by Daisy Banks
“Sure. I can get it all together for you before the end of the day. We’ve a very hopeful enquiry for a big project next summer, one I know you’ll enjoy. The date would be within two weeks of Karl’s shoot, a sharp turn about, but we could manage it, I’m sure. It’s good to see you back.”
“Fine. Thanks, Richard.” He ambled back out to where Evie sat peering into her computer screen. “Oh, cherub.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re to make sure Ms. Armstrong is taken off the payroll as of the end of last week. When Jess turns up, get her to clear Ms. Armstrong’s desk if there’s anything in it. Ms. Armstrong won’t be back.”
Evie’s lips parted on a soft intake of breath. “Sian isn’t coming back?”
“No.”
“I have to say, I’m relieved at the news, sir. Ms. Armstrong seemed to think she was my boss for a while. There is only one boss here I’ve ever wanted to work for.” The tip of her pink tongue skimmed her lower lip. The little tremble appeared again.
Damn it all, Evie looks hot.
He inhaled her fragrance and relished the scent of her arousal rising to him. “It’s good to know I inspire some loyalty around this place.” He would have leaned down to caress one of those pink cheeks, but with the stick and his sense of balance still off, he couldn’t. “You’ve made my return sweet, cherub.”
Her smile grew, and she sucked in a breath so her breasts swelled beneath the smooth sweater. “Yes, Mr. Gorsewell. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Just coffee”—he glanced at his wristwatch then back to her—“in precisely eight minutes.”
He didn’t wait for her reply, but made his way into his office where he opened one of the closed blinds, sat, and turned on the computer. Being behind his desk settled his earlier tension. The discovery of Evie’s ample attractions proved an added bonus. Odd, he’d never noticed her until today. All he needed to do was tell her to wear red lipstick instead of the peachy gloss, and she’d look ten times more attractive. She’d never match the beauty of Sian, but her generous assets offered some compensation. This time there’d be no mistakes, no waiting on the whim of a teenage girl, no need to coax or wine and dine. Evie was all grown up, and from the adoring look in her blue eyes, she’d not be too coy to start or end her working day with a screw in the boss’s office.
Things were improving by the minute.
Chapter 19
Magnus turned off the taps on the step-down bath. He refilled the two champagne flutes, lit three large scented candles, then stripped off his clothes as he waited for Sian to join him. He called through to the turret bedroom. “The bath is ready.”
She came in from the bedroom, her eyes widening at the sunken tub. The candlelight flickered in the gilt-framed mirrors and cast soft shadows over the stuccowork decorations on the ceiling and cornice. “This is wonderful.”
“As are you.”
Sian swept her hair up and shoved in a couple of twig-like things to hold it in place.
Exquisite.
He could never have enough of her. Eager to touch all the porcelain beauty she offered, he reached out for her. Smooth, supple, and warm, her hip graced his palm. She looked up, angling her head to receive his kiss. An electric jolt flashed through him at the touch of her tongue on his, the pressure of her breasts against his chest, and the little whimper she made as he caressed her thigh. He lifted his mouth from hers. “My woman, you are perfect.”
Her moist lips promised more delight as she smiled. “Are we going to bathe?”
“Oh, yes. I want to talk to you.”
“Talk?”
The expression she wore would rob a saint of chastity. “Yes.” He took her hand, undid the belt at her waist, and slipped the silky robe from her shoulders. “Allow me to help you in.”
She stepped down into the foamy water and sat amidst the bubbles in the huge bath. “Well?”
He draped her robe on a chair before he handed over her glass “I will keep my vow. We shall talk of nothing but us.”
Her eyes shone glossy bright. “You’ve decided, haven’t you? I will be your mate.”
The innocence and enthusiasm shook him again. Tonight, he couldn’t deny his need. This woman, his woman, she was the only one he’d ever wanted in this way. He pushed aside the fear of her recriminations a hundred years hence, the concern should they create another poor wretch such as he, and greedy to see her smile, he nodded. “Yes.”
“When?”
“While we are here.”
“How?” Her voice wavered.
His gaze lingered on her tight nipples peeking through the foamy water. “There is only one way I can make you like me.”
“Yes.”
“I will bite you.” He lifted his gaze to hers. “I will become the…” He couldn’t say anymore and reached for her hand.
“You will become the wolf here? No cage? No chains?”
“Yes.”
She’d grown pale.
“I have much more control than I’ve ever achieved before. I truly believe I won’t do more than make you mine.” The promise rang hollow in the tall-ceilinged room.
“You’ve always been so insistent I chain you, cage you when you change.”
His stomach rolled with the edge of fear in her voice. “That is at the full moon when the creature is at its strongest, and my control until now was minimal. With my new alpha strength, I’m close to peak condition and I feel certain I could manage the beast. I shall force it to obey my wishes.”
Sian took a sip from the glass and then set it down. Her gaze returned to him and held his, flickers of light from the candles reflected in her eyes. “I’m not afraid.”
How he wished she didn’t look it, but her courage had captured him in the beginning and it conquered him again. “We will stay here a few days. There is so much to tell you, a great deal to show you while we are in the mountains. We have lots of time.”
