Page 63 of A Celtic Longing
CAUGHT SOMEWHERE BETWEEN what they shared in their last life and this one, plus the sensation of finally doing what she'd wanted to do with Liam when she had been a teenager, Shannon cupped his cheeks and kissed him softly. Like she might have done back then if she could have.
It was bittersweet at first before it became something else. Deeper. More passionate. Yet sad somehow too. As though a part of her didn’t just crave what she couldn’t have when they were younger but could not have in this very cave in another life. A flesh and blood man. Instead, all she had were dreams of him to get her through those cold, lonely nights while she carried their child to term.
Dreams that soon became a memory.
One that clearly predated her pregnancy.
She straddled him and remembered how many nights she had wished he were there to hold her in his arms. That she could feel his hard length pressing against her like it did now. Feel warmed by the fire and his body heat. She chanted away her dress as though she’d possessed the ability her whole life.
“Ye grow bold,” he said gruffly, reliving the memory as well. His arousal leapt against her as he yanked his tunic over his head and whipped it aside. “Wonderfully bold.”
Too bold, she would say, but she couldn’t stop herself. She felt sumptuous and wanton. Desperate to assuage not only theintense ache between her thighs but to make him just as needy. As out of control. So she moved her body differently. Writhed against him. Rubbed her aching breasts against his chest.
He grunted with approval when she braced her hands on his shoulders and rocked her hips against him. Dragged the swollen flesh between her thighs back and forth over his clothed arousal.
“Please,” she gasped, needing him inside her so much it hurt. “I need...”
She released a ragged groan of relief when he freed his arousal and steered her onto him. He always felt so good, but this time, he felt even better. Seemed to hit every nerve ending. Every last corner.
While tempted to kiss him and lose herself in the intimacy of the moment, she was too desperate. Needed to assuage this terrible ache. So she kept her hands braced on his strong shoulders and ground against him. Rolled her hips in small intense movements that hit the deepest part of her.
Clearly pleased by what she was doing, how she made him feel, he breathed as harshly as her. Wrapped his arms around her and held her close when she closed her eyes and pressed her body against him. In turn, she wrapped her arms around him as well, moved her hips even slower, and ground against him. Relished the new sensations rippling against her every time he touched her core.
Tears trickled down her cheeks at the beauty of it. The soul-deep emotions and poignant ecstasy wrapped up in every move she made. She whimpered in pleasure and trembled when tiny explosions went off inside her, and she locked up. Seemed suspended in time.
“Lass,” he groaned. “We cannot....”
His words seemed to come from a great distance. Her ability to heed him, impossible. Rather, her arms seemed totighten around him of their own accord, and her body clenched down on his arousal. Kept him prisoner. Gave him no choice but to let go when her mini explosions fanned out, and she released so hard everything darkened as though she were going to pass out before bursting into a myriad of colors.
Having no choice but to follow, he cursed under his breath, held her tighter, pressed up, and gave in. It was only when she heard his strangled groan of pleasure and felt his hot seed release deep inside her that she realized what she had done.
What she had encouraged him to do.
“It was me,” she moaned against Liam’s neck as the memory released them, and she was firmly back with him again. “That...this...”
She couldn’t find the words for a time as her climax went on and on. As it held her in a limbo that felt as good as it did bad. Good, because it was probably the best release of her life.
Bad because it was forbidden.
A rule broken that there was no coming back from.
“That’s what the first night we slept together was all about,” she managed, trying to gather her emotions. “I was trying to get back to this moment. The one we just shared in another life. Trying to remind myself....”
“I’m so sorry, lass,” he murmured. His embrace tightened a moment like it had back then. As though now he’d felt the bliss of letting go inside her in another life, he wanted her nowhere else but where she was. Wanted to feel nothing but this for as long as he was allowed.
“Yet you weren’t sorry to begin with any more than I.” She pulled back enough to meet his eyes. Cup his cheeks. “And that...” She tried to saymistakebut couldn’t seem to voice it. Feel it. Because no matter what happened, it hadn’t been a mistake. “That moment,thismoment we just experienced here in this cave, created our child.”
They had been so foolish, but she wouldn’t have traded it for the world. She looked at the area where her pregnant ghostly image had been. Eyed where she had spent the better part of nine months. She felt not just loneliness now but other things.
Better things.
She couldn’t help a small smile as random snowflakes drifted down from the ceiling. “I wasn’t always lonely.” She rested her hand on her womb, for a moment feeling something she would never feel in this life. “There were times I was content. Happy even. When I felt him or her move for the first time. When they kicked for the first time. Can you feel?” She pressed his hand over her womb as well and held his gaze. “Do you feel that?”
His pupils flared, and his jaw dropped when he felt what she did. Saw the moments she had experienced. Bonded in a way that told them he hadn’t been present during much of her pregnancy. Any of it, for that matter.
“Where was I?” Liam's voice thickened with emotion. “Why wasn’t I here?”
“I don’t know,” she said, just as emotional. “I wish I did.” She bit back more tears when the past seemed to merge with the present. With a future that would be bereft of children. “I wish...for so much now...”
