manipulate…

  Dáire blinked as his sire’s vile blood awakened to the picture of Reese lying on the couch, her long hair spilling off the edge of the cushions and a sated smile lighting her pretty eyes. Annoyed by the intrusion of darkness, he closed his eyes and breathed deeply, summoning the strength of his mother’s lighter half.

  While it rose and suffocated the darkness, Dáire’s spirit flinched against the effort required to temper his foul half. He didn’t dare stretch out beside Reese as he longed to do. He was on the edge. One step away from a damnable fall. If he slept, if he let down his defenses that long, only the ancestors knew what might befall him when he awakened.

  Instead, he bent over Reese and brushed a kiss over her forehead. “You’ve had a long morning. Why don’t you rest a bit? I’ll come wake you up in a little bit.”

  She let out a shaky chuckle. “Everyone will know.”

  Dáire shrugged. “I didn’t bring you over here because you play a mean game of tennis.”

  An emotion he couldn’t decipher flickered across her face. “No, you didn’t.” Her gaze lifted, and the smile she summoned didn’t light her eyes. “You brought me here because you want that scroll.”

  Though her voice was little more than contemplative whisper, the effect carried an iron punch. Guilt slammed into him. Yes, he had. Yes, he wanted that scroll. But if she believed that was the only reason he’d introduced her to Rhiannon…

  Dáire hunkered down at her side, caught her hand, and brought her knuckles to his lips. “Reese, it’s so much more than that.”

  When she nodded, he gave her hand a squeeze and rose. “Get some rest, sweetheart. I’ll bring you lunch.”

  Too afraid he would see disbelief, or worse disappointment, in her delicate features, he didn’t look back as he went to the door. He couldn’t tolerate Reese’s disappointment—his was weight enough.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Reese lay in the quiet, watching the sunlight dance across the floor as it filtered in between the thick wooden slats of the venetian blind on the balcony door. She didn’t know exactly how long she’d been asleep, but judging from the long hues of red-orange, it was sundown. If the untouched bowl of soup on the floor in front of her was any indication, Dáire had come back for lunch. She’d probably mumbled something along the lines of getting it in a minute, only to fall back asleep again.

  Her rising chuckle strangled as Dáire’s parting words surfaced in her head. It’s so much more than that.

  Was it? If she had never discovered that scroll, would she be here now, her heart aching with the love she felt for him and the paralyzing fear that if she gave up the scroll Dáire would vanish from her life?

  As she fingered the blanket now covering her, she shook her head and chastised herself for being a ninny. In all the time she’d known Dáire, she’d never know him to blatantly lie. At most, he dodged around subjects that made him uncomfortable. Came up with answers that satisfied, but never really answered anything at all.

  Reese sighed and sat up. The rest of what Dáire had said this morning hovered at the fringes of her mind. She didn’t want to think about it. It confused her too much. Demons, magic, immortality and sacrifice—she’d never heard anything more impossible. And yet, despite the absolute lack of logic in that conversation, she trusted it more than the exchange she’d just had with Dáire.

  Because she loved him, and she was desperately afraid that once again she’d made a poor decision when it came to men.

  “Stop it,” she chastised herself. “It doesn’t matter if his feelings are the same.” She refused to regret the beauty of the last two days. He wasn’t Tom; he hadn’t tried to hide her. He even made love to her when she hadn’t showered.

  And there was only one way to truly answer her fears.

  Sliding out of the comfort of the warm fleece blanket, she crossed to her clothes and dressed with shaking hands. Beyond the closed door, the low laughter of a close-knit family pulled at her heart. She’d fit in here. Loved being a part of Dáire’s family. She liked Faith and her wholesome goodness. She’d like to see the baby when it came. Like to be invited to celebrate with the rest of the family.

  Cringing, Reese ordered her rising nerves into submission. There was nothing to indicate that Dáire was only using her for the scroll. He wasn’t like Tom, who considered her a pretty trophy to flaunt around. She had no reason to fear the outcome of what she was about to do.

  Still, the past was hard to forget. It had taken way too long to realize how Tom truly saw her. Too many years she didn’t have to waste again. She was almost thirty-three. She didn’t have another five years to throw away, only to be faced with starting over again at thirty-seven.

  Reese stared at the door, willing the pounding of her heart to subside. It’s Dáire. He’s never lied to you before.

  If she didn’t go now, she’d lose her nerve.

  She lifted her chin, went to the door, and pulled it open. For several moments, she stood in the doorway, straining to hear the laughter she’d heard moments earlier. But it had died away, replaced by hushed words she couldn’t quite make out.

  She took two steps into the hallway, and Belen’s voice rose enough to drift to her ears. “You’re playing with fire, Dáire. Trust me, it will burn you. Can you make that sacrifice?”

  “I’ll have to. I don’t have a choice. The ancestors will do what they will.”

  Reese’s brow puckered. Ancestors? Now what was Dáire rambling on about?

  “Look, without the scroll, the ritual can’t be completed.” Mick joined in as Reese took another handful of steps closer to the front room. “If we don’t complete it, that bastard will reign forever. I don’t know about you, but I don’t particularly want to spend the rest of my life dependant on Rhiannon’s charms. I say Dáire does whatever he feels is necessary to get this accomplished.”

  Including lie to her? Pretend he wanted to stick around when he intended to leave? Reese frowned as the vicious thoughts rose again. She shoved them aside, lifted her chin, and quietly entered the front room. Dáire sat on the couch, his back to her, facing Rhiannon and Isolde, neither of whom looked Reese’s way. Mick leaned toward Dáire on his left, arguing with Belen, who sat across from him.

  “I’m not worried about him,” Be
len countered. “Her. Is it fair to her to put her through that?”

  At his remark, Reese lifted an eyebrow. Put her through what exactly? Enough of this. The speculation ended here. She cleared her throat, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. “Sorry I passed out on you all.”

  Dáire shot to his feet and hurried to her side. While his siblings assured her they didn’t mind, he bent to kiss her cheek. Reese turned her head, afraid if he touched her, she’d become lost in all the feeling he aroused and let everything go to her head once more. Instead, she met his questioning blue gaze with a timid smile. “Where’s my coat?”

  Puzzlement creased his brow as he pointed toward the baby grand piano where the coats were piled. “There, why?”

  Without bothering to explain, she wove her way around the furnishings and fished her coat out from under Dáire’s. From inside the lapel pocket, she withdrew the runic parchment that was causing such a fuss. Using it as a pointer, she indicated the hall. “Could I see you for a minute?”

  Dáire’s frown darkened as he nodded.

  “Can I get you anything to eat, Reese?” Isolde asked as she passed by the small gathering.

  Reese smiled. “No thanks. I’m good.” She’d be leaving soon enough anyway. Off to a hotel where she could sleep without worry of Taran, and without Dáire. He could have all of tonight to think about what she intended to say in a few seconds.

  Following Dáire, she entered the hall, and he pulled the doors to the room shut behind them. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

  “Fine.” Her stomach was in knots, her heart was racing, but she was fine. If she said it enough, she might actually believe it too. “So this scroll—”