Blood In Fire (Celtic Elementals Book 2) Read online

  She came arching against his tongue before she was really awake. Then he used his fingers to make her come again. Then his fingers and tongue together. Over and over until it seemed like she’d been in that room, in that bed forever. Being plunged into one orgasm after another, wave after wave of pleasure tumbling her in delicious riptide she couldn’t break free of.

  Heather couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t move except to buckle and shake and scream under his hands.

  Aidan was unstoppable. She was absolutely limp before he moved over her. That lithe, powerful body hovering above her trembling one. The mere touch of his breath against her skin made her whimper.

  She was too weak to even lift her hands until he slid inside of her in one quick, hard thrust that slammed the headboard against the wall.

  The sound of the brass frame against paneling sang through the room like the clang of a bell while the force of Aidan’s invasion ripped through Heather’s hypersensitive body. Her back bowed off the bed and her mouth opened to scream again, but she couldn’t make a sound. She could only feel.

  Him. Deep inside of her. Thick and demanding and hot. Her hands slapped against his chest, found the smooth, bunched hardness of his shoulders and held on as he rode her until she came again. Her inner muscles clamped down on him so viciously she had the satisfaction of seeing his beautiful eyes roll back in his head before his cry joined her silent one.

  Heather lay there after, slick with sweat, unable do more than breath, each pulse of him inside her like an exquisite, electrical shock. This man made her do things, feel things that she hadn’t even dreamed were possible. She liked to think she knew what good sex was, but Aidan O’Neill increasingly made what she once thought of as 'good' seem rather pathetic.

  The night before he had reveled in holding her on the edge for hours, not letting her go over but bringing her again and again to within a hair’s breadth of orgasm over and over. She had screamed until her throat was raw, then begged in a whisper. She had done everything he wanted and more.

  Just as he had said she would.

  Her release then had been crushing, but this…

  Heather jumped like a scalded cat when she felt his finger run down her arm. His chuckle made her shiver, goose bumps breaking out in a thousand different places, all of them sore.

  “Ready for more?”

  She gasped. “You can’t be serious.”

  He moved experimentally and Heather’s breath hissed out in a near scream.

  “You’ll kill us both!”

  “Hmmm, death by orgasm, no' a bad way to go, love. But I think we are in need of a break.” He cocked his head, watching her face as he slowly pulled out of her. Heather’s fingers dug into the sheets at the sensation, trying to hold on as it felt like she could simply fall off the edge of the world,and keep falling until she floated away into nothing.

  She focused on Aidan’s eyes and the falling feeling gradually settled into something warm and heavy deep inside her. Centering her.

  Heather took a breath and was proud when she got the words out without her voice shaking…much.

  “What kind of a break did you have in mind?”

  His mind had showers first in line, separate ones, blessedly. If the man had tried touching her again so soon, Heather felt like her mind would shatter.

  She also knew with a bone deep certainty she wouldn’t have been able to resist him had he tried.

  Thankfully, Aidan didn’t put her theory to the test. They dressed. Aidan making a call that had a bag delivered to her door within fifteen minutes, from which he pulled a rich, blue Henley he shrugged into negligently. Until he caught her look.

  “What?”

  “It’s just…” Heather waved a hand at the rest of his clothes helplessly, feeling silly. He had been so unrelenting clad in black the night before, and it had suited him, down to the ground.

  He laughed, catching her unarticulated question easily.

  “Oh, I like the dark well enough, but once in a while a change is in order.” The easy words seemed to have a hidden meaning, but she couldn’t decipher it. Looking at him was too damn distracting.

  If Aidan was tantalizing in black, the deep blue made him devastating. His crystal eyes caught the color, blazing in his angular face, set against those dark gold curls that were still damp and coiled tightly from his shower.

  “What?” He said again, more exasperatedly this time. Heather just shook her head and slipped into her own clothes.

  This one, she thought, didn’t need any compliments. He’d eat them—and her—right up if she even tried.

