"Ye can stay fer now, lass, but ye should give it some hard thought, because I’ve na’ been with a woman in more’n a little while an’ yer just ta my taste. I’m thinkin’ it’s na’ gonna be easy ta remember I’m supposed ta be a gentleman. If ye hang around here long, yer gonna find yerself on yer back with yer legs spread."
His words washed over her like an aphrodisiac, strengthening the desire he’d already stoked inside her.
Her first reaction when he rolled off the bed and strode from the room was disappointment.
Her second, dawning anger, both with herself and with him.
She got off the bed, stalked to the door and slammed it, locking it decisively.
She heard his chuckle waft up to her from the stairwell and ground her teeth.
* * * *
Nigel’s amusement faded as he picked up Emily’s shirt and examined it. He hadn’t liked it before he’d found out it had been made for a woman. He’d liked it even less when Emily had looked at him as if she thought he was a man milliner. Sighing in disgust, he dragged it over his head and shoved his arms into it.
It couldn’t be helped. Two hundred fifty years, and god alone knew how long since O’Neal had been gone, and his sons. There should have been a wardrobe waiting for him. There wasn’t and the annoying female sleeping in his bed had taken his emergency stash, as well.
He couldn’t go parading about the countryside bare arsed, but he needed some answers.
Opening the door, he strode outside and picked up the breeches he’d dropped beside the car when he transformed himself. He was really going to have to remember how he’d managed to take his clothes with him before. Losing them each time he morphed was becoming tedious.
It made him uneasy. Was it just memory lapse from such a long sleep? Or something else?
He didn’t like to contemplate the possibility that he might not regain all of his powers … or even that it might take him years to re-learn everything. When he’d pulled the breeches up, he studied Emily’s carriage, walking around it. It was a strange looking carriage, to be sure, and stranger still that the thing could go at all without horses to pull it, especially so fast.
It had been two and a half centuries since he’d known mortal man, though. Maybe they’d learned some of the ways of the vampire?
Emily had been truly frightened, though, when he’d morphed and drifted inside the carriage.
He glanced up at the window at that thought, frowning. He’d been angry. He’d wanted to scare her, but he hadn’t been particularly pleased when he’d done it. He liked it better when her lovely eyes flashed with temper, amusement, even slyness.
He wondered if she was as unique as she seemed to him or if women had really changed so much. He might have been tempted to think her mannish, with her absurd clothing and her hair chopped off nigh as short as his, except for the minor little detail that there was nothing mannish, or boyish, about her body. That part was all woman, and her reaction to him seemed proof enough she was not ‘strange’.
Irritated to find himself dwelling on her when he had things far more important to worry about, he dismissed her from his mind and set out toward town. It was annoying to have to walk, but he didn’t think he could figure out how to drive Emily’s carriage and he couldn’t afford to attract attention by arriving naked.
On the positive side, he managed to mesmerize a hare along the way and he felt much stronger after he’d eaten again. He stopped at the first cottage he came to and looked around for water to wash up. There was no well, but he found a pitcher sitting on a table in the garden that contained water.
It was late as he strode down the streets, glancing to his left and right, searching for the name MacGregor. Few people were about, but those that were glanced at him curiously. Uncomfortable with the attention he seemed to be drawing, he moved to the shadows along the edges of the buildings.
He was near the center of town when he looked up and saw a couple of young men coming toward him. They stopped when they neared him, blocking his path. Dressed in black leather from head to foot, with long, stringy hair and rings protruding from their noses, lips, brows and ears, he thought at first that they must be in costume, perhaps returning from a ball.
The taller of the two snickered, digging his elbow into the young man beside him. "He’s a pretty one, eh?"
The other young man grinned. "What’s yer name, then, lass?"
Nigel’s eyes narrowed. Before he thought better of it, he grasped one by the front of his shirt and the other around the throat, lifting him clear of the pavement. Slamming the one he held by the throat against the wall of the building they stood beside, he gave the youth a long, dangerous look. "I’m looking for MacGregor, the land agent."
The one he was holding by the throat only croaked and gagged, his eyes bulging.
Nigel turned to the other one and snatched him closer. "MacGregor?"
The boy’s mouth worked. Wordlessly, he pointed down the road.
"Which house?"
"The white one on the corner of Hobbs and Kensington."
He allowed the boy he was holding by the neck to slide to the ground. "You boys could do with a lesson in manners," he growled. He contemplated it for several moments but finally decided against it. Releasing them, he shoved past them and continued on his way.
The cottage of MacGregor was dark. Nigel studied it for a few minutes and finally stepped through the gate and made his way around to the back door. After glancing around to assure himself there were no witnesses about, he dematerialized and slipped under the door.
He cursed under his breath when he materialized once more and found he’d left the clothing outside, but finally dismissed it, glancing around at the room he found himself in. Closing his eyes, he summoned his senses, feeling his way through the cottage until he located the mortals within.
The man had a wife. That was unfortunate.
When he reached the threshold of their bedroom, he paused, closing his eyes, concentrating. To his relief, he gathered the threads of their consciousness and will to him. No doubt, he thought wryly, it had been easier because both were asleep, but he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Moving inside, he stopped beside the bed, staring down at the sleeping man.
