Crimson Lust

by Rebecca Royce

  A dangerous combination.

  Chapter Two

  Felicity Hahn drummed her fingers on the table in front of her before she took another sip of tea. Usually a coffee drinker, she’d decided to go with the flow, at least for the moment, and consume the beverage the locals enjoyed. The heat from the infused liquid burned her tongue.

  The waitress who had originally set the pot down in front of her returned. Felicity sized her up quickly. She’d always had a knack for placing people in their correct category—a mark or someone she couldn’t be bothered with. Her server fell into the latter group. She didn’t have anything on her that Felicity could fleece.

  “Can I get you something to eat?” The elderly woman, whose gray hair flowed straight down her back, past even the length Felicity sported, smiled as she asked the question.

  “I think I’m good for now with just the tea.”

  Her waitress pointed at her. “You’re American, aren’t you?”

  Great. The woman wants to talk. Felicity’s inner sarcasm danced to the surface of her brain. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t undo the years at her stepfather’s side. She wasn’t nice. End of story.

  Still, she could pretend for a minute or two if it meant not drawing attention to herself. “That’s right. I’m from America.” She smiled, hoping she didn’t look deranged.

  “Where? I have a cousin who lives in Boston.”

  “I’ve lived so many places. My family…well, we traveled a lot.” Usually running from the police. “I spent some time in Boston.”

  “It’s a lovely city but a little congested for my liking. I’m Mary, by the way.” Felicity nodded as if she cared, when really the hairs on the back of her neck had stood up straight, begging her to find a way to stop conversing with this stranger. Stupid remarks made without thinking caused more thieves to end up in the hands of the authorities than anything else. Unnecessary speech meant jail time.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Mary.” Felicity waited for a beat, hoping the woman would leave. When Mary didn’t depart, Felicity bit down on the inside of her cheek before she could speak again. “I’m Felicity. From America.”

  “Yes. That’s what you said.” Mary took a step around the table and sat down across from Felicity.

  Wow. In all of her years of traveling, running, staying in all manner of establishments, she had never had a waitress want to spend this much time with her. Didn’t the woman have other people to serve?

  Quickly, she glanced around the room. No one else sat eating or drinking, which meant that Mary obviously didn’t have anyone else who needed her services. That left only Felicity. Great.

  “So what brings you to our beautiful hotel? Castle Tullamore hasn’t had an American visitor in a while. Our little part of the world is famous for a lot of British and Irish travelers, but most of the time Americans don’t stop by.”

  “I hadn’t actually meant to stay here. I had a really odd day. First I ran out of gas and had to hike miles to a gas station to refill the car. I could have sworn I’d filled up before I left. And then not one but two tires blew off my car right as I approached here. The car is being repaired and now I’m stuck here for a few days.”

  Felicity closed her mouth. What on earth had possessed her to tell this stranger so much about herself? She didn’t talk. She certainly didn’t share…

  “Well, dearie.” Mary smiled before she stood. “It sounds like you’re supposed to be here. Who knows? Maybe there’s a very good reason why you had to be here right now.”

  “A reason?” She waved her hand in the air. “I don’t believe in any of that. Fate, reason, a plan. We’re all lucky if we can make it through the day without stumbling, let alone some big eternal plan.”

  Mary raised a gray eyebrow. “Well, I certainly hope you like the tea. I enjoyed meeting you. And I hope that you find whatever you’re looking for. Do take a look at our lovely hotel. Some people claim the elevators are one of a kind. The very best part of the trip.”

  The old woman walked away, her back straight and proud. Felicity stared at her retreating figure. As she watched, a pair of wings seemed to spring out of Mary’s back. Long, white and sturdy, they spread out across the room, taking up most of the available space right and left of Mary as she moved.

  Felicity gasped, jumping to her feet. Mary paused, turned and winked at her. Just as fast as the wings had appeared, they vanished. Felicity stumbled back two steps as she rubbed at her eyes.

  “Are you okay, young lady?” Mary motioned to the table. “Go sit down. Drink your tea.”

  “Um.” Felicity stood, her feet planted on the ground. What had just happened? Had she actually seen what she thoughts she did? She couldn’t have.

  As she retook her seat, she wondered if she should seek out some kind of medical attention. Had she just had an episode? A psychotic break? Was there something in the tea?

  “Do you mind if I join you?”

  Felicity jumped, grabbing her chest as her heart rate sped up. As a person who always handled a million small details without issue, she’d certainly gotten caught off guard a lot lately.

  The man asking to sit at her table did nothing to slow her pounding pulse. He stood over her table looking down at her with the most unfathomable brown eyes she’d ever seen. In fact, she wondered if she stared long enough if she wouldn’t get completely lost in them.

  A corner of his hard mouth twitched upward, adding amusement to the severity of his dark looks. He had brown hair with no streaks of gray to indicate his age. In fact she’d have to guess that he fell somewhere between her own twenty-five years and thirty years of age.

  His face, a mixture of sharp lines and angles, wouldn’t be called gorgeous, not with a million pretty boys gracing the covers of magazines and the big movie screens. This man radiated authority and his gaze told her he wanted her attention right then.

