His mind seemed to shut down. It no longer mattered who he was, or who she was, or how insane this entire encounter was. All that mattered was the taste of her mouth, and its warmth. The texture of those lips moving against his, that tongue as soft and rough as velvet when he stroked it with his own. The feel of her waist clasped in his hands, or of her hair when he touched it, plowed his fingers into it, rubbed it against his cheek. Sweet. God, she was sweet. And small and pliant in his arms. And he wanted her. He wanted her with a power and a passion that exploded inside his mind. His hips arched against her belly. She didn’t even pull away.
He fed from her mouth, and his head spun. His heart pounded, and it felt as if something stabbed into it, but he ignored the sudden pain as his lips slid around to her jaw, and lower, to suckle the skin of her neck. No matter where he put his mouth he found sweetness, salt, softness, heat. And he wanted more.
Panting, he lifted his head to stare down into her eyes. Still wet with tears, but wide and deep and incredible, they gazed back at him. He couldn’t speak above a whisper, felt dizzy, weak, and entirely disoriented.
“Who are you?” he managed to ask her. And next he’d ask who he was, he thought vaguely. Because for a few minutes there it was as if he’d lost his own identity. This shock, this dizziness, must be the aftermath of that temporary lapse.
She blinked up at him, and Duncan saw the fire in her eyes flicker and, slowly, begin to fade.
“Not that it matters,” he went on, very quickly. To hell with the fear of losing himself, losing his identity or even his soul to her.
Odd thought, isn’t it?
His only fear now was that she wouldn’t let him kiss her again. “I mean, it doesn’t matter,” he blurted. “Not at all. I just—”
“Oh, Duncan.” The words were a sigh. Unspeakably sad, then riding away on a stray breeze. Closing her eyes, she untwisted her arms from his neck, took a step backward. “Oh, sweet Duncan, I didn’t mean to do it this way.” She shook her head slowly. “What must you be thinking right now? You don’t even know me, do you?”
He swallowed hard, reaching up with one hand, stroking her cheek, and absorbing a tear into his fingertips. “Oh, yeah,” he whispered. “I know you. I've seen you on the cliffs. I’ve watched you from the lighthouse.”
“You live in the lighthouse?”
He nodded, watching her face, wishing he could kiss her again. But even now the confused yearning of that moment was fading, and he was beginning to realize how weird all this was, and to feel self-conscious about losing his head with a total stranger. Practically making love to her in the street.
Still wanting to.
“How did you know my name?” he asked, maybe because it was all he could think of to say—to distract himself from thinking of her taste, and wanting more. To ground himself in something solid and logical and practical. To grab hold of the first rational thought to come into his mind in several minutes, and cling to it for dear life.
“I know a lot of things about you, Duncan.” She closed her eyes, lowered her head again. “But I’m messing this up. Badly.” And she looked up at him again. Like the sun emerging from behind the clouds. “I meant to take it slowly. To give you time to get to know me again and—”
“Again?”
She nodded. “Yes. But don’t worry about that now. Don’t worry about anything now. I’ll explain it all, Duncan, and this time I’ll tell you everything. I won’t keep anything from you this time, I swear it.”
Frowning, he studied her and wondered for the first time if this beautiful young woman was perhaps, slightly insane.
Good, Duncan. Better that than wondering what happened to your own sanity just now, isn’t it?
“This time?” he said, pretending not to hear his own mocking thoughts. God, how her black eyes gleamed. She reminded him of something...someone.
“All that matters now, Duncan, is that you’re here. You’re here.” Her beautiful lips curved into a smile so enticing he found he really didn’t care if she was sane or not. “You’re really here.”
He found himself smiling back at her, a reflex beyond control. “Yes, I certainly am.”
She shook her head from side to side. “You don’t sound the same.”
“The same as what?”
