Wicked Burn Page 26

  Oh, yeah, Vic thought as he panted desperately for air a moment later. He could survive this just fucking dandy. He’d just have to be careful not to lose any vital organs in the process.

  Or anything vital. Period.

  Niall felt like her bones had been removed and warm mush put in their place. She gently thudded onto Vic’s chest, incapable of volitional movement when he came down next to her and curved his arm beneath her, tilting her against him. Seconds passed, then minutes. Their ragged pants eventually smoothed to a matched, even rhythm.

  Niall knew that Vic didn’t want to talk. So for several full moments she allowed herself the sublime pleasure of lying in his strong arms, feeling his crisp chest hair on her cheek . . . breathing in his unique scent. There were plenty of times in the past few months that she’d despaired of ever experiencing those things again, after all.

  But eventually the need to speak could be ignored no longer.

  “Thank you for taking me with you on Traveler,” she whispered into his skin. “He’s a beautiful animal.”

  “You weren’t afraid?” Vic asked in a soft rumble. Niall rubbed her cheek against the subtle vibration resounding through his chest.

  “A little, at first,” she admitted. She lifted her head and met his gaze. “But once I was up there, all I could think about was you.”

  He watched her for a few seconds. His hand rose jerkily, as though it’d been restrained where it lay on the bed and he’d suddenly broken free. Niall purred softly when he plunged his fingers into her hair and lightly massaged her scalp.

  “My guess is the next time you get on a horse will be easier for you, and the time after that, easier still. You just had a block you needed to get past.”

  She closed her eyes, savoring the pleasure of his touch. She figured she was either a moron or a masochist for ruining such a lovely moment.

  “Vic, we need to talk about this.”

  His hand stilled in her hair. “There’s nothing to talk about, Niall. We wanted each other and we had sex. It’s simple, really.”

  Niall placed her elbows on the bed and looked up at him. He suddenly seemed so distant.

  “I want to be able to talk to you about what happened last December . . . what happened before that . . . what happened to me years ago—”

  He sat up so quickly that it left Niall a little stunned. One second she’d been staring into his impassive face and narrowed eyes, and the next she was looking at his naked back as he sat at the edge of the bed.

  “Why now?” he asked gruffly. He didn’t turn around. “You obviously didn’t think it was worthwhile to tell me anything back then.”

  A heaviness pressed down on her chest, constricting her lungs as Vic stood and sauntered over to where his jeans were on the floor.

  “I did want to tell you, Vic. You have no idea how much.”

  He pulled his jeans up over his muscular ass and fastened the bottom buttons. “Well, it’s all water under the bridge now.”

  Niall sat up, pulling the comforter around her as she did so. His cold, calm manner caused a tendril of panic to unfurl in her belly.

  “How can you say that?”

  He glanced at her, his eyes like liquid steel.

  “Don’t you think we’d be better off discussing the fact that we just had intercourse twice and that I didn’t wear a condom?”

  Niall’s mouth fell open. She hadn’t been expecting him to say that. She fumbled for something to say. And why in God’s name did Vic have to be feet away from her while she sat in bed, naked and alone, when he asked such a distressing question.

  “It . . . it should be all right,” she said shakily. “It’s not the right time of month for me to get pregnant. I should have my period in three or four days.” Her mouth went dry with dread when she thought about him kissing that woman in the parking lot last night. Surely Vic would have worn protection with her, wouldn’t he have?

  He peered at her from beneath a lowered brow as he pulled his shirt down to his waist. “I’ve never had sex with the woman you saw me with,” he said flatly, making Niall wonder if he’d read her mind. For a few seconds he just stared at her, the struggle on his handsome face obvious. “The only thing we should have to worry about is pregnancy. I’m sorry. I won’t let it happen again.”

  “I was as much to blame as you,” Niall murmured uncomfortably. “But, Vic, I want to talk to you about what—”

  “No,” he said abruptly, taking two steps toward the bathroom. “You said that you wanted to tell me back then, but you didn’t, despite the fact that I wanted to be there for you. I wanted it a hell of a lot, Niall! Now you want to talk, but I’m no longer ready to listen.”