  It was Istanbul, so Heather choose her clothes with care, not sure where Aidan intended to take her and not wanting to ask. He was all about uncharted territory and she didn’t want to spoil the spell. She finally settled on a silky green dress that fell from her shoulders like a waterfall, clinging to all the good parts, but holding on to demure….if only barely.

  Heather twisted her mass of inky hair up off her shoulders and pinned it into a loose chignon, letting silky tendrils escape here and there. She slipped on a pair of sandals and a long, shimmering pair of silver earrings. Aidan didn’t comment on her appearance either, but there was an appreciative gleam in his eyes that pleased her more than words could have.

  The night was dazzling, a deep and gauzy purple sparkling with faint stars, that stretched over the golden city. Before long, she realized they were heading for the old market. The perpetual haze that crept along the river during the day was fading in the cool night air and the branches of the linden trees swayed. The leaves seemed to whisper to each other as she and Aidan passed under them.

  It should have been romantic, but the Grand Bazaar at night was a little creepy. The ancient stone arched ahead of them and there didn’t seem to be a soul in sight. Heather could catch the faint smells that would have been overwhelming here a few hours ago; spices, perfume, the heavy scent of ripe fruit and the fading musk of hundreds of bodies ripe with the sun’s heat. The slap of her sandals against the stone echoed against the old walls that had seen so much.

  Then another sound slipped under that, soft and stealthy behind them.

  The muscles of Aidan's arm didn’t so much tense under her hand as hum, like a lightly plucked sitar string. He turned, his fingers casually flicking hers from him. Instinctively, Heather took a step away, giving him room as she saw what had closed in behind them.

  It was four, no—five men. Her stomach went cold.

  They were of varying heights and sizes, thick and skinny, heavy and short, clad in the cast-off hodgepodge of clothes and miasma that spoke ruffian in every language. All eyed Aidan appraisingly, and snuck glances her way that lingered like an oily touch. Heather was frozen, unable to decide whether to run or scream, her throat dry with terror. And that was before she saw the flash of knives in more than one filthy hand.

  “Aye, what have we here?” Aidan’s tone wasn’t exactly calm, but it definitely was not frightened. His body language was loose and relaxed. There was an undercurrent there, though.

  Was the son of a bitch actually eager?

  The men facing him seemed as confused as Heather. They cocked their heads almost as one, which would have looked comical if the whole situation wasn’t so goddamn terrifying. A grunting agreement passed through the group and they fanned out in a semicircle, no more than an arm’s length from one man to the other as they approached Aidan.

  He only rolled his shoulders in what might have been a shrug.

  “If yer bloody sure then… Come on.”

  He beckoned them forward, a grin on his face. Heather heard him laugh as they moved in.

  There was no moonlight, but the yellow street lights made the stones of the pavement glow as two men rushed Aidan at once. The others held back, tightening their ranks so as not to allow him any chance of slipping through them and escaping.

  Escape was obviously not on Aidan's mind. He reached out and actually pulled the first man to him, impatient t
o begin.

  Heads cracked together, curly blond and matted dark, with a sound like a gunshot. That man went to his knees at once. Stunned and swaying, blood running down his dazed face, he toppled over onto the stones. The second flew at Aidan from the other side, but Aidan’s leg came up with careless ease. His boot heel caught the would-be assailant where upper thigh met groin. The man went instantly from a dead run to a dead stop. Before he could do more than blink in pain, Aidan had punched him twice in the head, then yanked said-head down to meet his up-thrusting knee. That man joined the other on the stones. By now the remaining three had woken to the fact that this was no ordinary tourist. They fell on Aidan en masse.

  Heather whirled, freed from her first frozen grip of fear and looked around wildly for something…anything that could help.

  A knife lay gleaming against the stones next to the two fallen men, neither of whom were moving, though she thought she heard faint groans under the sounds and screams of the main fight, which had moved several paces away.