  She swallowed, her mouth having suddenly gone dry.

  “You want to join me?”

  The tables around the room remained empty. Was this, like, a thing they did in Ireland? She’d really not eaten out since she’d arrived.

  “Yes, wee one, I’d like to sit with you. Have a bit of conversation, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  No! her common sense screamed, even as she answered, “Sure. Have a seat.”

  He smiled as he sat down. Well, not really a smile. He kind of lifted the sides of his mouth so he seemed amused but not jovial.

  She needed to say something. “Should we get you some tea?”

  She wished she could whack her head against the wall. An extremely good-looking Irish man had come to her table when he could have sat pretty much anywhere else in the lounge and all she could think to say was tea?

  “I’m Cian.” He extended his hand. “And I don’t usually do this. You can’t imagine how little I actually do this.”

  “Sit down with random women?”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “Ah now, but I don’t think you’re exactly a stranger.”

  “Trust me, I would remember you.”

  Dark and good-looking men didn’t just pop in and out of her life all that often. She tended to be too busy either stealing or running for her life. Random encounters in bars had stopped satisfying her long ago. It had been…years.

  “Well, we don’t actually have to have met each other not to be strangers. I know things about you already.”

  She smiled. This she could deal with. Tall, dark and handsome was flirting with her. This approach constituted some kind of introductory game. Okay, she could play.

  “Like what? Give me an example of what you know about me without our ever having been introduced.”

  He tapped his hand on the table. His fingers were long and strong as if he used them all the time. His clothes—a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt—were practical, but not fancy attire. Cian would never be her mark. He’d never have anything expensive enough for her to take. That meant she could actually pay attention to what he said.

&nb
sp; “To start with, you’re American.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Bravo. Not particularly impressive, there. It’s obvious I’m an American. My accent is a clear indicator.”

  Felicity looked over her shoulder. Where had that strange waitress gone? Shouldn’t she have at least come out and asked Cian if he wanted tea?

  “I was just getting started.” His eyes roamed her body. She shivered from the intensity of his gaze. “You’re from an interesting background, aren’t you?”

  Now he’d caught her interest, and not just with the fact that eye contact alone had turned her into a sudden horn dog. “How so? And if you just bring up my physical oddities that clearly indicate a diverse ethnic background, I’m getting up and leaving.”

  “No. Although I do find you to be not only beautiful but intriguing to look at. It’s not every day that I see a woman who has so many touches of our world written all over her face.”

  “Well, that’s an interesting way to put it.” She’d always hated her looks as a child and she hadn’t really outgrown her dislike of them as she got older. She’d just gotten used to not thinking about her external appearance except as far as it helped her to steal or blend in.

  “Someone in your background came from Asia. China, I would guess, but that’s at least three generations back. Your hair—its color and texture—come from that strand of your DNA. But your eye color—that blue, that particular shade of it—that’s Irish. Your people are from around these parts, or close by. Of course you’re American, so there are probably lots of other interesting strands of DNA running around in there, from all over the world.”

  He’d been right about her Chinese heritage. Her great-grandmother had come from there. And the Irish? Yes, that too, from what she understood. Her father had died on her second birthday. Other than the fact that his people had immigrated from Ireland, she knew little about him. Her mother hadn’t liked to talk about the scumbag. She didn’t even have his last name.

  “Are you some kind of genealogist?” Or a con man? He was doing almost exactly what she did on a regular basis. He’d sized her up and presented her like an outline. Who, what, when, where and why. She took a sip of her tea to wash down the bitter taste in her mouth. At least she never talked to her marks, told them how she had viewed them.

  “You’re left-handed but you use your right because it’s easier to do what you do right-handed. You don’t eat enough, and I don’t know that simply because you are thin. No, your body cries out for nourishment. Starvation is making your body work too hard to fulfill its basic requirements. Oh, you’re okay right now. You’re still young. Twenty years from now if you haven’t done a better job of taking care of yourself you’ll be in some trouble. I see it all the time.”

  Goose bumps appeared on her arms. “Are you a doctor, then?” Or an Interpol agent sent to find her…

  “I’m nothing, really. At one point I was an art collector. Or at least I had a great deal of interest in particular kinds of art.”

  “I know a little bit about art.” Well, she knew how to move it, how to sell it, how to steal it.

  “You still haven’t told me your name.”

  “Oh.” She almost lied. A million fake names she’d used before came to her mind. Felicity even opened and closed her mouth a few times. Finally she spoke. “Felicity Hahn.”

  He nodded and she sucked in her breath. He hadn’t done one single thing that could be construed as threatening, yet she couldn’t help but feel that somehow she’d become his prey.

  “What do you do for a living?” He reached across the table and took her hand in his. Her pulse jumped beneath his fingers. “What brings you to Castle Tullamore? Work or pleasure?”

  “You can’t guess all of that by simply looking at me?” She smiled. While she should be getting up and leaving this conversation, she couldn’t seem to stop herself from taunting him.

  “I probably could but I like the sound of your voice.”

