“My deals! My excitement! The thrill of negotiating! I’ll wither and die unless you give me an occasional dose of power!”
“What would you be wanting?”
He met her eyes with a gaze that had suddenly become very intense. “Five minutes.”
Elgiva felt her pulse thumping hard in her throat. “Of what?”
“Of you.”
She took a step back, her mouth open in shock. “Doing what?”
“Just standing still. And not making any protests.”
“Standing where?”
He rested one large, sinewy hand palm up on a crossbar. Slowly his index finger beckoned her. “Right here.” When she gazed at him in speechless disbelief, he clucked his tongue as if she were being silly. “It won’t hurt. In fact, you may not want to leave when five minutes are up.”
Elgiva understood perfectly now, and her knees went weak. A traitorous little voice cheered in the back of her mind. The combination of anger and excitement made her feel too warm inside her robe and gown.
“I’ll just let you starve,” she whispered.
“No, you won’t do that.” His voice was low, throaty. “And I won’t do anything terrible to you. I think you know that.”
“Give me the microphone, Douglas. I mean, Dug-less. See? I can say your name the way you want. I can make compromises. I can—”
“Five minutes. Or no mike.”
Elgiva shivered with defeat. “F—five minutes. Swear it,” she ordered.
He made an X on his chest. “Cross my heart and hope a conglomerate of Japanese businessmen launches a hostile takeover of Kincaid Hotels Worldwide if I’m telling a lie.” He laid the mike on his table, then fiddled with a setting on his wristwatch. “In five minutes we’ll hear the opening notes of Bobbie Royal’s ‘Blues for the Night.’ Then I’ll give the mike back. Ready?”
She passed a hand over her forehead. “No. But go to it, you lecherous monster.”
“How romantic!” He snapped his fingers and pointed to the bars. “Right there. As close as you can get. Hands on the crossbar.” When she complied he nodded with satisfaction. Then he stepped up to the bars, and abruptly his face was only a hand’s width from hers. The heat and fresh, soapy fragrance of his body radiated over her; his breath, scented with the smoky richness of the Scotch he’d drunk after supper, brushed across her cheeks.
“Set?” he asked softly. She could barely think, much less speak. She nodded. He lifted his wrist and touched a tiny button. “Go.”
His hand slipped between the bars and slid under her loose hair. Slowly he cupped the back of her head. “Tilt your face up a little,” he murmured. “And put it between the bars, please.”
Quivering, Elgiva did. Her heart raced madly as he angled his head and lowered his mouth on hers with incredible patience. Languid eternities passed before his firm, nuzzling lips settled fully on hers.
He nudged and tugged at her mouth, using an endless variety of skillful little movements until she found herself giving them in return. She was moving her lips against his, helplessly enjoying herself. Breaking contact just enough to speak, he whispered, “Open your mouth, please.”
Elgiva moaned softly and told herself that she had no choice. His eyes, heavy lidded with desire, studied her parted lips with obvious approval before he kissed her again. This time he slid his tongue inside her mouth, and she sagged against the bars, clutching them for support.
Jonathan had never kissed her like this. For years she’d imagined what it would feel like to have a man share this intimacy, but what Douglas Kincaid was doing frightened her with its intensity.
He was dissolving her reason and resistance, making her think that she’d do anything for him, give him anything he wanted as long as he satisfied the sublime torment she’d suffered for days. She couldn’t stop kissing him, and when he made low, gruff sounds of encouragement, she frantically began exploring his mouth as he was exploring hers.
The breath crashed in her lungs when both of his hands went to the front of her nightgown. His fingers dug between the buttons. He moved his lips away from hers and dropped kisses on her eyes and cheeks. In between he asked hoarsely, “How many nightgowns do you have?”
Elgiva’s concentration centered on pressing her lips to his throat. “Two, I think,” she murmured in a daze of sensation.
He chuckled, the sound strained. “Good. I don’t want you to do without later.”