  Hesitantly, knowing this might be a very bad idea, but not seeing another choice, Heather moved to the beckoning wink of the blade. The knife had a wickedly long curve with a deep gut hook along the spine.

  She was familiar with knives. Growing up in a restaurant among cooks and chefs was part of that, growing up along Minnesota’s North Shore was more of it. Hunting, fishing…. She could clean a fish in a finger snap and while she had never cleaned a deer by herself, she had helped. She had also taken hours of self-defense classes and even some hand-to-hand combat sessions for one of her more interesting film roles.

  All that hardly made her competent at using a knife to defend herself.

  Heather was well aware of this, but the primal desire for a weapon was so fierce that she couldn’t help herself. She heard a muffled grunt and gasp that sounded like it came from Aidan, but she didn’t dare turn away from her goal to look and see how he was doing. She used her foot to gingerly ease the knife away from the crumpled man nearest it and let out a breath when he didn’t move at the clink of steel over stone.

  Heather leaned down to grasp the handle, her fingers curling over the yellowed ivory still warm from the touch of the man who had held it last. She had started to straighten when the world went sideways with a sickening whoosh.

  Her hip hit the cobblestone in a flash of pain that was quickly forgotten as the man who had yanked her ankle out from under her pinned her to ground in seconds. Heavy and sickening, his weight pushed down on her, forcing all the air from her body.

  The knife she had been so desperate for now gleamed at her throat. A full set of surprisingly white and even teeth grinned at her from a swarthy face as the man babbled something Turkish at her in gleeful triumph.

  Triumph that went to terror in a fingersnap as the man’s beady eyes lifted to look at something behind her head. Twisting despite the prick of the knife against her skin, Heather’s eyes traveled up a pair of dusty, black boots splashed with darker drops of what had to be blood, up over the very long pair of legs encased in black denim and into crystal eyes that burned both cold and hot into her own.

  “What the fuck have ye gotten yerself into, ye bloody eejit woman?” The man pinning her gibbered something and spittle flecked her face. The knife pressed deeper into her throat. Aidan's jaw clenched.

  Ridiculously enough, even a second away from having her jugular sliced open, Heather found herself more worried about what Aidan would do to her than the man holding her life in his hands.

  Without even thinking about it, she drew her fingers into the tight ‘knife hand’ her self-defense instructor had patiently schooled her on for hours. While both her attacker’s eyes and her own remained on Aidan, Heather whipped her stiffened fingers into the Turkish man’s throat. His head had been twisted up and to the side to keep Aidan in sight. She caught him unawares full on the Adam’s apple.

  The man gurgled once in shock.

  Aidan moved and the man's weight left her. Heather curled on her side retching, only vaguely aware of rhythmic, crunching sound as she regained her breath.

  When she calmed her shaking body enough to look for the source of the odd sound, it was to find Aidan slamming the man into the outer wall of the bazaar. Over and over again. He didn’t appear to have any intention of stopping either. The man in his hands was rapidly beginning to resemble a heap of bloody meat.

  Heather got to her feet, wobbling a little as she forced herself to approach Aidan step by step.

  Crunch…splatter…the man wasn’t groaning any longer, but heavy, wet gasps fell from the split lips.

  “Don’t you think you should stop now?” Heather’s voice sounded weirdly empty to her own ears, echoing against the wall and into the street.

  “Why?” Aidan didn’t turn his head, but there was something in his voice, something dark, sinuous and cruel that reminded her of when he had taken her the night before.

  Heather was surprised how little it shocked her that he’d find pleasure in this brutality. The fact that what he was doing didn’t bother her at all should have made more of an impression, but she was too distracted to think clearly at the moment.

  “I don’t know, but killing him seems like more trouble than it’s worth…right?”

  There was a second’s quiet as Aidan paused in his rhythm and looked at her. Just looked.

  A look made her cold right down to the center of her bones.

  “Do ye really think so, love? Do ye think I couldna fill this one's pockets with stones and drop him into tha' river there with anyone giving a goddamn when his fish-eaten, bloated corpse pops up in a day or two? No one would know, no one would care.” His voice was soft and deadly sure.