  Tears stung her eyes. He seemed about as accessible as the summit of Mount Everest to a handicapped person as he stood there looking down at her, his light eyes conveying fire and ice fused. Was it really possible that they’d just been pressed skin to skin while their sexes throbbed in tandem and his face pressed so intimately to her neck?

  “So that’s it?” she asked throatily. “We’re just going to make love whenever the mood strikes us and ignore the fact that I hurt you last year by not being honest with you?”

  “By not being honest about a particularly important fact,” Vic corrected in a hard voice. “By not telling me the entire time we were fucking each other that you just happened to have a husband. Did it ever occur to you that I might have strong feelings about sleeping with a married woman? Did it ever once strike your self-centered brain that I might have morals when it came to that?”

  Niall’s face collapsed. “I’m so sorry, Vic. That’s why I’ve wanted to explain . . .” Her voice faded. “Do you mean religious morals?” she asked uncertainly. The entire time she’d been with Vic, he’d never once struck her as being a strict adherent to organized religion.

  He shook his head slowly. “I’m talking about personal principles. My father ran off with another woman when I was four years old, leaving behind his wife and two kids. My mom was blown away by his infidelity and abandonment even though she eventually got back on her feet and did an amazing job of raising Meg and me alone.”

  Her chest cavity felt like it had been filled with tiny pieces of gravel that scraped her lungs as she watched Vic turn to his dresser and open up a drawer. God, that look on his face before he’d turned away . . . like she’d caught the briefest glimpse of a four-year-old child’s hurt and complete confusion at being abandoned by a parent for no apparent reason. Why hadn’t Meg ever told her that this might be one of the reasons for his intense fury at her? The realization that he might be comparing her in his mind to his unfaithful father made her wretched.

  “Not all circumstances are the same, Vic.”

  He shut his eyes and pressed his fingers to them. “I know that. I know that, Niall. But that doesn’t change anything I said before.” He dropped his hands and opened his eyes, meeting her gaze directly. “This is what I can offer you right now,” he said with a grim hitch of his head toward the bed, leaving little doubt in Niall’s mind as to what he meant. “If you can’t accept that, then there’s nothing else to say at the moment. If you can accept that, then what I said still stands. There really is nothing for us to talk about.”

  Niall stared blankly at Vic’s six-foot-by-seven-foot bed. It was a small space, yes. But it was a space where he was agreeing to meet with her . . . where he would have to at least acknowledge her existence. If Vic truly cared for her, he would eventually have to face his feelings on this tiny little island that he’d agreed to share with her.

  Wouldn’t he?

  Niall swallowed convulsively. “All right, then,” she said softly before she rose and gathered her clothing, afraid to think about what she might have just sacrificed by making such a pact with the man she loved.

  NINETEEN

  Niall quickly shoved the letter she’d just received into her shorts pocket when she heard someone approaching on the gravel driveway that evening.

  “The mail
finally came, huh?” Meg said in a friendly fashion. They’d quickly made up last night after their tiff in the car.

  “Charlie’s mail truck gave out on him,” Niall explained as she passed the mail to Meg.

  “I’ll bet he was fit to be tied,” Meg murmured amusedly as she flipped through the envelopes. Charlie Travers was a local institution whose mail deliveries usually arrived like clockwork. They began to walk slowly back to the house. The crystalline day had evolved into a delicious, lazy summer evening, the sort of night that Niall associated with youth and innocent dreams and endless possibilities. Definitely not the kinds of things that went along with the letter that burned in her pocket at present like a piece of hot coal.

  “How’s Donny been doing in your class?” Meg asked.

  “He’s excelling at the class itself. He never misses, never is a minute late. He’s very intelligent, but he gets really quiet sometimes . . . moody, you know? I was hoping he would make more friends,” Niall mused. Her step slowed as she studied Meg’s profile. “Why do you ask?”

