Moon Cursed

by Lori Handeland

  His hips thrust, once, then stilled.

  She wiggled, tightened her legs, the muscles of her thighs flexing against the bones of his hips, drawing him closer, but he would not move; he would not give her what she wanted, what she must have.

  “Open yer eyes.”

  If possible his had gone even bluer. They shone like neon in the night.

  His tongue shot out, and he licked the swell of her right breast and then the left. “I cannae reach,” he repeated, sliding his arms along her back to support her. “Lift them.”

  She understood what he wanted, and heat shot through her at the image of what she must do. Their gazes locked; she lifted her breasts and watched as he took a nipple into his mouth and suckled, first gently, his tongue slipping over and back like warm water in a bath, then faster and rougher, pressing her against the roof of his mouth, squeezing and taunting, even as his hips began to move.

  She cupped her breasts in her palms, relishing the movement of his jaw against her fingers as he worked her above, the slide of his hips against her straining thighs as he did the same down below. Cradled in his embrace, with him cradled in hers, they rose, then fell together, gasping, thrusting, coming.

  They stayed that way until the tremors died; then he lifted his head, kissed her brow, disentangled himself, and went to the shower, his hair spreading across his shoulders like an ebony curtain.

  Kris sat there, the lovely languor dying as she waited for him to either turn it off and leave or get in, wash up.

  Then leave.

  Instead, he checked the temperature, turned, and stretched out his hand.

  CHAPTER 13

  “Le do thoil,” Liam murmured. “Kill me.”

  Kris slept at his side, so warm and soft, so willing. But then how could she not be willing? He was seduction in human form. She’d had little choice once he’d kissed her.

  He’d had her again after the shower, this time in the bed, and the sex had been as good as he remembered sex being.

  No. That wasn’t true. The sex was much better than he ever remembered sex being.

  She’d tasted of the sun on the water and smelled like the moon in the rain. He’d wanted to stay inside of her forever, to hear her sweet cries for the rest of his life, to feel her breath on his face and her skin pressed to his as the years alone melted away.

  *

  Kris dreamed of Nessie.

  Long and gray and sleek, she slid beneath the water as Kris watched, and filmed, from above.

  In her sleep Kris shifted, murmured, and was soothed by cool hands on her fevered skin, gentle lips on a furrowed brow. She settled back into the dream.

  Where she fell and fell, then kept on falling. What would she find at the bottom?

  Water, and a lot of it. Kris slammed through the surface and shot into the deep. She couldn’t see; she couldn’t breathe. Her chin hurt; she tasted blood, and in the gloom something slithered.

  She jerked toward it, but the murky mill of the loch prevented her from seeing just what it was. She was bumped in the back. She tried to swim away, to kick upward toward air. Instead, a whirlwind surrounded her, throwing her every which way, then pulling her back. Right before she passed out, she saw eyes shining from the face of a snake.

  Kris came awake gasping, choking, swimming, or trying to. But she wasn’t in water; she was in bed, and her legs were tangled in the sheets. She wasn’t drowning; she was breathing—great, greedy gulps of blessed air.

  She also wasn’t any more alone now than she’d been then.

  “A thaisgidh,” Liam murmured. “Yer safe. Yer safe here with me. I willnae let anything bring ye harm.”

  She clung to him, letting him pull her against his chest, murmuring words that flowed like a song.

  She did feel safe. She wasn’t quite sure why.

  “What did ye dream, lass?”

  Kris, who’d been slowly relaxing in the warm, sweet cocoon that they’d made, stiffened. Liam ran a palm down her back and whispered, “Shhh.”

  Why did the soft burr of his voice in her hair make her want to shhh? She’d never been one for cuddling or comfort. Perhaps because she’d hadn’t had either one in a very long time.

  “Ye don’t have t’ tell me if ye dinnae want to.”

  “I—” She took a breath, thrilled when it didn’t catch in the middle and make her feel again like a child. “I do.”

