He reached out and cradled her delicate jaw in his large hand, handling her as if she were a priceless, fragile treasure. When he dropped to his knees beside her, Té saw Evan’s eyes go glassy with moisture. “Yes, you big oaf,” she hiccupped around her tears. “Of course I’m sure. You know, for a Magick, your intuition can really suck sometimes.”
His fingers trembled as he brushed her hair back from her temples. “Aye, well, I’ll admit I canna think very clearly around you, woman. You go straight to my head.”
“I only found out this morning,” she whispered, turning her face so she could place a gentle kiss in his palm. “Are you happy?”
“Aye,” he whispered back, his deep voice cracking with emotion.
His other hand joined the first, and he held her still as he lowered his mouth to hers. Té thought he’d give her a tender kiss to celebrate the moment, but the heat she witnessed as the powerful Warlock slashed his mouth across her sister’s, all but consuming her, made Té blush clear to her scalp. Then he spoke against Evan’s swollen lips, whispering his words into her mouth.
“Thank you, lass. I’ll never understand what I did to deserve you, but I love you so much it bloody hurts. I could no’ live without ya, Evie.”
Té felt her own eyes go hot at the wrenching beauty of his words, the stunning emotion with which he’d pledged them, and she quickly tore her gaze away, wanting to offer them what privacy she could.
Too bad the first thing she saw was Kieran McKendrick’s midnight stare locked right on her—his penetrating gaze seeming to see into her bruised, battered soul.
She waited for the taunt, the baiting remark, but it never came. He just kept those intense onyx eyes fixed on her flushed face, his expression so intense…so focused, she wondered if he’d even notice if the building came crumbling down around their heads in a blast of stone and rubble. Then he gave her a slow, easy smile, and her stomach wasn’t the only thing doing somersaults. No, Té could’ve sworn she felt an answering tremor rip through her chest, settling heavily in the vicinity of her heart.
Well, hell, maybe these McKendricks aren’t so bad after all.
Chapter Four
Twenty minutes later, Té was seriously reconsidering her opinion. These McKendrick men were something else all right. Something that strongly resembled a jaw-clenching, teeth-grinding, royal pain-in-the-ass! They may be seriously easy on the eyes, not to mention supernatural, but the killer looks and Magickal powers apparently came hand in hand with an exasperating first-class case of bossiness.
And she didn’t particularly care for bossy, domineering men, or so her very reasonable mind kept insisting.
Too bad her hormone-ridden body didn’t seem to give a damn.
Beside her in Evan’s new green Jaguar, Kieran grunted and said, “I just don’t get it.”
“Don’t get what?” Té sighed, unable to believe her sister had actually suggested Kieran use the car to take her to their home, while she and Lach made a quick stop by the local urgent care clinic in Lach’s Land Rover. After Evan’s exciting news, the poor guy had been too dumbstruck to argue with her any longer, and she’d quickly won the battle over her ankle.
And now Té was stuck with the Black Knight, as her fanciful imagination had decided to name him. Normally he rode some kind of outrageously expensive motorcycle, or so Evan had teased him, but today he’d been on foot, which had led to her sister’s brilliant plan, since she and Lach had been in separate cars.
A motorcycle. Huh, Té could just see that. His big, tall body covered in black jeans and a black leather jacket, that long black hair flying in the wind behind him. Christ, the man was so sexy it should be freaking outlawed.
And her determination to swear off the opposite sex wasn’t working worth a damn around him. She hunkered down in her seat, staring out the frosty window, determined to ignore the one man she unfortunately found to be utterly un-ignorable. What rotten freaking luck.
Sneaking a quick peek at him from beneath her lashes, she almost groaned, he was that beautiful. His eyes remained on the narrow road, profile ruggedly handsome with his ink black hair tousled from the heavy Edinburgh wind and his golden, suntanned cheeks ruddy from the cold. Té ate him up out of the corner of her eye, loving the smell of the expensive leather interior mixed with his own woodsy, masculine scent. A rich, clean aroma that was sexy-as-hell.
