“I wanted to win. If that meant passing my puck to that idiot—”
“Sha-sha-sha.” She put her hand over his mouth. “Don’t ruin the moment for me.” He caught her fingers in his mouth and tickled them with his tongue.
Giggling, Blayne said, “Maybe we’ve changed places. I’m the heartless cruel one now and you’re the nice one.”
“I’ve learned anything is possible—”
“Excuse me, Mr. Novikov, can I have your—”
“—Do you not see I’m busy?” he bellowed into some wild dog’s face. He focused back on Blayne so he didn’t have to witness the wild dog’s sobbing that followed. “Where were we?”
Blayne’s smile was soft, her palm pressing against his cheek. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I guess we have to go out with the old men brigade tonight?”
They both looked over at the VIP seats where two males were talking, Dr. Luntz—he’d never call her Marci—sitting on his uncle’s lap.
“I never thought they’d become so friendly. He invited Dad to visit next month.”
“Maybe we can all go.” Blayne perked up—if it was possible for her to perk up more—her smile huge.
“You mean like a vacation?”
“A vacation with skating.”
“Yay! Ice pond skating! And running in snow! I can’t wait!”
He had the perkiest girlfriend in the world. It should annoy him. It didn’t.
“It’ll be a family trip. I like your father,” he added honestly. How could he not? The man had told him exactly how to handle Blayne’s clutter problem: “Since you have the space, give Blayne her own room and let her mess it up as much as she wants. Never go into it, and never ask about it. As far as you’re concerned, it doesn’t exist. Just make sure she keeps all her shit in there with the door closed, and you can keep the rest of the place just as you want it. In the end, you’ll both be happier.” His idea had worked like a charm too.
But the time management thing? “Forget it, kid,” Ezra Thorpe had said. “You’re on your own.”
“Hey,” Van Holtz called out, motioning to them with his hand.
“We’re taking team pictures with the Babes. You two get over here!”
“In a second,” Bo told him. He hitched Blayne up a little higher. “I have a question first.”
“Of course I’ll marry you!” Blayne cheered, throwing her arms around his neck.
“I wasn’t going to ask that.”
“Oh.” She un-hugged him. “Sorry.”
“I was going to ask you that on Sunday. At three forty-five p.m. Before the surprise romantic dinner but after my Sunday laps in the pool. It was on my schedule!” he finished on a bellow.
“I know!” she bellowed back. “I saw it. You left it right out on the kitchen table! Was I supposed to ignore it?”
“Since you never look at the schedules you’ve been writing for yourself, much less mine—yes!” He scowled at her. “You know I hate when you mess with my schedule Blayne!”
“You’re rude,” she accused. “Rude!”
“Yeah. But you’re going to marry me anyway, aren’t you?”
That thousand-watt smile made Bo feel warm from the inside out. “Of course I am! Then again, I can’t officially tell you that until three forty-six, p.m., Sunday. Mostly because you’re a freaky hybrid with a schedule fetish.”
Skating over to the rest of the group to take the picture, Blayne in his arms, Bo laughed and said, “Yeah, and I love you, too, Blaynie.”
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Just then he heard the loud reverberation of the chapel’s pipe organ ring out the beginning of Mendelssohn’s wedding march.
He sprinted back around to the front of the church and slipped inside behind her, just as she began her walk down the aisle. His heart sank, but he shook off the disconcerting feeling and edged as quietly as possible into the end of the last pew once she’d made her way down the aisle. All eyes were on the bride. No one noticed the man in the kilt. He pulled the now crumpled photo of Katie McAuley out of his sporran, and forced his gaze away from the bride and down to the picture in his hands. He needed to find her and start focusing on what he planned to do next.
He unfolded the photo.
And frowned at the face smiling back at him, blond tendrils were blowing wildly about her face, as were those of the brunette and redhead mates she was clutched between. All three women were laughing, smiling, as if enjoying a great lark. Or simply the company they were in, regardless of location or event. He couldn’t fathom feeling so utterly carefree. Or so happy, for that matter. It was both an unsettling discovery, and a rather depressing one. He enjoyed the challenge of his work, but…was he happy? The carefree smiling kind of happy? He knew the answer to that. What he wanted to know was when, exactly, had he stopped having fun? He could hear Roan’s voice ring through his consciousness, as if he were an angel—or more aptly, a devil—perched upon his tartaned shoulder. “When did you ever start?”