  Perhaps it would help.

  “I was in the loch,” she said. “But I wasn’t alone. I think I saw…” She paused, unwilling to admit it but unable to stop. “Nessie.”

  “Understandable,” he said, still petting her.

  Kris looked into his face, but the night was so dark she could see nothing but the shimmer of his eyes. They reminded her of the shimmer of eyes she’d seen in the depths of the loch, and she didn’t like it.

  “Why is that understandable?” she demanded.

  “Ye are here for her, are ye not?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Lass.” He ran a hand over her hair. “Everyone in Drumnadrochit knows that.”

  She sighed. He was right.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t find the surface. She came, and she whirled around me, and I think…” She paused, searching her mind for the dream, or had it been a memory? “I think she saved me.”

  “Did she now?”

  Kris sat up, and Liam let her go, keeping one hand on her back and rubbing. “She pushed me, and I fought because I thought she pushed me down, but really she pushed me up. Without her, I would have flailed around in the water, thinking up was down and down was up until I drowned. But why would she do that?”

  “ ’Twas just a dream,” he said. “Do ye truly think the Loch Ness Monster saved ye from drowning?”

  Kris stared into the darkness and admitted the truth: “Something did.”

  “I thought ye didnae believe in Nessie.”

  Kris tilted her head. “You’re the one who said you’d never seen her.”

  “I havenae.”

  “And strangely, no one around here has ever seen you but me.”

  He laughed. “That’s not true.”

  “No matter who I ask, they haven’t heard of you. There are no Grants in Drumnadrochit named Liam. Although perhaps you might be one of the Grants in Dores.”

  “Is that so?” he murmured.

  Question with a question. He was definitely hiding something. But then, wasn’t she?

  “What’s your secret?” she asked.

  “No secret. Ye’ve merely been asking the wrong questions.”

  “I’m pretty good with questions.”

  “I suppose being a writer, ye’d have to be.”

  Kris narrowed her eyes, but she still couldn’t see his face, so she could not tell if he was mocking her. Had he gone searching for her secret and found the truth? Why would he? Unless he had something even bigger to hide?

  Kris turned the lamp on the bedside table to low. “I need to know who you are, Liam.”

  His eyes appeared almost black in the half-light. “Ye do.”

  He tangled his fingers with hers, and her stomach turned over with … what? Like? Lust? It certainly wasn’t love. Not now. Not him. Not yet.

  “Ye know more of me than anyone else has in a very long time.”

  “Ditto,” she murmured.

  Liam tilted his head, and his sleek, smooth dark hair slid over his equally sleek, smooth shoulder. She was struck by the memory of holding on to those shoulders as he rose above her, his image but a shadow against the night.

  “Ye truly think someone pushed ye into the loch?” he asked.

  She hadn’t been sure until she’d had the dream. But in contrast to everything she’d ever known about dreams, the more time that passed since she’d had it the more real the dream became.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  He ran a hand over her no doubt frizzy, billowing hair. “Do ye think it was me?”
<
br />   She jerked back. “Why would I think that?”

  “Ye said yerself, ye don’t know who I am.”

  “That doesn’t mean I think you’re trying to kill me.”

  “Who would try to kill ye?” he wondered. “Ye just got here.”

  “In other words, I haven’t been here long enough for anyone to want to kill me yet?”

  His lips curved. “Something like that.”

  “I doubt whoever killed those girls knew them very well, either.”

  His brow creased. “Have ye noticed anyone following ye about?”

  “No,” she said automatically, then— “Wait.”

  He stiffened, the muscles in his arms and chest and stomach rippling, distracting, seducing. “Ye have?”

  She shook the foggy give me thoughts from her brain and told him about the American who had been asking after her.

  “I dinnae like that at all,” he said.

  “I’m not wild about it, either.”

  “Ye think he pushed ye in?”

  “Since I don’t know who he is, maybe.”

