* * *
As Quincy started dinner, Ceara sneaked upstairs with her paper bag. Hurrying as fast as she could, she looped her braid around the crown of her head, showered, toweled off, and dabbed rose water on her skin, making sure to get the scent in spots where Quincy might nuzzle or sniff. Then, trembling with trepidation, she slipped into the camisole slip and peignoir. Gazing at herself in the mirror, she felt a lot more exposed in her “seduction outfit” than she had that afternoon.
“I canna,” she whispered, but the moment the words crossed her lips, she heard all the hens saying, Oh, yes, you can.
Ceara stiffened her spine. She’d stepped onto a traveling star to come forward in time, with no idea what the future might hold for her. She’d bidden her family farewell not just for a period of time, but forever. She’d stood beside a stranger and vowed to honor him until the day she died. She’d even made love to him that very night—long before she’d been able to anticipate his smile by that little quirk of his lips or known that his dark brown eyes had beautiful flecks of gold in them. All of that had taken courage—courage she’d never known she possessed until she put herself to the test.
She wouldn’t quail with fear now. She wouldn’t. Following the carefully outlined plan formulated earlier by the hens, Ceara loosened her hair and brushed it to a high sheen. Then she slipped into the towel robe, cinched it at the waist, and slipped quietly down the stairs to carry on with the seduction of her husband.
He stood with his back to her at the stove, stirring something in a skillet that smelled like onions and garlic in that heavenly stuff he called cubed butter that was supposedly bad for the arteries. Ceara gulped to steady her voice. “Quincy, would ye mind putting on a bit of music?”
He glanced over his shoulder and turned down the gas flame. “Not at all. Anything particular you’d like to listen to?”
Ceara had no clue. Something romantic, but she didn’t want to say that for fear of ruining everything. “Mayhap something easy that does na sound like a galloping horse. Relaxing,” she emphasized after falling upon the word. “Have ye anything like that?”
He winked. “Mood music.” When he saw her frown, he added, “Soft sounds with background music—ocean waves, rain on the roof. It’s great stuff for falling asleep.”
Ceara wanted the man wide-awake—from the tips of his toes all the way up. “That sounds nice.” If he grew sleepy, she’d wake him up straightaway with Loni’s camisole slip. The hens had all assured her that once he got an eyeful of that he would grab her faster than she could take a deep breath.
The moment he left the kitchen, Ceara dived for the drawer where he kept round little candles he called tea lights. She plopped a half dozen on the table, decided that was too many, returned three to the drawer, and then lit those remaining with a flick of her wrist. Then, feeling a bit faint from using her power, she raced across the room, bent to search the light switch plate for the little slide buttons the hens had told her would dim the overhead glare. She nearly clapped her hands and did a jig when it actually worked. Perfect. The room wasn’t completely dark, but it was shadowy enough to lend her courage when the moment came for her to doff the robe. Now the champagne.
She found a chilled bottle in the door of the fridge, located the ice bucket and two flutes in the cupboards, and turned her attention to opening the bottle. After peeling away the gold paper, she squinted at the wires that anchored the cork. Strange. In her time, corks weren’t normally wired to the bottles. And with the lights so dim, it wasn’t easy for her to determine how to loosen them. Pulling and pushing on the wires also hurt her thumbs.
Just as she finally managed to get the wires off, she heard music drift into the room through what she now knew were called built-in speakers. Hurry, hurry. Quincy would return any second. She needed to be out of the robe and pouring each of them some bubbly before he walked in. She would smile brightly at him and suggest that they make a toast to this, the first night of the rest of their lives. And if Dee Dee was right, the camisole slip and lace would say everything else for her.
She heard the fall of Quincy’s boots in the hall. Jerking the robe sash loose, she shrugged one shoulder and arm from a sleeve while simultaneously wrestling with the cork. God’s teeth. She pushed upward with her thumbs, using all her might. Felt it give. Pushed again. When the cork remained stuck, she turned the bottle this way and that, trying to see how it was supposed to come loose.
With a final shove of her thumbs, she heard a loud pop. At the exact same instant, pain exploded between her eyes, and all the lights went out.