She shook her head again. “You’ve lost the lilt of the Highlands. But beyond that....” She stroked his hair once more, tugged a strand away from his head and ran it between her fingers. “Beyond that, you’re the same. Lord, but I’ve missed you so much. And to think I thought it was him. And I left poor Arianna home packing, convinced we had to go away and—”
“Go away?” She sounded crazier all the time, but for some reason the idea of her leaving here shook him. His hands were on her shoulders now, and he battled a rising tide of panic that usually only crept up on him this way when he tried swimming or looked down from some substantial height. “But you can’t. Not now, not when—”
“Oh, but we’re not going away. No, Duncan, not now, I promise you that. I’m not about to leave you when I’ve only just found you.”
He sighed his relief. “I’m glad.”
“Are you?”
He nodded. “We...we know each other, don’t we?” he said, a little uncertain.
A cloud covered the light in her eyes. “We did once. I’d hoped you might remember, but Arianna told me you wouldn’t. It’s all right, Duncan.”
He licked his lips, swallowed hard. “I can’t imagine meeting you and not remembering,” he said.
She shrugged, averting her eyes. “It was a long time ago.”
He tilted his head, studying her face. “You do seem familiar to me. Maybe that’s why I’ve been....” He let his words die. Maybe that was why he’d been so drawn to her, so compelled to watch her from the lighthouse. Maybe he had known her once.
“Well, if I’m a bit familiar to you, then that’s something, isn’t it?”
“I’m half afraid you’re mistaking me for someone else.”
“There could never be someone else, Duncan. Not ever.” Lowering her head slowly, she whispered, “There’s so much we need to talk about. So much I have to tell you.”
“Apparently so.”
She drew a breath. “This must seem so strange to you.”
“It’s...yeah. It’s strange.” She bit her lip, and he rushed on. “Strange in a very nice way,” he added, and he caught her chin, lifted it so he could look into those mesmerizing eyes of hers. “Tears,” he said. “have no business filling eyes like these.”
She sniffed, and the tears welled deeper and spilled out onto her cheeks. “Will you hold me, Duncan? I know it makes no sense to you now, but I need to feel your arms around me more than I need to draw another breath right now.”
She didn’t have to ask twice. He pulled her close, and she nestled in his arms. She fit herself against him as if she were custom-made for him to hold. Her arms around his waist, her cheek resting on his chest. Her hair just below his face so its scent wafted up to entice. Something stirred a memory when he smelled that scent. Lavender and honeysuckle. He’d smelled it before, he knew he had.
For a very long time he stood there and just held her. It felt potent. Emotions more powerful than any he’d ever known roiled around inside him, and he couldn’t even figure out why. But he didn’t want to let her go. Hell, he’d hold her like this forever if he had time.
Time.
Damn, the time.
He glanced at his watch, realized he was late now for his meeting with his father. Almost decided to let the old man sit alone all morning. But his conscience gave a twist. No, he’d wanted this chance with his father for too long to blow it when it finally came. He had to at least try.
“I’m sorry,” he told her as he stroked her hair and gently lifted her head from his chest. The regret in his voice was genuine. He didn’t want to leave her. It made his knees weak, made his head ache to realize he had to. Clenching his jaw, he forced the words to come. “I hav
e to meet someone. I swear, if it wasn’t so important, I’d—”
“No, it’s all right. I...I should go, talk to Arianna before she has the entire house packed up.” She shook her head. “Besides, I need to put my head on straight. Seeing you–it made me forget everything I’d planned, everything I wanted to say.”
A lump came into his throat. “I...will I see you again?”
Her smile was soft, edged with sadness and joy all at once. “I’ll come to you, Duncan. Tonight, I’ll come to the lighthouse. We’ll talk then. I promise you, all of this will make sense then.”
He nodded slowly, doubting anything she had to say could make any of this make sense. But he didn’t care. All that mattered was that she would come to him. She’d be with him. Tonight, and that was only hours away, and if she hadn’t made that promise, he didn’t think he’d be able to walk away from her right now. “I’ll be waiting,” he told her.
