by Kat Bastion
A rap at the door diverted my attention. I turned as Iain stepped through a doorway barely accommodating his enormous frame. Even from my five-nine height, the man always appeared huge with his six-foot-five, brawn-built-by-physical-exertion body.
I knew what’d created those bunched muscles. We’d met last summer when I’d been drawn to Highland games festivals with my love for all things Scottish. The ease of his mastery in every event left no member of the audience ignorant of his extraordinary skills. The movie industry had also taken notice. They’d snatched him up long before he’d ever set foot in the States, and his busy film career was the reason he lived in Southern California.
Television coverage of premieres, not to mention the covers of magazines and tabloids, proclaimed his social status: playboy. He rotated starlets and models more often than I grocery shopped to see the printed evidence.
I’d garnered Iain’s attention with my regular attendance at every scheduled festival within driving distance of the greater Los Angeles area while remaining the only single female at the games not to fawn all over him. He’d gained my interest, too, but not in an isn’t-he-dreamy romantic way. My awe bore resemblance to a damn-that-warrior-would’ve-ruled-the-Highlands reaction.
“Well, Isa,” he said in his rich, deep tone, luring me back from my thoughts. “You inviting me in, lass, or am I to continue to decorate your entry?” His thick Scottish brogue rolled off his tongue and danced in my ears.
I’d long ago stopped trying to correct him on my name. After several attempts explaining I preferred my full name, Eeee-sooo-bellll, I’d given up. Now it warmed my heart to hear him call me something no one else in the world ever had.
I walked toward him a few steps, laughing. “Sorry. I’ve been distracted today. Come in.”
He closed the door, and I saw something I’d never seen before—his tight ass in jeans. At the games, he wore the plaid of his ancestral clan which, interestingly, had a one-of-a-kind woven pattern. The way he filled out street clothes made me take notice; broad shoulders pulled his long-sleeved shirt taut, the crisp white setting off tanned skin and chestnut hair. He faced me again, his lips curving into the crooked smile he often wore. He came closer, and the lighting in the room struck his hazel eyes, flecks of burgundy sparkling amid greenish brown.
“Did you have a good trip? You were visiting your grandfather, right?” he asked.
Iain’s eyes searched mine. He tilted his head slightly, holding his arms relaxed at his sides as he took lazy steps forward. He was reaching out to me, showing he cared about my welfare. It was a concept I’d found foreign in my life from everyone except my parents, who’d died years ago, and my seanair, who’d passed before my plane touched down at LAX last week.
Countless thoughts filled my head, from the pain of a precious goodbye I’d held sacred, to the thrilling discovery I’d only shared with Iain in a vague, brief phone conversation. Unaccustomed to men outside of my family showing concern over my well-being, my instincts ran with keeping my barriers up and feelings in.
“Yes. Yes, everything went fine,” I replied. Unprepared for bluffing my way out of a harmless question, coupled with my horrid lying skills, I had little confidence I’d fooled him.
A shadow fell across his face; his brow furrowed and his smile faded into a tight line, which gave me a good indication I hadn’t been convincing. At the very least, I’d disappointed him with my curt reply.
His brown boots clacked softly on the tile as he approached, until he came so close I had to crane my neck back to keep eye contact. For an unknown reason, I stayed rooted to the ground with mere inches between us. He looked at my lips, then into my eyes. The earlier harshness to his features softened as he relaxed his face. I blinked heavily, inhaling his delicious, ever-present scent of the woods and earth.
“What are you doing?” I asked a bit too breathlessly as I stood transfixed, my body overriding the sound reason I’d always had but seemed to have momentarily lost.
“What you want me to be doing.” Mischief flickered in his eyes.
Nervousness settled into my stomach and blood rushed into my brain, allowing thoughts to ping around again. I laughed and pushed my hands into his solid chest which, against his enormous mass, resulted in me falling back a step. I recovered, quickly turned, and walked over to the desk, avoiding the near-combustible collision of our bodies.
“Oh, please. I really have something to show you.”
