So, she was afraid, might she.
“ ’Tis my own. ’Tis the crest of the Keltar on the hilt. Now ’tis yours. For when you leave. Should you lose your job.”
He turned around and stalked back to the sofa.
When he sat down and resumed working on the text, Chloe stood in stunned silence, her gaze drifting from him to the skean dhu and back again. Several times she opened her mouth to speak, then closed it.
His actions had just demonstrated, more persuasively than any words he might have used, that he’d meant it when he’d said he wouldn’t hurt her. What words had he used last night? Naught will be done to you that you doona wish done.
She didn’t find that quite as comforting as she might have, had her own wishes been a bit purer.
He’d just put an ancient Celtic artifact in her hands and called it hers.
Her fingers curled possessively around the hilt of the dagger. She should object strenuously. Or at least, protest politely. And she was going to, anytime now.
She waited. Anytime now.
Sighing dismally, she acknowledged that some things just weren’t humanly possible—not even Martha Stewart could fold fitted sheets.
Oh, Grandda, why didn’t you ever tell me Scotsmen were so fascinating? He knows just how to get to me.
She almost thought she heard Evan MacGregor’s soft laughter. As if he’d answered her from somewhere beyond the stars, You wouldn’t be satisfied with less, Chloe. You’ve got your share of wild blood in you too.
Did she? Was that why, lately, she’d been waking up in the middle of the night, full of energy that desperately needed an outlet? Why, despite how well her job was going (she knew she was going to be promoted soon), she’d been growing increasingly restless? For months now, a small but insistent voice inside her had been murmuring, “Is this all there is of my life?”
The Gaulish Ghost was offering her a bribe, a payoff of sorts. Be a “good lass” and leave with a prize. Her very own Celtic artifact.
In exchange for her silence and cooperation.
Chloe was having an ethical crisis.
Fortunately, it was brief.
She stooped to pick up the forgotten sword and return it to the study. “I could use some clothes that fit,” she grumbled as she passed behind him.
Had his back not been to her, had she seen the smile that curved his lips, she would have shivered from head to toe.
“Dageus, darling, I miss you, I need you. I’m dying without you.” Pause. “Call me. It’s Katherine.”
The answering machine clicked off.
A moment later Dageus appeared. Their gazes collided as he turned down the volume on the answering machine.
“Dageus, darling,” Chloe cooed, feeling inexplicably irritable. There she’d been, paging delicately through the Midhe Codex and feeling strangely content while he rattled about domestically in the kitchen, cooking for her, when Katherine had interrupted.
He flashed her an entirely-too-devastating smile and shrugged. “I’m a man, lass.” Then went back to the kitchen.
Leaving Chloe to mutter beneath her breath. Just why she cared she had no idea. But it irritated her.
“Were you born in Scotland?” Chloe asked later, pushing her plate back with a sigh. Another fabulous dinner: Aberdeen Angus steak with mushrooms in wine sauce, young red potatoes with chives, salad and crusty bread spread with honey-butter. And wine, though he was sipping Macallan, fine single-malt scotch.
“Aye. The Highlands. Near Inverness. And you?”
“Indianapolis. But my parents died when I was four, so I went to live in Kansas with my grandda.”
“That must have been difficult.”
It had been horrible. They’d refused to let her see her parents’ bodies, which, though now she understood, at the time she hadn’t. She’d thought someone had stolen them and wouldn’t give them back. Hadn’t believed they could just not be anymore. But eventually she’d healed. She knew it had shaped her in ways people with parents would never understand, but she’d been lucky. She’d had someone who’d rescued her, and Chloe believed one should always count one’s blessings.
“Where’s the Scots blood in you, lass?”
“My grandda. Evan MacGregor. Do you have family?”
A dark shadow flitted through his eyes, a brief flash of anguish, there and gone so quickly that she wasn’t certain she hadn’t imagined it.