“If we do this here, will I change straight away?”
“Not immediately, perhaps this forthcoming full moon or maybe the next. The changes may make you feel a little ill at first.”
“I don’t care, Magnus. I want to be with you, like you. I want us to be together as we should be, in the same way your parents were.”
“And so you will. But if we are a bonded pair, we will make a better job of leading a pack than my parents ever did.”
“I don’t want to hear anything like that, you promised.”
He nodded. “Indeed I did, forgive me.”
Her delicious low laugh echoed around the room. “You are offering me life near eternal, youth, love…and you ask me to forgive you?”
A sudden desire to do it now, to give her all of what she wanted, blasted through him, but he shoved the temptation away. “Yes, I ask you with all my heart to forgive me.”
She got up onto her knees in the sudsy water, moved onto all fours at the other end of the bath, her eyes shimmering. “Hold me?” She crept toward him, smoothing her palms over his legs and up his thighs as she moved closer. Her water-warmed skin glistened pink. He had to touch her.
“Come to me.” He sought her moist skin, clasped his palms around her hips to pull her forward so her slick flesh slid against his. “I need you.”
The rigid nipple he sucked enticed him to taste more of her. Sian settled one thigh over his offering him easy access to her pussy. Her little groan at his light touch led him on. He traced his thumb against her clit and rubbed with a steady circular motion before slipping a finger into her heat where he probed slowly before returning his attention to her clit.
The moans and whimpers she gifted to him made him work twice as hard to pleasure her. Alternating feather light caresses with deep pressure inside her, he pushed for her responses. He so wanted her to enjoy this, and the next, every time they made love here, for
this was where the first aspects of their true bonded link would be formed.
“Magnus, please.”
Her pleading moan moved him, and while he suckled deeply at one nipple, he worked her hard with his fingers, relishing the silkiness of her arousal. The spasms inside her came half a second after her pleasured cry. He waited until the muscular ripples subsided and her breathing eased. “Rest now, while I soap you.”
She still trembled as he lathered soap over her for the sheer, sensual pleasure of it. Little whimpers greeted his softest caresses during his tender massage of her neat row of nether curls. He glanced up to her closed eyes and smiled as he used the back of his hand to send a wave of water over her mons.
She opened her mouth with a gasp.
Delightful, and he would taste her later when he’d gotten her out of the water. Giving her nipple one last little nip, he moved up to her shoulder and tilted her head so he could kiss her. When he released her lips, he moved to her ear. “You are mine, Sian, all mine.”
“Yes, oh, God, yes.”
The heat in his erection throbbed again, but not yet. He’d not take her now. She’d be so much more responsive if he stoked the need.
* * * *
Nestled beside Magnus in the big brass bed, Sian studied his face in the dim light from the window. Starlight etched his strong features as he rested with his eyes closed. Their love making had left her satiated, filled with a blissful sense of weightlessness, as though both her body and mind had joined the constraint-free realms of the long lost gods. She watched his steady breathing for several minutes, mulling on her questions prompted by their earlier conversation. “Are you awake, Magnus?”
His eyelids rose, and he rolled onto his side to face her with a lazy half-smile. “Yes.”
“Tell me more please. Tell me about this place?”
“The roots of part of my ancestry lie in these mountains. Though this was never home to my parents, some of those in my mother’s family were born here. The heritage from my mother means this place has a power and importance to me, but there is far more for the one who I choose as my mate.”
She walked her fingers over the wide expanse of his chest. “We both agree that’s me.”
A low chuckle from him pleased her beyond measure.
“Yes, you.” He tightened his embrace about her. “My wild and wonderful woman, you are my perfect mate.”
She nodded. “And?”
“We we will climb Caer Howld. At the top there is a cairn from which you must take a stone.”
“Take a stone? Not add one?”
“Yes, take a stone. The alpha female of my pack has the right to take and wear a stone from the founding place of my mother’s family. It will give you the right to dominance over the pack. Without such a sign, you would have to fight to maintain your place. I’ll not have that happen if we can avoid it. “
A sigh she couldn’t stop escaped her. “I’m not sure about the pack thing, Magnus. Not if it means Franklyn being around.”
“I know.” He angled his head and swept a kiss against her cheek. “But we will be strong together. You will discover your place with ease. You will be the source of power in our pack.”
“No,” she whispered, resting her head against his chest to listen to his heartbeat. “You will lead.”
“I will, but not without you.”
“Tell me more, Magnus, please?”
“We will be one. We will hunt together, and we will have wonderful—”
“Wonderful what?” She pushed up from his chest to sit. “I don’t want mysteries between us. I want to know.”
“Experiences.”
“Don’t stop, there is more, I know there is.”
“I can’t say for sure. I’ve never had a mate. I don’t know everything.” He drew her down beside him and smoothed his palm over her hair. “Rest now. Tomorrow we will go into the local town. We’ll pick up some climbing gear so we are both properly equipped to walk the hills and climb Caer Howld together. You can find out more about the mountains.”
