by Allie Mackay
“I missed you, too,” she stalled, trying to calculate how quickly she could rid herself of her less-than-flattering clothes and assume a seductive pose.
In dreams, anything should be possible, but her limbs remained stubbornly frozen, her fumbling fingers impossibly clumsy.
He started toward her, his own hands already unbuckling his sword belt. His eyes narrowing, he paused just long enough to set aside his great brand and whip off his plaid. Then, as was the way with sexual fantasies, he flashed a smile and was naked, without even having to stoop to yank off his rough-leathered brogues.
“Ah….” Kira’s palms began to dampen. “Maybe tonight isn’t a good time.”
Towering over the bed now, he cocked a brow. “Sweetness, I’ve told you,” he began, his gaze flicking the length of her, “any time we have is good.” For an instant, his face clouded. “It isn’t always easy to find you.” He folded his arms, looking serious. “I dinnae ken what powers let us come together. Only that we must seize the moments we have.”
Kira swallowed, her heart pounding. “But?”
“But you know I have ne’er cared for your way of dress.” His eyes narrowed on her sweatshirt. “‘Tis passing strange.”
Kira burrowed deeper into the covers. Wait till he saw her granny-panties.
“Clothes shouldn’t matter in dreams.” She met his gaze, her heart still hammering. “Besides, they’re all I have-”
“I say you have an abundance, beautifully so.” He reached for the covers and whipped them off the bed, some Highland slight-of-hand or dream-inspired magic leaving her unclothed.
Just as naked as he was.
She blinked. So much for cotton underwear and baggy sweat pants.
He looked at her, the covers dangling from his hand, her clothes nowhere in sight, and an expression of intense satisfaction on his handsome face.
“That’s better.” He let the blanket fall.
No, it’s better than better, Kira wanted to say but the words lodged in her throat. She moistened her lips, her gaze flicking over his magnificence. Her heart swelled, her chest tightening even as her tender places went soft and achy. Just looking at him excited her. Need flamed through her, tingling and urgent as his dark eyes heated, flaring with passion as they swept her own nakedness.
“Sweet lass, were you not a bruadar, I’d keep you in my bed for a sennight.” He reached to smooth strong fingers along the curve of her hip. “Nae, seven days wouldn’t sate me. I’d double that, ravishing you again and again for a fortnight.”
Kira sighed, her limbs going liquid.
But one thing he’d said troubled her. A word she didn’t know.
“A broo-e-tar?” She could hardly speak, his touch and his buttery-rich burr, working the usual magic on her. “You’ve never called me that before.”
“Mayhap I do not speak the word for I wish it were not so. Bruadar is the Gaelic for a dream. I would have you as a full-blooded woman, hot and alive in my arms.” His eyes darkened. “Mine, alone.”
“I am yours.” Kira’s heart pounded, the truth of those three words slashing across her soul. The impossibility of them, damned her. “You are the dream.” She met his gaze, her own challenging him to deny it. “You’re here in my bedroom. I’m not in yours.”
“Say you?” One raven brow arced in a look of sheer male authority. “Yon walls look like mine to me,” he said, flashing a glance at the windows.
Windows no longer there.
Kira gulped, unable to deny that her windows were gone. Likewise her carefully sewn tartan window dressings and even the entire wall. In their place, proud whitewashed stones gleamed with the soft glow of candles and the tasseled edges of a richly-colored tapestry fluttered in the draught of an unshuttered window.
A tall arch-topped window.
Very medieval-y.
Definitely not hers.
Her eyes widened. She could even feel the chill night breeze. Catch the brisk tang of the sea; the pounding of waves onto a fearsome, rock-strewn shore. Then the illusion faded, leaving only the fragile luminescence of her dream, her plaid-patterned curtains faintly visible again, staring mutely from behind the shimmering silver. And instead of the roar of Hebridean waves, she heard only the tic-ticking of her clock.
The familiar light branch scratching at the glass of her apartment windows.
Irrefutable evidence of just where she was and that despite the intensity of her his stare, she was indeed only dreaming.