  “I saw Sheriff Madigan today in town. He said that Donny’s oldest brother, Errol—the worst of the bunch—is home on parole. That’s sure to make Donny a little extra moody. Just what the kid needs this week, first Jake getting arrested and now this.” Meg shook her head worriedly. “The last time Errol got busted, it was for selling guns along with drugs. He was doing it out of their house.”

  “But surely with the police watching him so closely, and being on parole, Errol won’t—”

  “It’s not what Errol is selling or not selling that I’m worried about most,” Meg said, cutting her off. “It’s the guys Errol double-crossed and cheated regularly before he got sent up to Joliet that I’m concerned about.”

  “He was in Joliet Prison?” Niall asked shakily. She knew the kind of prisoners they kept in Joliet. She knew all too well.

  Meg nodded.

  Niall inhaled slowly. “Have you told Vic?”

  “He’s going to drive over in a little bit and try to talk Donny into staying here tonight.”

  “Good,” Niall responded quickly. Her eyes inevitably flickered over to Vic’s cottage. It wasn’t a long-term solution, but the more the boy was safe at the farm the less time he spent in the unhealthy environment of his brothers’ home.

  Meg sighed and scraped her fingers through her dark hair, as though trying to clear her mind of worries over which she had limited control. “Do you want to take Vic’s mail out to him?”

  Niall blinked, realizing Meg must have noticed where she’d been staring, maybe even recognized the longing in her gaze. She knew that Meg was curious about what was going on with Niall and her brother, but Niall felt too vulnerable about what had happened earlier that day to chat about it.

  “He’s writing right now,” Niall said as she began to walk slowly. “I’m sure he wouldn’t want to be disturbed.”

  “Is that right?” Meg asked doubtfully.

  “Yes,” Niall said firmly. And then, in an attempt to change the subject, “Hey, do you want to go see a movie in El Paso with me right now?”

  “Sure,” Meg said as she studied Niall’s face closely.

  Niall forced a bright smile. “Good. There’s a romantic comedy playing at that little theater downtown that I never got to see when it first opened.”

  All in all, Niall thought her idea for the movie had been inspired. Later that night, when she bade Meg good night and retired to her room, Meg hadn’t had much of an opportunity to question Niall about Vic. They raced to town in order to catch the beginning of the show. Of course they’d been totally absorbed during the movie and Niall managed to keep Meg talking about the plot and the actors on the ride home. By the time she’d hugged Meg and gone upstairs to bed, she’d managed to spend a nice evening with her friend without having to discuss the potentially volatile topic of her relationship with Vic.

  In the middle of the night she startled anxiously into wakefulness. She was so accustomed to awakening in such a fashion that it didn’t strike her immediately that she hadn’t been dreaming.

  “Shhh,” a deep whisper soothed, followed by a hand caressing her neck.

  “Vic?” She blinked in amazement at the large shadow that sat on the edge of her bed. Her surprise at him being there never got the chance to ease before he stood and pulled back the covers. The air-conditioning felt cool on her skin, but Vic radiated heat when he slid his arms beneath her and lifted her as if she weighed as much as her pillow.

  “Vic, what the—”

  “I’m taking you to my bed, where you belong,” he said in a low voice as he reached for the door.

  It felt like heaven to hear him say that, to pretend that he meant more by it than just the purely sexual parameters in which he’d defined their relationship. She pressed her face briefly to his chest and inhaled his clean, spicy scent.

  “How’d your work go?” Niall asked him huskily when they were on the gravel turnabout beneath a globe of bright stars set in a lacquered midnight blue sky. She pressed her lips to his neck lightly, skimming them across his skin between kisses. His footsteps faltered slightly at her caress, then speeded up.

  “Good,” he said simply.

  “Was Donny okay when you picked him up?” she asked. Meg and she had offered to get him after the movie, but Vic had flatly forbidden them to go over to the Farrell farm. It had left Niall feeling chilled that the young man that she’d come to care for so much lived in a place that Vic didn’t want them to go near.

  Vic grunted. “Yeah.”

  “You worry about him, don’t you?” Niall asked quietly as he paused to open the screen door of the cottage.