“My mother and da are dead. I have a brother.” He rose abruptly, gathering plates and taking them to the kitchen, leaving her to puzzle over what she thought she’d glimpsed. She was determined to pursue it, but when he returned, he distracted her by placing a glass of sparkling blood-red liquor in one hand and a cigar in the other.
Chloe blinked. “What is this?”
“The finest cigar money can buy and a glass of equally fine port.”
“And just what do you think I’m going to do with it?”
“Enjoy.” He flashed her a charming smile.
Chloe peered at the cigar curiously, rolling it in her fingers. She’d never smoked. Not anything. Had never wanted to. But if ever a moment was ripe to try new things, it was here and now, with a man who certainly wouldn’t sit in judgment upon her, no matter what she might do. It was strangely freeing, she realized, being around a man like him.
“Doona fash yourself, you needn’t inhale. ’Tis but the subtle combination of the port and pungent smoke on your tongue. Give it a try. If you doona like it, at least you’ll know the next time someone offers you one.”
He showed her how, preparing the cigar, coaxing her to puff it alight.
“I feel like I’m doing something bad.” She sneezed.
Och, she had no idea how bad. A small thing, to get her to smoke a cigar and have port. Lasses loved to flirt with danger, with things they’d never tried before, no matter how good they were. Oft because of how good they were. And one wee taste of the forbidden, oft translated into hunger for other fruit. Hunger, Chloe-lass, he willed silently. I’ll sate any desire you have. He could nearly taste her innocence on his tongue. Indeed, would, very soon.
“You’ve been doing something bad since the moment you met me, lass,” he purred, meaning himself, but when she glanced askance, he provoked, “snooping about in my bedroom—”
“I only snooped in your bedroom because you had stolen artifacts in there—”
“And why were you in my bedroom in the first place?” he asked silkily.
She flushed. “Because I was, er … I got, er . . .” she sputtered.
“And I must confess, I’ve been wondering just what you were doing near enough my bed to find those books. You must have been all but in it. Were you curious about me? About my bed? Mayhap about me in it?”
Her blush deepened. “I was just snooping, okay? But if I’d had any idea what I was going to find, I wouldn’t have.”
He smiled, a slow seductive smile, and Chloe caught her breath.
“Take a sip of port and let it lie upon your tongue a moment.”
Chloe sipped.
“Now the cigar.”
She puffed lightly. Sweet and smoky, a fascinating combination. Another sip, another puff. She laughed. She felt silly puffing on the fat cigar. She felt warm and alive. She turned her head to tell him what she thought, but he’d dropped beside her on the sofa and she ran into his lips.
Smack into that decadent, full, sinful mouth, and the minute they made contact, Chloe sizzled. Heat lanced through her from head to toe; a kind of wild heat she’d never felt before. A heat that she instinctively understood could burn her beyond recognition. He’d not smoked his cigar, and he tasted of malt, then his hot tongue slipped inside her mouth and her entire world upended. She scarcely noticed when he deftly slid the cigar and glass from her hands, depositing them elsewhere. He might have dropped them on the floor for all she cared.
“Chloe-lass. I need to taste you. Open more. Give me.”
He buried his hands in her hair, kissing her, and
suddenly it was utterly insignificant that he stole artifacts, that he’d taken her captive, that he lived outside the law. She cared only that his tongue was in her mouth, and how it made her feel. The world ceased to exist beyond that.
Slow, deep kisses, erotic nips with his teeth, his mouth gliding, slipping and sliding over hers. He caught her lower lip and tugged lazily away, returned to catch it again, then slanted his mouth firmly over hers, plundering. He nibbled, he sucked, he consumed. The man didn’t simply kiss, he made love to a woman’s mouth, made it feel all hot and swollen and achy. Made her make funny noises and feel shaky all over. Made her feel like she might—
I’m dying without you. Call me. It’s Katherine.