A low, warm chuckle echoed behind me. “Aye, you do, and I’ve been waiting very patiently.”
I caught his intended meaning, having played his flirting games before, but I was determined not to be distracted. He didn’t make it easy. With the quiet grace of a cat, he came up behind me. His massive thighs hit my ass, pressing my body into the desk. He’d trapped me. His heat burned right through my clothes, clouding my waning judgment. I had two choices: remain standing there, showing him the box from the intimate stance, or demand he back up and get serious. The temperature must have fried my circuitry, because I chose option one.
I leaned over the desk, reaching for the box. “This is what I wanted to show you.”
My bending forward caused our bodies to line up in a perfect sexual position, which I realized one second too late. His hands firmly gripped my hips as he pressed himself further into me. I snapped upright when an ache flashed between my thighs. Our intimate contact sent my pulse racing. As my breaths shortened, I had to concentrate to think straight.
“Iain . . . I . . .” The loss of words marked a first for me. Nothing had ever thrown me as off-balance as he’d done at that moment.
His right hand abandoned my hip. Light fingertips traced along the curve of my waist, the swell of my breast, and up to my neck, where he pulled my hair aside. Warm breath followed by soft lips brushed my collarbone. He trailed gentle kisses up to my ear.
“Don’t fight it, Isa. I know you want me.”
Evidently I did. Or at least my body did. Confusion rattled my brain, which was seriously devoid of proper blood flow. I tried to push back off the desk to no avail. He must have sensed my panic, because he eased back, put his hands gently on my shoulders, and slowly turned me around. I swallowed hard, tilting my head back so I could see his eyes. Those olive pools told me everything I needed to know. While his actions and words sent lustful messages, his eyes conveyed caring and warmth. They invited trust. He arched a dark brow in question while his lips lazily curved into a smile.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” he whispered. The command fell on my ears as a gentle challenge.
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t tell him, because he spoke the truth. Agreeing with him, however, wasn’t a remote possibility. I didn’t want my first time with him—my first time ever—to be sprawled across MacLaren’s desk.
Trapped between wanting to open myself to someone who cared for me and uncertainty about whether he would safeguard my heart if I gave it to him, I stood there, staring deep into his soul, searching for some answer. I needed to know if Iain craved me for the woman he suspected lay deep and protected on the inside, or if he merely saw me as another conquest—a tempting treasure he desired. But my meager social skills failed me in providing words to my question.
Panic and confusion forced logic back into the driver’s seat. “The box. I need to show you the box,” I replied in a soft plea.
He laughed and leaned back, touching the tip of my nose with his fingertip. “Okay. Show me this important prize of yours.”
When he turned, breaking our gaze, I regained my composure. It occurred to me how naïve I’d proven to be in the presence of the first man to give chase to me since . . . well, ever. I’d folded like a fragile flower in the scorching heat of the midday sun. His enormous ego in thinking he could have me simply by wanting me fostered an inner determination to deny him the pleasure. Incredulousness at his bold actions replaced lust. Fear took me the rest of the way. Arriving late to the dating party didn’t mean I had to surrender to the first interested
man, even if he was, without any doubt whatsoever, the finest male specimen I’d ever encountered.
I’d invited Iain here to assist in my identification of the artifact, and I intended to obtain the information no matter his objective. I took a deep breath, reaching again toward the box. I wondered if he would see the relic for its true value or if he’d become so firmly entrenched in the Hollywood life of glamour that he’d lost sense of his roots.
“Here it is.” I touched the gleaming corner. His attention shifted to the side of the desk.
I hadn’t randomly invited Iain. The metalwork on the box held secrets within its design. Many things about Iain remained a mystery to me as well, including the uniqueness of his tartan weave and one very unusual crest on an heirloom brooch he used to fasten his plaid. The box had a nearly identical emblem hidden in the metal leafing beneath the latticework, but the resemblance between the two hadn’t clicked until my mind relaxed during the flight back to the States.
