Midnight's Master

by Donna Grant

  “How did you find me?”

  Hayden’s brow creased. “We didna. Gwynn found us.”

  “That’s impossible. I never told her where the castle was.”

  “Well, she drove up to the shield and began yelling. Broc flew to her first, and once he saw you, he called for Fallon.”

  Logan ran a hand through his hair, feeling the pull of healing in the muscles in his back and sides. A niggling worry kept intruding on his thoughts, a worry that told him it was important. “Where is Gwynn?”

  “She’s resting. Sonya healed her.”

  “So she was injured? I didna dream that?”

  “Nay,” Hayden said with a shake of his blond head. “The bullet went through her arm and into her side, then lodged in her ribs. Sonya was able to get the bullet out and heal her.”

  Logan rested his head back against the bed and stared at the ceiling. “Is she awake?”

  “No’ that I know of. I’ve been waiting for you.”

  That was all Logan needed to hear. He threw back the covers, then swore when he saw his nakedness. “I need clothes.”

  “You need a bath.”

  “I want to see Gwynn.”

  “After your bath,” Hayden insisted as he stood to block Logan’s path. “There’s blood all over you still.”

  “Fine.”

  Hayden grinned. “You’ll find the shower through there.”

  Logan looked to where Hayden was pointing. “Shower?”

  “Doona tell me you doona know what that is.”

  “I do. I just didna expect to find one in the castle.”

  “What do you think we did for four centuries? We kept up with the changes of the world.”

  There was so much catching up Logan needed to do with the others, but first he wanted to see Gwynn for himself. Hayden was right, however. A bath was in order.

  “Your clothes are in the chest. We found them in Gwynn’s car, though you’ll have to borrow a pair of my boots since yours were ruined.”

  Logan shrugged and opened the door to the bathroom. There was a shower, larger than the one at the hotel, a sink, and a toilet. There was little room to spare. But it was better than having to bath in the sea.

  He turned on the shower and found towels on a shelf above the toilet. Logan bathed in record time. Even though he knew Sonya had healed Gwynn, he couldn’t stop himself from worrying.

  Using the towel to rub the water from his head, Logan walked into his chamber and opened the chest. He pulled a pair of black jeans and a cream long-sleeved shirt from the pile.

  He was buttoning his pants when Hayden knocked and opened the door. “I called the others, since we all have questions.”

  “They can wait until after I see Gwynn,” Logan said. He jerked his arms through the sleeves of the shirt, then pulled it over his head.

  Logan didn’t need to ask Hayden where Gwynn was. He simply followed the feel of her magic to a chamber six doors down and across the hall.

  The door was open and when he looked in, Gwynn was still asleep.

  “She may sleep for awhile,” Sonya said as she rose from her vigil by the bed.

  Logan nodded at her, amazed to find her long, curly red hair cut to just below her ears in a riot of curls. Yet it seemed to fit her. “Thank you for saving her. And me.”

  Sonya rested her hand on his arm. “How do you feel?”

  “Slow,” he said noting it wasn’t only her hair that had changed. Sonya now wore the same type of clothes Gwynn did, and it was odd to see Sonya in anything but the gowns he remembered. “No’ as strong as I usually am.”

  “That’s the effects of the drough blood. You should recover fully by tomorrow.”

  Logan looked at Gwynn again, her black hair spread against the white of the pillow. “I’m no’ worried about me. Hayden said the bullet went into her ribs.”

  “Aye. It cracked one rib. Everything is mended now, but as I said, she lost a lot of blood. It sometimes takes the body a while to replenish itself.”

  The steady rise and fall of Gwynn’s chest helped to ease the concern that had banded around Logan’s chest.

  He wanted to dismiss his worry to forget it. But he couldn’t. When it came to Gwynn, everything was different. He couldn’t forget her as he had the other women in his past.

  And he found he didn’t want to.

  Which scared the hell out of him.

  The underwater kiss they had shared at Eigg had affirmed what he’d suspected since first seeing her. Gwynn’s taste, her touch, burned him. Made him hunger … made him yearn for more.