* * *
Quincy was just swinging left through the archway when he heard a pop, spew, and thump, followed by the shattering sound of glass. His heart shot into his throat when he saw Ceara sprawled backward on the floor, surrounded by foamy liquid and wickedly sharp shards of green. Sweet Christ.
“Ceara?” He ran toward her, slipping and sliding in the slop. The smell of champagne blasted him in the face. “Ceara?”
Heedless of the broken glass, Quincy dropped to his knees. What the hell? She was out cold, and a red spot was blossoming just above the bridge of her pert little nose. Shit. She’d tried to open a bottle of bubbly and nailed herself in the face with the cork.
Quincy was grabbing for his cell phone to call an ambulance when her thick auburn lashes fluttered. The next instant, he was staring into dazed, bewildered blue eyes. She blinked, refocused on him.
“Wha hit me?”
Quincy cupped her face between his hands. “The cork. Damn it, Ceara, when you want champagne, just say so. I’ll open the bottle for you.”
She closed her eyes and groaned, making Quincy grab for his phone again. But before he could dial out, she curled loose fingers over his wrist. “’Tis fine I am,” she said weakly, trying to sit up by planting one lace-covered elbow on the glass-strewn slate.
Quincy grasped her shoulders and lifted her to a sitting position. “There’s glass all around you. Let me lift you out of it.”
He balanced on the toes of his boots, caught her up in his arms, and stood. With three steps, he was lowering her onto a chair. The robe, barely hooked on her left shoulder, slipped off her arm, which hung limply at her side.
“Ice, we need ice.” Quincy’s heart pounded as if he’d just run a marathon. He grabbed the ice bucket from the table, opened the freezer side of the Sub-Zero double unit, and scooped out enough cubes to chill half her body. “Are you dizzy?” he barked as he got a gallon Ziploc bag, filled it with ice, and wrapped it in a towel. “How about your vision? Are you seeing double?”
“Me head hurts, but I can see fine.” She accepted the ice pack and pressed it between her brows. “Oh, Quincy, ’tis a fine mess I’ve made of it. ’Twas me intent to seduce ye, and instead all I shall get fer me trouble is two black eyes.”
Until that instant, Quincy hadn’t noticed what she was wearing. Sexy black silk and lace. His throat went tight. Didn’t she know that all she had to do to seduce him was crook her little finger?
“Sweetheart, you don’t need props.”
“Props?”
He gestured with his hand. “The lingerie, candlelight, and champagne. Props. You didn’t have to do all this.”
“Yes,” she said thinly. “Ye dinna like me words. Ye said ye needed more. And the hens agreed.”
“The who?”
“The hens.” She lowered the pack to glare at him, indignation flashing in her lovely eyes. “They say men of this time expect ladies to speak plain, and since I find that difficult, Loni lent me a seduction outfit to say the words fer me. Dee Dee says this outfit speaks a language all its own, and if ye dinna get the message, she’d have yer da take ye to the woodshed fer a man-to-man talk.”
The outfit in question definitely spoke Quincy’s language—or would have if the inside corners of his wife’s eyelids hadn’t been swelling and turning bright pink. Damn. What if she had a concussion? She’d been knocked out, and her head had probably hit
the stone floor pretty hard. He wasn’t quite sure how to tell her, but the well-planned seduction of her husband was going to be put on hold.
Quincy called his dad’s place. Dee Dee answered. No big surprise. His dad was usually in the kitchen at this time of night, helping his wife cook so he could sneak plenty of bacon grease into the skillet every time she turned her back.
“Dee Dee, it’s Quincy.”
There was a smile in her voice. “And you are calling me because . . . ?”
Quincy couldn’t see the humor. “I’m calling because Ceara knocked herself out cold trying to uncork a bottle of champagne.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Oh, dear? Is that all you’ve got for me? The cork hit her right between the eyes, and they’re already starting to swell. Her head struck the floor pretty hard. I mean, I heard the hit. What if she’s got a concussion? Her eyes aren’t dilated, but I’m still worried. Should I take her in? I don’t know what to do.”
Dee Dee sighed. “Quincy, dear, here’s your father.”
