by Jaime Rush
She raised an eyebrow, a wry smile on her lips. “What about you?”
He looked surprised, obviously not expecting her to turn the questioning to him. “What about me?”
Now that the thought was planted in her mind, she had to explore it. “When you got the freedom, did you run to town, too?”
“I was never comfortable meeting new people like Magnus was. I stayed round here, helping my dad with his research. Magnus, though, kept trying to tempt me into going out, telling me about all the wickedness in the world.” He gave her a wicked smile to go along with that. “I was going to give in, but then”—that smile faded—“after my psychosis, none of that mattered.”
She wasn’t sure if he was being cagey or obtuse. “So, before that, you didn’t . . . socialize? In person, I mean.”
He got that cute expression again, his mouth turning up slightly in a smile. “Are you asking if I’m a virgin? Getting a wee bit personal, aren’t you?”
A laugh burst out of her. “Oh, do not pretend modesty with me now. You blew that card when you were standing there in your skivvies and not the least bit bothered.”
He shrugged. “Magnus and I spent a lot of time running around in our skivvies in the heat of summer. But I do make a point to get dressed when I go out in public.”
“Smart of you. Nice as you look in your skivvies, the public in general takes a dislike to nudity.” Oops. Had she actually said that?
“Why, thank you.”
She liked this more relaxed side of him. “So? Are you a virgin?” Now that she’d introduced the question, in her mind at least, she wanted to know. Really badly.
“Aye.” He said it without shame or even a hint of chagrin.
The thought of it tickled through her like fingers skittering across her stomach. She took another sip of her coffee, focusing on the light brown liquid in her mug and not on him, because she loved the idea of this gorgeous man being a virgin like she was. She realized that when he’d made the snorting sound at her confession that she was a virgin, he hadn’t been making fun of her. He probably couldn’t believe the coincidence. “I don’t want to be a virgin anymore.”
He was taking a drink of water and nearly choked on it.
“I wasn’t making a request,” she added. At least, she didn’t think she was.
He pounded on his chest and shook his head. “Nothing to do with what you just said.”
Yeah, right.
He grabbed up his sword from where it leaned against the corner of the kitchen with a graceful swipe. “Let’s get to work.”
“Sure, go and ruin my coffee.”
She followed, knowing he was right, hating that he was right. He had a slight limp, from his ankle wound, no doubt. Still, his butt had a nice sway as she followed him down the hallway. Even in those old jersey pants and T-shirt, with his loose mess of waves hanging down his back he looked as yummy as the latte. She remembered seeing him at the music store, stopping at the sight of him with his rock-and-roll looks.
“I’m not some innocent, prim and proper flower,” she said.
He spun around. “Did I say you were?”
“No. But people have this misconception about women who haven’t . . . you know. I like the idea of sex. I have a vibrator.”
He slapped his hand over his forehead.
“What? Is that an improper thing to say? According to Cosmopolitan, self-pleasure is no big deal. Recommended even, for a single gal.”
“You’re asking me about propriety, the guy who was standing in his skivvies and not bothered?” He dropped his hand and pinned her with a look. “Stop talking about your sex. I mean, about sex. You know, if you and Magnus marry, you’ll be my sister. So when I watch you walking down the aisle, I don’t want to be thinking about you diddling yourself with a vibrator.”
Oh, the idea of that! First the diddling part, and then . . . she punched his upper arm, her fist connecting with hard flesh. “Stop marrying me off.” God, the thought, having Lachlan as a brother-in-law when she’d had lustful thoughts about him.
They entered the studio and he snapped on the lights. He hung the sword on hooks designed for that purpose, walked over to an elaborate stereo rack and cranked Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer.” He grabbed the bottom of his shirt and pulled it over his head, tossing it to the floor.
She hated that he had injuries because of her. She’d dragged two men into her danger. But Lachlan was dangerous, too. And not only because he’d tangled in her heart like a vine, with his loneliness and honor.
