“I’ve no’ yet tried it beneath the bed, lass,” a deep Scots burr purred behind her, “but if ’tis your preference … and the rest of you is half as lovely as what I’m seeing … I might be persuaded to oblige.”
Her heart stopped beating.
She froze, her brain stuttering over the fight or flight dilemma. At five foot three, fight wasn’t the most promising option. Unfortunately, her brain failed to process the fact that she was still under the bed when it downloaded the surge of adrenaline necessary to flee, so she succeeded only in cracking the back of her head against the solid wood frame.
Woozy, seeing stars, she began to hiccup—a mortifying thing that always happened to her when she got nervous, as if simply being nervous weren’t bad enough.
She didn’t have to back out from under the bed to know she was in very, very deep shit.
• 3 •
A strong hand clamped around her ankle, and Chloe let out a little scream.
She tried for a big scream, but an inconvenient hiccup turned it into an imploded screech that left her gasping.
Ruthlessly, he tugged her from beneath his bed.
Frantically, she grabbed her skirt with both hands, trying to keep it from bunching up around her waist as she slid inexorably backward. Last thing she wanted to do was make an appearance bare bottom first. Her panty line showed under this particular skirt (which was one reason she didn’t wear it often, coupled with the fact that she’d gained a little weight and it was snug), so she’d worn hose with no panties. Not something she did frequently. Figured she’d have to do it today.
When she was clear of the bed, he dropped her ankle. She lay on her tummy on the carpet, hiccuping and trying desperately to gather her wits.
He was behind her, she could feel him staring at her. In silence.
In terrible, awful, disconcerting silence.
Swallowing a hiccup, unable to summon the nerve to look behind her, she said brightly, in her breathiest ditz voice, “Je ne parle pas anglais. Parlez-vous français?” Then with a stilted French accent (pretending to be dumb in Latin seemed a bit far-fetched to her), “Maid Service!” Hiccup. “I clean zee bedroom, oui?” Hiccup.
Nothing. Still silence behind her.
She was going to have to look at him.
Gingerly rising to her hands and knees, she smoothed her skirt, pushed herself into a sitting position, then managed to stand on trembling legs. Still too distraught to face the man, she focused on an empty glass and plate atop a table beside the bed and, determined to convince him she was Maid Service, pointed at it, chirping, “Dir-tee dish-es. Vous aimez I wash, oui?”
Hiccup.
Heavy, ponderous silence. A rustling sound. What was he doing?
Taking deep breaths, she slowly turned. And all the blood drained from her face. She noticed two things at once, one absolutely irrelevant, the other terribly significant: He was the most breathtakingly gorgeous man she’d ever seen in her life, and he was holding her purse in one hand, slipping the battery out of her cell phone with the other.
He dropped the battery on the floor and crushed it beneath his boot.
“M-M-Maid Service?” she squeaked, then lapsed into French again, too nervous to do more than babble her way through, amid hiccups, elementary weather conversation she’d learned in freshman French, but he wouldn’t know that.
“Actually, it’s no’ raining, lass,” he said dryly in English with a pronounced Scots burr. “Though admittedly ’tis one of the few moments it hasn’t been in the past week.”
Chloe’s heart plummeted to her toes. Oh, blast it—she should have tried Greek!
“Chloe Zanders,” he said, tossing her license at her. She was too stunned to catch it; it bounced off her and dropped to the floor.
Shit. Merde. Bloody hell.
“From The Cloisters. I met your employer a quarter hour past. He said you awaited me here. I would never have guessed he meant in my bed.” Dangerous eyes. Mesmerizing eyes. They locked with hers and she couldn’t look away.
“Under the bed,” she babbled, abandoning her overblown French accent. “I was under the bed, not in it.”
His sensual mouth curved with a hint of a smile. The mild amusement did not touch his eyes.
Oh, God, she thought, staring wide-eyed. Her life was quite probably in danger and all she could do was stare. The man was beautiful. Impossibly so. Terrifyingly so. She’d never seen a man like him before. He was her every darkest fantasy sprung to life. Scottish blood was stamped all over his chiseled features.