“No!” yelled Quincy loud enough to be heard clear down to his arena. “Dee Dee? Damn it, I don’t want to talk to Dad.”
“I heard that. Why not?” Frank asked. “If you haven’t got that girl back in the sack yet, I’m the one you should be talking to. My wife ain’t exactly an expert on gettin’ a woman into bed.”
Quincy rubbed the bridge of his nose. Did everyone in his whole frigging family know that he hadn’t touched Ceara since their wedding night? He remembered the looks and the giggles when he’d walked in on the hen party, and cringed inwardly. He’d been the subject of the discussion, all right.
“At the moment, getting my wife into bed is the last thing on my mind,” he replied.
“Then, son, you’ve got a serious problem. Maybe it’s all that green shit from a blender you’ve been chuggin’. You need more meat and spuds. A man can’t drive a spike with a tack hammer, you know. Get some real food under your belt.”
Quincy wondered if Ceara’s headache was catching. He was developing a bitch of a migraine directly behind one eye. “Why am I not surprised here, Dad? The next thing I know, all of you will be discussing my love life on the Dr. Phil show! Since you apparently know all about the big seduction scene that was supposed to take place here tonight, let me just say things went wrong. Ceara sent me off to put music on the stereo, and while I was gone, she tried to open a bottle of champagne. The cork got her smack-dab between the eyes, knocked her out cold, and I think her head hit the floor pretty damned hard. I’m afraid she might have a concussion, so I called to ask Dee Dee if I should take her to the hospital.”
“Well, shit.” Frank fell quiet for a second. “Now you wantin’ Dee Dee makes better sense. She seein’ double?”
“No.”
“Any dizziness or pukin’?”
“No, at least not yet.”
“Then I’d do with her like you have a dozen other times after a bar fight with your brothers—keep her awake for a while, make sure you ice the bruised spots, and watch her like a hawk.”
“She’s not one of my brothers,” Quincy shot back. “She’s a lady, and not a very big one, at that.”
“I reckon her brains are pretty much like a man’s. If you wanna take her in, do it, but you know how it goes at the ER. It’ll be a long wait, and when a doc finally gets around to seein’ her, you’ll be told pretty much what I just said.” Frank sighed. Then he chuckled. “A champagne cork? Son of a bitch. That’s one I ain’t never heard. A real twist on ‘Honey, I got a headache.’”
“You think it’s funny?”
“No, son. It’s just that if it wasn’t for bad luck, you wouldn’t have none at all.”
* * *
Quincy decided the mess in the kitchen could wait. Same went for dinner, so he turned off the flame under the skillet before gathering his wife into his arms and carrying her upstairs. He wasn’t sure whether swelling in her nasal passages or pressure from the ice pack was causing it, but she was starting to lisp.
“’Tis thorry I am, Quinthy. I dinna mean to ruin everything.”
“Honey, you didn’t ruin everything. It was an incredibly sweet plan, and just because the cork hit you doesn’t mean we can’t follow through tomorrow night.” If both her eyes weren’t swollen completely shut. “It’ll be just as wonderful then, I promise, so stop fretting about it.”
“Even if I canna s-thay the wordsth ye need to hear?”
If Quincy could have physically pulled it off, he would have kicked himself in the ass for that bit of nonsense. Of course Ceara found it difficult to say the words he’d needed to hear. She came from a long-gone era, and she’d obviously been sheltered by her parents. It was so different today. Hell, he’d even dated one gal who’d told him precisely where her G-spot was located before they did the dirty. I like it hard and fast, or I like lots of foreplay, with special attention to my breasts. No blushing, no hesitancy. Females of the twenty-first century liked sex, wanted plenty of it, and weren’t shy about putting in requests for whatever turned their cranks. They not only felt it was their God-given right to enjoy physical intimacy, but also their privilege to tell a man what they especially liked so they would enjoy it.
Quincy knew little about the social mind-sets in sixteenth-century Ireland, but apparently Ceara had been taught to guard her tongue when speaking of sex. He’d been crazy at best and totally inconsiderate at worst to expect frankness from her about her physical wants or needs. Cutting himself some slack, he hadn’t asked for much by way of frankness, but to Ceara, his expectations must have seemed unacceptable. And he’d been too damned blockheaded to understand that.