Her body was going liquid and soft, and when he spoke, the rough edge of his voice sent an embarrassing current of heat pooling between her legs, warming her pussy. “How can you just—accept it?” he muttered beside her, clearly perplexed, his deep voice startling her in the quiet of the car, the Jag’s powerful engine nothing more than a low, soothing purr beneath the sleek hood. “Most of the gnach are no’ as willing to believe what they very foolishly consider the unbelievable.”
Té gave a noncommittal shrug, wondering how she could feel so desperate for sex while feeling so incredibly irritated. Of course, a lot of that irritation was centered at herself, mainly for being so attracted to a man when she’d firmly promised to lay off the fickle species, if not forever, then at least for a good, long while. She’d been doing so well, too, damn it—until catching an eyeful of Kieran McKendrick. Jesus, the guy was a walking poster boy for hot, wild, uninhibited sex—the ultimate Alpha male personified, completely irresistible. And—she couldn’t forget—a Warlock! Hell, talk about a day of revelations. “Yeah, well, like Evan said, you can thank Aunt Ellie.”
He cut her a quick glance, expression unreadable. “What was she like?”
“She was my father’s younger sister, and a crazier woman you’ve never known,” Té found herself saying, unable to keep the smile from her voice. “She lived in the apartment above my parents’ home office, so we pretty much grew up with her. Then, when we lost Mom and Dad eight years ago, she was the only family we had left. I still can’t believe she’s gone, too.”
“What happened to her?”
“She…well, she had a heart attack, not long before Evan came to Scotland. She was only forty-seven.”
“Damn, she was young. I’m sorry,” he murmured, feeling the words were completely inadequate, but needing to say them anyway.
“Thanks,” she replied around a soft smile, remembering all the good times they’d had with Ellie. “She was the greatest. Beautiful and sexy. The kind of woman that turned every head when she walked into a room.” She gave him a sideways grin. “She was in bed when she died.” There was a slight pause, and then she added with a wry smile, “In bed with a man.”
He shot her a look of quiet surprise. “Damn.”
“Yeah. Two of them, actually.”
Kieran couldn’t stop his low chuckle. “Well, hell, if you gotta go, you should at least be having a good time while you’re at it.”
Té nodded, her deep blue eyes sparkling with warmth. “I think Ellie would’ve said the same thing.”
“It must have been hard to lose her.”
She looked out the window, resting her warm forehead against the cool glass, breathing in his rich smell, the completely masculine scent seeming to surround her. “Yeah, I think that’s why Evan had to leave. She just couldn’t stand to be in the house any longer, with all the memories, and she’d always longed to come to Scotland. And at any rate, Ellie would’ve wanted her to go and follow her destiny, or whatever she would have called it.”
“So you were left back in Chicago, all alone, with no one?”
She shrugged, wondering why she was so easily spilling her guts to this man. “Evan begged me to come with her, but I’d landed this really great job at one of the art galleries in town. The owner had been one of my aunt’s closest friends, and I thought it was too important to just leave behind.”
“And now you’re here, because of some man named Palo?” he all but whispered, his smooth voice strangely soft, long fingers flexing on the leather steering wheel. “Care to explain that?”
She turned to look at him over her shoulder, her dark b
lue eyes heavy with exhaustion, more mental than physical. “Not really, no.”
He could tell from her shuttered tone that there was more of a story there, but Kieran figured he knew well enough when to leave something alone, and when to pick it apart, peeling the surface away layer by layer, until he got down to exactly what he wanted to know.
And that’s exactly what he wanted to do to this woman—this mortal—this gnach. He wanted to strip her apart, piece by piece, until he uncovered the source of all her secrets, all those shadows in her eyes, and worked his way down to the core of her. He wanted to know what made her tick. What made her laugh. What made her scream with pleasure until she was a frenzied force of passion exploding around his dick as he ground into her hot, wet depths.
Oh yeah, he wanted her. He wanted to fuck her until she couldn’t ever take another step without remembering what it felt like to have him buried powerfully between her legs, staking his claim.
And he wanted her taste. All of it. Everywhere. Inside and out.