  “Logan?” Hayden said. “What is it?”

  “Nothing. Everything. To me, it feels like I saw you just a few days ago.”

  “Ah. But for me, it’s been almost four hundred years.”

  Logan glanced at his friend and smiled. “You’ve changed.”

  “Aye. As have you.”

  “Me?” Logan repeated with a shake of his head. “I doona think so.”

  The fact that Hayden merely smiled only rankled Logan. He hadn’t changed. How could he? It had only been a few days for him.

  Logan forgot about Hayden and their conversation as Gwynn stirred. She stretched her arms over her head and opened her eyes.

  She stared at the gray stone for a few moments before her eyes shifted and she met Logan’s gaze. The slow smile that formed made him smile in return.

  “Hey,” she said.

  Logan walked to her side and used her term. “Hey.”

  Her smiled died as she began to frown. “I thought you had died.”

  “Nay. You saved me by bringing me here. You should have told me you were injured.”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t know. I never felt anything.”

  Hayden cleared his throat, reminding Logan that he and Gwynn weren’t alone. Logan turned to introduce Hayden to Gwynn, then realized everyone stood in the chamber.

  “Oh,” Gwynn said and burrowed under the sheets.

  Sonya shooed everyone out with her hands. “Interrogations can wait. Let’s give Gwynn time to change clothes and get settled.”

  With a smile and a wink, Sonya closed the door behind her, leaving Logan alone with Gwynn.

  He turned to her and fought the desire to take her in his arms. He’d put her in danger. He’d sworn to protect her, yet it had been she who had protected him, even with a bullet in her.

  “You’re amazing.”

  She chuckled softly and sat up, keeping the sheet tucked under her arms. “Hardly. I was scared out of my mind, Logan. I had no idea what I was doing.”

  “Obviously you did. You found your way here.”

  “Which I can’t begin to explain,” she said and tucked a strand of hair behind her ears.

  Logan sat on the bed at her feet. Though she was covered, the sight of her pink bra straps made his balls tighten. He wanted another taste of her. A long, leisurely taste.

  “With magic, I’ve learned one cannot explain it,” he said.

  Gwynn glanced at her hands as they played with the blanket. “I thought we’d get all the answers from Declan. I thought he would be able to lead me to my father.”

  “Declan did lead you to your father.”

  She laughed dryly. “That’s right. He did. My father is working with him.”

  “Or so Declan says. I wouldna believe everything you heard him say.”

  “But I do believe my father is working with him. The things Declan said my father said about me? My father has called me those things before. I know they were the truth.”

  Logan ached for her, for the hurt he saw in her lovely violet eyes. “I’m sorry, Gwynn.”

  “I should have known,” she said. “I should have realized everything my father has said to me since my mother died was a lie. But I had hoped…”

  “Hope is a powerful thing. Doona underestimate it.”

  She had the look of a woman who’d had her world crushed. A second time. “I no longer have any hope, Logan.”

 
“There’s always hope.”

  “How can you say that?”

  He debated whether to tell her about his past and the guilt he carried, but decided against it. “Look around you. Look at this castle. Feel the magic within it? That is from Druids who escaped Deirdre. Do you feel the power? That is from Warriors who will sacrifice their lives in order to kill Deirdre. Everything you see around you is based on hope. It lives here, breathes here.”

  “I do see it,” she whispered. “I see it in you.”

  Logan looked down to find her hand near his. He covered it with his own. “Doona give up hope, Gwynn, because if you do, then Deirdre and Declan have won.”

  “I refuse to allow that.”

  He smiled and squeezed her hand, glad to see the vulnerability fading from her eyes. “Are you ready to face the others?”

  “After a shower. And with some clothes.”

  “I’m thinking you look fine without your clothes.”

  She smiled as her gaze lowered to the blanket. “Your charms won’t work on me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  There were a few things Gwynn was sure of. That her life had radically changed.

  That she was a Druid.