His silence as he studied the details of the box lent credence to my theory. He didn’t touch it. He revered the object as he circled the desk, viewing it from every angle. With hawk-like eyesight honed from years of battlefield training, he performed his examination from a respectful distance.
After several heavy minutes, he asked, “Where . . . did you say you found this?”
“I didn’t. I found it buried in peat.”
His reply came with firm conviction. “I think it found you.”
The statement surprised me. As a scientist, the idea of an object beckoning its discoverer, as if it wielded supernatural powers, held so little weight it bordered on ridiculous. Laughter bubbled out of my mouth at the absurd suggestion. “The box found me?”
My mocking tone landed me a hard stare. When his deadpan expression made it clear he saw no humor in my statement whatsoever, my laughter fell away.
“You just happened to be strolling around in a peat bog?” His question held validity. What would anyone be doing wandering across a blanket of spongy, decomposing vegetation?
“No.” My crappy stick-shift driving nearly mowed through sweet little lambs blocking the road. After I careened wildly off into the countryside, I got out of the death trap, tumbled down a ravine, and landed into subarctic water ass first.
What came out of my mouth sounded much less pathetic. “I explored an interesting stream that fed into one. On my way back to the car, sunlight gleamed off one of the box’s corners, and I dug it out.”
He swung his focus from my face back to the box. His brow furrowed slightly. “Well, Isa, I cannot tell you exactly what it is, for I do not know. All at once it feels like an old friend and a stranger, but I cannot explain why. That it bears the ancient symbols of my clan tells me I have something in common with it. I’ve nothing more I can say.” He shook his head, crossed his arms, and stepped back, distancing himself from the desk.
Wow. It didn’t take a linguist to analyze his body language or his words. He’d closed himself off, chosen not to share something. Perhaps I’d caught his deception because hesitation to trust from one makes it easy to detect the same in another. He didn’t know me well and had no reason to divulge his secrets; however, understanding why he withheld what I desperately wanted to know did nothing to stop disappointment from flooding into my heart and mind.
As my mood changed, he came around the desk and placed a finger under my chin, lifting my fallen face. “Isa, you’ll find what you’re seeking . . . of that I have no doubt.”
His touch electrified me. The look in his eyes . . . paralyzed me. The resolve I’d made against him moments before dissolved into vapor as he slid his hands around my waist and held me. Everything about the man overwhelmed me. His gaze fell to my mouth, and my eyes fluttered shut as he closed the distance. He brushed his lips against mine. Firmer pressure followed and I gently kissed him back. The soft feeling of his lips on mine speared currents of fire through my body. All my senses awakened as he delivered a kiss like none I’d ever received. I leaned further into him wanting more contact, every touch feeding my desire like a drug.
He pressed a hand into my lower back, pulling me closer while his tongue traced the seam of my lips. When I parted them and his tongue stroked alongside mine, he moaned, the sound sending shockwaves of pleasure through me. I lifted my hands to his face, caressing his clean-shaven cheek. He pressed further forward, and the shock of feeling his hard erection against my stomach knocked me off-balance. I dropped a hand down, and it landed on the top of the metal box. His hand covered mine, our fingers lacing together as we both lost ourselves in the kiss.
As near as I could tell, that marked the exact moment the entire world literally tilted off its axis. One minute I stood in the professor’s office being kissed senseless.
The next minute . . .
CHAPTER Three
A powerful charge flowed from the box through my fingertips, magnifying every erotic feeling already coursing through my body tenfold. I had a powerful orgasm right there on the spot, crying out into our kiss from the pulses running through me. Iain growled, gripping me tighter. I felt myself falling, weightless, even though he still held me. My head spun so fast, I gasped.
Landing hard on the ground had never been something I’d expected from a mind-blowing kiss.
Did Iain let go of me?
My head—no, actually my entire backside rested on the unforgiving floor. I opened my eyes. I expected to see Iain standing there. Instead, only the roughhewn edge of a wooden table appeared in my line of vision. Beyond that was an angled thatched ceiling.