“Dinnae fash yourself, lass. It doesnae matter. No’ where we are.” He looked at her, his gaze going deep. “All that matters is that I want you. And” – he paused, desire blazing in his eyes - “that you want me. You do, don’t you?”
“O-o-oh, yes.” She reached for him and he obliged her, gathering her close for a hungry, lip-bruising kiss. Tightening his arms around her, he plundered her mouth, the mastery of his tongue blotting everything but sensation.
The wild thundering of her heart and the slight creaking of her secondhand bed when he stretched out beside her, the full hot and hard length of him pressed skin-to-skin against her own trembling softness.
The creak made her frown, its intrusion reminding her this was all fantasy. A dream that could be so easily shattered, and often was.
Determined to hold on to him as long as possible, she slid her hands up his powerful back, gripping his shoulders as he rolled on top of her. At once, that very special hot, hard and glorious part of him probed her, seeking their bliss.
Still kissing her, he slipped a hand between them to cup her breast. His fingers splayed over her fullness, teased her swollen nipple. “You are mine,” he growled, his breath warm against her lips. “I will ne’er let you go. No’ if I must search to the ends of the earth to find you.”
Something inside her broke on his words and she clung to him, returning his kiss with all the passion she had, refusing to accept the futility of his vow.
Aidan the magnificent, as she sometimes thought of him, could search for her through all time, even turn the world on end, and never would he find her.
Too many centuries stretched between them.
That truth scalding the backs of her eyes, she opened her mouth wider beneath his, welcoming the mad thrust of his tongue, needing the intimacy of his soul-searing kisses.
Wanting all of him.
Understanding her desire as only he could, he deepened the kiss, swirling his tongue over and around hers as he eased himself inside her. The silky-smooth glide of each rock-hard inch into her eager, clutching heat sent waves of pleasure spilling through her.
She matched his thrusts, losing herself to the elemental fury of their joining, reveling in the sexy Gaelic love words he breathed against her lips. Dark, lusty-sounding words, full of an untamed, earthy wildness that thrilled her, his every passionate utterance driving her closer to an explosive, shattering release.
Her own cries loud in her head, she writhed and arched her hips, her need breaking even as her cries turned shrill. Sharp, jangling cries so annoying and harsh they could never be coming from her throat.
Not now, on the verge of her climax.
The noise kept on, growing insistent, seeming louder with each passion-zapping shrill until she came awake with a start and recognized the sound for what it was.
Her telephone.
Kira groaned.
Aidan was nowhere to be seen.
If he’d been there at all as a peek beneath the covers proved she was still wearing her comfy training suit. The whole grungy works, complete with tennies. Worse, if her heavy-eyed grogginess and the bands of light sneaking in past her drawn curtains meant anything, she’d slept way too late.
Almost afraid to look, she groped for her little bedside clock, glanced at it, and then groaned again. Ten thirty a.m. A new record, even for her, notorious un-morning person that she was.
And still the phone rang.
Wishing she’d slept with earplugs, she scrambled to a sitting position and grabbed
the phone. Squinting at the caller ID display, she didn’t answer.
Much as she loved her, her mother wasn’t someone she cared to talk to before at least two cups of coffee.
Strong black coffee, the kind you could stand a spoon in.
Bracing herself, she drew a deep breath, determined to sound awake. “Hello?”
“Carter Williams called, dear,” her mother gushed. “He wants to speak with you.” She paused for a breath and Kira could hear her excitement bubbling through the phone. “I told him we could have coffee at three. Here at the house. He-”
“Wait a minute.” Kira sat up, warning bells ringing in her head. “Who is Carter Williams?”
“Kira.” Her mother gave an exasperated sigh. “Would I invite him over if he weren’t important?”
No, she wouldn’t have, but Kira wasn’t about to point that out to her.
“Who is he?” she repeated instead.
Blanche Bedwell hesitated.
A pause that made Kira’s stomach clench.