  “Have ye had any trouble like this before? I hear writers have stalkers. The man who shot John Lennon was also obsessed with Stephen King.”

  “I’m not Stephen King,” Kris said dryly. And she never would be.

  “Still, ye never know what kind of madmen are out there until they…” He paused.

  Kris filled in the blank. “Kill you?”

  He glanced at the window where the curtain had been turned back to reveal just a sliver of night. “Maybe ye should leave. Go on home to … wherever home is.”

  “Chicago,” Kris said, then frowned. Why had she told him that? Hell. Why not just tell him everything?

  “I’m not a writer,” she said. “I’m a journalist. I do a show…” She paused and corrected herself, “Did a show called Hoax Hunters for public TV.”

  Confusion flickered over his face. “I dinnae understand.”

  “I expose hoaxes. Like Nessie.”

  “Nessie isnae a hoax.”

  “You said you’d never seen her.”

  “Seeing and believing are two different things.”

  “You think she’s there?”

  “I do.”

  “Want to help me prove it?” Kris hadn’t known she was going to say that until it popped right out of her mouth.

  “Prove Nessie exists?”

  “Yes.” It would be a bigger story than proving she didn’t.

  “Ye know that’s been tried before?”

  Kris smiled. “It hasn’t been tried by me.”

  She could do this. She felt more confident proving there was a Nessie than proving there wasn’t. What was it that Edward had said?

  You do realize it is impossible to prove something does not exist? You can merely prove it has not yet been found.

  She suddenly understood what he’d meant.

  “How will ye find her?” Liam asked.

  Kris shrugged. “I’m gonna look.”

  *

  They slept again, and when they awoke, the sky had begun to lighten. Kris trailed her hand up Liam’s thigh.

  “I have to go.” He brought her palm to his lips and pressed a kiss to the center.

  “Go?” she repeated, unable to think when he did stuff like that.

  “I’ll see ye tonight.”

  Kris pulled her hand free. “You’re leaving?”

  He was already out of bed, ducking into the bathroom to retrieve his clothes, coming back out again buttoning his jeans, his shirt hanging from his hand. “I have work.”

  “What kind of work?”

  He glanced up at the suspicion in her voice. “Don’t ye trust me?”

  “Yes.…”

  “Yer mouth says, ‘Yes,’ while yer face says, But…”

  “You don’t tell me anything.”

  “Then why would ye trust me?”

  Why did she? Simple. “If you don’t tell me anything, at least you aren’t lying.”

  A shadow crossed his face, and her stomach clenched. He was lying. His name probably wasn’t even Liam Grant. No wonder no one knew who he was.

  He crossed the room and sat next to her. “Who lied to you so well and so often that ye dinnae trust anymore?”

  “Who didn’t?” she muttered.

  Liam brushed his fingertips over her cheek. “So many?” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  She wanted to rest her head on his bare chest and press her lips to his skin, pull him back into bed, and forget about talking at all. What was it about him that made her not only trust when she shouldn’t but also lust at a time when most wouldn’t?

  Liam glanced at the window again where the darkness had begun to become light. Then he stood and covered all that luscious skin with a shirt. “Meet me tonight at MacLeod’s?”

  “When?”

  “After the sun goes down.”

  “What kind of time is that?”

  “The best time. I like the night.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I dinnae have to work.”

  “What do you do?”

  He hesitated, and for an instant she just knew he was going to lie. When he spoke she wasn’t all that certain he had not.

  “I protect the loch.”

  “Like a park ranger?”

  “A bit. I walk about, do what needs doing. Pick up the garbage. Clip the trees that hang too far down. Make sure the roads are nae full of potholes. Help the wee animals and such.”

  “You patrol Loch Ness, yet you’ve never seen the monster.”

  “Do ye ken how big the loch is?” he asked, then continued before she could answer. “Twenty-four miles long, over a mile wide in places. The deepest part,” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder, “near Urquhart Castle is more than twice the mean depth of the North Sea.”