  He was right. She couldn’t stop him from doing whatever the hell he wanted and honestly, begging for the life of the man who would have been happy to kill them both a minute ago didn’t interest her.

  Heather shrugged and turned away. One step was as far as she got.

  In a sickening rush, it hit her.

  She had almost died. Right here, right now. She swayed as shivers ran through her body in waves and her teeth started to chatter. With a curse, Aidan dropped the man to the stones and grabbed her before she went over.

  “Steady now.” He shook her once, looking more exasperated than anything. When she giggled in response, his eyebrows raised in confusion. She giggled harder.

  Neither Aidan or Heather noticed the man’s buddies, their anatomies exhibiting various degrees of trauma as they skirted the pair of them cautiously, scooping up their fallen comrade and scurrying out of the bazaar as fast as their injuries would allow.

  Aidan shook her again. So hard this time that Heather felt her hair, already lopsided from the evening activities, slide free and down her back in tumbling waves.

  “Have ye gone mad then?” For the first time since everything had begun, he sounded honestly concerned.

  Heather gasped past the laughter and shook her head. More from self-defense than anything else, she slapped her hand into Aidan’s chest to get him to stop shaking her. The effect was immediate. Before she could catch her breath, she was up against the wall, only a few feet from the great, dark stain marking where Aidan had beat her attacker.

  Aidan was staring at her, a look on his face she was beginning to recognize even without the benefit of his cock throbbing into her hip and belly.

  “Here?” she whispered once, even as a hot ribbon of desire wrapped itself around her. Everything had happened so brutally fast. Life and death, only a knife's edge between one and the other.

  Her heart was racing. She could feel the beat pulsing; in her temples, in her wrists…and between her legs.

  She could smell the blood staining the stones, feel it on Aidan’s shirt. The gorgeous blue was streaked with crimson that looked black in the dim light. The rich fabric had been torn repeatedly, exposing his chest, gaping over the ripples of his hard stomach. She sucked in a breath even as his hands wrenched up her long skirt inch by i
nch, his eyes boring into hers.

  “Here.” Aidan’s voice was flat, as if he didn’t give a damn what her own wishes were in the matter. But she felt the shudder that went through him when his fingers brushed between her legs and found her slick and wet for him already.

  He took her up against that cold wall.

  Fast and a little cruel, as if daring her to make him stop. His hands rough on her body, his mouth ruthless on her lips, her throat, her breasts.

  God help her, she had no intention of asking him to stop.

  Heather scratched and clawed as Aidan slammed into her again and again, both of them breathless with need. It should have been frightening, even disturbing, and maybe it all would be. Later. But not then, not even when she sunk her teeth in his shoulder as her release struck in a hot wave.

  She bit him so hard she tasted blood, felt him flinch and then shudder as his own orgasm surged through that taut, muscular body. It left her crushed up against the wall, pinned under his dead weight. Her vision rippled and her heart slammed against her ribs fit to burst.

  “Breathe, please.” Her fists pounded ineffectually on his shoulders, but Aidan shifted back without speaking, a kind of low moan escaping his mouth that would've made her start giggling again, If she’d had the energy.

  It was a long while later, when they were picking their way back to the hotel, trying to avoid the curious stares of the occasional passerby, that he said to her in a puzzled sort of voice, “Yer a quare different sort of woman, ye know tha'?”

  Heather stopped and stared at him for a moment.

  “And you’re normal, are you?”

  It was Aidan’s turn to laugh. He laughed so hard he had to stop in the middle of the street, one arm clutched around his middle.

  “Gods, no.” He said when he finally caught his breath and pulled her against him. His hand slid under her hair, strong fingers deftly rubbing away the small knot of anger that had sprung up there. “I didna mean it as an insult, love. Only tha'…well, I’ve known a fair number of women, but I donna think I have ever met one like ye.”