Tithed Read online

Connell stepped closer. “You used to like it when I called you that.”

  “That was a long time ago.” Elspeth couldn’t back away any further, so she straightened her spine. And you used to say it with love in your voice.

  Connell’s eyes flashed in the starlight, and a moment later, his teeth as he grinned. “Aye, and so it was. A long time ago and a place far away. But you haven’t changed, have you? You’re still counting.”

  He’d moved so close to her she could smell him, and it made her weak. He’d used to smell of the sea. Salt. Sun. Sand. The tang of sweat.

  Now he smelled of ale and smoke, but underlying it still a hint of sun and wind and sand. He was different and yet the same; the remembered taste of him flooded her mouth and made her heart thump in her chest.

  “I’m still counting.” Her voice scratched and cracked, embarrassed her.

  His hand came out to twirl a strand of hair that had fallen over her shoulder. A handspan separated them, no more. He tucked the hair behind her ear. His fingers cupped her cheek, then trailed along her jaw, down the line of her neck and came to rest upon her shoulder.

  She shivered, not from cold but heat, which had sprung up along the path of his fingers. Shadows veiled his face again, but she heard his breath, felt it on her face, and she could almost taste his lips on hers.

  Connell didn’t kiss her. “I didn’t believe my eyes when I saw you sitting in my pub. After all this time and there you were, looking like an angel. I thought for sure I was dreaming.”

  She wanted to tell him she was sorry. She hadn’t meant to run away. She hadn’t meant to hurt him. She hadn’t meant any of it, that long ago night when she’d told him she could never love him… But unlike numbers, words never came to her rescue when she needed them.

  Closer still he moved, his body against hers, pinning her against the fence, and Elspeth shuddered with a sudden force of desire so strong it forced a low cry from her throat. Ten years, and he still affected her this way. The only man who ever could.

  She was already opening her mouth to his kiss when he pulled away, leaving her cold instead of hot. Connell backed away with a muttered curse. She blinked, trying to see his expression, but could make out nothing more than the flash of his eyes again in starlight.

  “Why?” he asked her, one word that meant so much and had so many answers.

  She didn’t know which to give him. “Connell…”

  He backed away from her reaching hand, putting both his own up as though to make sure there was no way they could possibly touch her.

  “Why, Ella?” The agony in his voice broke her heart all over again. “Why now, after all this time, when I finally thought—”

  But he’d say no more, just backed away another step. This time, she was the one pursuing, moving across the slate path toward him. “Connell, wait.”

  “You’re still afraid of me!” he cried. “I saw it inside, and I felt you shaking just now! You’re afraid of me, even now, when I’d never do aught to hurt you!”

  “I know that. I know it. Connell, love, please…”

  He’d backed into a patch of moonlight, and to her horror, she saw tears glimmering in his eyes. She’d made him cry before, and it seemed unfair now that she’d made him weep again when tears would never come for her no matter how much she might wish for the relief they brought.

  He ran a hand through his hair, messing it, and let his hand rest on the back of his neck, his eyes turned away from her. “Why?”

  “Because I was a fool,” she answered. “I didn’t deserve you.”

  She reached for him again, a hesitant hand that did not quite touch him. “I was a fool who did not know the gift she held, Connell. And I plead your mercy.”

  He shook his head. “You left without a word. I never knew where you’d gone, or if you were all right. I never knew if you were alive or dead, sick or well. I never knew if you were happy.”

  “I’m sorry.” It was all she had to say, and it was not enough.

  “All I ever did was love you,” he said in a low voice. “And you treated me like I wasn’t even worth it.”

  Then she was in his arms and his mouth was on hers, bruising. She didn’t resist, didn’t protest, just let him walk her backward and put her up against the fence, his hands on her waist and his mouth crushing, crushing.

  She opened beneath him and his tongue swept inside. She tasted ale and smoke. She tasted Connell, a flavor she’d never forgotten, and it made her gasp as she put her arms around his neck and clung to him.

  He pushed hard against her, the way he used to when they were in her garden and desperate to steal one more kiss before she had to go inside. He bunched the fabric of her skirt in his hands and slid beneath it to the bare skin of her thighs atop her stockings. His hands cupped her rear and he lifted her, holding her so tight she had no fear of falling. The heat and hardness of him pressed against her, and she gasped and tightened her thighs around his hips.

  She tasted blood from the force of his kiss, from a spot where her teeth had caught the inside of her lip. The metallic, salty taste of it made her think of the way they’d been, and how she’d once taken him in her mouth while the ocean crashed so close to them the spray had wet their clothes.

  Desire, unaccustomed and overwhelming, flooded her, but she didn’t fight it. Her arms tightened on his neck and she kissed him as fiercely as he did her, their mouths meeting again and again, reminding her of the way eagles mated in the sky, soaring and plummeting as they screeched their pleasure.

  He held her against the splintered wood with one hand while the other slid between them to fumble with the laces at his waistband. His hand rubbed her through the thin material of her undergarment, and she shuddered with want.

  He’d be inside her in another moment, and oh, by the Astria, she wanted him there. Inside her. Filling her. Making this feeling grow until she exploded the way she used to when they were young, before it had all gone so wrong.

  He shifted her weight and she tensed, waiting for him to enter her. Then, in the next moment, she stood on her own, her skirt falling down around her ankles and the fence the only thing holding her up. She blinked, bereft and abandoned, her body not yet adjusted to the loss of his hands on her. She licked her lips and tasted more blood, and she lifted a shaking hand to wipe them clean.

  “You might not have changed,” he said in a shaking voice. “But I have. I’ll not be used like that again, no matter what treasure you hold between your legs.”

  His words hurt, that he thought she’d ever used him. He twisted away from her when she tried to touch his cheek, and she let her hand fall. He ran his hand again through his hair, then crossed his arms over his chest. The white moonlight made stark lines on his face, cast his eyes into shadow and highlighted his scowl.

  “All these years,” he told her. “You’ve no right to come here, to my place, looking as though naught’s changed. No right.”

  His words were unfair, but she accepted them with a nod. “I’ll go then, shall I?”

  “Aye, go.” He bit out the words like they tasted bad. “Get out of my place, and don’t come back here.”

  She didn’t move. They stared at each other until at last she nodded again. “I plead your mercy, Connell. I never meant to hurt you.”

  “No.” His reply was colder than the winter air. “And I can see by your tears how grieved you are.”

  His short, sharp burst of laughter pierced her heart.

  “Ah, but then, you’ve never wept, have you? Why should I expect you’d bother to cry for me?”

  “If I could have, believe me, I would.”

  He didn’t answer. She backed away from him, turned and left the courtyard, wishing desperately she could have given him tears but as always, finding none to give.

  She came to him in dreams, as she always did. The girl he’d loved so much it had been like dying when she left him. Tonight she was the woman she’d become, the one he did not know.

  The taste of her had