With only that warning he ripped the gown down the center. Elgiva cried out in shock, but an even wilder excitement flared in her blood. He sensed it, because his hands went quickly to her exposed breasts and grasped them with calculated roughness, his thumbs scrubbing the nipples.
Elgiva sought his mouth again and clung to its fierce, promising focus. She realized dimly that she was whimpering and squirming, and that his hands were trembling as they moved over her, stroking her neck and shoulders, then her breasts again, then moving down the shivering skin of her stomach.
Suddenly he grasped her waist, arching her slightly and bringing the feverish skin of her breasts and belly against the cool, sleek bars. Elgiva was trapped and could only protest with a rough moan when he deserted her mouth. Then she gasped with elation as his lips moved down her neck and chest.
No fierce highland gale was ever more dangerous than the sensations that swept over her when he tantalized her breasts with the careful savagery of his teeth and the tug of his lips. Elgiva wrapped her hands around the cell bars and rested her face against the unyielding barrier; she wanted to tear it down.
Incredibly, there was more. His breath hot and ragged against her skin, Douglas trailed kisses down her stomach. By the time she realized what he intended to do, he was kneeling in front of her, his mouth hurried and uninhibited. His hands slid behind her hips and tilted her forward. Quickly he found her sweetest ache. Elgiva whispered his name in disbelief.
What he was doing was not something two people in their circumstances should share so easily, so naturally. But when pleasure shimmered through her like heat waves, she lost control. She felt as if she were vibrating between his harshly gripping hands and his boldly giving mouth. Every emotion they had shared in the past ten days exploded in that moment.
She was the ocean crashing against the craggy Scottish coast, compelled to surge forward again and again, bursting against a force as strong as her own. Elgiva sank against the bars, and his hold on her was the only reason she didn’t fall.
Slowly he let her slide down, his lips moving upwards in a sensuous reversal of their earlier path. He bit her stomach gently, licked the valley between her breasts, then made a sound of surrender and sank his mouth onto her nipples. She settled in a limp heap in front of him, her damp hair cascading around her face, her body and emotions drained of resistance.
He slid his hands under the curtain of hair and cupped her face. When he turned it to his gaze, she opened her eyes groggily and whimpered at the desire in his expression. Surely there was affection there too. She couldn’t let herself think otherwise.
His knees were spread wide on the floor—his posture was the crouch of a man filled with desperately restained energy and frustration. His chest moved with shallow, fast breaths. “Open the cell door,” he told her in a hoarse whisper. “I’ll come out or you come in. I don’t care about escaping. I just don’t want these bars between us.”
Elgiva looked at him numbly as bleak regret filled her chest. She’d never know if he’d seduced her simply to win his freedom. It didn’t really matter. She couldn’t betray her family and neighbors.
An even more painful thought tore at her—she wanted to share everything in her life with this man. She wanted to share everything in his life. But that was impossible. With a tormented cry Elgiva pulled away from him and buried her face in her hands.
Tense silence stretched between them. She heard him struggling for composure, then cursing softly—sadly?—under each quick breath. Other sounds told her that he was standing and moving about.
Elgiva raised her head as he knelt beside her again. She gazed without victory at the microphone he placed on the floor beside her. With all the irony its expensive little soul could muster, his watch blurted the opening notes from “Blues in the Night.”
Five minutes. The tenor of her life had been changed totally, all in less than five minutes. She put a shaking hand on the microphone and pulled it into her lap. “Thank you,” she murmured. Considering what he’d just done to her, the words were both a lie and a vastly inadequate show of gratitude.
“The world is full of rewards, Goldie,” he told her gruffly. “You deserve all of them.” He reached through the bars and stroked her hair. “You could be so happy with me. Let’s get out of here, Goldie. Forget about everything else. Let me take you places you’ve never been before.”
“You already have,” she said, her voice breaking. “But I can’t stay. I must go back to the real world now. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t go—” he called, but she was already on her feet and moving swiftly toward the other room.