—totally lose herself and fall for him like countless women undoubtedly had. A woman he’d not called back. And unlike what she’d heard in the sophisticated purr of Katherine’s voice, Chloe didn’t possess the proper worldliness, the necessary defenses. If she were foolish enough to let him, the man would use her and discard her. And there’d be no one to blame but herself. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know, going in, what kind of man he was. Definitely the love-’em-and-leave-’em type. And how would she feel, knowing she’d been just another hit-and-run? Used, that was how.
“S-stop,” she breathed.
He didn’t. His hands dropped from her hair to her breasts, moving possessively over them, cupping and plumping. His thumbs glided over her nipples, and they peaked instantly. She felt like she was drowning. The man was too overwhelmingly male and sexual, and Chloe knew that she had to stop him, because in a few more moments, she wouldn’t be able to remember why she should.
“Please,” she cried. “Stop!”
He held her lower lip hostage for a long, erotic moment, then, with a ragged growl, he broke the kiss. He rested his forehead against hers, his breathing shallow and fast. When had it gotten so cold in the room? she wondered dimly. There must be a window open somewhere, letting in an icy breeze. She shivered. Her skin was hot, flushed from his passion, yet the fine hair all over her body had puckered into goose bumps.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said, his voice low and urgent.
Maybe not physically, she thought, but there are other kinds of pain. In twenty-four hours she’d become hopelessly infatuated with a thief. Mesmerized by a stranger who dripped “forbidden” and “secrets” and “criminal.” She shook her head, straining to pull away from him. Accepting a bribe was one thing, losing herself was another. And she had no doubt that she could get lost in such a man. They simply weren’t in the same league.
His hands went back up to her hair and he clutched tightly, his head down, and for a moment she thought he would refuse to let her go. Then he raised his head and looked at her, his gaze dark and intense.
“I want you, lass.”
“You hardly even know me,” she retorted shakily. She suspected that when Dageus MacKeltar told a woman he wanted her in such a voice, he didn’t hear “no” often, if ever.
“I wanted you the moment I saw you on the street.”
“On the street?” He’d seen her on the street? When? Where? The thought that he’d noticed her before they’d met in his bedroom made her feel breathless.
“You were arriving when I was leaving. I was in the cab behind you. I saw you and I—” he broke off abruptly.
“What?”
He smiled bitterly and traced the pad of his thumb over her lower lip, still swollen and damp from his kisses. “And I told myself a lass like you was no’ for me.”
“Why?”
The desire in his eyes ebbed, replaced by such a remote, empty expression that she felt it like a slap. He’d shut her out. Completely. She could feel it, and didn’t like it one bit. Felt bereft.
He stood abruptly. “Come, lass, let’s put you to bed.” He smiled mockingly, another one of those that didn’t reach his cool eyes. “Alone, if you insist.”
“But why? Why would you think that?” It was terribly important to her to hear his answer.
He didn’t answer her. Merely escorted her to the bathroom, offered her towels for a shower if she wished—which she was definitely too uncomfortable to do and refused, but washed up and brushed her teeth again—then motioned her toward the bed so he could tie her.
“Must you do this?” she protested as he knotted the first scarf.
“No’ if I’m sleeping with you,” was his cool reply.
She thrust her wrist at him.
“I know you’re untouched, if ’tis what fashes you.”
“And we both know you’re not,” she muttered irritably. Mr. Multiple-Magnums-beneath-the-bed. How did he know she was a virgin? Was it stamped on her forehead? Were her kisses so inept?
“ ’Twas naught but practice for the day I might please you.”
She shivered. Smooth, very smooth. “If you don’t tie me, I promise I won’t try to escape.”
“Aye, you would.”
“I give you my word.”
With a graceful flick of his hand, he tossed one of the pillows from the bed.
Chloe didn’t have to glance down to know what he’d just revealed: the skean dhu she’d wrapped earlier in a soft piece of plaid she’d found, then tucked beneath the pillow so she might cut herself free later. “I was keeping it safe. I didn’t know where else to put it.” She batted her lashes.
“No words of promise or even desire binds a woman. Bonds bind a woman.” He scooped up both blade and plaid, crossed the room, and tucked them in a drawer.