She slipped off her jacket, set it on the floor, and took one of the swords down. The weight of it made her bend over, but she stood straighter. “Teach me how to fight with a sword.”
“Uh-uh, you’re not getting out of working with Darkness.”
She approached him, sword held up and out to the side, sort of threatening, but probably not threatening at all considering she was holding it. “After you tell me about your ability.”
“I don’t have an ability anymore, other than the one time I astral-projected by accident and saw the future. I couldn’t do it again.” Those last words came out hard and brittle.
She shook her head, trying to look intimidating. “Both times you fought Russell, I saw a blurry form, like a ghostly imprint all around you.”
Surprise transformed his expression. “You saw it, too?”
Okay, he was admitting it. Sort of. “Wait, I’ll show you.”
She gently set the sword down, dashed back to her room and grabbed her phone out of her bag. A smart phone was a big expense, but it was cheaper and more portable than a computer. She came back, touching the screen to go to her security link as she walked.
She stepped up beside him, holding out the phone so he could see the screen, too. “My security system records whenever someone trips the alarm. So I have us on video.”
“Kinky.”
She shot him a look. “Shush. Here it is.”
It was odd watching this with Lachlan now that she knew him. “Right there.” She pointed to his image. “It’s hard to see on this tiny screen. I watched it on a computer at work.”
He squinted as he watched. “I can’t really see it.” He held out his hand and stared at the back of it. His expression darkened. “It’s only happened since that spontaneous projection. I see hands on my sword handle. Not my hands, but big burly ones. Like you said, a ghostly imprint. Only when I’ve fought, when I feel anger and adrenaline. When I want to kill.”
“Did you want to kill me?”
He met her gaze, heaviness in his eyes. “I didn’t want to kill you, but I would have, to save Magnus. Now I’ll kill to save you.”
Her throat tightened at that. He meant both. “So what is it, Lachlan?”
“Whatever it is, when I feel the energy, it’s something bigger and darker than me. I mean to find out. My anger is his rage.”
“You said ‘his.’ ”
“I did, didn’t I? But what is he?”
She looked around the empty room. “Come out, come out, whoever you are.”
Lachlan looked at his hands. “Maybe I have to be pissed off before he’ll come.”
“Then be pissed off.”
He took his sword from the hooks and got into a fighting stance. “That’s easy. All I have to do is think about that bastard with his hands on you. Trying to use your mother and my safety to get you to go with him. What does he think you are, stupid?”
He slashed with each sentence, his jaw rigid, eyes blazing. He was fierce, his moves efficient and smooth, his muscles flexing, hair flowing. Her chest tightened. There, a shadow moving a millisecond behind him! She picked up the sword she’d set on the floor, fingers tensed on the handle.
“Come on, you bastard! I can see your hands,” Lachlan said through gritted teeth.
The form took shape, a man as big as Magnus, in a kilt, black hair in a ponytail, with a full beard. Like a special effect, he appeared as a transparent overlay on top of Lachlan. Her mouth
dropped open and she pointed to him, unable to say a word.
That wasn’t necessary. Lachlan stared at his reflection in the mirror, chest heaving but eyes wide.
“Dinna call me a bastard,” the form said. “ ’Tis disrespectful to your kin.”
The form’s brogue was far heavier than Lachlan’s.
“Who the hell are you?” Lachlan said, his voice a low growl.
“Olaf. I’d shake your hand, but . . .” He lifted his arms, then let them drop.
She held onto her sword as she walked closer. “You’re a ghost?”
“I’m no’ a spook. Don’t know what to call me, exactly. Olaf will do.”
Lachlan tried to step sideways, but the form followed, attached to him. “But you’re dead.”
“Aye, though I don’t like that word either.” He shrugged. “But I am. Dead.”
Lachlan furrowed his eyebrows. “Did you say you’re my kin?”