Clad in black trousers, black boots, a cream fisherman’s sweater, and a buttery-soft leather coat, he had silky black-as-midnight hair that was pulled back at his nape from a savagely masculine face. Firm, sensual lips, the lower one much fuller than the upper, proud, aristocratic nose, dark, slanted brows, bone-structure a model would die for. A perfectly sculpted dusting of a beard shadowed his perfect jaw.
Six foot four, at least, she’d guess. Powerfully built. The grace of an animal.
The exotic golden eyes of a tiger.
She suddenly felt like so much fresh meat.
“ ’Twould seem we have a wee bit of a problem, lass,” he said with silky menace, stepping toward her.
Her hiccups vanished instantly. Sheer terror could do that. Better than a spoonful of sugar or a paper bag anytime.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she lied through her teeth. “I just came to deliver the text and I’m so sorry I got distracted by all your lovely treasures, and I sincerely apologize for invading your home, but Tom is expecting me back, actually Bill is waiting just downstairs for me, and I don’t see any problem.” She gazed wide-eyed at him and concentrated on looking soft and stupid and feminine. “What problem?” Demure batting of the lashes. “There’s no problem.”
He said nothing, merely let his gaze drop to the stolen texts scattered around her feet amid thongs and condom wrappers.
She glanced down too. “Well, yes, you certainly do have an active love life,” she murmured vacuously. “But I won’t hold that against you.” Womanizer!
The look he gave her made the fine hair on the nape of her neck stand on end. His gaze drifted meaningfully to the tomes again.
“Oh! You mean the books. So you like books,” she said lightly. “No big.” She shrugged.
Again he said nothing, merely held her with that intense golden gaze. God, the man was stunning! Made her feel like … like that Rene Russo in The Thomas Crown Affair—ready to throw in with the thief. Run off to exotic lands. Stroll about topless on a terrace overlooking the sea. Live beyond the law. Pet his artifacts when she wasn’t petting him.
“Och, lass,” he said, shaking his head, “I’m no’ a fool, so doona insult me with lies. ’Tis plain to see you know precisely what they are. And whence they came,” he added gently.
Gentle from him was dangerous. She knew it instinctively. Gentle from this man meant he was about to do something she really really wasn’t going to like.
And he did.
Crowding her with his powerful body, he backed her toward the bed and gave her a light push that sent her sprawling backward across it.
With the grace of a tiger he followed her down, pinning her to the mattress beneath him.
“I swear,” she babbled hastily, “I won’t tell a soul. I don’t care. It’s okay with me if you have them. I have absolutely no desire to go to the police or anything like that. I don’t even like the police. Police and me have never gotten along. They gave me a ticket once for going forty-eight in a forty-five zone; how could I possibly like them after that? It doesn’t matter one whit to me if you steal half The Met’s medieval collection, I mean, really, they have six thousand pieces, so who’s going to notice a few missing? I am an excellent secret-keeper,” she practically screeched. “I definitely, most assuredly, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to … er, will not breathe the teeniest word. Mum. Mum’s the word. And you can take that to the—”
His
lips took the rest of her words along with her breath.
Oh, yeah. Rene Russo here.
Those sensual lips closed over hers, brushing lightly, tasting. But not taking.
And for an absolutely insane moment, she wanted him to take. Wanted him to crush her mouth in a hard, starving, bruising kiss and help her find that red-hot button of love that had never once hit lukewarm. The man filled a woman’s head with fantasies she would have sworn she didn’t have. Her traitorous lips parted beneath his. Fear, she told herself, it was just that fear could translate swiftly into arousal. She’d heard about people facing certain death suddenly getting a sexual charge that just wouldn’t quit.
So bizarrely, intensely aroused, she didn’t even notice that he was knotting a scarf around her wrist, until he swept it tight, and it was too late and she was tied to his bed. His sinful, decadent bed. Moving with inhuman grace and suddenness, he deftly knotted her other wrist to the far post.