Finally, he summoned the MacGregor’s consciousness.
MacGregor sat up, staring at him fixedly. Slowly, fear filled his eyes.
"I’m Nigel MacKissack, of the clan MacKissack. Ye’ve sold me castle an’ I’d like ta ken how it is ye managed tha’."
MacGregor resisted, but it seemed to be more from fear than anything else. He didn’t actually appear to have much knowledge of the events that had led up to the sale of the property. It seemed to have been caught up in some sort of legal limbo for several decades while one petitioner after another laid claim to it. That left a couple of hundred years unaccounted for and Nigel assumed that the trust he’d set up had protected it far better than he’d deemed necessary at the time.
The question of why he hadn’t awakened when he was supposed to wasn’t something that MacGregor could tell him. Nigel suspected, though, that at least a part of it was due to the fact that mortals had withdrawn from him so completely that he had not had their life force to support him and had sunk deeper and deeper in hibernation. The only flaw he could find with the theory was that Emily’s presence should not have been enough to arouse him if that had been the case.
Shaking it off as the least important part of the mystery, Nigel extracted what information he could from MacGregor before thrusting him back into deep slumber. He looked around then for a lamp or candle, but could find nothing that looked familiar. There was something on the tables on either side of the bed that he thought must be lamps, but both had the strange looking glass balls protruding from their tops. He couldn’t see any way to light them.
He was stymied for several moments. Finally, he stalked around the bed to MacGregor. "Get up, man and show me how ta light tha bloody lamps."
&nbs
p; MacGregor sat up, fumbled with the lamp for a moment and then light flooded the room.
"I’ve no more need of ye," Nigel muttered, placing his palm on MacGregor’s forehead and pushing him down once more.
Studying the lamp, he moved the handle MacGregor had used, turning the lamp on, then off, on, then off. He still couldn’t figure out how the thing was producing light, but he finally decided it wasn’t really important so long as he knew how to make it work and turned his attention to selecting the makings of a wardrobe for himself.
MacGregor was a bit stouter than him, not quite so tall, but he figured the MacGregor was a sight closer to him in size than Emily and the clothes should fit well enough until he could find a tailor.
He found a kilt in the armoire. It wasn’t his clan tartan, of course, but it was a kilt. He took it anyway, since beggars couldn’t be choosers and a pair of breeches and a couple of shirts. Stockings required another lengthy search, but he found some and then settled to looking for shoes. They pinched like the very devil, but he was tired of having to go barefoot. He decided he would make do with them until he could find a shoemaker.
It had occurred to him after he’d gotten over the worst of his anger that he’d been so furious he hadn’t even thought to look to see if Emily had discovered the other emergency stash he’d hidden in the dungeon. He’d put the bulk of it in the casket with him, of course, figuring that was the safest place since he would certainly have awoken if anyone had tried to take it while he was in the casket. He hadn’t considered the possibility that someone would find it while he was out feeding.
No matter. Sooner or later he’d find out where she’d taken it and in the meanwhile--assuming she hadn’t found the rest--he would have that to take care of his needs.
He discovered when he got back to the castle that she’d locked him out.
Irritating woman!
Once he was inside, he unbolted the door, retrieved his clothing and bolted the door again.
She had locked him out of his room, as well … and stuffed clothing under the door.
Torn between amusement and annoyance, Nigel transformed once more, drifting into the room through the keyhole. She was asleep, he saw, dead center of the bed, a pillow nearly as long as she was clasped beneath her, her heart shaped buttocks aimed enticingly in his direction.
His mouth went dry. Both his amusement and his irritation vanished.
Dimly, he remembered uttering something asinine about being a gentleman. He looked down at his cock, which had lifted its head with interest. "Ye needn’t look so hopeful, Laird MacKissack. She’ll na’ be happy ta see ya."
After a moment, he moved around to his side of the bed climbed in.
She had all the cover, too, he noticed.
She muttered in her sleep when he pried it from her grip and covered himself, but there was a definite chill in the air, and he was of no mind to freeze his arse off only for the sake of being a gentleman.
The Laird had finally settled down in disappointment and Nigel had just composed himself for sleep when she rolled over and flung one arm and leg across him. He sucked in a sharp breath, held it for several moments and slowly released it, but there was just so much a man could take and still retain his sanity.
Chapter Seven
There was a man in her bed. Emily felt a tiny prick of alarm, and then she remembered that it was his bed. She was in his bed. It was odd, this feeling that she belonged to him, and in his bed, when she couldn’t remember having a significant other.
Maybe it was a one night stand? It wasn’t something she’d ever tried, but....
When he skated a large, faintly rough palm over her bare skin she realized it was Nigel--the vampire, Nigel.
Something about that disturbed her, but she wasn’t entirely certain what it was. In a few moments, she didn’t care either, because his mouth and hands felt absolutely wonderful as he caressed her sensitive flesh with them.