She didn’t want to know more about mountains. Right now, it seemed enough he had made the decision she’d longed for him to make. He’d brought her here to show her these things, and most important of all, to make her like him. She squashed the word bite as it came into her mind. Enough for now. Her body still thrummed with the pleasure of loving with him, and for the first night since Franklyn’s brutal invasion of her dreams, she understood there was a way to keep him from her. “Thank you.” She pressed a kiss to Magnus’s jaw.
“For what?”
“Making me safe.”
“Ah, I will give everything I have, all that I am, to see you safe and happy.”
A lump formed in her throat. “I know.”
“Then sleep, together we will dream and love.”
She closed her eyes. The weightless state led her fast into the dream world where Magnus stood, his arms open, waiting for her to join him.
The sky held no clouds. She inhaled the fresh salt scent of the ocean. This beach, where she’d first dreamed with him, had powder fine, damp sand. She squeezed it through her toes as, arms linked around each other’s waist, she and Magnus walked toward the rills of turquoise water washing up on the shore.
“Why here?”
“Because here we are both happy and free.”
“Yes, and we’ve already made some wonderful memories of this place.”
Magnus caressed her outer thigh with his palm as she strolled beside him. “Indeed. Tonight we can make more.”
“No interruptions?”
He smiled. “None. This place is entirely our own.”
Chapter 20
Sian puffed out short breaths as they neared the summit of the mountain. Her waterproof gear rasped like crisp leaves as she walked. Though she’d thought the turf-covered slope gentle at first, as they headed up, more boulders of jagged-edged granite broke the green surface. The temperature plummeted as they neared the misty barrier to the summit. There wasn’t anything gentle about this mountain after the foothills. Soon, they would truly be climbing.
Once they made it through the barrier of low cloud, she discovered a new world, one to make her mouth dry at its brutal majesty. Ice-filled small depressions amidst the rocks, and the little lichens looked as though they clung in terror to the rock face. The terrain below seemed balmy, easy walking in comparison to this rock-strewn incline they now faced. The way to the peak was near perpendicular in places. Magnus opened his pack. He took out the balaclavas they’d purchased and handed hers over.
“Don’t worry. You have been stupendous so far. Put this on, you’ll need it now, it’s cold up here. We might even hit some snow. When you’re ready, we can take the pace as slow as you wish. It’s less than it looks, under two hundred feet.” He took a length of rope from his pack. It would join them together for the remainder of the climb.
She donned the head covering and tugged the front down to offer him as broad a smile as she could before she put her helmet back on. Once Magnus attached the rope to her harness with the metal karabiner, she gave it an experimental tug. He’d shown her how strong the link was after they bought the kit at the shop. The rope, slender as it seemed, would hold her bodyweight with ease.
Her face warmed under the fabric but her eyes stung with the chill. She shivered despite all the climbing gear. She turned her back to the wind while she waited for Magnus to finish with the rope. The last thing she wanted was for him to think she was afraid.
“Ready?”
She nodded.
Half a dozen steps on, Magnus glanced back over his shoulder, pausing to wait for her.
A skitter of pebbles rolled beneath one foot when she placed it on a ledge. She stilled.
“Take it steady, no rush,” he called.
Their progress slowed as she del
iberated the best spot for each of her steps. Soon she needed hand holds, too. Her focus centered on following his lead, on finding safe purchase for her hands and feet. Time seemed to stand still as their way forward grew more difficult. She called, “Magnus, I can’t. Truly, I don’t think I can do it.”
“One long pace and you’re there. Take a good hold of my hand. I’ll pull you up.”
She peered down into the froth of clouds below the rock face, blinking hard in the frigid air. Stones lay everywhere on this section above the pale mist. Steel gray and streaked with white, they offered no crumb of comfort. Lifting her chin, she looked up. His outstretched hand reached toward her from a swathe of icy blue sky. Taking a deep breath, she raised her gloved hand to his. “Okay, but I think you’d best pull me up. Please, don’t let me go when I reach you.”
Seconds later, she stood wrapped in his embrace, her toes skimming the floor, her heart thundering as she pressed her chest against his. She opened her eyes enough to peek. “Oh, my God!”
“You’re safe, quite safe. Nothing can happen. You can’t fall.”
The warmth of his voice and gentle words helped calm her. She took another quick peek. “Oh, Magnus!”
“This is the summit we’ve climbed toward. Today, you are its queen.”
She clutched him tight. “I can’t do the next bit.”
“You must. You have to do this part.”
She lifted her gaze as his fingers dug deep into her thick waterproof jacket. The far off peaks reflected in his gray eyes to taunt her. Somehow, she found movement enough to grasp the rope joining them.
“One stone from the cairn is all you need. Small or large, it matters not, but without it you will have to fight for a place that is rightfully yours.”
The words ground like minced gravel into the wind.
As she removed one glove, she fought off all thoughts but finishing this job. Despite the bitter chill, her fingertips would find a stone quicker without. “Let me go,” she whispered, shoving the glove into a pocket. “I can do this.”
The words belied the truth in so many ways. Her knees locked and her stomach rolled. Every limb stiffened as if she’d been carved from stone. A sour taste came to the back of her throat. If she opened her mouth now, she’d puke. Tears, dried fast by the wind, sprang again as Magnus removed the protection of his arms from around her torso.