And then the pastor began intoning the marriage rites, and Graham’s gaze was pulled intractably back to the woman standing in front of the altar. She turned to her betrothed and he lifted the veil. Graham felt himself drawn physically forward, the crumpled photo in his hands forgotten, as he shifted on his feet and tried his best to—finally—see her face. It was only natural, he told himself, to want to see what she looked like, after talking with her in the garden.
But why he was holding his breath, he had no earthly idea.
Then she turned her head, just slightly, and he could have sworn she looked directly at him. His heart squeezed. Hard. Then stuttered to a stop. Only this time he knew exactly why. He looked down at the picture in his hand, and forced himself to draw in air past the tightness in his chest. He distantly heard the pastor urge everyone to be seated. And one by one, everyone did.
Everyone, that was, except him.
He turned over the wedding program that had been handed to him as he’d entered the church. He looked at the lengthy name engraved on the front, then lifted his gaze to her. “It’s you,” he declared, his deep voice echoing loudly, reverberating around the soaring chapel ceiling. “Katherine Elizabeth Georgina Rosemary McAuley.” Katie. The nickname that had stuck. He held up the photo, as if that would explain everything, while he stood there, acutely dumbfounded. His mind raced as fast as his heart, as everything suddenly made perfect sense. And no sense at all.
He lifted the photo higher, stabbing it forward, as if making a claim. And perhaps he was. He felt driven by something unknown, a force he could neither put name nor logic to. If he were honest, it had begun outside, in the garden. It was something both primal and primeval, driven by what could only be titter lunacy. Because clearly, he’d lost whatever he’d had left of his mind. Yet that didn’t stop him from continuing. In fact, he barely paused to draw breath.
“You’re meant to be mine,” he declared, loudly, defiantly, to the collective gasp of every man, woman, and child lining each and every pew. He didn’t care. Because he’d never meant anything more in his entire life. And he hadn’t the remotest idea why. Yet it was truth; one he’d never been more certain of. It was as if all four hundred years of MacLeods willfully and intently binding themselves to McAuleys pumping viscerally through his veins.
Clan curse, indeed.
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“Let me buy you a drink.”
She’d ignored the men beside her. Greeted the few come-ons she’d gotten with silence. But that voice—
Dee glanced to the left. Tall, Dark, and Sexy was back.
And he was smiling down at her. A big, wide grin that showed off a weird little dent in his right cheek. Not a dimple, too hard for that. She hadn’t noticed that last night, now with the hunt and kill—
Shit but he was hot.
Thanks to the spotlights over the bar, she could see him
so much better tonight. No shadows to hide behind now.
Hard angles, strong jaw, sexy mouth.
She licked her lips. “Already got one.” Dee held up her glass.
“Babe, that’s water.” He motioned to the bartender. “Let me get you something with bite.”
She’d spent the night looking for a bite. Hadn’t found it yet. Her fingers snagged his. “I’m working.” Booze couldn’t slow her down. Not with the one she hunted.
Black brows shot up. Then he leaned in close. So close that she caught the scent of his aftershave. “You gonna kill another woman tonight?” A whisper that blew against her.
Her lips tightened. “Vampire,” she said quietly.
He blinked. Those eyes of his were kinda eerie. Like a smoky fog staring back at her.
“I hunted a vampire last night,” Dee told him, keeping her voice hushed because in a place like this, you never knew who was listening.
“And, technically, she’d already been killed once before I got to her.”
His fingers locked around her upper arm. She’d yanked on a black T-shirt before heading out, and his fingertips skimmed her flesh. “Guess you’re right,” he murmured and leaned in even closer.
His lips were about two inches—maybe just one—away from hers.
What would he taste like?
It’d been too long since she’d had a lover, and this guy fit all of her criteria. Big, strong, sexy, and aware of the score in the city.
“Wanna dance with me?” Such dark words. No accent at all underlined the whisper. Just a rich purr of sex.
Oh but she bet the guy was fantastic in the sack.
Find out. A not-so-weak challenge in her mind.
