Page 16 of Irish Rose
“I wouldn’t be having it any other way.” She stopped as reality began to seep through. “But I need a passport and the green card that allows you to work. There must be a pile of papers that have to be processed.”
“I told you I’d see to it.” He drew a paper out of his pocket. “Fill this out and drop it off at the inn tonight. It’s an application,” he explained as she studied it. “I’ve already arranged to have it processed tomorrow. Your passport and whatever else you need will be in Cork when we get there.”
She tapped the paper slowly against her palm. “You were damn sure of yourself, weren’t you?”
“It pays to be. You’ll need a picture they can use, too. A recent one.”
“What if I’d said no?”
He simply smiled. “Then you’d have been a fool and I’d have thrown the application away.”
“I can’t figure you.” She tucked the application in the pocket of her baggy pants, but shook her head at him. “You’ve made me a very generous offer, and you’re giving me the opportunity to do something I’ve wanted to do for as long as I can remember. But even as you’re doing it, it doesn’t seem to matter to you one way or the other.”
He remembered the surge of relief, but chose to ignore it. “Things matter too much to people. That’s how they get hurt.”
“Are you saying that things don’t matter to you? Nothing at all? What about your farm?”
He shifted a bit, surprised that the question, when she asked it, made him uncomfortable. “It’s a place. A comfortable and fairly profitable one at the moment. But that’s all it is. I don’t have the ties to it that you have to the land here, Erin. That’s why if I leave it, I will leave without a second glance. When you leave Ireland, no matter how much you want to go, you’re going to hurt.”
“There’s nothing wrong in that,” she murmured. “It’s my home. It’s only right to miss your home.”
“Some people don’t make homes. They just live somewhere and leave it at that.”
She saw more clearly now, though the light was still dim. She saw, though she’d told herself she didn’t care, that there were places inside him no one, no woman, would ever touch. “That’s a cold and sorry way to live.”
“It’s a choice,” he corrected. Then he pushed the subject aside. “Make sure you get me the application tonight. I’m leaving for Cork first thing in the morning.”
“But you said we weren’t going for a couple of days.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
“All right, then. I should be getting along. There’s a lot to be done.”
“There’s something else I think we should get out of the way.” He rocked back on his heels a moment, then stunned her by grabbing both her arms and dragging her against him. “This has nothing to do with business.”
Infuriated, she brought her hands to his chest and gave him one hard shove. It didn’t budge him an inch. Then he clamped his mouth down on hers, rough and ready and with no patience at all.
She would have ripped and clawed at him. She would have struggled and bit and cursed. That was what she told herself she would have done if she hadn’t been so stunned by the heat. His lips were firm. That she already knew. But she hadn’t known they could be so hot, so passionate, so tempting.
Her head filled with sounds—louder, deeper sounds than the rain that drove furiously on the roof above. Her hands were trapped between their bodies so that she could feel the pounding of a heart without knowing which of them it came from.
This is what the apple must have tasted like when Eve took the first forbidden bite, she thought giddily. Succulent, tart, unbearably delicious. Nothing else ever tasted would be as satisfying. Lost in the flavor, she parted her lips and let him take more.
He’d known what he’d wanted but hadn’t been sure what to expect. If she’d hissed at him, he would have ignored her and taken his fill. If she’d struck out at him in anger, he would have taken her struggles in stride and enjoyed the fury. He’d fought or gambled for everything he’d wanted all of his life. For days he’d been trying to convince himself that Erin McKinnon was no different. But she was.
She gave. After the first stunned instant she gave passionately, with the kind of desperation that left him shaken and edgy for more. Her mouth was avid and mobile, her body taut and trembling. He could feel the raw, jagged need raging through her, rising, speeding up to meet and match his own.
He wanted to take her there, on the damp floor with the smell of rain and earth everywhere. He wanted her to touch him, to feel those capable hands on his flesh. To hear her say his name. To watch her eyes go dark as midnight as he covered her body with his. It could be now. He could feel it in the press of her body against his, in the give of her mouth.
It could be now. There had been times, and there had been women with whom he wouldn’t have hesitated. Why he did so now he couldn’t be sure. But he drew her away, though his hands stayed on her shoulders and his eyes stayed on hers as they slowly fluttered open.
She couldn’t speak, not for a moment. The feeling was so immense it left no room for words. She’d never known that a body could be filled so quickly with sensations or that a mind could be emptied of them just as swiftly. She knew now. If anyone had told her that the world could change in the single beat of a heart, she would have laughed. Now she understood.
He didn’t speak. Erin struggled to find her footing as he kept his silence. She couldn’t allow herself that kind of madness, not again. If she were to travel an ocean with him, work for him, understand him just a little, she couldn’t let this happen again. Not with a man like him. Taking a deep breath, she steadied herself. No, never with him. If the past few moments had taught her anything, it was that he was a man who knew women and who understood their weaknesses very well.
“You had no right to do that.” She didn’t unleash her temper, knowing she hadn’t the energy left for it.
He was shaken, down to the bone, down to the heart, but it wasn’t the time to dwell on it. “It wasn’t a matter of right but of want. That was a proper kiss, Irish, and we needed to get it out of our systems whether you were coming with me or not.”