Once there she shut the door and blocked it with her body as if he might find a way through. Crying, Elgiva looked down at her torn gown and flushed skin. If he hadn’t already.
Elgiva barely spoke to Douglas for the next three days, and he was supremely glad. The incident between them had torn his convictions apart. How could he hurt this woman or anything she loved? It made him furious to be at the mercy of self-doubt. The MacRoth project was good, damned good, for both the people and the preservation of their heritage.
As soon as his people had shown him pictures of the MacRoth land and the grand old manor house, he’d been enthralled. Nowhere had looked more like home to him. He was determined to add the place to his collection. He wasn’t going to rip apart their ancient forests or plant hotels on the majestic green hills. The land’s untouched atmosphere was its appeal—he’d keep most of it for himself and turn the town into a resort.
He didn’t even care whether he made a profit on the deal. It was the challenge he needed so badly; anything to relieve the boredom and discontent that had begun to plague him in the past year.
All he’d ever wanted was to be somebody. In his late teens he’d thought that he’d make his name as a boxer, the way his father had tried to do. But the army had set him back a couple of years, and afterward his mother, who knew boxing better than most of the professional managers in the sport, had told him frankly that he wasn’t good enough to be a champion, and he had trusted her opinion.
Business was his arena. There he had proved to be one of the best in the world. For years that had been enough—one deal after another, millions piling on top of millions, luxury atop luxury. He’d thought that he’d never get tired of it.
But he had. And it frightened him. What else was there to accomplish? He’d donated millions to charity; he had loaned his name and connections to dozens of good causes; he’d built youth clubs in ghettos and funded clinics in third-world countries. Of course, there was still plenty of that kind of work to do, but he had a whole staff of people to handle it. It wasn’t anything but another Kincaid project to him. Supporting causes had become just another form of entertainment, and he felt guilty because he looked on it that way.
Now he felt fresh and intrigued, and because he was blunt about his own emotions he admitted that Elgiva MacRoth was the reason. He needed this project; he needed her even more. What he had to do was get control of the situation and then prove that his plan was the best thing for her.
When she went for her daily walk, Douglas paced his cell and looked at his freshly washed long johns he’d hung out to dry on a chair, the arms and legs arranged to dry without wrinkles. A neat row of white briefs decorated the cell bars, while a precision line of socks marched along the edge of his table. Mama Kincaid had given her three children a strict sense of discipline about their habits and their goals. She’d be pleased to see that years of maid service hadn’t dimmed her efforts.
Douglas sat down on his bed and chuckled ruefully. If he wanted to control Elgiva as much as she controlled him, he would have to change his tactics. He stared at his wash day display in amused disgust. The only thing he had under control right now was his underwear.
A week after the shattering episode involving the microphone, Elgiva faced her brother and Duncan at their usual rendezvous point and boldly asserted that Douglas Kincaid was a fair man who might offer compromises if she released him.
Rob listened in grim silence as she described how pleasant and reflective Kincaid had become lately; how he’d shared his knowledge of jazz music, described his business deals, told her about his homes, and related anecdotes about famous people he knew—all without bragging!
He’d also talked about his charity work, particularly about the research foundation he’d created for hearing disorders, due to his sister’s deafness. Best of all, he was willing to listen when she talked about Druradeen being more than just a place to live. She’d explained that the MacRoth tenants were all related by blood or marriage; that their homes and farms and shops had been passed down from generation to generation.
Rob began shaking his handsome head in dismay, and Duncan nearly sputtered with indignation. “You’ll next be wanting to kiss his feet!” Duncan shouted. “Your kin will never forgive you if you let sentiment make you careless!”
“She won’t do that,” Rob interjected, but he continued to frown. He took Elgiva’s hands. “Sister, don’t you see what the man is doing? He’s a master at charming people. He’s simply changed his colors for the moment.”
Elgiva shook her head. “I know that some of it is calculated. Believe me, he’s a fair amazing actor, that one. But Rob, he’s not a bad man. Maybe we’ve misjudged him.”