Why not? She wasn’t seeing anyone. He seemed up for it and Dee brought her left hand up between them and pushed against his chest. “I don’t dance.” Especially not to that too fast, pounding music that made her head ache.
He didn’t retreat. His eyes bored into hers. “Pity.” His fingers skated down her arm and caught her wrist. He took her glass away, sat it on the bar top with a clink.
She cocked her head and studied him. “Are you following me?” Two nights. First, sure, that could have been coincidence. A coincidence she was grudgingly grateful for, but tonight—
The faintest curl hinted on his lips. “What if I am?”
His thighs brushed against her. Big, strong thighs. Thick with muscle.
Dee swallowed. So not the time.
But the man was tempting.
She couldn’t afford a distraction. Not then. “Then you’d better be very, very careful.” Dee shoved against him. Hard.
He stumbled back a step and his smile widened. “You keep playing hard to get, and I’m gonna start thinking you’re not interested in me, Sandra Dee.”
Who was this guy? Dee jumped off the bar stool. “You’d be thinking right, buddy.”
He took her wrist again with strong, roughened fingers. The guy towered over her. Always the way of it. When you couldn’t even skim five foot six with big-ass heels, most men towered over you. And since Dee had never worn heels in her life…
The guy bent toward her when he said, “I see the way you look at me.”
What did that mean?
“Curious… but more. Like maybe you got a wild side lurking in you. A side that wants out.”
Maybe she did. The guy sure looked like he could play. After the case.
“I don’t know you, Chase,” she finally told him, too aware of his touch on her skin. Too aware that her nipples were tightening and she was leaning toward him as her nostrils flared and she tried to suck up more of his scent. “I don’t know—”
“I saved your life.” A fallen angel’s smile. “Doesn’t that count for something?”
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“This is no place for a lady,” he observed, ancient eyes studying Gareth without fear.
“She has a suite booked at the best European hotel and I will continue to keep her safe.”
“Most excellent.” He bowed. “Peace be upon you.”
“And upon you be peace,” Gareth returned in equally excellent Arabic.
Portia could read nothing in Gareth’s face after they’d left, unlike her wedding day, the last time they’d met. She sighed, wishing for so many things.
“Hmm?” Gareth asked noncommittally, just as he would have when she was twelve. Back then, he’d been surprised at her presence on his expeditions out of Uncle William’s house. But he’d never refused to take her along and he’d always answered her questions, even if he didn’t start any conversations. At least in the beginning, he hadn’t.
“He looks so helpless, unlike the charming—”
“Charming?” Gareth’s tone sharpened fractionally. He turned toward the large, comfortable barouche that Sidonie had just climbed aboard.
“Parrot? Or maybe a mynah bird?” Portia spread her hands a little helplessly, before following his lead. A seagull soared overhead, effortlessly free unlike herself. “Abdul Hamid always reminded me of a tropical creature, with his vivid waistcoats and eternal, colorful chatter. Seeing him crumpled up like this makes him look like a broken bird.”
“I doubt there’s any serious damage.” Warmth softened Gareth’s eyes for the first time until they gleamed blue as the water behind him. He offered her his hand and she took the first step up into the carriage.
“Are you sure?” Standing on the metal step, she was almost at eye level with him.
“They didn’t have enough time to tie him up and truly start working him over. The police here have a pattern they like to follow.” His expression hardened for a moment then he kissed the tips of her fingers. “But that didn’t happen. Once he sees a good doctor, is bandaged up, and has a long rest, he should be fine.”
“Are you truly certain?” She searched his face. They had never, ever lied to each other.
“As much as I can be.”
“Very well then.” She tightened her fingers around his, feeling his strength flood into hers once again. “Thank you for rescuing us.”
“It was my pleasure, Portia.” He kissed her hand again, brushing his lips across her knuckles. It was still no contact at all, nothing like all the men who’d tried to seduce her into an affair while she was married, saying she needed to distract herself from St. Arles. She’d always refused them, telling herself and them it was because St. Arles would never tolerate a cuckoo in the nest. He’d have known in a minute if another man had sired his heir and heaven knows, the son of a bitch kept hauling himself back to her bed to breed one.
She hadn’t realized until now it was because no other man made her bones shiver, even when her skin hadn’t been touched.
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Copyright © 2010 Shelly Laurenston
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Beast Behaving Badly Page 38