  Kris wasn’t sure what a mean depth was, but she got what he meant. The loch was damn deep.

  “The surface sits fifty-two feet above sea level, but the tallest point around it is over twelve hundred feet higher than that. It’s bordered by mountains and rock face and forest. There are parts ye can barely get to on foot. Professional divers speak of a terrifying blackness that surrounds them at an easy depth of fifty feet. The shock isnae that I havenae seen Nessie but that anyone has at all.”

  He sounded like a tour guide. Or maybe a park ranger.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s all right. I know ye’ve been lied to again and again, and I’m sorry for it.”

  “You aren’t the one—” Or ones. “Who made me so mistrustful.”

  Liam ran a hand through his hair, then changed the subject: “Ye’ll meet me tonight, and I’ll prove to ye that I’m no ghost.”

  Said out loud, that sounded as foolish as it had in her head.

  “I don’t think that,” Kris blurted. “How could I? I’ve exposed several ghosts as fakes.”

  “There are ghosts, lass.” His voice had gone soft and a bit sad. “Around here, there are a lot of them.”

  “Those you’ve seen?”

  “Aye,” he said, gaze gone distant. “That I have.”

  “Why?”

  He blinked, and his eyes returned to hers. “Why what?”

  “Why have you seen ghosts? Have you gone looking for them?”

  “No.” He leaned over, placing a quick kiss on her lips before he headed for the door. “The ghosts come looking for me.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Had Liam been teasing about the ghosts? Kris didn’t think so. His face, his voice, had reflected a sadness she recognized.

  He’d lost people, and he felt guilty about it.

  Kris’s mother had fought. She’d tried. She just hadn’t been able to win. However, Kris hadn’t been able to forgive her for promising a desperate teenager what she had no right to promise. She should have been honest. She should have prepared Kris and her brother better instead of lying right to the end about her chances of survival.

  The de
nials were what Kris had been unable to forgive. Certainly the lies and her reaction to them had fueled her career, but they’d also fueled her guilt. Kris harbored a deep anger at her mother for them still, and that she did kept her up a lot of nights. Kris was surprised she hadn’t started seeing ghosts.

  Or at least ghost.

  Of course she didn’t believe in visits from the great beyond. But she hadn’t believed in Nessie, either. If she proved to the world that the Loch Ness Monster was real, would she also start seeing the spirit of her mother around every dark corner?

  Kris wasn’t sure she was ready for that.

  Despite her strange and disturbing thoughts, Kris fell asleep, waking late and stretching luxuriously. The clock read: 11:00 A.M. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d stayed in bed so late. Then again, it wasn’t every night you nearly drowned, had your life saved by a lake monster, followed by mind-blowing sex with a hot Scottish park ranger.

  Kris went into the bathroom. One glance in the mirror revealed she was grinning wider than she’d grinned in a long, long time. Probably since the last time she’d had mind-blowing sex.

  Whenever that was.

  Sure, she’d had sex, but she hadn’t had this. She hadn’t had Liam. She couldn’t wait to have him again.

  A trickle of laughter escaped as she picked up her sodden clothes and started the shower. It appeared that she’d at last found something in the world worth giggling about.

  But the laughter died as she hung her clothes on the towel rack. Someone had tried to kill her. Again. She was going to have to tell Alan Mac.

  “Because he’s been so useful thus far,” Kris muttered as she stepped beneath the stream.

  However, beggars couldn’t be choosers and Alan Mac was the officer in charge. Besides, she should probably report her missing camera. Just in case it washed up somewhere and was turned in to the authorities.

  Although what would she do with the thing? It wasn’t as if the camera would still work or her film would be—

  Kris froze in the middle of rinsing shampoo out of her hair. Could that be why someone had given her a free ride to the depths of Loch Ness? Because she’d been filming Nessie?

  She continued to scrub at her scalp, lifting the thick, curling mass of hair and letting the water wash away all the suds as she considered. Every bit of film taken of Nessie was …