As he gently deposited her on their bed, he smiled to himself. She looked so damned sweet, every man’s dream from the neck down, all her attributes temptingly displayed in black silk and lace. The hens had selected well, choosing an ensemble that wasn’t so revealing that Ceara wouldn’t wear it but still sexy as hell. It definitely spoke a language all its own.
Quincy sat carefully on the edge of the mattress, wishing with every fiber of his male anatomy that he could make love to his wife tonight. But that would be heartless, not to mention dozens of other adjectives he couldn’t think of right then.
“Can I have a look at your nose?” he asked.
She lifted the ice pack from her face and met his gaze. He was pleased to note that her pretty blue eyes looked clear, and also that the cold seemed to be minimizing the swelling. The inside corners of her eyes and the bridge of her nose were a gorgeous rose pink, but the lid puffiness was less pronounced.
“You took a hard hit, but judging by what I see now, I don’t think both eyes will be black. Maybe just the bridge of your nose.” He smiled at her. “I’ll get you some shades for when you leave the house, and I’ll call you Hollywood for the next week or two.”
“What are shades?”
“Sunglasses.” At her blank look, he changed words. “Spectacles, only the lenses are tinted dark so you can still see well but the sun doesn’t hurt your eyes.”
“Mmm.” She gingerly touched the sore spot between her finely shaped brows. “Me mum would kiss the hurt away.”
Quincy had only dim memories of his mother, but he could clearly recall her lightly kissing his scrapes and bruises. He bent to press his lips to Ceara’s nose and murmured, “Better?”
“Nay.” The ice pack clunked him on the back of his head as she brought up her arm to hug his neck. “Kiss me lips, Quincy. ’Twill make all of me feel better.”
Quincy had never received a sweeter or more welcome invitation. Problem. If he accepted her offer, he might be unable to stop from taking things further. “Not a good idea,” he whispered. “If I kiss you, I’ll make love to you.”
She dimpled a cheek. “’Tis the only idea I have in mind.”
Quincy felt himself weakening. “You might have a concussion.”
“Whatever a concussion is, I dinna get stricken with one from a flying cork.”
“You need to keep the ice on your nose to minimize the bruising,” he tried.
“I shall ice me nose in betwixt.”
“In betwixt what?”
Her smile deepened. The ice pack plopped somewhere near her on the bed. She locked both arms around his neck. “In betwixt all the times ye’ll be making love to me tonight.”
“Ah.” Quincy had never loved anyone quite so deeply as he loved this slip of a woman. Just looking at her made his heart pang with yearning. “So it’s repeated lovemaking sessions that you’re requesting?”
She tried to pleat her forehead in a frown but winced at the discomfort. “If ye make me say the words, Quincy Harrigan, ye’ll be off to the woodshed with yer da tomorrow fer a man-to-man talk.”
The last thing Quincy wanted or needed was a woodshed lecture from his father, so he threw caution to the wind and kissed the woman.
Chapter Eleven
Ceara forgot all about her headache as Quincy feathered his lips over hers, sharing with her more a whisper of breath than a true kiss. Even so, her heart started to slog, and her pulse pounded with such force through her body that she felt the thrum even in the tips of her toes. She unfastened his shirt and pushed it off his shoulders, entrapping his arms. He reared back, sent the garment flying, and then straddled her hips, all in one fluid motion. No blaze burned in the fireplace, but a ceiling lamp at the other end of the room provided illumination, and the sight of his bare upper torso pleased Ceara so much that she almost protested when he bent to kiss her again, deeply and possessively.
Quincy. Long ago, Ceara had believed herself to be in love with a young man, but never had his chaste and hesitant kisses made her feel this way—her flesh and bones going as soft as candle wax placed too close to a flame. Her body tingled at every brush of his fingertips over her skin, and her breath snagged at every pass of his hands over her curves. He touched her as he might a fragile seashell: lightly, reverently, setting off sparks of heat in her belly—and lower. He made her want with an aching urgency that encouraged her to forsake all the ladylike rules of behavior that had been drummed into her head all her life. If he thought her brazen, ’twas fine, for she felt brazen.