She narrowed her eyes. “Who taught you that? Women? Sounds to me like maybe you pick the wrong ones. What are your criteria? Do you have any criteria?”
He shot her a dark look. “Aye. That they’ll have me.”
Blinking, she let him tie her. The man could have any woman.
There was a very dangerous moment when he fastened her second wrist. A long pregnant pause where they simply stared at each other. She wanted him, ached for him, and the intensity of it terrified her. She hardly knew the man, and what she did know about him was anything but reassuring.
As he closed the door he said over his shoulder, “Because you’re a good lass.” A heavy sigh. “And I’m no’ a good man.”
It took her a moment to understand what he was talking about. Then she realized he’d finally answered her question—why she was not for him.
• 6 •
I’m no’ a good man.
’Twas the only real warning she would ever get from him on her sweet, inevitable fall from grace.
Dageus sipped his whisky and stared at her. That kiss, that one mere sip of a kiss still lay upon his tongue, honey-sweet, and no amount of whisky could wash it off. He’d scarce begun to taste her when she’d stopped him.
And stopping had damn near killed him. His tongue in her mouth, his hands in her hair, for a brief moment he’d been filled with icy rage, pure and black, something that refused to be denied. The ancient ones had stirred, demanding he sate his hunger. Force her, a dark voice had purred. You can make her like it.
He’d waged a dread battle against them, hence the carefulness with which he’d pulled away. That blackness was not him. Would not be him. He would not permit it. It could too easily consume him.
He knew he shouldn’t be in the bedchamber. He wasn’t in the best temper for many reasons, not the least of them that he’d used magic earlier, first on a brief visit to Security before she’d wakened, reminding them that they saw Chloe Zanders leave yestreen, and later when she’d tried to escape, a reflexive action, without thought. The interior dead bolt had been locked for a change, and she’d unlocked it, and he’d jammed it with a whispered word before she could open it.
Then, pressed close to her, with blades betwixt them and a bit of blood on his skin and the darkness rising, he’d made clear the cost of her escape: his life.
Wagering she’d back down swiftly.
A perverse part of him daring her to end his dishonor at the end of his own sword.
E
ither way, he’d have more peace.
She’d accepted his blade and stayed. She didn’t ken the full significance of that. When a Druid offered his favored weapon, his Selvar, the one he wore against his skin, to a woman, he offered his protection. His guardianship. Forever.
And she’d taken it.
She was sleeping on her back, the only way she could, with her wrists restrained, though he’d left considerable play in the bonds. Her lovely breasts rose and fell with the gentle, slow breaths of deep slumber.
He should let her go.
And he knew he wasn’t going to. He wanted Chloe Zanders in ways he’d never wanted a lass before. She made him feel like a sapling lad, wanting to impress her with masculine feats of prowess, protect her, sate her every desire, to be the focus of her shiny bright heart, so full of innocence. As if she might somehow wash him clean again.
She was curiosity and wonder; he was cynicism and despair. She was bursting with dreams; he was carved out and hollow inside. Her heart was young and true; his was iced with disillusion, scarce beating enough to keep him alive.
She was all he’d dreamed of once, long ago. The kind of lass to whom he’d have given binding Druid vows, pledged his life to forever. Smart, the woman spoke four languages that he knew of. Tenacious, determined, logical in a circuitous way. Real, believing in things. Protective of the old ways, that was evident each time she watched him turn a page. Twice she’d handed him a tissue to do it with when he’d forgotten, lest he get the oil of his skin on the precious pages.
And he could sense in her a woman that wanted to break out. A woman who’d lived a quiet life, a respectable life, but hungered for more. He could sense, with the unerring instincts of a sexual predator, that Chloe was wanton at heart. That the man she chose to grant liberties to, would be granted them unconditionally. Sexually aggressive, dominant to the bone, he recognized in her his perfect bedmate.
He was a man who could offer no promises, no assurances. A man with a terrible darkness growing inside him.
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