She opened her mouth to scream, but he caught it with one powerful hand. Lying atop her, staring dead into her eyes, he said quietly, carefully, enunciating each word, “If you scream, I will be forced to gag you. I prefer not to, lass. It bears considering that no one can hear you up here anyway. ’Tis your choice. What will it be?” He lifted his hand infinitesimally, just enough that he might hear her reply.
“D-don’t hurt me,” she whispered.
“I have no intention of hurting you, lass.”
But you are, she was about to say, then realized with a flush that that hard thing digging into her hip was not a gun, but a magnum of another sort entirely.
He must have seen something in her eyes, because he raised himself slightly.
Which meant, she concluded with a huge flood of relief, that he wasn’t going to rape her. A rapist would have shifted a few inches to the right, not raised his hips.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to keep you for a time, lass. But you’ll suffer no harm at my hands. Mind you, however, one scream, one loud noise, and you’re gagged.”
There was no mercy in his gaze. She knew he meant it. She could either be bound, or bound and gagged.
She shook her head, then nodded, befuddled by whether she was supposed to say yes or no. “Won’t scream,” she promised stiffly. No one can hear you up here anyway. God, that was probably true. On the penthouse level walls were thick, there was no one above, and the elite were given wide berth unless they requested something. She could probably scream her head off, and no one would come.
“There’s a bonny lass,” he said, lifting her head with a palm and slipping a plump pillow beneath it.
Then, in one swift, graceful move, he pushed away from the bed and stalked from the bedroom, closing the door behind him, leaving her alone, tied by silken scarves to the sinful bed of the Gaulish Ghost.
She was the kind a man kept.
Dageus cursed softly in five languages, recalling his earlier thought, palming himself roughly through his trews. It didn’t help. Indeed, made it worse. Happy for any attention.
Scowling, he went to stand before the wall of windows, gazing sightlessly out over the city.
He’d handled that badly. He’d frightened her. But he’d not been able to offer her soothing words, for he’d had to get away from her, quickly, lest he give his blood what it had been howling for. Though he told himself he’d pressed his lips to hers only to distract her while he bound her, he’d kissed her because he’d needed to, because he’d quite simply not been able not to. It had been a brief, sweet taste without tongue, for had he crossed that barrier, he’d have been lost. Lying atop her had been sheer agony, feeling the darkness rustle and flex within him, knowing tooping her would drive it back. Feeling cold and hungry, trying desperately to be human and kind.
He’d gone to The Cloisters, pleased with how firmly he’d put all thoughts of the Scots lass from his mind. There, he’d discovered the parcel was en route to him, while he was en route to it. The cocurator had, with much fawning and gushing, assured him Chloe Zanders would be waiting for him, as someone named Bill had already returned, having left her at his address.
But the lass hadn’t been downstairs and Security had, with much winking and grinning, told him that his “delivery” awaited him upstairs.
Not finding the woman from the museum in the anteroom, he’d glanced about the living room, then heard noises upstairs.
He’d loped swiftly up the stairs and walked into his bedroom, only to discover the loveliest pair of legs he’d ever seen, poking out from beneath his bed. Succulent thighs he wanted to nip with his teeth, slender ankles, pretty little feet clad in delicate high heels.
Beautiful feminine legs. Bed.
Those two things in close proximity had a tendency to divert all the blood from his brain.
The legs had looked alarmingly familiar and he’d assured himself he was imagining things.
Then he’d plucked her out by an ankle and confirmed the identity of the lass attached to those heavenly legs, and his blood had simmered to a boil.
Staring down at her shapely backside as she’d lain unmoving on her tummy, a legion of fantasies riding him hard, it had taken him several moments to realize what she was lying amid.
The “borrowed” books.
The last thing he needed was the twenty-first century’s law enforcers hunting him down. He had much to do, and too little time in which to do it. He couldn’t afford complications.
He wasn’t ready to leave Manhattan just yet. There were two final texts he needed to check.
By Amergin—he’d nearly been done! A few days at most. He didn’t need this! Why now?
He inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly. Repeated it several times.