Leaning forward and up, she pressed a gentle kiss to his lips. Then, stepping away, she turned to go.
“Wait,” he said, and she stopped, glanced back at him. “I don’t even know your name.”
She blinked, as if to cover something in her eyes. “No, you don’t, do you? It’s Raven. Raven St. James.” Then she turned again and hurried away.
Duncan stood staring after her until she was out of sight. Raven.
Raven?
My God, what the hell was going on here?
“Duncan?”
Blinking out of his stupor, he half turned toward the voice that called his name. His rather stood three feet away, on the sidewalk, hands thrust into the deep pockets of the long black coat that made him look like a mobster’s grandfather.
“Hello, Father.”
His father frowned, and the additional lines lost themselves with all the others on his face. It was a stern face, narrow and pale. Steel-gray hair, too long for a man his age, surrounded it. He looked like winter, Duncan thought. He’d always looked that way. Never seemed to change.
“I waited a good fifteen minutes at the cafe," he said, his voice a monotone.
“I was on my way there.” He met the old man’s eyes, wondered if there would be a confrontation, accusations and defenses now. No, he wouldn’t defend himself to his father. He wouldn’t apologize. He was an adult.
His father’s gaze wavered first, and the man sighed. “No matter. I was just on my way back to the old courthouse building. Walk with me, Duncan?”
Duncan nodded, turning around and falling into step beside his father. Awkwardly trying to think of some light conversation, some casual words to break the ice. “So how have you been?”
“Same as always. And you?”
Duncan shrugged. His father spoke without making eye contact. It was a trait Duncan had never really become used to. “The business is going well,” he told the old man at length.
“Yes, well, it should. There will never be a shortage of old buildings in need of restoration.”
“I hope not.”
“You bought that lighthouse.” He made a clicking sound with his tongue, gave his head a shake, but other than that didn’t break his stride or raise his head. “I found that surprising.”
“So did I.”
The old man did look up then. Sharply, quickly, scanning Duncan’s face in one sweep of his pale eyes and then facing the sidewalk again.
“I bought it on impulse,” Duncan explained. “I’m not sure why. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to stay there.”
“Mmm.” Their shoes tapped in sync over the sidewalk. Passing traffic. Dry leaves rustling against bare limbs in the breeze. Silence.
“You regret it yet?”
Duncan sent the man a sideways glance. “No. No, I don’t,”
“So you’ll be staying around here for a while.”
He thought of the woman. Raven. Tonight. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Then I have a proposition for you.” The old man paused and waved a hand. Duncan followed it to the square flat-topped building, made of deep gray stone blocks. Broad stone steps, with pillars top and bottom, led the way to the entry, which was by itself impressive with big, dark double doors that had brass bells up high. “This is it.”
It took Duncan a minute to process the announcement. “The old courthouse? The one you bought?”
Nodding, his father mounted the steps. “Come, I want you to see inside. My apartments are above, on the second floor, but it’s the ground story you’ll be interested in, Duncan. I’ve already acquired some of the most fascinating antiques.” He turned his key in the lock and swung the doors wide. “Here, see for yourself.”
Duncan stepped inside. His father reached for a light switch, and then stood back and waited while Duncan’s gaze skimmed the crates, the boxes, the odd items stacked hither and yon, the large wooden items standing in one corner of the room. Were those were those stocks?
Finally his gaze fell on a sign. The Gothic letters printed in red on a black background read: OLDE WORLD WITCH MUSEUM.
He blinked. “What is all this?”
“Just what it looks like,” his father said. “A tourist trap, but a money-maker, Duncan, I guarantee it.”
“A Witch Museum?”
Nodding, his father moved around, touching first one box and crate and then another. “Torture devices, antique stocks, handwritten confessions—”
“And you don’t think it’s slightly morbid?”
“Ah, Duncan, don’t be foolish. It’s all in fun.”