The taste of his mate…if his heart was telling him the truth.
And damn it, he had a horrible sneaking suspicion that it was.
He was two parts savage satisfaction and one part dread—and the satisfaction was making him feel guilty as hell. For years his sexual decadence had been an adequate means of satisfying that feral part of his soul, though he’d known the animal was growing restless.
Restless for a good, hard, grinding fuck.
He had the curse of the wolf upon him, as he’d had from the day of his birth, thanks to his ambitious ancestors, but he hungered not for meat. He never had. No, for him the hunger had always been one of a sexual nature, though he’d carefully managed to resist shifting during sex, never allowing the beithíoch that kind of freedom—until Susie.
And one taste hadn’t nearly been enough. Especially when it hadn’t been the one he truly wanted.
It was a fucked-up situation, to say the least, but he snorted to himself, thinking he could at least appreciate the fact that he’d never gone running bare-assed naked through the night, trying to hunt bloody Bambi for dinner.
Yeah, things could be worse—but he was feeling damn unappreciative at the moment.
He wanted—needed—this woman. Needed her in a way that felt as if it were being screamed by every cell in his body, scraped across his sensory receptors like nails down a chalkboard. True, he didn’t know her from Eve, but on an emotional, even spiritual level, he felt as if he’d known her forever. Instinctively, he already knew the most important thing, which was that she belonged to him. Everything else, all the wonderful details and distinctions that set her apart from all others—well, those were all like precious gifts for him to uncover one by one, at his pleasure.
And the physical need he felt for her was unlike anything he’d ever known.
He craved her. Wanted to sink his teeth into her warm, resilient flesh as his cum blasted like liquid fire from his pumping cock, pulsing in jets of pain-edged pleasure. When the need was riding him hard, he’d always enjoyed his sexual encounters the rougher, the better—had needed the hard, dangerous edge of a relentless, merciless fucking to keep him this side of sanity. But now he found himself wanting nothing more than a complete domination. Absolute control. And suddenly the only thing he could think about taking, dominating, was the very mortal little Miss Hayes.
And wasn’t that just a bloody bitch of a situation? If Cailleachs, his own kind, regarded shifters with such inferiority and disdain, he was pretty damn sure a human woman would be horrified by the idea.
But there was no help for it. He knew it was wrong, but all he could think about was licking her from head to toe with the greedy scrape of his tongue, claiming possession of every moist, gentle swell and valley. He wanted her marked with his scent—erasing that lingering, disturbing trace of another that still clung to her. Wanted the luscious feel of her skin, the gentle tears from her eyes, and that rich, intoxicating cream he could even now smell slipping tenderly from her slick, moist cunt. Warm and wet and delicious. A unique flavor he’d never be able to get his fill of—not if it tasted half as sweet as the soft scent blurring his mind, making it misty with unsatisfied desire.
And beneath it all, there was that burning need to pierce his canines into her lush flesh, to feel her warm, wet blood spill into his mouth, swallowing it down his throat like the finest of brandies. Or better yet, spread her legs, shove his face into her precious cunt, and pierce the ripe little bud of her clit. Then he’d devour her like a soul possessed, gorging himself on the heady combination of her syrupy cum and the potent, gentle spill of her veins. He wanted to feast on it, to feel his throat working as it pulsed past his lips in a hypnotic rhythm that matched the pounding beat of her heart and the erotic clenching of her womb in the height of orgasm.
Saephus—it’d be so sweet it’d probably kill me.
His body broke out in a light sweat, his big hands gripping the sleek steering wheel so tightly he was amazed it didn’t snap in two from the pressure.
And then her voice came back to him in a hollow echo of sound, as if traveling over a great distance of time and space, rather than the other side of the car. “Kieran? Hey, are you okay?”
They slowed at the next red light, the sleek Jag easing to a smooth stop under his direction, and he turned his head to look at her, blinking her back into focus, slowly, realizing with a start that he’d completely zoned out there for a minute. Shit, what was that? Where the hell had he gone?