He’d had no choice, he assured himself. He had been wise to immediately restrain her. For the next few days, until he finished, he was simply going to have to hold her captive.
Though he could use magic, a memory spell to make her forget what she’d seen, he wasn’t willing to risk it. Not only were memory spells tricky and oft damaging things, taking more memory than intended, he used magic only if there was no human way to handle the situation. He knew what it cost him each time. Tiny spells to obtain the texts he needed were one thing.
Nay. No magic. The lass would have to endure a short time of comfortable captivity while he finished translating the final tomes, then he would leave, and release her somewhere along the way.
Along the way to where? his conscience demanded. Do you finally accept that you’re going to have to return?
He sighed. The past few months had confirmed what he’d suspected; there were only two places he might find the information he needed: in Ireland’s and Scotland’s museums, or in the MacKeltar library.
And the MacKeltar library was by far the best bet.
He’d been avoiding it at all cost, for it was fraught with myriad and varied perils. Not only did the land of his ancestors make the darkness inside him stronger, he dreaded facing his twin brother. Admitting that he’d lied. Admitting what he was.
Arguing bitterly with his da, Silvan, seeing the anger and disappointment in his eyes had been bad enough, Dageus wasn’t certain he’d ever be ready to face his twin brother—the brother who’d never broken a vow in his life.
Since the eve he’d broken his oath and turned dark, Dageus had not once worn the colors of his clan, though a scrap of well-worn Keltar plaid was tucked beneath his pillow. Some evenings, after he’d seen whichever woman it was into a cab (though he tooped many, he shared his bed with none), he would close his hand around it, shut his eyes and pretend he was in the Highlands again. A simple man, naught more.
All he wanted was to find a way to fix the problem, to get rid of the dark ones himself. Then he would regain his honor. Then he could proudly face his brother and reclaim his heritage.
If you wait much longer, that nagging voice warned, you may no longer care to reclaim it. You may no longer even understand what it means.
He forced his thoughts a
way from such an unpleasant bent, and they drifted with alarming intensity straight back to the lass tied to his bed. Tied vulnerably and helplessly to his bed.
Dangerous thought, that. Seemed all he ever had anymore were dangerous thoughts.
Raking a hand through his hair, he forced his attention to the text she’d left on the coffee table, refusing to dwell on the disconcerting fact that a part of him had taken one look at the lass in such proximity to his bed and said simply: Mine.
As if from the moment he’d seen her, that he would claim her had been as certain as the morrow’s dawn.
Several hours later, Chloe’s volatile emotions had run the gamut. She’d pretty much exhausted fear, plunged with effusive glee, for a time, into outrage at her captor, and was now thoroughly disgusted at herself for her impetuous curiosity.
Curious as a wee kitten, you are, but a cat has nine lives, Chloe, Grandda used to say. You have but one. Beware where it leads you.
You can say that again, she thought, listening intently to see if she could hear the thief moving around out there. His penthouse had one of those music systems that was piped into every room and, after an initial painfully loud blast of a bass-heavy song that sounded suspiciously like that Nine Inch Nail’s song that had been banned from airplay a few years ago, he’d put on classical music. She’d been treated to a medley of violin concertos for the past few hours. If it was intended to soothe her, it was failing.
It didn’t help that her nose itched and the only way she could scratch it was to bury her face in his pillows and bob her head.
She wondered how much time would have to pass before Bill and Tom would start to wonder where she’d gotten off to. Surely they would come looking for her, wouldn’t they?
Not.
Though both would say, “but Chloe never deviates from routine,” neither would question or accuse Dageus MacKeltar. After all, who in their right mind would believe the man anything but a wealthy art collector? If asked, her captor would simply say, “No, she dropped it off and left, and I have no idea where she went.” And Tom would believe, and no one would push, because men like Dageus MacKeltar weren’t the kind one questioned or pushed. No one would ever imagine him a kidnapper and a thief. She was the only one who knew differently, and only because she’d gotten all foolishly infatuated with his artifacts and gone snooping through his bedroom.
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