The only men wishing to speak to her lately were icky-pot media hounds. Worse, her mother not only worried about status, she was also a notorious matchmaker who believed every female under thirty should be married and having babies.
Like Kira’s sisters.
“Well? Who is Carter Williams?” Kira was sure she didn’t want to know.
“He’s with the Aldan Bee. A nice young man who’s going places. I play bridge with his mother. He only wants to ask you a few questions about your Viking ship.”
“It isn’t my Viking ship. It’s what’s left of a foundered Norse longship and a few ancient mooring holes and other artifacts that prove-”
“Whatever, dear.” Kira could almost see her mother waving an airy hand. “Carter Williams might give you an in at the Bee if you-”
“An in at the Bee?” The tops of Kira’s ears started getting warm. “I don’t want to work for the Bee.”
“It would be a real job.”
“I have a job.” Kira glanced at the papers and books piled on her tiny desk across the room.
Research for her next assignment: My Three Month Marriage To A Yeti.
Suppressing a groan, she threw back the covers and stood. “Destiny Magazine pays well enough for me to cover my monthly bills. And” – she shoved a hand through her hair – “writing for them let’s me stretch my imagination. The readers who buy the magazine are entertained and I can pay my rent.”
“Making up tales of alien abductions.”
“If need be, yes.” Kira shot another glance at her stack of Yeti books. She wasn’t about to admit that she, too, was growing weary of penning such drivel.
Even so, she wouldn’t barter her soul by working with the kind of wolf pack presently prowling the Castle Apartments parking lot. They were still there, the snarkies, as a glance out her window revealed. If she weren’t mistaken, they might have increased in number overnight.
Like the plague of the giant toadstools she wrote about a few years ago.
Cringing at the memory, she turned away from the window and dropped onto the edge of her bed, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
“Kira, child, Carter Williams is-”
“Not all my stories are about aliens.” Kira frowned, thoughts of aliens and mutant toadstools making her testy. “The Norse longship is an important discovery. The excavation has drawn some of the nation’s top archeologists. Destiny understands my special gift. No other magazine or paper would let me-”
“Carter Williams is single.”
That did it.
Kira shot to her feet. “So am I. Happily.”
Her gaze slid to the glittery clump of granite sitting in a place of honor beside her computer’s keyboard. At once, Aidan’s face flashed before her and she could almost hear his deep burr again.
You are mine.
I will ne’er let you go. No’ if I must search to the ends of the earth to find you.
Crossing the room, she picked up the stone. “Carter Williams will just have to do without me.” She inhaled, closed her fingers around the piece of granite. “You know I’ve gone off men for a while. I told you that the last time you tried to set me up with someone.”
Her mother made an impatient sound. “There was nothing wrong with Lonnie Ward. Your father says he’s certain Lonnie will be the next manager at the Tile Bonanza. You could have done worse.”
Kira glanced at the ceiling. “Lonnie Ward doesn’t like dogs.” She tightened her fingers around the granite. “You should have seen him brushing at his pants after a dog ran up to him and sniffed him in the park. You know I could never be happy with a dog-hater.”
“You don’t have a dog, dear.”
“I will someday.”
As soon as she didn’t live in an apartment the size of a fishbowl.
Her mother drew a breath. “I believe Carter Williams has a dog. I’ve seen him about town with a spaniel. And his mother has two-”
“It won’t work, Mom.” Kira puffed her bangs off her forehead. “I’m not biting.”
“You’re still mooning over that Highland chieftain,” her mother said, and Kira almost dropped the phone. She’d never told anyone about her dreams. Not even her sisters. And especially not her mother. “It isn’t healthy to obsess over someone who lived centuries ago, poring through history books and decorating your apartment like the set of Brigadoon.”
“Lots of people love Scotland,” Kira returned, relief sweeping her that her mother hadn’t somehow guessed the truth about Aidan. “Even Kerry and Lindsay devour romance novels set there.”
Blanche Bedwell sighed. “Your sisters are also well-balanced young women who have other interests.”