“That’s the end of it,” Duncan snapped. “I’m taking you off the project. I’ll substitute myself. And I promise you, by the end of the week the bastard will wish the last of his kin had died at the battle of Talrigh, so that he himself would not be here to squirm.”
Elgiva stepped close to the mayor and spoke right into his heavyset face. “You won’t be threatening Mr. Kincaid!”
“You’re infatuated with him! You’re a traitor to your own clan!”
Rob angled between them and lifted a commanding hand. “Ellie, do you forget that you’re speaking to the village mayor?” He glared at Duncan. “And you, you’re addressing the next heir of MacRoth. Don’t make ugly and foolish accusations.”
Elgiva laid a hand on Rob’s arm, half in apology, half to calm him down. Duncan snorted in disgust but said nothing, which was the closest he would ever come to admitting his own fault. Rob looked down at her with grave concern. “Don’t become dazzled by Kincaid, Ellie. He’s naught but a reiver.”
She stepped back, furious. “I’ll prove his change of heart to you. I’ll get him to accept and acknowledge his Scot heritage. I’ll have him wearing the tartan of Kincaid in two days’ time. I’ll have a statement signed by him, saying that he’ll give up his option to buy the district. Then can we let him go?”
“I’ll give you one day to accomplish this miracle,” Duncan told her. “When you radio Rob tomorrow at midnight, I’ll expect results, or your chance is ended. Kincaid stays penned up.”
Elgiva nodded to Duncan, then kissed her brother’s cheek. “He won’t disappoint us, Robbie,” she whispered, and she believed the words with her whole heart.
Douglas had just finished exercising when she returned from her meeting. Shom bounded up from the hearth rug and ran over to greet her, golden tail fanning the air. The sight of Douglas, half-dressed, smiling, and also happy to see her, made small agonies twist her insides. If she succeeded with his change of heart, he’d go free very soon. He’d be happy—so happy that she doubted he’d prosecute her for the kidnapping.
He’d go back to his glittering world, and she’d only see him in photographs or being interviewed on television. One day she’d see him with his blond, blue-eyed, sapphire-bedecked,
intelligent, business-brilliant wife.
If she didn’t succeed, he’d remain a prisoner, almost certainly growing bitter as the deadline for his real estate option passed. He’d hate her again and want revenge. Either way, she’d lose him. But the first option would be better for the MacRoth clan, she hoped.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, as she wearily hung her cape on the hearth peg. “You look upset.”
“Och. The weather is worse than an Englishman’s temper today. I walked too far in it, that’s all.”
“Why don’t you just fix sandwiches for supper?” He gave her an exaggerated leer. “And afterward come close to my parlor, fair Goldie, and I’ll rub your tired feet.”
Elgiva eyed him speculatively, considering which would be the best ways to persuade him. She also considered the erotic way in which he might massage her bare feet. “Aye, Kincaid, you’ve got a fair notion there. Sandwiches it is then. And how about a dram of whisky?”
“Aye, lassie, I’d love a snort.”
After the light supper, she pulled her big chair near his bars. He pulled his chair close on the other side. Shom lay down between them. He didn’t like to choose sides, she’d noticed. While sleet and fierce wind whipped the black night outside, Elgiva and Douglas toasted each other with glasses of whisky.
He downed his, set the glass aside, and slapped his thigh lustily. “Rest those bedraggled feet right here.”
Elgiva gazed at him wistfully. In the light of a nearby lantern he looked so handsome. He wore the silver-gray sweater, and the width of his shoulders was emphasized against the shadowy background. The lantern light gleamed on his black hair. His face was a study in contrasts—strength and gentleness, eagerness and contentment. The scar high on his cheek was a sort of masculine beauty mark, she decided. It drew her attention to his thickly lashed eyes.
“You’re staring at me, Goldie,” he protested softly. “Your feet, remember?”
“Oh. Would you do me a small favor tonight, Douglas?”
He gestured around his cell. “My kingdom is yours.”
Legends Page 8