  And that Logan’s smile made her want to kiss him.

  “No, I’m not sure,” she answered.

  Her heart was pounding slow and hard in her chest. She wanted to be in Logan’s arms again. She wanted to feel his lips on hers.

  It was foolish, she knew. Logan was a heartache waiting to happen. Yet she couldn’t seem to help herself. She wanted him.

  Desperately.

  Madly.

  Intensely.

  Despite the threat to her heart, or maybe because of it, Gwynn tucked her legs beneath her and rose up on her knees. Logan’s hazel eyes darkened until the gold flecks seemed to glow with his intensity.

  He ran the backs of his fingers down her cheek and moved closer to her.

  Gwynn edged forward until their bodies were just inches apart. She didn’t understand the pull Logan seemed to have over her. Nor did she understand the depth of the attraction she felt for him.

  It was deeper, stronger than anything she’d felt before. And it was glorious. As well as more than a little scary.

  For several minutes they simply stared at each other. Then Logan dragged her into his arms and slanted his mouth over hers. It was a kiss meant to claim, a kiss meant to brand her.

  And she welcomed it.

  Gloried in it.

  Eagerly answered it with her own.

  Gwynn’s fingers plunged into Logan’s still wet hair and clung to him, accepting the temptation offered in his hot, demanding kiss. She didn’t hold back as he deepened the kiss.

  She felt his hunger, felt his focus on her. Gwynn had no choice but to succumb. To yield. To surrender to the onslaught of Logan’s devastating kisses.

  The desire, the unrelenting thud of passion, pounded through her veins until she shook with it.

  She returned his kiss with as much hunger and abandon as he had given her. She left behind the restraint that usually bound her. His kisses were too hot, too wondrous, for her to be anything other than eager and as wanton as he.

  As if Logan sensed her unleashed passion, he urged her onward, enticed her to see where this unrelenting desire would take them.

  “They are waiting for us,” Logan said between kisses.

  Gwynn didn’t care if the queen herself were downstairs. Nothing mattered but Logan and the unbending passion that gripped her.

  She dragged his mouth back to hers. His groan of pleasure made her blood turn to liquid heat.

  A gasp of surprise tore from her as Logan’s arms tightened around her a moment before he rose from the bed with her in his arms.

  Logan moaned at the feel of Gwynn’s lean legs around his waist. Even through his jeans and her thin, bright pink panties he could feel the heat of her.

  They had no time for kisses, no time for the mounting desire that had built before their first kiss, and most especially afterward.

  She had tried to deny it. He had tried to forget it.

  But it wouldn’t loosen its hold on either of them.

  Logan cupped Gwynn’s bottom in his hands and rubbed her against his aching cock. He wanted to plunge inside her and hear her scream in pleasure as he filled her again and again. He couldn’t remember ever wanting someone as desperately, as urgently as he did Gwynn.

  He carried Gwynn to what he suspected was the bathroom door as he continued to glory in the exquisite taste of her kisses.

  There was a fire within Gwynn, an inferno whose flames he had fanned and brought to life. It was a blaze he never wanted to go out.

  Logan stopped beside the shower and let Gwynn’s legs slide to the floor. He longed to look his fill at her entire body, to commit every inch of it to memory. But there wasn’t time. Not now. If he didn’t get Gwynn downstairs soon, someone would come for them.

  He turned on the water and eased back from their frantic kisses. Their harsh breathing was drowned out by the sound of the water.

  “You aren’t going to finish this, are you?” Gwynn asked.

  “I’d like nothing better.”

  Gwynn reached behind her and unclasped her bra. It fell off her shoulders to the ground. Then she reached down and slowly, seductively stepped out of her panties.

  She moved into the shower and turned to look at him. “Then what are you waiting for?”

  Logan’s mouth went dry as he watched the steam rise above her while the water sliced over her body, from her narrow shoulders to the decadent swell of her pink-tipped breasts and into the valley between them. Rivulets ran down the indent of her waist to her flared hips, into the black curls between her legs, and down those shapely legs to the shower floor.

