Read Online Naamah's Kiss by Jacqueline Carey - Free Book Online

again. Only this time, I want you to go more slowly and not spend so quickly. Is that understood?"
    He grinned. "Aye, mistress."
    The second time was better. I was slick inside with his seed and there was no discomfort. Cillian moved slowly inside me, propped on his arms, watching my face. I felt a quickening deep inside me and found my hips moving to match his rhythm without thinking. Cillian thrust harder and this time I wanted him to. Stone and sea! He was so big and so deep inside me. Faster, nowfaster and faster. What my body wanted seemed just out of reach.
    And then it wasn't.
    Deep, deep ripples of pleasure burst inside me. I abandoned myself to it, grabbing his buttocks, moaning mindlessly. The bright lady opened her hands and an entire flock of doves took flight.
    "Oh, gods," Cillian whispered reverently.
    When it was over, I felt calm and happy. We lay drowsing in the meadow, limbs entwined. A curious dragonfly came to investigate, hovering above us on gossamer wings. I stretched out one languid arm. It lighted briefly on my forefinger, regarding us with eyes faceted like gems.
    Cillian's breath stirred my hair. "Magic?"
    "Only the ordinary everyday kind." I watched it take wing.
    "Moirin."
    I looked at him. "Aye?"
    His face was solemn. "Marry me."
    I sat upright with a jolt. " What? "
    "I'm serious." He leaned on his elbows. "I miss you when we're apartand I daresay you miss me, too. So why ever not?"
    I said the first thing that came into my head. "I'm too young."
    Cillian gave my naked self a pointed look. "Oh, aye?"
    It made me smile reluctantly. "I'm not ready, Cillian. I've not even begun to think about it."
    "Surely you don't plan to spend the rest of your days living like a wild thing," he pressed me.
    "Why ever not?"
    He made an inarticulate sound. "Dagda Mor, girl! You look like something that just stepped out of a fairy tale, and you run around in a dress that might as well serve as a gunny sack with twigs in your hair and no shoes on your feet."
    I felt at my hair. "So?"
    Cillian tried a different tack. "At least do me a kindness. Promise you'll come to visit Innisclan and meet my family this summer."
    "I met your family," I reminded him.
    "You stood atop a cliff for five minutes and exchanged a grand total of four words with my father," he said in exasperation. "And it was years ago. Come now." He waved one arm around at the woods. "You've shared every part of your life with me. Is it asking so much of you to let me share a little piece of mine?"
    "No," I murmured.
    "So you'll come?"
    I sighed. "I will."
----
CHAPTER EIGHT

     
    I expected my mother to speak against the visit to Innisclan, but she didn't. "You'll pass the night there?" was all she asked.
    "Aye," I said. "I promised Cillian I'd stay for supper, and it will be too late to return afterward." I hesitated. "I won't go if you'd rather I didn't."
    "No, no." She shook her head. "Whatever life you choose for yourself, you need to choose out of knowledge, not ignorance. Go."
    So I did.
    Cillian wanted to dress me in borrowed finery, but I refused. "Let them meet me as I am," I said to him. "If they reckon I'm not good enough to sit at Lord Tiernan's table, no amount of lace and baubles will change their minds."
    He blew out his breath. "Gods, but you're as stubborn as your mother!"
    "And rude, too," I reminded him.
    "Aye." He grinned. "But oh, so very, very sweet in other ways."
    It was afternoon when we rode into Innisclan, me behind Cillian on his long-legged gelding. It had been five years since the pilgrimage to Clunderry, and it felt strange to leave the untamed spaces to which I was accustomed. Cattle grazed in meadows marked by low stone fences. Here and there, we saw people who called out greetings to Cillian. When they saw me, they stared, curious. It made my skin prickle and I fought the urge to summon the twilight and conceal myself from their prying gazes.
    At the top of a rise, we halted and regarded the green hollow