  Vic didn’t answer until he’d closed and locked the door and carried her into his bedroom. He set her on the edge of his bed and turned the bedside light to a dim setting before he sat down next to her. His dark hair had fallen forward onto his forehead. Earlier, when she and Meg had looked in on him before they’d left for the movie, he’d been wearing his glasses while he worked. Niall couldn’t decide which of his personas she liked better, the handsome, intense intellectual or the man who sat before her now—the long, lean, dead sexy cowboy who had come to claim her for his bed. Maybe the fact that he was such a magical combination of both was what fascinated her so much.

  And aroused her almost beyond her comprehension.

  “I worry about him,” Vic said simply. He reached out and began to matter-of-factly unbutton the satin pajama top she wore with a pair of matching shorts. “But there’s not much I can do about it. I’m not his father.”

  Niall put her hand over his, stilling his actions between her breasts. Her nipples pulled tight at the nearness of his fingers. Niall tried to ignore the sensation.

  “You’re more of a father figure to him than he’s ever known,” she said softly. “You should hear how he talks about you. He worships you, Vic.”

  He gave a small, off-center grin. “It doesn’t take much to please Donny.” He tried to resume removing her top, but Niall again halted him gently. He looked up at her in slight surprise.

  “You’re kidding, right?” she challenged. “Donny trusts about as easily as I climb on a horse.”

  Vic’s smile widened to show off that sexy off-center front tooth, making Niall’s lower belly seem to erupt into a slow, molten, downward-moving burn. Still, she refused to be sidetracked until it was absolutely necessary.

  “You got on a horse today,” Vic reminded her, his light eyes sparkling.

  “Only because you hauled me onto it,” she admonished. “Seriously, Vic, Donny trusts you . . . maybe more than anyone. And he’s very vulnerable right now.”

  Vic threw her a dark look. “You’re not about to recommend that I go have some kind of heart-to-heart talk with him, are you?”

  “No, it’s not that. He’s a boy. I know how boys are. They communicate everything through actions. But maybe if you took him out riding, or you two did a project together, he would open up about . . .”
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  Vic smirked slightly as he deliberately removed her hand from restraining him and slid two buttons through satiny fabric before he spoke. “How would you know so much about how boys operate, Niall? You’re the most girly girl I know.”

  “I know because I had one.”

  His grin faded. His light eyes flashed up to her face.

  “What’d ya mean?”

  Niall swallowed convulsively. Maybe because she hadn’t been planning on saying it, the words came easier. “I had a little boy,” she whispered. “He died three and a half years ago.”

  Vic’s lips moved silently. His eyes narrowed as he studied her closely. When he finally spoke, his words surprised her a little. “What was his name?”

  “Michael. He would be eight this September if . . .”

  Her voice faded. She hadn’t realized that tears spilled down her cheeks until Vic cradled her face in his hands and slid his thumbs over her skin gently, sweeping away the moisture.

  “You were a mother,” he stated rather than asked. He looked awestruck.

  “Yes.”

  Much to her surprise, Vic smiled. He leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers, at first reverently, then with increasing heat.

  “You know . . . I can see it perfectly, Niall,” he whispered hoarsely before he gently pushed her back onto the pillows. Without saying another word he removed her satin shorts and parted her nightshirt. He studied her in the golden glow of the dim light for an eternal few seconds before his dark head lowered to her breast.

  Niall gasped out loud at the pleasure of his slow, sweet suck. Her back arched off the bed.

  Boys communicate through actions, she reminded herself dazedly.

  She closed her eyes and listened very carefully as Vic spoke to her in his own poignant fashion.

  She groaned in rising arousal and his warm, abrasive tongue lashed tenderly at her left breast, as if to soothe her for drawing on her so stringently. His big hands spread wide across her ribs and back, in an embrace that struck Niall as cherishing as well as possessive, as he held her off the bed for his hungry mouth. Her chest seemed to ache with love even as her womb drew inward with desire. She wondered if Vic really knew how much he held her heart both literally and figuratively in his hands.