  She shivered. There was something about the way he gazed at her, about the way his eyes never left hers, that set her nerves aflame, and not in the “get up and run away” kind of pain. No, she wanted to get lost in him, to find out just how many secrets he held in his eyes.

  Felicity shook her head. She’d never been a romantic, hated those stupid women who fell for a man because he smiled at her and said some nice things. It would take a lot more than deep-brown eyes to make her think about roses and white picket fences.

  “I came to sell something. I had no intention of being here. I should be at least four hours farther on my way but my car broke down, so I guess I’m taking a bit of an impromptu vacation here.” She shrugged, looking out the window, anywhere but into his eyes again.

  “And the people who would buy what you are selling. Will they wait for the item?”

  “They might not.” She took a sip of her now-tepid tea. “I don’t really care. If they go away, someone else will step in. There’s never any shortage of people who want what I can deliver.”

  He leaned closer. “Sounds like interesting work.”

  “It is.” Only lately she’d gotten a little tired of putting her neck on the line. There had to be a simpler way to live, or maybe she’d just been born in the wrong time. “Have you been here before?”

  He stood up. “A very long time ago. I hardly recognized the place.”

  “Really? Have they recently renovated or something?”

  Cian extended his hand to her. “I don’t know about recent. But it’s changed. That’s all I know. Come with me.”

  “What?”

  “Please, get up and come with me.” She rose, feeling as if her legs were made of Jell-O. What did he mean to do with her? Why did she simply acquiesce to his demand?

  She placed her hand in his. “Where are we going?”

  “Your nail polish.” He studied her fingers like someone else might a manuscript. “It’s an unusual color.”

  Her cheeks heated up. “I felt a little girly last week. Pink isn’t usually my thing.”

  “It suits you.” He squeezed her hand in his. “I wish to show you something.”

  “All right.” She let him lead her into the hall, realizing as she walked through the door to the hallway that she hadn’t paid for her tea. “Wait, I need to leave money for the waitress.”

  “You are staying at the hotel, yes?” The way he said “are”, with his sexy Irish accent rolling the Rs, she wanted to lick him like a lollipop until she’d saturated herself with him.

  “I am.” And in about two seconds she intended to give him her room key and tell him to meet her there. In her whole life she’d never been so affected by a man. He seemed so primal. Even as it scared her on one level, she couldn’t deny the heat pooling between her thighs.

  “Then they’ll find you. I promise, you’ll pay.”

  She supposed he spoke the truth. The hospitality industry wasn’t known for its generosity and free services. The tea would most definitely show up on her bill and lord knew where the waitress had gone.

  He raised her hand to his lips and planted a lingering kiss on her palm, where it met her wrist. She gasped, unprepared for the sensual assault the small contact had on her. Her knees threatened to buckle and her already hot core spilled wetness between her legs.

  If it were possible, and she didn’t know if it could be, his eyes turned a shade darker, as if he knew what had happened to her, as if he could somehow tell that she’d gone from turned on to smoldering. But he couldn’t—not unless he had some kind of sixth sense. No one ever knew what she was thinking or feeling unless she wanted them to.

  “You smell like heaven. I must keep my head. I can’t lose control.”

  “I don’t understand.” Her mind felt thick and she ached to get out of the hallway and go somewhere else, somewhere they could be alone.

  “No, you wouldn’t, thank the good Lord. Now come with me—I have something I wish to show you.”

  “In your room?” Her heart beat fast ag
ainst her ribs.

  “No.” He laughed. “I’d never be so presumptuous. I was raised, in a rather old-fashioned way. Very rarely do I just take a woman to bed unless she’s being paid for her services, and it has been a very long time since I’ve done that.”

  “You’ve been with hookers?” She knew she should feel shocked or upset but the way the conversation had just shifted out of nowhere to prostitutes had thrown her off her game. Perhaps she should feel relieved he didn’t think that was what she did for a living.

  “Not for longer than you can imagine.” She doubted that possible. How old could he possibly be? Twenty-eight? Twenty-nine years old?

  He continued. “And I’m clean. But all of that is naught because I have to keep my head straight and we won’t be intimate—not while I find you too volatile on my senses.”

  She had no idea what he meant by anything he’d just said. He dragged her down the hall after him, not letting go of her hand. “Slow down.”

  Felicity had no problem playing it a little rough with him but she had her limits. She wouldn’t tolerate being run through the hallway if they weren’t rushing to get to bed together.

  “Sorry. I forget about speed. It’s been a while since I’ve spent time with someone like you.”

  They rounded the corner and entered a library. A dimly lit room, mostly because the drapes had been drawn and lantern light as opposed to the electric version illuminated the space. The walls were covered with books housed on wide, deep shelves that appeared to allow the cases to hold more than one row of volumes in each space. Leather couches and red felt chairs were placed in various spots around the room for people to sit.

  However, as in the tearoom, no one else was sitting in the library. Was anyone else staying at the hotel?

  “I saw this room on my way inside. I wanted to show it to you because I need to explain something to you and this seemed the best way to do it.”

  Whatever he wanted to tell her could wait. She wanted him and she’d grown rapidly tired with resisting her instincts. Going up on tiptoe, she kissed him before he could say anything else.