Gee, do you suppose it was fun to the women who saw this stuff firsthand?
“Besides,” his father went on, “what do people come to this part of the country for, if not this? Why is Salem doing such a booming business, eh? This will succeed, Duncan, I’m sure of it.” He slapped Duncan’s shoulder—the most physical contact he’d made with his son in a dozen years. And as always, a shock of something like static electricity sparked where they made contact. Duncan stiffened and pulled away instinctively. Oddly, it reminded him of the static he’d felt when the strange beauty touched him, and yet it had been different with her. Pleasant and exciting, rather than slightly repulsive the way it always was with the old man. Duncan had never understood it, and assumed he simply tended to conduct static more than most people.
His father’s lips thinned for a moment. Then he acted as if nothing had happened. And nothing had. Nothing new, anyway. “I hoped we could work on it together. Partners. You and I.”
Duncan lifted his head slowly to meet his father’s eyes. “You. . . you want me as your partner?”
His father nodded. “Yes, son, I do. It will give us a chance to . . . well, to make up for the past. Time to get to know each other, the way we should have done long ago.”
Duncan couldn’t believe it. A lump came into his throat, but he swallowed it down. “I. . . I don’t know what to say.”
“I’m an old man, Duncan. When a man gets to be my age, he starts to think, starts to wish he’d done certain things in his life a little differently, starts to understand what’s really important.”
Nodding, Duncan had to look away. “I’ve waited a long time for a chance like this.”
“Then take it, Duncan.” His father’s hand returned to his shoulder. Jolted him, then tightened there. “What do you say? Partners?”
Duncan faced his father and said nothing. How many times had his father made false starts like this? How many times had he seemed to want to get closer, only to pull away again, without explanation? And, God, even if he were sincere this time, something about the idea of putting these relics on display seemed crude. Repugnant, even. Oh, he knew it was the norm in Salem, but it would be the first of its kind here in Sanctuary, and it seemed...wrong.
“Duncan?”
“I...I don’t know.” Say no, some inner voice told him. And yet he wanted so much to be close to this cold man. Had wanted it for so long. “I. . . I’ll think about it.”
“That’s good enough.”
Good enough. When
nothing Duncan had done had ever been good enough.
God Almighty, Duncan thought. Could this day get any stranger?
Chapter 14
“Raven.”
I turned around, holding my hair to the back of my head in a temporary bundle and craning my neck to glimpse the effect in the mirror behind me. Then I frowned. “Maybe I should just leave it down.”
“Raven–”
“What do you think, Arianna?” Letting my hair fall, finger combing it slightly, I arranged it over my shoulders. “Yes, I’ll leave it down.” With a firm nod I faced the four-poster bed and the clothing draped over every inch of the mattress and hanging from the foot. “I just wish I knew what to wear.”
“Raven, will you stop for one minute and listen to me?”
Smiling—I hadn’t been able to stop smiling since that morning—I faced Arianna. “This is all because of you, you know. If it hadn’t been for your spell....” I closed my eyes, tipped my head back, and mentally saw my beloved Duncan again. “He looks just the same. It’s like he never left me.”
“No, Raven. It is not like that at all.” Arianna stood close, gripped my shoulders, and the warm, familiar tingle passed from her body into mine as she stared hard into my eyes. “He did leave you. For you, everything seems the same, but it’s not, love. Not for him.”
I sighed softy. Poor Arianna, trying so hard to protect me from my own hopes and dreams. She just didn’t understand. “I know he may not remember me now, but he will. And he’ll love me again, and—”
“And how do you know it will happen that way?” she asked me.
I blinked. A finger of doubt crept into my brain, but I banished it. Ignored it. Pretended it didn’t exist just as I'd been pretending all day.
Just as I’d been pretending for three hundred years.
I'd spent all this time waiting for his return—none of it pondering how things might have changed between us.
“It has to happen that way,” I told her.
Eternal Love: The Immortal Witch Series Page 20