“Aye. I’m sure that’s why I could attach myself to ye. At first I thought ye were a ghost standing there on the battlefield. I were lyin’ there wi’ my life blood draining out of me body, and you jus’ appeared out of the mist. Ye weren’t an angel, not carrying your half-lang sword.”
He fisted a beefy hand at his chest. “I could feel ye, and knew ye to be kin. Come to pull me to the great beyond, I thought. Not that I deserved that. My soul lifted and went right to ye, drawn like a horse to oats. Not jus’ because of our relation; I felt your fighting nature, your want to kill the British and fight for freedom. I went into ye and been here ever since.”
Lachlan’s body twitched. “You possessed me?”
“Nae, nothin’ like that. I—” He looked up, scratching a mangy beard. “—attached myself to ye.”
Lachlan’s eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened. “You were the reason I went mad and slashed at my family.”
Olaf lowered his head. “Bad bit of business, that. Once I joined with ye, we were a frenzy of energy and rage, and ye got lost in it. My soul kept fighting, and it wasna until the big lad knocked you out that I seen we weren’t at Culloden anymore.”
Lachlan jerked his sword toward his neck. “Get out of me.”
“Och, ye would cut off your own head to be rid of me?”
Jessie ran forward, gripping his hands with her free one. “Don’t. Stay in control.”
“Listen to your lassie. Ye held on when ye were fighting the man who became the beast. I don’t mean to take over. The first time our energies collided, it threw us off. That willna happen again. Besides, how else did ye think ye could do that strange kind of traveling when ye saw your brother dying? And the magic that helped ye fight the beast?”
“You did that?” Lachlan was looking at his reflection, his expression taut. He hadn’t lowered the sword yet, and Jessie hadn’t loosened her grip.
“Not so eager to get rid of me now, are ye?”
Jessie moved her hands away, comfortable that Lachlan wasn’t going to slash himself. She could see him processing all this.
“I don’t trust you,” Lachlan said. “You made me kill my own mum.”
“I couldna know what would happen. She knew ye dinna do it on purpose. I saw her soul leave her body.”
Lachlan took a quick breath and turned to Jessie. “You do see him, right? I’ve not gone round the bend?”
“I see him.”
“What do I do with him?” This time he was asking himself, his voice barely audible.
“Use me, lad. Ye got a big problem and a pretty lass to protect. I can help.”
Lachlan still hadn’t let go of the sword, but he’d pointed it downward. “You won’t take over?”
“Nae.”
“I can send you off anytime I want?”
“Aye. Except when you’re fighting. Then ye draw me to ye. We both have the MacLeod blood running through our veins. The need to fight for what’s right. The need to kill what stands in the way.” He looked at Jessie. “And the need to protect what’s ours.”
Even while those words tightened her chest, she said, “Oh, I’m not—”
“Be gone!” Lachlan said, startling the rest of her words right out of her.
The apparition disappeared.
Lachlan patted his body, wincing as he hit his injury on his side. “He’s gone. It worked.”
She shivered. “That was crazy real.”
He ran his fingers through his hair, pacing. “What do I do with him?” he asked again.
“Well, he probably saved your life when you were fighting Russell and those dogs. His magic did, anyway. You’re damned good with a sword, but without the magic, I don’t think you could have destroyed those dogs.”
He came to a stop in front of her. “Then I keep him around. And hope he doesn’t take over.”
Chapter 11
Lachlan stood in front of the MacLeod family tree he’d put together on his bedroom wall. At the top, next to the clan flag, was a plaque with the family crest and motto.
“I was wondering what this was,” she said, standing beside him. “It didn’t look like To Do stickies.”
“I was sitting here one night and just started writing down what I knew on the Post-its. Before I knew it, I’d used the whole pad.” He pointed to one. “My mum came here from Scotland when she was fifteen. She missed her homeland, talked about it all the time. She probably would have gone back if she hadn’t met my father. She would have been alive if she had.”
“You don’t know that. I think when it’s our time to go, it doesn’t matter where we are.” At least she hoped that was the case.