  Logan forgot to breathe as he lifted his gaze and saw Gwynn lean her head back into the water to wet her hair. He followed her hands as she smoothed her hair back from her forehead.

  Then she opened her eyes and smiled at him.

  Logan had never gotten out of his clothes so fast. In the next breath he was in the shower with Gwynn, the hot water falling over both of them.

  There were no words as their mouths found each other again and again, the desire scorching them, consuming them with its potency. Logan hauled her into his arms and sighed as he found her. Skin to skin.

  Body to body.

  He angled his head and kissed her deeply, fully. Ruthlessly. And she met him stroke for stroke, caress for caress. Eager, needy. Hungry.

  Desperation for more of her pushed Logan until he was merciless in his desire to have her as starved for him as he was for her. For everything that was her.

  Their kiss was ravenous, their breaths harsh as their hearts pounded. And Logan had to have more. Of her. Of the unquenchable, voracious passion that had taken them.

  He reached between them and claimed her breast. His thumb stroked over her nipple with a knowing caress. Gwynn’s sudden intake of breath made him smile inwardly. By the time he was done with her, she would be screaming. For him.

  Her fingers tightened on his shoulders when he squeezed the turgid peak. Logan turned so that the water sprayed down his back while her breast filled his hand perfectly.

  Gwynn’s head tilted back, soft moans filling the bathroom as he continued his assault, learning what pleased her, what made her rub her hips against his. What made her dig her nails into his skin.

  Logan bent his head, took her nipple in his mouth, and suckled.

  Gwynn cried out and arched against him. She didn’t think her body could get any hotter. And then Logan’s mouth fastened onto her breast. Blind need, fiery and irresistible, took her, pulled her. Drew her into the inferno of desire.

  It never entered her mind to pull back. Never had she felt so desperately needy, never so full of yearning as she was now. Her breasts swelled and ached as Logan’s skilled hands and tongue learned her. Seduced her.

 
; Devoured her.

  She ran her hands over his shoulders and back to feel the steely sinew move beneath her hands. Gwynn couldn’t stop touching him. She was greedy as her hands moved over the muscled expanse of his chest that tapered to his trim waist and hips.

  Everywhere she touched was hot and hard. Power and strength.

  His mouth found hers once more for a kiss urgent and commanding. They were skin to naked skin, limb to limb. And nothing had ever felt so right.

  A sigh escaped her as their hands caressed, sculpted each other as they discovered the other. He seized, she yielded. She captured, he surrendered.

  Gwynn moaned when his fingers stroked between her thighs. She burned, scalded by the sheer force of Logan’s desire. And her own need.

  She rocked her hips against his hand as his fingers continued their assault while his mouth trailed kisses down her throat and between her breasts. He nipped at her navel and licked her stomach.

  And then suddenly he was kneeling, the water pounding onto his back and spraying her. She looked down at him and watched as he parted her thighs and set his mouth to her curls, to the source of her need.

  A breathless gasp escaped as he tongued her softness. She tangled her fingers into his thick, wet hair as he continued to lick her sex.

  He was ruthless in his thoroughness, merciless in his attention to her. It was as if he knew exactly where to touch, exactly how to touch in order to give her the most pleasure.

  Gwynn’s knees threatened to buckle as the passion built until she didn’t know if she could stay in her own skin. Logan’s large hands held her thighs spread wide while his tongue flicked back and forth rapidly, then slowly and leisurely, over her clitoris.

  Her climax was building with each lave of his tongue. Gwynn reached for it, eager to find the exquisite bliss she knew Logan would bring her.

  As if sensing she was about to peak, Logan rose in one fluid motion. He lifted her in his arms, his hazel eyes burning bright. He backed her against the wall of the shower, his hard arousal pressed into her stomach.

  He nudged her thighs apart with his knee. Once more, she wrapped her legs around his waist and sucked in a breath at the feel of him against her core.

  “Gwynn,” he said on a moan. “This is what I’ve wanted.”