Perfect. I’d suffered a concussion complete with hallucinations.
I cautiously moved my hands to my sides to push myself up, disturbing what felt like dried grass. With uncertainty, I sat up and looked down at an earthen floor. Although confusion filled my head, pain didn’t. A thorough probing of my scalp with my fingertips confirmed no injury. I plucked a dried purple bloom from a lock of my hair. I glanced under the table and spotted Iain, his limbs spread haphazardly across the floor on the opposite side of the table. He moaned and sat up too. I gripped the solid table edge, pulling my body up from the floor as Iain rose to his knees and stood.
He stared at me with a blank expression, blinked, and slid his gaze toward the box. My gaze followed suit. The only constants in my hallucination were him and the box. Everything else had changed. But even though Iain still remained . . . he’d changed. I swallowed hard as I took in the image of the man before me dressed in a plaid similar to the one he wore to the games, only this one was dusty and darker. I marveled at his new appearance, which didn’t stop at his clothing. His dark brown hair flowed down beyond his shoulders, and a braid dangled from each temple bound by a thin strip of leather. A beard covered his face, but in no way hid the strong angle of the jaw beneath.
Besides those differences, one more struck me as I scanned his body. I’d seen plenty of the man’s skin both in real life and on the silver screen, and the only scars he’d ever worn had been carefully placed by makeup artists. Now, I stared in fascination at his broad chest and arms covered in battle scars. I found myself reaching out and tracing a finger along a jagged line marking an old injury on his sun-bronzed forearm while he silently watched my actions.
The seemingly real dream surprised me. Did people imagine smells? The room had a wretched, pungent aroma from the animal fat of rushlights burning on an iron stand in the corner. Only an errant breeze through a door left ajar alleviated the nauseous feeling rising from the bottom of my stomach. The fragrance of fresh baked bread and cooked meat wafted in as well, causing a good-versus-bad aromatic clash.
The small room had stone walls, one sealed wooden door on the far side, and an open door leading outside on the other. I ran my hand along the table edge feeling along the bottom, catching a fingertip at the point of a rough splinter before it pierced my skin. The vividness of every last historical detail—sight, smell, and touch—astounded my shock-addled brain.
Iai
n spoke to me as he stepped closer, his expression bordering on astonishment. Yeah, well, that made two of us. “Isa?” He reached his hand out to touch me with such trepidation, I wondered if he thought I’d been conjured out of his imagination. Great. My apparition-Iain held the same wariness as I did about the whole situation—yet another reason I decided none of it could be real. I’d projected my feelings onto those around me.
Without warning, the outer door flew open. Both of us snapped our heads at the intrusion. A burly man with long, black hair broke into our bewildering scene, speaking in what I swore was Gaelic. If not for my study of ancient languages and occasional talks with my seanair, I’d have been at a complete loss in understanding his rapid-fire speech. My limited experience with the dialect allowed me to piece together a few of the words he uttered: something about a woman needing Iain’s advice and a dispute requiring his authority to settle. The man pronounced Iain’s name more like Yo-an, rather than Ee-an like I did.
“Aye, Robert,” Iain replied to the intruder. “Tell Agnes I’ll speak to her on the morrow after noon meal. Have Fingall and Colum meet me in the near field. I’ll hear their grievance.”
Yep. I’d certainly lost it. Robert spoke in Gaelic, Iain replied in a Scottish brogue so thick I barely deciphered the words, and my delusional mind roughly translated it all into modern English-speak. Perfect.
Robert turned on his heel without so much as a glance at me.
I’d had enough of my silence. “What are you, their laird or something?”
Iain laughed nervously as he turned, focusing his attention on me once more. He stepped closer, searching my eyes, opening his arms, reaching out to me like my modern-day Iain had. Despite bearing all the same mannerisms of the Iain I’d always known, something about the man standing before me was subtly different, the specifics of how escaping me in my current confusion. He spoke slowly, as if I’d become a skittish deer he didn’t want to startle.