“I think one decision can change your life, or screw up someone else’s. Sometimes it’s just taking one way to work instead of another. In my case, it was to sneak around projecting even after my father told me to cut back. You heard Olaf. The rage, the need for conflict, it’s in me. I went back to witness battles, wanting so badly to participate.”
“Could you?”
“I couldn’t move anything at the target location, but I could be seen. My soul projects, so anyone at the location will see what they think is a ghost. We weren’t supposed to reveal ourselves. Sometimes I did.”
He could feel her, the heat of her body, her energy, and her total focus on what he was saying. “How?”
“I saw ugly things, like men raping women. All’s fair in love and war? That’s what they thought. My father was such a purist when it came to time, to affecting the past. If we saw something like that, he would make us leave. ‘It’s already happened a long time ago. We can’t change it,’ he’d tell me while I was going crazy not being able to help.”
He glanced at her. “But when he wasn’t around, I could do as I pleased. And what man wants to force himself on a woman when he’s seen a ghost? Kind of spoils the mood.”
Her smile, full of pride and warmth, tightened his chest. “So you went back to help people,” she said.
You don’t deserve that warmth. “Mostly I went back for bloodlust. Don’t make it into something altruistic. I was cocky and rebellious. I disobeyed and I killed my mum.”
She touched his arm. “It was the fusion of you and Olaf. Don’t you see? It was an accident.”
“But that fusion would never have happened if I had shown restraint.”
“You’re exasperating.”
He looked at her, tilting his head. “That’s all you’ve got? Come, you can think of worse things than that.”
She laughed, a full-out beautiful sound that lit her hazel eyes. Even though he didn’t deserve to bask in it, he let it unfurl in his chest and open his heart just a little anyway.
As their gazes met, though, her laughter quieted. “Yeah, I could think of other words, but you wouldn’t want me to say them. They’re not the awful things you want to hear.”
He turned away, facing the notes stuck to the wall. He could fall for her so easily. It surprised him that he hadn’t killed that part of himself after all. Not only had his body awakened, his heart had, too—amazing, because he’
d never felt like this with anyone.
To fall would shatter any shred of self-respect he might have left. “After my mum’s death, I wanted to connect to her somehow. She had a folder full of notes on her family, but I made my own. It’s not pretty, but it gave me something to focus on.”
He searched through the notes. “Olaf said he died at Culloden, so he would have been born around here.” He pointed to one of the branches of the clan. “There he is, born 1720. He was twenty-six when he was killed, no wife or children.” His father would have calculated the exact age, down to the day.
She pointed to a group of notes connected by a line that separated them from the tree and then continued down. “Here, the spelling of the name changes from MacLeod to McLeod.”
“It had something to do with them running to Ireland. They came here in the next generation.”
She followed the progression with her finger all the way down to the piece of paper that held his and Magnus’s names. She stood so close in front of him that he could smell her scent, could reach out and touch her with the slightest move. He breathed her in, filling his lungs, fighting not to lean forward and touch his mouth to her hair.
As though she sensed what he felt, she turned to face him, her eyes searching his. “I changed my mind. I want to do more than just want you to kiss me.” She gave her head a quick shake. “I mean . . . kiss me, Lachlan. I know you want it, too.”
Her words shivered through his body. “Aye, sod that I am. But there was a time you wanted to kiss Magnus, remember? You daydreamed about it. I saw those romance novels at your apartment. Were they your research? Tell me, did you use your vibrator while you fantasized about him? What kinds of things did you do in those fantasies?”
Go ahead, slap me. Tell me again how utterly rude I am. She’d be right, too, but he needed to jam those images into his brain to remind him how wrong wanting her was.
She didn’t slap him or look horrified or even angry. In fact, she looked speculative. “You were right. I was getting a bit hot in the studio. You want to know what I fantasized?” She put her hand on his chest. “Doing this.” She slid it slowly, agonizingly, down his stomach, her fingertips brushing the waistband of his pants. He should move away. Run like hell.