Kira rolled her eyes. Her younger sister, Kerry’s, only goal in life seemed to be squeezing into clothes too tight for her under-five-foot Rubenesque figure, eating sweets, and producing babies. Her older sister, Lindsay, was a hypochondriac tree-hugger and such a clinging vine, Kira wondered how she managed to spend enough time away from their parents to run her own household much less raise her two children.
“You should follow in your sisters’ footsteps,” her mother added. “Marry and raise a family.”
Kira set down her stone and glanced at the drawn curtains. She couldn’t see them, but she could feel the Carter Williamses of the world out there, clogging the parking lot, waiting for her to show herself.
She shuddered, her stomach knotting at the thought of facing them. But then she put back her shoulders and stood straighter. Silly or not, she knew Aidan wouldn’t approve of a spineless woman.
Not in his century and not in her dreams.
As soon as she’d showered and had her coffee, she’d go outside and tell the long-noses to buzz off. Find someone else to make the centerpiece of their snarkfest.
She wouldn’t cooperate. Nor would she be intimidated.
“Perhaps you’re right, in part,” she admitted. “Maybe I do need other interests. But don’t forget, it was your own Great Aunt Minnie’s inheritance that got me into all this.” She left out that her life might’ve taken an easier course if her mother hadn’t kept mum about some females in the family having far-seeing talents.
A trait that had lain dormant for generations and that Blanche Bedwell had hoped would never surface again.
Unfortunately – or not – it had, and its startling arrival that day at the Wrath ruins had changed Kira’s life.
“Great Aunt Minnie lived in a different time,” her mother sniffed. “People were more impressionable then. You have the means to channel your talents into a more sensible direction.”
Kira bristled. “Maybe I like the direction I’ve taken. I’m interested in the paranormal, though I wouldn’t mind a better paying job where I wouldn’t have to spend half my time making up nonsense about angels amongst us and Bigfoot sightings. It’s the true supernatural that fascinates me. Ghosts, reincarnation, that sort of thing.”
Her mother sighed.
Ignoring he
r, Kira began pacing. “I’d like to work quietly and behind the scenes, without being plunged into the limelight.”
“Limelight isn’t necessarily bad,” her mother countered. “Such attention could draw the notice of-”
“Just the kind of man I’d not be interested in,” Kira finished for her. “Not if flash and brass topped his list of the important things in life.”
Her mother tsk-tsked. “You’ve set your sights too high, my dear. Phemie’s stepdaughter is the only soul I’ve ever heard of who married a Scottish laird and went off to live happily ever in a castle. Such things don’t happen every day.”
No, they didn’t, Kira knew.
The quick flash of green-tinged heat jabbing needles in her heart proved it.
A Scottish laird and living in the Highlands. In a real castle. She shot a glance at her desk, the silver-framed photo of the ruins of Castle Wrath claiming pride of place right next to her piece of granite. Her heart squeezed and the green-tinted heat began spreading through her chest, making each breath difficult.
“Phemie and the girl’s father went over to see the couple last year,” her mother was saying. “Though Phemie couldn’t stomach sleeping in the castle, saying it was too damp and musty and full of ghosts. She-”
“Phemie as in Euphemia Ross?” Disbelief washed over Kira. “The sharp-tongued little wisp of a woman in your bridge club? The one everyone calls the Cairn Avenue shrew?”
“Now, Kira.” Blanche Bedwell used her most placating tone. “She’s Euphemia McDougall these days. And, yes, her stepdaughter, Mara, married a real live Highland chieftain. Sir Alexander Douglas, I believe Phemie said. Their castle is near a place called Uban or something.”
“Oban,” Kira corrected her. “The gateway to the Hebrides. It’s on Scotland’s west coast. My tour years ago stopped there. We had a whole hour’s look at Dunstaffnage Castle.”
“Well, dear, if ever you go back, I’m sure Phemie would give you Mara’s phone number and address. She’d surely be pleased to see you. Just-”
She broke off as the doorbell trilled in the background. “That will be Lindsay. She made a batch of organic brownies for your father. Call if you need me.”