He pushed the long, loose nightgown/T-shirt she slept in up until it was wadded across the tops of her breasts. Her nipples puckered and stood erect as the cool air of the room caressed them, blood thudding in the distended tips as anticipation began to grow inside of her.
His hot mouth wandered along the valley between her breasts and then meandered up one slope to the crest. He teased it for some moments with his tongue, making her gasp and move restlessly beneath him. Finally, when she thought he meant only to tease her, he sucked the aching bud into his mouth. Heat coursed through her the moment his mouth closed over the sensitive tip. She moaned in pleasure and encouragement, gripping his shoulders and then stroking his arms, and shoulders, and back. With each sucking motion of his mouth, a new, harder jolt of sensation went through her, creating a corresponding tightening of muscles low in her belly and gathering moisture in her sex until she found she was panting in an effort to draw enough air into her lungs, so dizzy she felt drunk with desire.
Hunger grew inside of her apace with the sensations--burgeoning, building, making her body grow taut, and then tighter still until she felt herself nearing her peak.
Briefly, disappointment filled her when he released the nipple and began to wander down hill again to the valley, but her belly tightened in expectation, her neglected nipple throbbing a plea for attention.
He bestowed it with fervor, making her body leap upward to the wrung it had been perched upon and then begin to climb higher still. Uncomfortable with her growing need, she shifted beneath him. His engorged cock was digging into the soft flesh of her belly and she needed it lower. Satisfaction filled her as it nestled between her thighs, nudging her cleft each time she arched her hips and evoking welcome waves of pleasure.
Groaning, he broke off his attentive caress of her nipple and sat back on his knees, dragging her panties down her hips and off her legs impatiently and then settling between her thighs once more, guiding the head of his cock along her cleft until he wedged the rounded head in the mouth of her sex. She moaned, lifting up to meet his thrust. His cock slipped through her wetness, breached her passage and was caught in the taut, unyielding grip of the throat of her sex as it tightened convulsively around him.
Grinding his teeth, he withdrew slightly and bore down again, gaining a little more ground before her muscles fisted around him and halted his progress once more.
Despite the chill in the air, moisture beaded his body as he struggled to hold onto his control, as he fought his way past her clinging muscles and finally buried himself deeply inside of her.
Emily wrapped her arms tightly around him as he paused to catch his breath, held him for several moments and then began to stroke his back, rotating her hips in invitation when he seemed slow to respond to her needs. Uttering a sound between a growl and a groan, he captured her mouth beneath his and began to thrust inside of body with his cock and his tongue, caressing her mouth and her nether mouth with the same erotic rhythm. Emily’s body leapt with excitement, shaking as it scaled the limits of pleasurable endurance. Without warning, she crested, her body quivering, quaking and finally exploding with release. Crying out, she closed her mouth around his tongue, sucking him as her body convulsed around his cock in delightful waves.
He shuddered, jerked as her release provoked a hard response from his body, driving him beyond control and into crisis.
The release of tension sucked her back down into oblivion once more and Emily went perfectly limp, smiling faintly as she drifted away on a warm cloud of satisfaction.
Something was tickling her nose when she woke. She twitched her nose but the tickle persisted, rousing her to an awareness that the mattress was harder and lumpier than she’d thought. It was moving, too--up and down.
Emily opened her eyes to a fleshy brownish-pink color that refused to come into focus because it was against the tip of her nose. Lifting her head slightly, she blinked the blurriness of sleep from her eyes and tried again. The color resolved itself into a broad chest with a light dusting of dark hair across the male breasts and pu
ddling between them. Emily shoved herself upright and stared down at Nigel blankly, feeling outrage slowly filtering through her groggy brain.
Snatching a pillow up, she clocked him with it.
Slowly, he opened one eye a crack. "What time is it, then?" he muttered huskily.
Emily glared at him. "How the hell would I know? I just woke up! What are you doing in my bed?"
His gaze flickered past her to the window and slammed shut again. "It canna be more’n eight of the clock. Wake me noonish," he growled, rolling over and burying his head in her pillow.
Emily stared at him in disbelief.
He didn’t have a stitch of clothes on! She was beginning to think the man never wore any. And what he was doing in her bed, naked, as if she’d invited him, she didn’t even want to imagine, particularly since she began to have a dim recollection of a wildly erotic dream she’d had the night before.
She’d bolted the front door and the bedroom door, and what’s more she’d stuffed a sheet in the crack under the bedroom door, just in case he tried the smoke trick again.
That thought prompted another one and she glanced toward the window speculatively. As she’d thought, sunlight was streaming through it since she hadn’t drawn the drapes the night before.
Vampires roamed the night. Sunlight killed them.
Her eyes narrowed with suspicion as she turned to look at him again.
She’d never believed that hooey about him being a vampire anyway. He was just some kind of … magician … or maybe a hypnotist!
She smacked him on his bare ass with her palm "What kind of vampire are you, anyway?" she demanded.
"A tired one," he muttered into the pillow, scarcely flinching when she popped his bare buttock.
"What I’d like to know," Emily said gratingly, "is, if you really are a vampire, like you claim, why is it that the sunlight doesn’t seem to be bothering you?"
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