To the fuckin’ la-la-land of screwing, or some crap like that, he thought with a snarl. How friggin’ pathetic. He’d only just freaking met her, and already he was playing the lovesick sap and daydreaming about her.
The light changed, but he just kept staring, unable to stop, the silence stretching out between them like an indefinite loss of reality and time. Finally, a horn blared behind them and he looked forward, hitting the gas, the sleek Jaguar hugging the roads like the fine-tuned machine that it was. He worked his jaw, determined to sound calm, and was finally able to say, “You must be fairly knackered after such a long flight.”
His voice, so dark and deep, stroked a wave of warmth across the chilled surface of her skin. It was a lover’s voice, as seductive as it was hard. Dangerous. Like rough silk, the kind she just wanted to wrap herself up in. She swayed, feeling her body begin to fall toward him, as if an invisible chain were connected between their pumping hearts, pulling tighter and tighter. It was a strange, sudden, powerful force of attraction—and one she could barely resist.
Only by some miraculous force of will, the one that had kept her alive these past months, did she manage to catch herself. She wrenched back, turning her body quickly to break the power of his mesmerizing pull.
He turned his head to look at her, eyes intent, a dark, hard, glittering stare that shone as black as night, fired with what looked like sparks of—hunger, as if he were starved for another’s touch.
Her touch.
Funny, she thought with a little smile and telling shiver, but she’d always thought of herself as a “blue-eyes” kind of woman. Light and azure and soft, like Lexi’s. But there was another new truth pounding in her skull, demanding recognition of its existence.
She liked devil’s eyes.
Kieran’s eyes.
Actually, to be honest, she thought he had the most beautiful eyes she’d ever seen. They were so dark they were nearly black—and yet they shimmered with light like the black sand beaches she’d read about from Hawaii. Sand born from the fury of a volcano. From the raging of the earth. Powerful. Primal. Explosive. All words to describe how she felt each time she lost herself in this man’s—this Warlock’s—sensual gaze. Sensual…and decidedly physical, as if he could see beneath her jeans and cashmere sweater, straight down to the tingling flesh buried within.
Her nipples were swollen, aching nubs, pulsing in rhythm to the erratically heavy beating of her heart. It was a pounding, erotic cadence that danced through her s
ystem, heating her blood, warming her to a searing intensity, despite the frigid cold, until the blistering need settled possessively between her thighs. It stirred through her womb, swelling her tissues, pooling in a rich, thick wave of need, of want, of writhing bodies and carnal appetite. She was soaked, panties drenched, swimming in her own slick, liquid juices—her pussy a hot, empty, throbbing ache between her trembling legs. A vacant core that hungered to be packed full of Kieran McKendrick—that longed to feel every single mouthwatering inch of his cock sliding in, forcing her open, stretching her apart.
She felt dizzy, disoriented—and then it hit her. Oh crap, he’d asked her a question somewhere along the way, and she’d been sitting here, staring off into space, thinking about sex. About hot, heavy, grinding sex, with him. At the nearest, soonest possible moment. In every conceivable position. Violent in its intensity. Yeah, every single raunchy, warped, twisted way imaginable. God, he made her feel like a ravenous sex maniac.
Well, crap. Now on top of everything else, she had to confront the knowledge that she was a shameless slut. Yep, definitely a slut, considering she’d known him for little more than an hour and all she could think about was whipping out his big, beautiful cock and discovering how it tasted and fit against the back of her throat.
He was, for all intents and purposes, a stranger—and yet, all she could seem to focus on was the idea of fucking him ‘til he couldn’t see straight. She just wanted to crawl on top of that rock-hard, mouthwatering body wrapped up in jeans and black leather, release the bulging mass of what had to be an absolutely monstrous erection, and impale herself on every brutal inch until they sealed together into one perfect, inseparable unit.
Beside her, Kieran released a low, rumbling growl that he was obviously trying to keep quiet. For one horrifying moment, she wondered again if he’d been able to read her mind—but no, Evie would’ve told her if that were possible. Of course, that didn’t mean that he couldn’t sense what she was thinking, considering she had to be broadcasting sex right now like a freaking satellite.
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